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What? I've never read a law passed by Congress that makes any reading material illegal. Are you referring to the inappropriate sexual books pandered to little

What? I've never read a law passed by Congress that makes any reading material illegal. Are you referring to the inappropriate sexual books pandered to little children in schools?

sandspar 3y ago
Examples of publication bans might include the government level publication ban on mass shooter manifestos. And the quasi-government Amazon bans of books. America also sees activist-led retractions of scientific studies. More prosaically, non-legitimate possession of classified material is illegal.
- philipkglass 3y ago
  More prosaically, non-legitimate possession of classified material is illegal. People who leak classified material can be prosecuted, if discovered, but the press is not bound by classification directives in the United States. It was established in this 1971 court case around the classified Pentagon Papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
cratermoon 3y ago
> What? I've never read a law passed by Congress that makes any reading material illegal. That's correct. In the US, we have the First Amendment to prevent government interference, and the genesis of that law goes back to John Milton's Areopagitica. On the flip side, that same document gives private business broad economic freedom, and businesses are not afraid to use their economic power to suppress or bury ideas that threaten their profits.
angiosperm 3y ago
> I've never read a law... Funny that.
autoexec 3y ago
The recent increase in book bans and burnings are terrible, but there are many more examples much older. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_States#The_China_Lobby_in_American_Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_...
- hereme888 3y ago
  So some books were banned from being sent by mail for excess obscenity. I find it correct that material that is immoral and lewd for its own sake be restricted in some way. Another was banned 100 years before the US was founded. More recently: one book was banned for containing classified information, another for seducing people to commit tax fraud (the author's followers having already committed $56MM in tax fraud. I agree with both of these restrictions. A more interesting one was Nixon trying to suspend the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, but a court opposed it. I don't see any actual book banning or burning.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > I find it correct that material that is immoral and lewd for its own sake be restricted in some way. I think freedom means that we get to decide for ourselves what is "immoral" or "lewd" and can choose to read or not read those books accordingly. I'm guessing you've never read "Forever Amber" or "Naked Lunch" or even "Howl", but you might just be surprised at what your would-be masters decided was too explicit for you to be allowed to read. > I don't see any actual book banning or burning. You must have missed the parts where books were banned by states and even where in the 60s the federal government forced a publisher to pull all copies of a book from the shelves of bookstores and to stop publication of it entirely just to appease a foreign country that was embarrassed by the truths the book exposed about them.

What? I've never read a law passed by Congress that makes any reading material illegal. Are you referring to the inappropriate sexual books pandered to little children in schools?

sandspar 3y ago

Examples of publication bans might include the government level publication ban on mass shooter manifestos. And the quasi-government Amazon bans of books. America also sees activist-led retractions of scientific studies. More prosaically, non-legitimate possession of classified material is illegal.

philipkglass 3y ago
More prosaically, non-legitimate possession of classified material is illegal. People who leak classified material can be prosecuted, if discovered, but the press is not bound by classification directives in the United States. It was established in this 1971 court case around the classified Pentagon Papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...

cratermoon 3y ago

> What? I've never read a law passed by Congress that makes any reading material illegal. That's correct. In the US, we have the First Amendment to prevent government interference, and the genesis of that law goes back to John Milton's Areopagitica. On the flip side, that same document gives private business broad economic freedom, and businesses are not afraid to use their economic power to suppress or bury ideas that threaten their profits.

angiosperm 3y ago

> I've never read a law... Funny that.

autoexec 3y ago

The recent increase in book bans and burnings are terrible, but there are many more examples much older. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_States#The_China_Lobby_in_American_Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_...

hereme888 3y ago
So some books were banned from being sent by mail for excess obscenity. I find it correct that material that is immoral and lewd for its own sake be restricted in some way. Another was banned 100 years before the US was founded. More recently: one book was banned for containing classified information, another for seducing people to commit tax fraud (the author's followers having already committed $56MM in tax fraud. I agree with both of these restrictions. A more interesting one was Nixon trying to suspend the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, but a court opposed it. I don't see any actual book banning or burning.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > I find it correct that material that is immoral and lewd for its own sake be restricted in some way. I think freedom means that we get to decide for ourselves what is "immoral" or "lewd" and can choose to read or not read those books accordingly. I'm guessing you've never read "Forever Amber" or "Naked Lunch" or even "Howl", but you might just be surprised at what your would-be masters decided was too explicit for you to be allowed to read. > I don't see any actual book banning or burning. You must have missed the parts where books were banned by states and even where in the 60s the federal government forced a publisher to pull all copies of a book from the shelves of bookstores and to stop publication of it entirely just to appease a foreign country that was embarrassed by the truths the book exposed about them.