Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools
popular.info
popular.info
Prepare for “route around the damage” moment where districts are going to start requiring teachers to get media specialist certified just to avoid the legal headache.
I am not a lawyer, but the fact that it is a felony seems particularly aggressive to me. Usually stuff like this (related to how a school is run) is usually administrative law and the school district would be the one responsible for insuring that it is enforced (so they might fire a teacher for non-compliance, but it would be the district itself being taken to administrative court by the state government for not following the law, rather than a specific teacher). This is also just bad in general, but the fact that the law criminally targets teachers rather than being put into the boring administrative code just shows how politically and ideologically motivated this is.
Florida already has the worst teacher shortage in the nation: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/22/our-child...
I’m not sure I follow.
M*A*S*H would be condemned as anti-veteran today.
I'm not sure I follow.
Government regulations rarely make any logical sense
PhDs -- yes. They're expected to teach or TA.
Most of my mentoring and tutoring experience came from new hires at work.
The lowest scores on the ASVAB are for things like cooks or truck drivers, or things like fuel filtration specialists aka gas station attendants in cammo.
None are qualified to teach Calc I but some might not be qualified to teach much of anything.
[1]https://www.fldoe.org/finance/fl-edu-finance-program-fefp/ft...
[2] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.a...
This is completely insane. How can this be even remotely constitutional? Please tell me at least the current Florida legislature is deeply unpopular because of their commitment to censorship and opposition to education.
Having a library of books is an easy way to encourage literacy, probably even the best way. It is not the only way.
Far more important to the development of literacy in children is the presence of books in the home. There are decades of statistics on the impact of just having a stack of books in the same home as the child.
All of this is also failing to touch on the problem that drew this overreaction. To be sure it is a huge over-extension of what the government ought to do. But the thing it was a reaction to... That never had anything to do with literacy, and everything to do with ideology. When one uses literacy as the shield, and depends on the perpetual good graces of people one has spent years demonizing on ideological grounds, one should expect damage to the very thing everyone thought was sacrosanct.
Of course, but that's not something schools have control over. Unless they can give a child a book on loan to take home. And that requires books in the school. And because different children have different interests and different reading issues, a wide selection of books is better than a narrow one.
> That never had anything to do with literacy, and everything to do with ideology.
Do you mean that the ban is about ideology, sacrificing children's access to reading in order to indoctrinate them into a state-approved ideology?
> When one uses literacy as the shield, and depends on the perpetual good graces of people one has spent years demonizing on ideological grounds, one should expect damage to the very thing everyone thought was sacrosanct.
They clearly don't think it's sacrosanct if they're sacrificing it this eagerly to hurt the people they want to demonize. I guess we're talking about gay people here? They want to demonize gay people, and want to restrict the book supply in order to indoctrinate children with that?
This isn't new. Florida teacher shortage has existed for a long time. It's because Florida doesn't pay their teachers. This isn't likely to change anytime soon because Republicans have had a stranglehold on Florida since 1999, and they are notoriously anti-education.
Is it anti-education, pro-poverty, or both?
They really got you vibing on that us v them toxicity don't they.
The data[0] doesn't support that claim.
[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/welfare-rec...
Of course you can live on welfare alone. Many do, and in fact it can become a full time job just to stay on welfare, especially when it becomes multi-generational.
Source: a partner who worked in the welfare offices and dealt with such people (of all races).
This isn't my experience. Many who came into asking were even on minimum-wage jobs, just trying to survive.
Source: I worked in welfare offices and dealt with many people.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...
Florida would have a booming economy if the governor's office and state administration was entirely staffed with armadillos. Florida's economy and low taxes are fueled by tourism, and since tourism is unlikely to go anywhere, neither is the booming economy, which has boomed through every administration, Republican or Democrat, since the end of WWII. There is nothing the fascist Santos administration could possibly do to either hurt or help Florida's economy, no matter how deeply he indulges his narcissism.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/exit-polls
EDIT: Since I can't reply the the threads below me, "education" can't just be had in the classroom. In fact as an experienced developer almost all of my education was outside the classroom. I suspect this is the case for most fields.
EDIT 2: Higher skilled "educated" people like surgeons, urologists, anesthesiologists, oncologists and orthodontists vote Republican[3]
Which has been true since the dawn of value exchange. That's part of why the outcry against "inequality" citing differences in income between a 20-year veteran of some career versus a new entrant in the market are so tough to swallow.
Wait twenty years... they'll be the same... Unless we change the rules to take it all away from everyone.
What you're describing is vocational training. Education typically includes forced ventures outside of one's own narrow worldview. That's why Republicans hate education. They want cogs with saleable vocational skills who won't question the narrow worldview that is preferred on the right.
https://flgov.com/2020/06/24/governor-ron-desantis-signs-his...
And is about to raise them more but with some possible union restrictions attached:
https://www.wfla.com/news/desantis-call-for-more-teacher-pay...
Most of the classrooms I remember fondly as a kid had a selection of magazines along the same lines as you'd find in the average dentist's waiting room plus a mix of books based on the teacher's tastes. "The Way Things Work" was a recurring favorite of mine that popped up in a lot of classrooms through my first few years of school.
1) Lower grades (i.e. k-6) will often keep a bunch of books in the classroom, so the kids have a selection available if they want to (or have to) read. This way they don't have to make a trip to the library to pick out a new book, as it can often be kinda difficult for a kid to find time to visit the library outside scheduled classroom visits, and that's an extra step between a kid wanting to read and being able to, that teachers would rather not have (since it might mean less reading). Often these sorts of classroom libraries are stocked by the teacher. Such libraries may be left behind by teachers retiring or otherwise leaving teaching, and the teacher replacing them may keep part or all of the library.
2) Upper grades, where you start having dedicated English or "Language Arts" classrooms, will often keep classroom sets (that is, enough books for every kid to have one at once) of the books the classes teach. Often there will also be other individual books, plus maybe some classroom sets of books that the teacher doesn't teach (maybe they switched their program up a bit, or maybe they're left overs from a previous teacher)—a teacher may keep these around or stock such a small library themselves and let kids borrow them, because being an upper-grades English teacher tends to correspond with liking and wanting to encourage reading. Some lower grade (well, properly, middle-grade or what you might call "upper elementary", but I'm trying to keep it simple) classes may also keep a few classroom sets once the kids can read independently and full books are being taught to and read by the entire class at once (a 4th grade classroom might have a classroom set of Charlotte's Web or something like that)
[EDIT] LOL, on reflection that was really three cases with some overlap (classroom sets of books; miscellaneous books intended to be read in class; miscellaneous books intended to be borrowed) so, uh, worst structure for a comment ever, I guess.
That being said school libraries in America do tend to be walk in places where you can pick something up to read.
Working as designed. They cannot possibly be so ignorant as to claim good intentions.
But most ITT are outraged "florida won't let us show porn to children!"
Agreed. There's really not analogy for this in the professional world, except for things that are _already a crime_ like fraud or negligence. I don't think most people on HN could be prosecuted just for failing to do their job to the satisfaction of their local government.
* Security clearances.
* Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) in finance.
* HIPAA in healthcare.
If the certificate is a prerequisite for all teachers to get jobs then they risk their employment if they're caught with the prohibited texts. So this would only result in teachers culling their libraries to avoid losing their job.
See also: vague abortion bans, where doctors have to wait for conditions to become acutely life-threatening before removing dead fetuses.
These people are just cruel and self serving. They are scoring points by being more and more radical and destroying lives in exchange. They are vile, and I consider their behavior more felonious than most felons.
The effort to recriminalize non-heteronormative behavior is a telling sign this party of small government and personal liberty has run out of motivational boogeymen.
All rather mind-blowing to be honest.
After the first 2 or 3 stories, you see there's a pattern. If this is honestly the first time you've ever heard of some zanny thing that the governor of Florida has done, then I'd have to ask what rock you've been under and is there enough room for me to join you there as it seems to be the only place to avoid Florida news.
> Appropriate for the grade level and age group for which the materials are used or made available
If I was in grade school when this happened, this would have hampered my ability to learn. I was generally reading above the standard level and loved reading in class.
Reading this post just makes me sad. Kids aren't getting the same opportunities I got to nurture my curiosity.
$5 says it just makes teen pregnancy happen at higher rates btw.
This is a feature, not a bug.
> The law requires that all library books selected be: > 1. Free of pornography and material prohibited under s. 847.012.
s. 847.012. includes...
> (3) A person may not knowingly sell, rent, or loan for monetary consideration to a minor: > (b) Any book, pamphlet, magazine, printed matter however reproduced, or sound recording that *contains* any matter defined in s. 847.001, ...
s. 847.001 includes numerous definitions (including a rather broad "Sexual content") many of which are devoid of exonerating literary context. I think the implication here is that many popular books like the ASOIAF series, many young adult books that I personally read in high school, and many important classics like 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. that I don't find at all age-inappropriate for a high schooler would all be banned from school libraries. Unless I'm having some grave misunderstanding here Florida has just made it a felony for a high school lit teacher to loan a student a copy of *1984*.
This is absurd puritanical behavior that frankly this makes me frightened for the US.
fascist, neo-feudal
FTFY
That's the problem with policy that makes failure at a job function a crime. People will be overly cautious because they don't want to be charged with a felony.
Go read it and tell me you don't either.
Of course there aren't, it's a dumb political stunt chasing a moral panic.
As mentioned in a sibling thread, some teachers have blocked students from bringing in their own books out of fear of liability.
What they are doing is plain FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt. And hell yes it works. Vague laws absolutely work, just look at recent cases where women had to wait days for a life-saving abortion because of insanely vague laws, e.g. [1].
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/idaho-woman-shares-19-day-misc...
This highlights part of the growing movement and disagreement around culture shaping through kids.
To highlight this, if you take a look at school of educations mission statement[1]
> Through commitment to innovation, social justice, excellence in teaching and research, and partnerships, the School of Teacher Education will position itself as a national leader in shaping the next generation of educators to be agents of transformation in an ever‐changing world.
Other schools [2] in the US are more explicit on change...
> School of Education devoted to developing civically engaged children, youth, and adults for a diverse and inclusive society.
There are many parents who are not supportive of the drive for change. Often pushing views that parents don't agree with.
Books are a subtle way to bring in change. The ideas in them. Especially as elementary age kids who are impressionable learn to read from these books.
The disagreements between parents and some teachers around this is at the heart of laws like this.
Now we’re back at teachers here-and-they’re wanting to assert their belief system in the classroom and activist parents seeking to eliminate this issue… only the script is a bit flipped.
So, the question becomes should we keep schools neutral or not?
What is the role of school? Is the role to prep kids to go to college? Is it to drive social change? Is it to teach what kids need to perform common jobs? Is it to teach kids how to have skills to operate as adults (like managing their personal finances)?
These are questions we don't agree on as a culture.
A bunch of debate is rooted in disagreement as to what these should be.
There are really only two possible answers in the current public school systenlm:
1. Whatever a broad consensus of people want them to do.
2. Whatever a slim majority can impose on the rest.
As consensus evaporates, we are left with the latter. This plays out in red/blue states differently.
Eventually, we may need to move to a voucher system so that the parents just pick a school that they like.
There is one more option. Have a small group of people push their agenda while the masses are mostly unaware.
There's an obvious difference here via the 1st amendment, which doesn't regulate social issues, but that's more legal technicality than philosophy.
My experience as a kid (after these crusades) was that religion wasn't forbidden as a topic, but that endorsement or derision of any particular religion was forbidden. E.g. it would be fine to ask what the difference in belief is between a Catholic and an Amish, but a teacher would probably refuse to answer if asked which one is better supported by historical fact. One of the history classes spent a week or two on the various common religions.
If I'm recalling correctly, the school library had copies of at least the Bible, the Quran and a Hebrew Bible (I feel like there was a better term but I can't recall it). There wasn't an attempt to hide the information, the school just couldn't endorse a particular religion. Tolerance was generally encouraged to all religions (or lack thereof).
This feels like it's going further than the religious issues. It's an attempt to suppress knowledge, rather than to suppress opinion.
Bullshit. There was a backlash against forced Christian prayer, as there should be.
> teachers here-and-they’re wanting to assert their belief system in the classroom
Bullshit. Making a wide variety of books available to interested students is literally the opposite of asserting a specific belief system.
> activist parents
Bullshit. This is very clearly neo-fascist alt-right book-burners trying to bring about white Christian nationalism. Very clearly: they're not even trying to hide this fact. Any argument that does not acknowledge this is a bald-faced attempt to instate white Christian nationalism is not in good faith.
> the question becomes should we keep schools neutral or not?
Bullshit. This is a clear attempt to set the standard for "neutral" as "white Christian nationalist" and anything other than that as non-neutral.
> my intellectually curious atheist self
Green username, bad-faith argument filled with bullshit. Why do I get this feeling this statement is similar to "as a gay black man ..."
Need I remind you that the US is one nation _under God_?
> Bullshit. Making a wide variety of books available to interested students is literally the opposite of asserting a specific belief system.
It'll be quite "convenient" if certain books had more space on the shelves than others.
> Green username, bad-faith argument filled with bullshit. Why do I get this feeling this statement is similar to "as a gay black man ..."
Please make sure you're following the HackerNews commenting guidelines. :>
I refused to recite that fascist bullshit in school, and "under God" was added by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954. I disagree that the US is "under God". What's your point? You're going to come to my house and wreck the place if I don't kneel for your God? What are you even talking about?
> It'll be quite "convenient" if certain books had more space on the shelves than others.
What are you talking about? Say what you mean. Otherwise it'll be quite "convenient" if your grandmother turns out to be a bicycle.
> Please make sure you're following the HackerNews commenting guidelines. :>
"Assume good faith" stops when strong evidence presented that the argument is in bad faith. I stated what that evidence was.
No, there wasn't.
There has historically been litigation against forced or state-agent-led prayer, and that litigation was often by Christian (or Christian-adjacent; boundaries are disputed) groups.
?> School of Education devoted to developing civically engaged children, youth, and adults for a diverse and inclusive society.
Why is developing "civic engagement" among our population a bad thing?
Why is a "diverse and inclusive" society a bad thing?
Not being snarky here, I just really don't understand how reducing civic engagement and excluding those who are "different" are good things.
Perhaps you could explain your reasoning around that?
With the school his is from, look at what their vision isn't. It's not to create well educated people who can excel at their jobs. Their vision isn't to create people who are self sustaining adults who can operate in society.
Their vision is to get people civically engaged around certain forms of change.
The specific forms of change are not agreed to as a culture in the US. This is an area where we don't have good in depth thoughtful conversations, either.
>The specific forms of change are not agreed to as a culture in the US. This is an area where we don't have good in depth thoughtful conversations, either.
That's not what you initially said, nor do I understand how "civic engagement" is ever a bad thing. In fact, we need lots more of it.
You are applying ("The specific forms of change are not agreed to as a culture in the US") your trained-in prejudices as the right way, the only way. That's a little disturbing.
I'd add, as far as creating civic engagement is concerned, that you should never, metaphorically (and literally) speaking, hand someone a gun unless you know where they're going to point it.
I, and most reasonable humans, want more civic engagement from everyone. Including those with whom we disagree. Because that's how we make sure our society and government are working.
Discouraging civic engagement for any reason is bad, IMHO.
It's unfortunate that you don't come right out and say what you mean, rather than using inference and innuendo: You don't like what other folks want, so you want to ban it, or at least discredit those you believe disagree with you. At least that's my take on your comments.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
> Discouraging civic engagement for any reason is bad, IMHO.
When we deal with things there are priorities. What's the most important, what's less important, what's mildly important, etc.
Where does pushing for civic engagement relate priority wise with things like being able to handle your finances as an adult? Or being able to take care of your home? Or being able to hold a job? Or being prepared for college (if that's your route)?
The vision, in this case, points to civic engagement. It leaves out the others which makes them less of a priority.
Now, relate that to things like skilled trades. That's not something you need a college degree for and doing those jobs doesn't relate to being civically engaged. Many schools don't provide the foundation for people to even start in skilled trades even though we have a lack of skilled trades folks that's growing.
This is a simple angle for priorities.
Even within Civic Engagement there are priorities. Who gets to choose the priorities to steer the kids into? At what age does the steering start? Who gets to prioritize that?
Should it be university professors putting together programs for teachers to go through? Then those teachers implement those ideas with their students? Should it be the general public opinions?
Priorities are multi-dimensional. The leaders who lead our school leaders are setting the agenda. And, there are a bunch of people who disagree with that.
Again, please note, I'm not stating my opinion on these topics. I'm trying to highlight a little deeper on the root.
Not bad. Still a bunch of mealy-mouthed bullshit, but a little better.
Keep working on it. Perhaps you might one day convince someone you're actually a reasonable human being. I won't hold my breath.
Health and good fortune to you.
> Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
The parent comment quite right out says the problem is prioritization. I'd rather see "critical thinking, first order logic and math" in place of "civic engagement". You say yourself "you should never, metaphorically (and literally) speaking, hand someone a gun unless you know where they're going to point it". In my view, inducing "civic engagement" is "giving a gun", and teaching "where ... to point it" is math.
Actually, the grandparent comment[0] says nothing of the sort. mfer brings up prioritization in their response[1] to my comment.
>You say yourself "you should never, metaphorically (and literally) speaking, hand someone a gun unless you know where they're going to point it".
I do. And teaching civics is that gun. And understanding how our government and society functions is a powerful tool. Everyone should be taught such things, regardless of how they may use them.
My point is that teaching civic engagement does not "tell people where to point" that metaphorical gun. Rather, it gives people the knowledge and understanding to engage and interact with their society and political system. For whatever purpose a person feels appropriate.
Teaching someone how our system of government works and encouraging them to make use of that knowledge doesn't tell them "where to point" that knowledge.
I'd add that if you're ignorant of such things, you deprive yourself of knowledge that will allow you to interact more effectively with our system of government.
And understanding how our system works and how to utilize the power (and responsibility) inherent in citizenship is critical to maintaining a free, open and democratic society.
That's not to say that teaching math or literacy or science or how to tie your shoes isn't important. They absolutely are, and no one here (or in any of the links provided by GP) says they aren't.
In fact, mfer didn't mention "prioritization" until I called them out for their "dog whistles"[2].
I don't know GP or what's in their mind, nor do I pretend to do so. All I can do in that respect is draw conclusions from what they write.
I did so. You apparently disagree with my assessment and perhaps I'm way off base.
But the argument made by mfer in the comment to which I replied had all the hallmarks of coded language slamming "academia" and pedagogy, with absolutely zero evidence or support for such an attitude among academics. It's a poster boy for "those academics and educated elites are indoctrinating our kids into destroying the nation."
Which is scaremongering and "othering"[3] of our fellow Americans. And I take great umbrage to anyone (including other Americans) who want to make their fellow countrymen "the enemy."
Not just because it's promoting division to advance a political agenda, but also because it's intellectually dishonest to cherry pick quotes in order to demonize others.
Finally, I'd point out that most of the rhetoric around all the bashing of civil society seems to be done by folks who don't actually understand how our systems work. Which is the best argument for teaching civics/civic engagement, IMHO.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34492386
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34493562
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
[3] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/other...
Edit: Added reference for the term "othering." Corrected my prose.
This is a rather lengthy response that starts wrong in the very first paragraph. From [0]:
> With the school his is from, look at what their vision isn't. It's not to create well educated people who can excel at their jobs. Their vision isn't to create people who are self sustaining adults who can operate in society.
> Their vision is to get people civically engaged around certain forms of change.
This reads to me clear as day as mfer saying they should prioritize ~getting educated people with skills~ over ~civically engaged~ + ~certain forms of change~.
The comment [1] that you referred to was not even published yet when I started writing mine. I will only be off to read his own response after I finish this one.
To add to that, neither mfer's comment, nor mine ever imply civics are not important and should not be taught.
(this is not an exaggeration—I have a sickness that causes me to be fascinated by right-wing media, so I watch/read/listen-to quite a bit of it)
Teachers are responsible for teaching kids how to read, write, do math, learn the basic geography of the world, to learn sports, possibly learn music, maybe learn how to manage money, learn to use tools, program computers, and so much more.
What priorities are the highest? Should learning math be at the top? Should kids still learn cursive? Does memorizing spelling matter now?
The vision statement says that being civically engaged around diversity and inclusion sits above those other things. People chase after visions.
A lot of people don't agree on this. Even those in the middle.
Is that correct?
Edit: Clarified my prose.
It is however a great tool for parents to see how utterly disturbed the books the schools are giving their kids are, and if they're smart pull them into homeschooling.
Take this issue for example - if this passes, and a teacher gets a felony from suggesting a book off of the pre approved list, they probably can't vote anymore.
[1] https://www.findlaw.com/voting/my-voting-guide/can-felons-vo...
> If the book is available in the district libraries, that means it was approved by a media specialist and can be made available to students again. But any book not currently held in the district libraries must be individually evaluated and approved by a librarian.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1615866743444078593
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1613623613156098049
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1612817285676244997
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1609719090456793089/...
Please don't attack me for posting something from this Twitter account, I don't endorse them, I'm just providing an example of what the backlash is actually a response to.
Looks like the standard brand of 'gender nonconformity is the same thing as making third-graders watch porn' bullshit to me.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Queer
[2]: https://amazon.com/This-Book-Gay-Juno-Dawson/dp/1492617830
I am against this sort of censorship, especially when imposed externally on a district, and don't even necessarily mind those exact books being in a high school library, but, like... I also don't remember any graphic novels depicting even straight sex in that kind of way, in our school libraries, just un-sexy sex-ed-book or encyclopedia illustrations and such, and I don't think there were even that many of those—I do get why the presence of that content in schools might surprise or alarm some folks.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/02/six-dr-seuss-books-will-be-d...
Consider the quote from Lyndon B. Johnson: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Now just swap out the hated group. That's why people are okay with it.
This law explicitly bans discussion of Gay people.
This is a political stunt, a troll post. It's purposely vague and ill-defined to create a vacuum upon which people with strong opinions can file in from the extremes ("don't say gay", "you're supporting pornography", "you're a groomer", "you're a fascist".)
But what it mostly is is a classic culture war distraction from the real underlying structural issues with America today: economic and social inequality, the weaponization of politics, and the simply mindboggling amount of graft and corporate interference into our legal and political systems.
As a divisive tactic that limits people's attention to much more pressing matters, it's cheap at twice the price.
In my State, kids are taught about various opposing view points and how to make informed decisions. In that county, now it seems to be "my way or the highway".
So, I see kids were I live being more successful in life then the kids in that county.
So, thank you Manatee County for helping out my area.
Includes a link to the law that teachers would be violating: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ....
The same people who oppose freedom of speech are over here supporting DeSantis and his crusade against education and his push for bigger government.
This law seems like an extreme reaction, but to what many people believe is already an extreme situation.
See also: https://youtu.be/TwucVRj_mdc
I think I'm missing your point here because you seem to not mind the indoctrination that is the basis of having a public education system in the first place, but you started with protesting public education's indoctrination in general, and then when you narrowed it, of course I agree with you because it's never worked that way because it'd be logistically impossible and therefore it most certainly isn't happening right now and therefore unrelated to your original protesting of indoctrination.
> This law seems like an extreme reaction, but to what many people believe is already an extreme situation.
Many people believe a lot of really dumb things, that doesn't mean anyone should care about what they think or act based on it.
> This interpretation of the law runs directly counter to the arguments the DeSantis administration is making in court. In federal court filings, lawyers representing DeSantis insist that the Parental Rights in Education Act does not apply to library books. Nevertheless, the DeSantis administration, through its media specialist training, is encouraging a much more expansive interpretation of the law.
DeSantis is trying to enforce an unconstitutional, fascist law without a court ruling it as such.
It's not surprising that he is saying one thing in court and then doing another outside of it.
The book that is the poster child for this is the cartoon book Gender Queer
https://www.westernjournal.com/book-depicting-child-pornogra...
A much more representative list is https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor... which tracks the 2021-2022 school year.
Applying this “sexually explicit” logic, then your left saying the network television comedy “Modern Family” is indistinguishable to the director’s cut of “Eyes Wide Shut”.
It’s straight up propaganda, meant to stigmatize non-straights as child predators. It’s not just a lie. It’s hate speech, spread for crass political gain. And it has no place in any society.
Y'all have some truly dystopian stuff going on there. Felony prosecution for showing kids books that the Governor didn't approve of?
Yikes.
I will not contribute my money to a government that does not allow me my rights, and will also not disarm myself to make myself more of a juicy target just to temporarily sight-see. Not worth it. Plenty of pretty sights to see in the states that aren't ridiculous.
Are you the president of the United States? Are you a multi-millionaire? Are you openly a member of a gang or other criminal organization?
If not, then, quite plainly, you're not a target. Period.
You'd be surprised how often people get targeted for no reason / stupid reasons.
Frankly, I find that the people that oppose guns and concealed carry are usually the type that live in nice neighborhoods and make nearly six figures, where the opinion is invalid. So, basically the demographic of Hacker News.
1. Do what you can to make all neighbourhoods better. (Donate to or volunteer at local organizations working to improve neighbourhoods, get to know your neighbours, vote for positive change, join neighbourhood watch, etc.)
2. Do what you can to protect yourself until Step 1 comes to fruition. (Avoid high-risk areas, maintain situational awareness, train in self-defense, carry self-defense tools, etc.)
That disabused me of any notion I am never a target.
Out of curiosity, do you ever travel out of your country?
If yes, how do you deal with the gun issue? If no, how do you feel about being locked within your national borders?
It helps that my state is also comparable in size to larger European countries. And has a pretty dynamic environment. Very mountainous and foresty in the north, planey in the east, red desert to the south, and tan desert to the west. Blazing hot in the summer, and well below freezing in the winter. I still haven't seen the majority of just this state.
I guess that does not bother you, but what are your thoughts on this anyway?
Not to say this isn't insane, just explaining how I think it happened.
I mean, so? This is small minority of people we're talking about. Why do they get veto power over everything present in the classroom? It's the teachers' job to teach the kids, manage/provision the classroom, etc.
At some point you have to just tell people "No".
Personally I'm not a huge fan of democracy, but you're looking at it.
Personally I also find it bizarre system where the majority vote of the other 49 states tells your state what to do, under federal law, particularly in wholly intrastate matters.
I'm sure states would love to just take that money in directly, but the federal government gets first dibs and states complete with each other on the remaining taxation. For instance, Florida is not just a popular retirement spot for the weather -- it also has zero income tax and a property tax with capped year-over-year growth.
Maybe you love your representative and Senator(s) but your party is in the minority. So, you don't approve of Congress.
Maybe ditto on the liking your reps, but Congress is always doing really stupid shit even when your side's in charge (like the goddamn own-goal "debt ceiling" bullshit) simply because they can't rally enough support to make that junk stop, so you don't approve of Congress. Or maybe your side controls both houses and the Presidency but still can't do jack-shit because of Senate rules, or because some other Senator or two (not yours) in your preferred party like playing both sides to advance their state's interests at the expense of everyone else—so you don't approve of Congress.
Maybe you like your reps and your side is in charge but you've really taken anti-politician stand-up jokes to heart, or follow media that highlights and exaggerates all the stuff you hate about reps on the "other side" even when yours is in charge, so you tick the "disapprove" box.
And so on.
There is a massive corrupting temptation of corporate money for all members of congress. We might elect somebody that we believe will represent us but ultimately they are swooned by the siren song of fat sacks of cash. However, I think more often than not, the people that get elected spent the most money on their campaign. The majority of money spent of campaigns comes from contributions that we are supposed to believe don't buy influence.
Whatever you feel about Matt Gaetz, his interview with Tim Pool illustrates the corporate influence issue we are up against.
Why would that be the presumption instead of, you know, looking at polls?
This group of people you are talking about are well organized to take action on anything that aggrieved them. It just so happens that they are aggrieved by anything that isn't explicitly what they believe. Instead of accepting that some may not agree with you, they believe that anyone not in agreement is wrong and must be stopped at every turn.
Hey putin, you can downvote me all you want!
[0]https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/FloridaSunshinePu...
2) This is about the state government doing things. Florida's different criminal disclosure laws have no relevance here. Florida is fucky because florida's state government is run by a narcissist who wishes he was a dictator.
I couldn't give a shit if kids were bringing Anarchist Cookbook and images of the tortures at Abu Dhabi prison to school. What the kid and his family obtain on their own through private means and choose to read in a public venue like a school IMO is none of my business.
If the teachers are curating books that disproportionately pushes certain non-academic agendas, though, then maybe the parents ought to have the right to guide the employment of that teacher to make sure it follows the desires of the voters. Criminal charges are insane though.
In this case, Florida has decided to manage that activity by making it a felony to merely happen to have a book on the shelf that's not on the pre-approved list.
Check teacher forums, this kind of over-management and micro-management are major reasons for discontent in the job, and one of several factors pushing good teachers out of teaching.
Translation: Teachers are woke and shoving down the kids throat their political agenda.
Note that nobody in this thread defending the policy has been able to name any of these porn books that have been given to children, and that none of them attempt to defend the ramifications of the policy as implemented.
There is a strong movement afoot to define any material teaching about
1) consent (whether it mentions sex or not)
2) the child's own body (in ways designed to help them recognize and avoid things like sexual abuse)
3) queer issues of any kind, but especially trans issues
as pornographic, regardless of the actual content, so that they can ban it and claim they're saving the poor children from horrible, horrible sexual material.
This is not a new movement; conservatives have been trying to ban queer people from any kind of public visibility for decades by claiming that their very existence is sexual, ignoring the fact that heterosexual romance and sex is being shoved into our faces constantly, often in far more blatant ways, and often in media explicitly aimed at children. They're merely redoubling their efforts now that it's becoming clear that society at large is starting to genuinely accept trans people, which they cannot abide.
Conservatives have been pushing to make being gay or trans or queer in any way to be morally equivalent or at least directly leading to pedophilia forever.
This means that the people they follow and support can do an identical action to someone they hate, but the liked person does a good thing and the hated person does a bad thing in their eyes.
Take for example, epstein. Both Bill Clinton and Trump (among a hundred others) were clearly and publicly acquaintances of Epstein, however, to conservatives, clinton is a pedophile and trump is innocent.
The only thing worse than a law against your definition of "bad" content is a law against your definition of "good" content. But that's what will be next if this law moves the Overton window.
Which is why it's dangerous to focus on the actual content being regulated. Be upset that content -- any content -- is being regulated, because the US Bill of Rights is supposed to prohibit such laws. In a free country, there shouldn't be laws controlling what people say to each other.
This isn't about Governor approval. This was approved by the legislature and signed into law by the governor. Not a mandate by them.
The context of all of this is teachers putting books in front of kids that their parents don't approve of.
I'm not in Florida but I'll give you a local example to me that's come under debate. A book with sexually explicit material was recently pulled from an elementary school. Kids 10-ish and under. sex education doesn't come until the end of elementary school. If I understand it right, this was not an education book.
There is debate over whether this should be in the school and there are parents, politicians, and teachers on both sides of this.
What got Florida to this point is worth exploring and discussing. No matter what side you're on.
What book was it?
I ask because the first real science fiction book that I ever read, that inspired a life-long love for the genre, and which I read under the age of ten, was Rendezvous With Rama, which did contain a sex scene. And the presence of said sex scene didn't traumatize me or anything; I mostly just didn't understand it. Certainly not worth preventing me from having access to that book in its entirety over!
The discussion noted that the book discussed using "toys". They also noted that there was an add for buying sex toys as part of the book. These are elements that really caught my attention.
I have a hard time seeing most parents in the US being ok with this material being put in front of kids who are 5-10 years old.
But when you dig a little farther most of that stuff's usually handled just fine at the school or district level. There's very little justification for involving state or even county level government in addressing things like inappropriate lessons or content, because they do happen but are not an actual systemic problem because they're already dealt with by the existing, very-local systems.
If you want to prevent any "sexualization" content from reaching your young readers, you pretty much have to limit them to Go Dog Go.
This raises the question of what is material considered sexually explicit. Do you have the title and author of this book?
There isn't widespread agreement. That's how we got here. Parents are disagreeing with teachers as to what material they want in front of their kids.
The book I referred to earlier described using sex toys and had an add to get them. This is in a library for kids aged 5-10ish. People were arguing in support of the book being in that library.
Who gets to choose what's appropriate?
* e.g. the book my mom made me read about how our bodies change during puberty.
the overwhelming impetus and application of laws like this is to prevent religious autocratic conservative parents' kids from learning the actual nature of the secular (i.e real) humanist world,
most typically through canon and contemporary literature which does its job: illuminating the human condition, and the hypocrisy venality ignorance brutality and rigidity of people exactly like those who oppose such illumination.
Been telling my friends who e.g. foolishly moved to Austin or Florida chasing the "nest Silicon Valley": if you intend to, or have, kids, GTFO now. The descent of Texas and Florida into autocratic christofascism continues and raising a child, especially a young woman, there, would be actual hell
Instead of taking property tax money, pooling it, then evenly dividing it across a state. The way most states are designed is that property tax is given to the local school district, meaning that areas with cheaper homes get less money than areas with more expensive homes. This is made worse by demographic problems associated with poverty which makes teaching poor kids more expensive than rich (e.g. ESL, food poverty, unstable households, behavioral issues, untreated mental health problems, etc).
There're three tiers: Private education, rich area public, and poor area public education.
Actually fixing US schools amounts to "fix (or significantly mitigate) the US poverty-cycle problem", unfortunately. Unfortunate because if just funding poor schools like rich schools (Nb sometimes those funding levels are the opposite of what you'd expect, though—there are state and federal programs to funnel money to really, really bad schools) then it'd be straightforward and (relatively!) cheap to fix. The actual causes are more complex and would require far more "political will", as they say, plus a lot more money, to fix.
I disagree. When poorer areas have worse student:teacher ratios while paying teachers less, and giving them the most challenging students, it is absolutely about the money.
Even if teachers are willing to take on a bigger challenge, we're also asking them to take a pay cut to do so which isn't reasonable.
We can and should fix the money issue, but it's barely gonna move the needle on outcomes. I wish it would because, again, that's a pretty simple fix in the scheme of things, but it won't. The causes are much deeper and would be much harder to address.
Yes.
The topic was leveling out district funding, not paying teachers more. Leveling out district funding might help a little, but it's not the main cause of bad schools/districts. Paying teachers more might help, but would also not do much for the worst districts. Those bad schools and districts are, to a large degree, merely symptoms of larger societal problems that schools aren't equipped, empowered, or intended to address.
The problems are in how our economy is structured, how our social safety net is scoped, funded, and arranged, how fallout from various racist older systems have affected the current state of the country, the justice system, and probably in certain socialized behaviors or attitudes (which are all tied up in those other things, anyway). You cannot turn a terrible district in a very bad part of the city, or awful, poor rural school districts, into good districts just by giving them more money, no matter what they spend the money on (unless you put the schools in charge of sweeping social reform programs, I guess, but I don't think anyone's proposing that and it's probably not the best way to administer such things).
The kids and the parents have problems the schools can't fix, and those affect school life in ways that put a ceiling on how well the schools can do, no matter how good the schools per se are. The main reason some districts or schools are better than others has more to do with selection bias than funding—schools with easy-to-teach kids do well, schools with hard-to-teach kids don't, and the reasons some kids are in one of those categories and others are in the other mostly aren't within the scope of what schools can fix, period.
Rich districts aren't good mainly because they have more money on account of high house prices, but because high house prices and (sometimes) other circumstances (car dependency, commute range) select for kids with stable, comfortable home lives, parents who value education and are themselves educated, and little criminality or blatantly anti-social behavior in (at least) their immediate family & friend circle—because absence of those qualities in home-life tend to correlate with poverty, so, with not being able to afford to move to districts with expensive housing. The house prices are an important part of the reason, but not (mainly) because they enable higher tax revenues.
I'm not familiar with this. Searches yield articles about freezing of Planned Parenthood funding. Could you point me in the right direction for more details?
I think this view has been quite comprehensively debunked by now. I for one do not want to live in a country where most people have access to handguns.
Because it works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
2A was intended to allow the populace to keep government in check. In the age of muskets that was probably good thinking, but try that now and see what happens.
Looking across the pond I see people being arrested for mean tweets and memes.
Seems rather further dystopian than a state mandating their public tax funded schools keep content neutral around divide topics - allowing parents to make their decisions.
My heart goes out to normal Floridians facing these lunatics in power, backed by a delusional mob coked up on fake news, threatening to make their kids' teachers felons if they let the kids have books.
Sounds like Afghanistan not America.
Yes[0].
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/24/22451425/florida-social-m...
https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...
Trying to apply rational arguments to either "side" (of the coin) is inappropriate since neither come from rational positions. But there are plenty of people against the banning of both. They're just quieter without billion dollar lobbying groups required to achieve their goal of status quo.
But, if we want to be extra clear, legal minors at a public school don't have many civil rights. It's frustrating that they're treated so badly but that's the legal code. Technically it's probably legal to do this (but it should be challenged in court). Whereas adult citizens have far more clearly defined property rights; especially on their own property.
I wish I realized just how fucking awesome that was at the time. Instead, I just looked at them and thought, “We’ll, those are odd titles.”
Kudos Mrs Proctor, wherever you are.
The whole point is that they have to remove ALL books that aren't approved through The Process. Of course there's not going to be a list of those. There isn't some master list of books that are lying around classrooms everywhere.
The rules would block a book like East of Eden. Pornographic elements and too advanced for kids (even if it isn’t)
So you should teach how to read graphs in Math. But if those graphs show that racial prejudice exists, that's a felony. Simple.
The censorship part of the story is a Trojan Horse for a terribly one-sided deal, in favor of the publisher, for every school district in Florida.
edit: everyone in my grade at least
I wouldn't even attempt to save the current educational system. At all. Just lobby for legislation that facilitates getting diplomas by exams, then wait at most a year for completely new alternatives to appear.
But certainly it is censorship.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/26/elon-musk-r...
Didn't you ever read a book that wasn't prescribed by the curriculum?
Don't take my nuance to mean that I approve of this or think it's a good idea.
I don't know. I don't live in Florida. If it's not against the law why should I care?
> Does it matter to American politicians that the majority of Americans are in favor of access to abortions?
Abortion is legal in my state. ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯
Also, politics in America are way more messy than that. The choice becomes "People you agree 50% with or people you agree 20% with?". I would bet that if this were put to a statewide vote, it would not pass.
Which entity is more in touch with the wants and needs of Florida voters: Florida's state and local governments or the federal government in Washington?
FL laws take that power from communities and puts it in State level hands. Your point is upside-down and tries to paint heavy handed big-government rules as better in fact.
Also who said anything about DC? The point was about letting teachers, parents, and yes, minors; make choices for kids. This is whitewashing extremist beliefs over communities that very well may disagree, exactly what you imply this protects lol.
With billions of books in the world, having a very short white list of books means the chances of a teacher suggesting a book that would inspire a particular kid plummets. We get a little closer to Farenheit 451 every passing day.
Don't you see how this is a direct example of teachers having outsized influence on students, and how they shouldn't be allowed to 'teach' them whatever the please?
People put education on some kind of pedestal. Like it's a magical place of discovery. No, it's to provide basic literacy and math skills to the poor so they can function in society.
Well that alone explains a lot of the problems this country is in, and is not the stunning argument for your side you may believe it to be.
I’ll see if I can find a link.
EDIT: Found one. https://nypost.com/2022/04/22/floridas-banned-math-textbooks...
That argument may or may not be true in this particular case, but it's not some impossible thing that can't ever have a good reason behind it.
Edit: Also, don't confuse school libraries with public libraries. Schools make content-based decisions about what's appropriate for students all the time.
And who determines, with which justification, what should be taught to students? Teaching science and facts should never be something controversial, and I'd expect teachers to be able (and allowed to) make that decision - they know the children under their responsibility the best, not politicians.
lol. May I introduce you to the right-wing south. They can't even agree on the age of the earth.
What's the actual meaningful distinction here? Both are publicly funded, that students/kid can choose to go to and browse books in (but rarely do). It's not like kids are banned from public libraries.
But either way, governments cannot stop you from speaking. However, no government office, neither a school library nor a general public one, is or ought to be required to carry your speech.
That's the opposite of what's actually going on here, though. What's going on is that speech is being prohibited, not that it's being forced to be allowed.
Make no mistake, schools make choices all the time. This decision align those choices to far more insane rules by..guess what...an activist government instead.
A great example of this is John Green's Looking For Alaska. It has a sex scene that is objectively banned by this law.
That very sex scene is an example of why sex should not be the primary goal of a relationship (it goes poorly) and is directly contrasted with a moment of actual love in the very next chapter as an example of how sex is not the most valuable thing about a relationship. It is a scapegoat for politicians and angry...activist...PTA members to simplify the topic "This book has a charater giving a BLOW JOB!!! My 16 year old is asked to READ IT?! These teachers and librarians are sick!" NOBODY's KID SHOULD READ IT.
Might I add, almost EVERY school keeps a list of alternative books and gives parents the option to opt out.
It's Gay marriage and descriptions of sex today, Alan Turing today cannot be fully explained in a book.
Maybe tomorrow it will be Hitler. "It is too violent of a topic and parents should have the right to keep their kids from reading left-wing details like the holocaust."
What things? Can you provide specific examples, lesson plans, or classes of these concepts being taught?
There are books which contain explicit depictions of sex between teenagers. Why do you want teenagers thinking that having sex before you are 18 is normal? Kids shouldn't be reading stuff about sex (gay, straight, or otherwise) before they are adults. The only people who would be opposed to that sort of thing are groomers.
A lot of people replying to this skipped over part of this comment.
I DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS ARGUMENT. I AM JUST PUTTING IT HERE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!!
It is normal. Teenagers have sex all of the time, and to ignore it and pretend it doesn't happen is dangerous.
> Kids shouldn't be reading stuff about sex (gay, straight, or otherwise) before they are adults.
Yes, they should. How else do they become functional adults? They need to learn so they can make the right choices when it comes to sex, whether that's abstinence, birth control, etc.
> The only people who would be opposed to that sort of thing are groomers.
Yikes. So you're saying people who teach sex ed are "groomers"? If I give my kid a "birds and the bees" book when she's a teenager or younger, I'm a "groomer"? I'm getting the feeling that this is just more right-wing projection.
Having some form of sexual interaction with peers certainly isn't universal but it is well within "normal" for teenagers. The mechanisms of our legal system require us to treat majority as a binary state that people just switch on one day at age 18, but actual development doesn't work like that in any way.
If you enforce on actual people the legal fiction that no one under 18 has ever encountered sexual material in the world or in their own mind, you're creating all sorts of vulnerabilities for them when they do reach 18 and have minimal awareness of their own boundaries, right to have them, and practice enforcing them.
> The only people who would be opposed to that sort of thing are groomers.
"Groomers" is very commonly used in this context as a homophoblic slur, conflating queer people with child abuse and pedophilia. If that's not your intention I suggest you don't use it in this way in conversations like this. Grooming is certainly a very serious form of child abuse. Coincidentally I'm sure, depictions of it are also banned by this restriction on books. You are not going to help youths realize they are in this situation if you prevent them from ever engaging with the stories of others who have been.
People under 18 have sex all the time, and they should absolutely be reading stuff about sex before then.
Or not at all and be really surprised when they get pregnant.
It is normal. Actually, it's more normal than having sex for the first time after the age of 18, statistically speaking; while the average age of virginity loss in the US has gradually increased over time, it's still at something like 17.
It's not actually primarily "books which contain explicit depictions of sex between teenagers" that are being challenged by this. It's books talking about the existence of gay, trans, and other queer people as something other than a horrible sin or a mental defect.
If it were just what you say, then yes, that would still be wrong, and stupid...but what it is, in fact, is wrong, stupid, and horrendously bigoted.
The books that just talk about standard sex education and give an overview of sexuality aren't a problem. It's these other ones that attempt to push the boundaries to their extremes, that parents and teachers are pushing back on.
I guarantee you there aren't more than 1 or 2 parents or teachers in the entire country (possibly not even that many, but there's always some nutcase somewhere) who genuinely think that having books on anal fisting available to elementary schoolers is a good thing.
Books on being trans aren't remotely comparable. And, just as an aside, if someone realizes they're trans before they go any significant amount through puberty, they can take very safe hormone treatments in order to ensure they never have to have more expensive and potentially traumatic surgery to present as their true gender.
If mature adults want to take wrong-sex hormones, get bits chopped off and turned inside out, and so on, after a long period of consultation and contemplation, then that's acceptable, if that's what they truly need.
But showing this stuff to kids, as if it's a normal option? No way. This is child abuse.
It's also completely unlike being gay, lesbian or bisexual, where no bodily changes whatsoever are encouraged or needed. Also there's no identifying as something you're not, into groups where you don't belong, i.e. so many males thinking it's their right to barge into as many female-only spaces as possible. Really the T is nothing like the LGB at all, it's just that activists use the latter as a shield against criticism of the absurd and abusive demands they're making.
I guess teachers thought that because they have access to other people's children, they're allowed to put whatever ideas into their heads that they please. Those days are coming to a close.
It's mandatory state/public education, so the curriculum is legislated and kids are forced to be there, and to start, we have a captive audience. The subject legislation was in response to some arguably extreme cases where there is a concerted effort to distribute lgbtq pornography to kids as a way to use critical theories to shift social norms around sexuality, but uniquely using intersectionality - a recognized political pressure technique to do so. It doesn't work on the majority of adults who see it for what it is, and so its proponents have moved upstream and turned to using the tactic directly on children where they will not encounter resistance to the change they seek to make.
There is little argument that the teachers and advocates for these materials in elementary schools have a stated desire to abolish the civilization these children would otherwise grow up to inherit and become stewards of. Call it what you will, all the words are artifacts of the same basic critical theory and premises ('ist, 'phobic, anti-' etc.) that form a whole new language one either speaks and thinks in, or does not. It's designed to alienate and atomize people so as to manage and extract value from the conflicts you as an activist create. Those words are threats it uses to protect the real underlying ideology from rational scrutiny. From an educational perspective, this is not the drawing out and developing of childrens minds, but rather the funneling and shaping them as an openly stated means to create young activists intent on demolishing the pillars of social stability from which all social growth and progress has emerged.
Instead of having kids and raising them the way religion-based societies and cultures do, mormons, muslims, hindus, christians, etc. and being the change, these activists are leveraging the mandates of the education system to undermine the society they wish to upend. A key front in this is teaching intersectionality, where your beliefs become immutable identities under the umbrella of a system of infinitely regressing subjectivity and criticism instead of deriving a free and independent identity from experience and competence. I'm not going to relitigate intersectionality on this thread other than to say it was invented and not discovered, and all of its proponents' arguments reduce to "everything is made of words, words have no fixed meaning, so nothing has fixed meaning, therefore - all things meaning nothing - my belief is equivalent to your experience, there is only struggle for power, and if you disagree, you are my antagonist." It's nihilism all the way down. They imagine themselves engaged in a kind of science by picking random disciplines and testing them to dissolve in their solipsisms.
To do this, some activists are using pornography as a vehicle to inject this critical narrative into the sexual developent of school children, and adulterate these kids' sense of truth and reality by claiming the new concepts in the minds of children as they begin to apprehend them, with words and narrative that subordinates them to the system of criticism the activists are militating for, and with the neutralizing uncertainties of their theory. Florida's legislature has reacted to it by requiring scrutiny of what goes into those schools.
That is a charitable case for Florida's reaction. I can't defend individuals actuated by deeply held hatreds, or who this view might have something in common with, but if we are going to learn about why someone would go so far as to ban this material, it's important to do so with tools that are not merely the artifacts of the hall of mirrors critical theory solipsisms this virus is using to fillibuster, disrupt, harass, and delay rational discussion about it.
Which activists would those be, and what pornography?
Toward quality discussion, the culture war issue over this isn't just about provincials banning books and how it's a symbolic faux pas, there are very real networks and NGOs coordinating to spread this specific ideology as a means to destablize societies so as to coopt and dominate them, using a really old playbook, and the tools themselves are the conflict and outrage itself, not the details of what those are about. The Florida legislation isn't just a sop to a reactionary base, it's strategic by people who have just begun to fight something they recognize as much worse. When you stop seeing your opponents as merely ignorant and realize they're being as smart and strategic as you are, it's a very different perspective.
For background, I would read Arendt and Solzhenitsyn who saw it first hand, and as a foundation for what current writers like Mattias Desmet, and in a more accessibly popular sense James Lindsay have been writing about with significant depth. All of them write about how popular movements with good and sincere intentions are co-opted and used as vassals for one much more dangerous movement.
There are more instances than the one this comment references.
However, I will elaborate further on the ideas of Arendt and Desmet that the object of the overarching movement is to make sure that individuals believe and trust nothing, even their own senses, because it will prevent them from resisting the small cadre of people who have historically followed these tactics with violence and terror to subordinate populations. The root of all social "theory," is to produce intellectually stultifying gibberish engines. It's chaff. Their jargon is designed to cost you time, create uncertainty, and "neutralize" you so that the sufficient condition of good men doing nothing is met.
The charitable rationale for people revolting against social justice in schools is that they recognize it is disingenuous, and that it's incumbent on the advocates of these theories to demonstrate that they are compassionate, honest, magnanimous, humane, and exercise other positive viritues, as if they aren't, you probably don't want them near your kids.
The entire point of laws like this is to empower the bureaucrats with a credible truncheon, so that you can't just laugh away their self-important nonsense. "Not so funny now is it, funny man?"
E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/us/gender-identity-studen...
While banning books is creepy and unproductive, the schools have exceeded their warrant and it's no surprise that the pendulum is swinging back.
You linked an article about schools with a standard policy of allowing kids to use preferred names and gender expressions. So what? It's a complete nothingburger that's only notable because kids these days tend to be accepting enough for their peers to be comfortable doing that when in the past they weren't.
"My job, which is a public service, is to protect kids," said Olivia Garrison, a history teacher in Bakersfield, Calif., who is nonbinary, who has helped students socially transition at school without their parents' knowledge. "Sometimes, they need protection from their own parents."
The idea that teachers should be "protecting kids from their own parents" by affirming their chosen identity without their parents' knowledge illustrates what I'm talking about. Even if you agree with the sentiment (which I would say is "exceeding their warrant"), parents aren't going to take that sitting down.
In other words, we live in a world where a nontrivial percentage of the population, especially many in influential positions, have decided that they don’t need to obey laws they disagree with.
How else are you going to get people to comply with the law?
Note that I am not asserting that any law is “good” or “bad”. But the proper way to handle bad laws is to win elections and change them, or use public sentiment to pressure lawmakers to change them.
True advocates of small government support states' rights over the preposterous power grab of Wickard v. Filburn. Especially when it manifests as states not using their own resources to enforce the otherwise mostly unenforceable desires of the federal government.
I see the problem of Florida law being too vague and possibly covering benign content like depiction of a kiss. But I also understand that there have been horrible abuses by teachers, like elementary school students being treated to a graphic description of a blow job. Just hope everyone understands there is more to the story than what might be claimed by one side.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
That's ambiguous as hell. Give that it's Florida, I'd expect them to have a biased view of what's "harmful" as well. That also rules out several of the best books I read as a child (probably, who knows).
The sex is largely besides the point. Any kid who wants to has seen things far more graphic on the internet.
What are we protecting kids from exactly? That book would be a problem even if it were rated G.
One side is teachers, the other side is politicians drumming up outrage. This isn't a both sides thing. These people making these laws know they can get their base pissed off at some culture-war nonsense so they're going for it.
If you inject part of the definition of "knowingly" in 847.012 1a into 3b you end up with something like:
"A person may not knowingly provide to a minor a printed item containing any matter defined in s. 847.001 if the person has knowledge of the character and content of any material described in this section which is reasonably susceptible of examination by the defendant/provider and which warrants further inquiry."
I'm not proficient in legalese but there exists a reading of this where I can't hand 1984 or To Kill a Mockingbird to my (hypothetical) 17 year old child without committing a felony because I have knowledge of the character and content of the books. Both reference rape and at least 1984 has sexual acts as part of the narrative (maybe TKaM too, it has been a minute since reading it). A series like ASOIAF would be similarly impacted and maybe even some young adult books I read while in high school.
Maybe the written works have to have no literary value for their distribution to be made illegal? That certainly isn't obvious though, is incredibly subjective, and the statutes are incredibly vague. Very puritanical and regressive imo.