North Koreans live in the most censored country in the world

deborah says:

Re:now they’ve made me curious

I’m asking in response to this comment in the WND article:

He added: “If the book [Savage] had proposed was a Klan title promoting the inferiority of African-Americans, would anyone be questioning the anger of the faculty?”

Similarly, the 2004 Lakeland transcripts show a committee member claiming display of the Nicolosi book created a double standard because “it is legitimate to target gays,” while the library would “never display a book about killing blacks.”

Basically, I’m curious if those statements are true or not.

deborah says:

Re:Amazing

I do not advocate any such thing. My words were, precisely, “(ie The Protocols, which there’d be valid reasons for having in closed stacks or with an attached disclaimer about its discreditation)“. In some case those good reasons might exist, in others they might not. I don’t make an advocacy case either way. However, when a proved forgery is published as fact, a given library, in given circumstances, may choose to put a warning label on it explaining what it is. Usually forgeries are simply removed from publication — the Protocols, because of its historical significance, is not. How do I decide which books get warnings? Well, the Protocols is a proven forgery falsely attributed to individuals who did not write it, so if I *were* a librarian who were going to advocate as you have claimed I do, it would be on that basis. Not because I disagree with it, but because unlike The DaVinci Code, it is not published as fiction. If the DaVinci Code publishers inisisted it were by Pope John Paul II, I might, if I were the aforementioned librarian, put a parallel warning label on that.

Simply because we have differing political beliefs — and I note for the record that I have not stated an opinion on this particular case, either in favor of the library or the librarian — is no reason to attribute opinions to me which I didn’t state. I didn’t attack you, so I see no need for your aggression.

deborah says:

Re:Amazing

I did take it as a personal attack, actually, because of your tone and because you said that the ideas you were attributing to me were “anathema to a true librarian.” While I would love it if lisnews were a place where I could have a good debate, I find that any discussion between people who disagree with each other degenerates into name calling and snark. I don’t think there’s much capability for debate, here.

Clearly you didn’t intend to attack, and in that vein I apologise for accusing you of doing so. Yet I have forgotten this is a forum in which I find the discussions so confrontational and agressive (from people on both sides of the political spectrum — I’m less likely to get into it with people on the left only because I agree with them in substance, if not in style) that I don’t believe there is any capacity here for real debate or changing each other’s minds. Certainly I’m not comfortable with this style of argument.

Thanks for engaging in discourse with me. Perhaps at some point we’ll continue this conversation in a forum in which our styles of conversation are not so in conflict, and we might come to a new space of understanding.