Weather is unrelated to politics. Book-banning is not unrelated to politics. The fact that a question related to politics happens in close temporal proximity to some other political decision does, indeed, suggest to me that the two events are somehow related. Indeed, I think this is a fairly natural conclusion. What is irrelevent is how many other people were fired.
Imagine: new manager at your company, ready to cut out twice the fat and half the bone. He asks you, the filing manager, personally, how you feel about the vertical Noguchi filing system. You give him your answer. He fires you and twenty other people. Conclusion: ?
a) No conclusion. That he asked you about the Noguchi filing system is irrelevant. Even though he didn’t value you enough to keep you on as an employee, doing work directly related to filing, your opinion on this particular office matter (of filing!) was quite respectable and worth his time.
b) He had considered keeping you on, until you said that you think piles of paperwork are just messy, not a system, which showed that you were just not fit to work with him.
I don’t mean to pressure you into choosing one of two possibilities when, I’m sure, we could devise many more. What I mean to point out is how strange it seems to me that these are unrelated. So I’d kind of like any example I could cling to where they are unrelated, so I can say, “Ah, yeah, I see, some people do do that kind of thing.” Just a hypothetical. Plausible, but hypothetical.
No, in fact discussing if and when books should be banned is a perfect example of Free Speech. Not allowing that discussion is the opposite of Free Speech.
c. He fired everyone who had stated they did not support him.
And your answer may have been more like “anyone who doesn’t support the Noguchi system is a book burning Nazi”
There you go. You can’t say it, but you can write a book about it and put it in the library.
I think we should dispense of all this talk of what she actually said in a meeting with no minutes and just charge her with a thought crime and be done with it.
Accepting limits on your free speech is a condition of certain jobs. If you think that Burger King serves better food, you don’t get to express that opinion from behind a McDonald’s counter. If you think that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, you don’t get to preach that a church pulpit (unless it’s a UU church or something of the sort :p).
In this specific case, being the mayor imposes an obligation to abide by the state and federal constitutions.
The “discussion” in this case clearly crosses the line between theoretical advocacy and action. It resembles a “discussion” on the merits of purchasing an “insurance policy” for your business from a shifty-looking gentleman in a cheap suit as his muscular hangers-on in cheaper suits observe the conversation.
Couldn’t you say that ALL books in libraries are there for ideological reasons? The other option is that they’re chosen randomly—darts at a dart board. It’s just a matter of whose ideology will craft the collection. No?
True. This is why every library has policies in place for dealing with challenges. But whether Palin wanted to ban books or not, she still politicized the library by firing the librarian on a whim. It’s obvious because if there was a cause for the firing she would have released it during the public outcry rather than rehire the librarian.
The firing is the part that’s uncalled for and pretty disgusting in my mind.
Palin came into the mayor’s office determined to shake the deadwood out of the town’s administration. Some officials approved of her drive to clean the placeholders out - as the town was rapidly going to the dogs, nothing was getting done - and some obviously did not - particularly the deadwood in question. She drew up a list of those that did not support her drive, and on becomming mayor, fired the lot.
Later on, her constituants protested that she had made a mistake: she had fired the librarian. Far from being “deadwood”, the librarian was actually a well-loved community worker. Palin had not had many dealings with the librarian before - in fact, she could only remember the subject of the library comming up once in counsel meetings, in an inconsequential musing on her part concerning the possibility of removing some books that could offend some parents, musings which never went anywhere and resulted in no action because she was told it was not a good idea - so she admitted her mistake as over-zealousness on her part and re-instated her.
Note that the above is based on absolutely no knowledge of what actually happened (aside from what is here in this thread) and may bear zero relationship to reality. But then, the same goes for the more sinister version being peddled in this thread.
She was not “discussing” banned books. She was a person in power who wanted to know how to ban books. That has absolutely nothing to do with free speech.
No more than it is to say that a mayor who asks the police chief “How do I go about getting my political opponents arrested?” is engaging in free speech.
It’s not suppression of free speech to say that people who want to ban books should be disqualified from office. They are still free to go about saying they’d like to ban books.
The small town part is where you are going wrong. In Big Cities, the Librarian is a degreed Professional, , who answers to a Politician or a Board. In a small town, the Librarian is often a political appointee, just like the Chief of Police, etc. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a degreed professional, just that it’s more of an appointment than a Civil Service job. Since she could be fired, clearly she is not Civil Service.
You are incorrect. Librarians are not appointed. They are solely hired through a Civil Service job posting. And any town above a very tiny threshold (I believe in some states it’s as low as 2,000 residents), the librarian must have a Masters of Library Science.
The Federal and State Const allows banning of certain books. In fact, you could be imprisoned for simply possesing certain items. SCOTUS discusses Freedom of speech and its limitations fairly often, I suppose you think they need to resign next time the issue come up? :rolleyes:Next, certain items can & should be restricted.
“clearly”? Really? Exactly what was said in what context? You don’t know nor does anyone else. Ther’s no “clearly” about this.
And the librarian can be included in this how? What power–besides selecting books for the library–does a librarian have that the mayor would need a librarian’s support? As far as I can tell, a librarian is really kind of not a big powerhouse in a town. (I admit the plural of anecdote is not data. You may regard this as a real question.) A mayor wants to get things done that wasn’t getting done, so the mayor removes the librarian. What do librarians do, and how might this relate to book-banning? But wait. I know how it might relate to book-banning. What do librarians do that, after a firing following a book-banning question, would have nothing to do with book-banning? Does the librarian double as a treasurer? Does the librarian secretly control petitions? How, exactly, does a librarian stand in the way of a mayor?
Understood completely. It was exactly what I asked for.
There are no “books” that someone could possess that would be grounds for imprisonment. Homemade scrapbooks of kiddie porn do not count in a discussion of banned books in a library.
The librarian was fired and then rehired after a public outcry. A librarian is not a political figure and her job is not a political appointment. Palin CLEARLY (let the bold, italics and caps sink in) crossed the line.
I don’t, but according to the Alaska Department of Education, the Wasila library served a population of 24,000 people in 1996 with one MLS-holding librarian and three librarians total. A library of that size would never be allowed to fill those positions by appointment.
If so, then Palin didn’t fire the Librarian. Case closed.
Either the Librarian is an appointee, who can be fired; or it’s a Civil Service position, which can not be fired. You have to give me a cite which shows what sort of Position the City Librarian is, the one we are talking about. It’s not impossible there are two postions, one City appointee, one Civil Service for the entire library system. Indeed, some Police dep’t work exactly that way.
