The dust up in Bedford over the Book ‘Nickel and Dimed’ continues to linger in the local news–which reminded me that back in 2009 we had a similar situation in the sleepy town of Litchfield where comments by locals and students emerged in defense of the material on the grounds that its exclusion would constitute book banning and or violate protected free speech rights.
This was (and is), of course, total rubbish.
So I wrote at least two articles on the subject back in 2009, this one–from June 20, 2009 on the bankrupt educational-industrial culture that leads to this kind of moronic nonsense, and then a followup on censorship in general after a local ACLU lawyer felt the need to add her two cents.
What follows on the jump is my response, the article from July 5th, 2009–originally posted at NH Insider. I believe it (and my comments in the previously mentioned post here) are equally relevant to what has transpired in Bedford over the past few weeks, and demonstrates a lack of understanding by the public (and progressives) of the differences between first amendment speech and censorship. That this keeps coming up in the context of the public school curriculum is nothing short of ironic.
Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, agrees that Dartmouth has a drinking problem, but that prosecuting underage drinkers is not the answer, Melanie Plenda reports in today’s Union Leader.
Homo is considered a derogatory term in the gay community (though I beleive Gay Anthropoligists get a pass) so I called up an old friend of mine and asked him for permission to use it.