I vote that I do and I do not think she has a legitimate view point and therefore her book should be pulled from all places it is being sold and the kindle edition should be recalled by Amazon as well. After all that’s not censorship at all.
With used copies going for a penny? What a cheapskate.
Bolding mine.
Sadly, I have to agree. Believe me, I am disgusted by the book in the OP. And I’m very much in favor of vaccines and have linked your book on Facebook and responded to anti-vax nuts with science and facts.
~BUT~
To the anti-vax nut, vaccines are child abuse and child endangerment and poison that lines the coffers of Big Pharma and whatever other nutty thing he or she wants to call it, and that anti-vax nut feels just as outraged by your book and would love to petition Amazon to pull it because it advocates harming children (in their minds only, sure, but…)
That, to me, is the slippery slope.
But people make these decisions all the time. A newspaper editor at the Newark Star Ledger flat out told me he would not give a platform to self published books or to certain points of view. Google ranks websites that you see when search all the time. The ones they think suck will show up in page 700 of a web search while the ones they believe better will be on the first page. My child’s textbooks are vetted for accuracy before she ever reads them.
A valid point of view? Before the measles vaccine was introduced in the 1960’s, over 450 American kids died from measles each year. Thousands were hospitalized. Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases. There is no evidence that the measles vaccine causes autism or any other serious problems. Getting a case of measles runs a one in five to one in three risk of side effects.
That’s a valid point of view.
A non-valid point of view? The MMR causes the autism! The MMR contains toxins! The MMR only exists so that a pHARM companies can make profits! Measles was a great disease! People loved getting it because it made the get help each other! Measles is a harmless disease that never killed anyone!!!
That’s not a valid point of view. I have no problem saying anyone who believes such nonsense does not deserve to be heard. I am certainly perfectly comfortable asking my local library not to stock books full of bullshit like that. Why should public library funds be devoted to buying materials that directly endanger the lives of kids in my community? What about a book that argues that blacks are inferior to whites? Or the holocaust never happened? Or telling young women that science says they need to be a hundred pounds or they are fat and disgusting human beings and deserve to die?
The lines are already being drawn. They always have been. The best we can do IMO is to make sure they are drawn in a sane way.
But in this scenario, you’re the one defining “sane.” And no offense, but I don’t know you from Adam. Sure, you may sound sane…
Look, I hate the idea that there are idiots out there fighting against childhood vaccination. I hate that there are white supremacists and racists (ahem, excuse me, racialists) railing against brown people. I hate a lot of things, and I find a lot of points of view “non-valid.”
But when you bring the public library into it, I can’t get behind you. I don’t want a single lick of censorship in my library. I don’t even want to be like France, with the Gayssot Law. Great intentions, prohibiting Holocaust denial and the like, but it’s not for me.
It seems to me a very short step from “eliminate the anti-vax idiocy” (or “eliminate the anti-Holocaust idiocy” or “eliminate the anti-gay idiocy”) to “eliminate whatever it is that I personally find unfounded and harmful.”
Perhaps we can save the ignorant from themselves. But I cannot agree that silencing idiocy is the way to do it. Too dangerous a precedent.
-a-
But libraries have to decide what not to buy all the time; even when things are donated they have to decide about valuable and limited shelf space. How should they decide what to carry?
I don’t have to agree with everything in my library, but I sure as hell don’t want them giving equal space and time to Holocaust histories and Holocaust denials (or pro-baby beating and anti-baby beating groups) as if those were just equally valid competing perspectives.
Would I support banning such texts? Not at all. But libraries are allowed to have guidelines for how they chose what to use their limited resources on, and I think “only books that don’t endorse child abuse” is a pretty reasonable guideline.
Sure. On the other hand, Millie Teasdale from Flyover County, Indiana says:
“I don’t have to agree with everything in my library, but I sure as heck don’t want them giving equal space to secular humanism and the homosexual agenda as if those were just equally valid competing perspectives.”
I agree with you in re Holocaust denial, and disagree with Millie about religion and teh gheys. But…I hate the idea of enforcing my views, however awesome they are (and my views certainly are awesome, fa reals), by any sort of force. I have to believe that we all have the freedom to be idiots.
So yeah, dunno. Community standards?
Ezzo and the Pearls are part of the Christian Dominionist/Patriarchy/Quiverfull/Stay-at-Home Daughters/ATI/IBLP/Gothard cult, that demands
- Whatever punishment necessary to teach children to behave 100% correctly 100% of the time, up to and including beating them to death or starving them to death. A number of high profile child-abuse cases have involved parents who followed the TTUAC philosophy. Many of these families also baby and child hoard, adopting disadvantaged orphans and not-so-orphans from other countries. The book advocates beating children as young as one month of age, and even recommends the tool - plumbing line.
- Christians should run the world, and should remove anyone not Christian from public office or public life. Non-Christians do not deserve equal rights.
- Women and girls do not deserve and do not need education, and are merely walking uteri.
- There is a real, actual, ongoing war in this world between God and the forces of Satan, and if you do not ascribe to their specific philosophy, you are a servant and warrior of Satan and will be destroyed during this war.
That having been said…
On this issue, I emotionally agree with my co-author LavenderBlue that filth like this doesn’t deserve public airing.
We co-authored a book that a lot of people feel is equal filth.
I am hesitant to condone the concept of official censorship, although I know that unofficially, censorship is inherent in the choices libraries make about the books they buy. There is at least one relatively vocal vaccine denialist advocate who is, herself, a librarian, and has no pro-vaccine books in her library branch, but plenty of copies of anti-vaccine books. Public library resources are scarce - how do we ensure the best use of those resources, by using them to purchase the best quality of resources for the general public?
I remember that there was a recent similar kerfluffle about a book that was a “how to” book for pedophiles, that was for sale on Amazon. Amazon pulled the book after complaints. Is that censorship? Or a market-based response? I think the latter, I’m sure pedophiles think the former.
I do agree that as a civilized society with limited public resources for providing information to the public, libraries have to walk a fine line with their government money so they don’t get accused of a violation of the First Amendment. I also agree that asking Amazon (a private company) to not carry how-to books for pedophiles, or how-to manuals for child abuse, isn’t the same thing.
The same as they always have: a library should carry what its users want to use. You’re trying to equate a librarian making carry decisions with your desire to suppress views you don’t care for. I just don’t think they’re the same; the library should be more disinterested than you are.
One of the purposes of a library is to educate. Carrying provably false, demonstrably harmful anti-science books goes completely against that.
And who are you to say what should and should not be sold by Amazon, why is it that morons always think that they can shove their OPINIONS down the throats of others.
One of their customers. That’s how it works.
I don’t know about that. If I wanted to write a book demolishing the anti-vax movement, one of the things I’d need to do is read the anti-vaxer’s arguments first hand. I’d expect to be able to get those research materials through my library, or at least through inter-library loan. Similarly, if I were writing a book about Hitler, I’d expect to be able to go to my library and get a copy of Mein Kampf.
So, in other words, it’s a vanity press.
You make a good point here. Firstly, I’m not advocating that anyone should be prohibited from publishing, stocking, or selling these books. It should be at the discretion of the publisher, librarian, or whoever. What I am saying is they should use that discretion, and that would mean balancing the harm and benefit of having such a book.
To take your example, it would be possible to have such a book available, but not on display, and it would be more appropriate in a University research library than a public one, in my opinion.
I would hope that someone in charge of stocking science books in a library has a good understanding of science, and judges what to stock based on scientific accuracy, not bias. That would be especially important in a public library - it is certainly not the place of Government to provide a platform for outright lies (insert joke here, obviously).
Helpmeet is an archaic word, but a perfectly good one.
But the term as used by the fundies varies just a bit from the original definition.
What about the bible or the koran?
The point is that Amazon is not the public marketplace. Not selling something on Amazon is not censorship (as most people use the term) because it would not in any way prevent the book from being sold to those who wanted it.
As for the argument that you need access to even the wrong stuff–that’s not how Amazon is selling it. The official blurb talks like it is a good thing. And when you both sell and promote something, it’s expected that you agree with it.
I mean, if I told you that I had a book for sale that describes the way the world should be run, and, it’s called Mein Kampf, wouldn’t you be upset? Do I not have the right not to sell you that book under those conditions?
Hey aren’t you that guy who lives in his mums basement?