Event reminds Americans that our freedoms are fragile and need protection
Borders ban Motoons from stores
Physician, heal thyself.
Borders ban Motoons from stores
Physician, heal thyself.
Borders Books: What a difference 5 years make
- Thread starter Cylinder
- Start date
I think it is important to make some distinctions (which you omit) that books in the past were banned simply for the view they presented, while the skeptical organization magazine is banned because of the possible violence and danger to the store and the people in it. This is based off of past evidence of violence from the cartoon.
They're not simply banning the mag, but banning that issue of the mag, it sounds like.
They're not simply banning the mag, but banning that issue of the mag, it sounds like.
Meadmaker
Unregistered
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They might need just a little bit of help healing, though. The obvious way to provide the medication to this unwilling patient is to buy from smaller, independent bookstores, instead of Border's.
(It pains me to say that, I might add, because Border's was once a small, independent, bookstore, and it had books you couldn't find anywhere else in the Detroit area. But that was many years ago, when it was owned by Mr. Border. Now, it has more books than it used to, and I can't find the sort of books I used to find there.)
Another very important distinction to make is the difference between telling someone else what books they may not carry and deciding for yourself what you will not carry.
You don't get to pick the toppings on my pizza. But that doesn't mean that I can't make choices for myself.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
So Cylinder, deciding not to carry a magazine is "banning" it?
That makes sense. Since I don't subscribe to the New York Times, this must mean it's been banned from my apartment!
That makes sense. Since I don't subscribe to the New York Times, this must mean it's been banned from my apartment!
Banned from the store. If you refuse to allow anyone to subscribe to the NYT from your apartment, then it could reasonably be called banned from there.
aerocontrols
Illuminator
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Excellent point. Yes, if a library or curriculum decides not to use/make available a book because some people might object, then it can appear on the list of Banned Books. It can also get on the list if I ask a librarian or bookstore owner to stop making it available, they tell me to screw off, and then they tell the ALA that about my request. It doesn't matter why I ask them to stop making it available, either. Whether I challenge it because it's filled with racy sex, or whether it is libelous to my ancestor, or whether it's been proven to be factually wrong and a fraud by later research.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
Ooh, doesn't wash, though. They haven't "banned it from the store" any more than I "banned the NYT from my apartment." They haven't banned anyone from reading it, buying it, or even taking it in the store. I choose not to subscribe to the NYT (or Free Inquiry, for that matter), and they choose not to carry this magazine.
It's not banned in any sense except the extreme hyperbolic.
Huh? School districts and municipalities tell the libraries that they own not to carry certain books because of their content. Borders' corporate tells the stores it owns not to carry certain magazine issues because of their content. Borders' has every right to do it and I have every right to point out the hypocrisy.
I agree that a very close interpretation of the word "banned" does not fit here. It does, hovever, fit the definition they seemed to have adopted for their 2001 statements.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
OK, so the thread wasn't about Borders' policy so much as making a snarky comment about Banned Books Week. I'll leave you to it, then. Have at it. I'm sure your wit and wisdom on the subject will enlighten us all.
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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Hypothetically, if Christian militants were running around burning bookstores for selling something racy like Henry Miller, would Cleon have the same sympathy if bookstores started taking these books off the shelves?
Sure, Borders may only restrict the books I buy from them, but they’re still facilitating a small group (violent Muslims) dictating what I may or may not read.
Sure, Borders may only restrict the books I buy from them, but they’re still facilitating a small group (violent Muslims) dictating what I may or may not read.
I think it is important to make some distinctions (which you omit) that books in the past were banned simply for the view they presented, while the skeptical organization magazine is banned because of the possible violence and danger to the store and the people in it.
MORAL OF THE STORY: If you want to ban a book, use violence. That makes the cowardice of submitting to the banning "rational" and "responsible".
As long as you only use the fundamentalist Christians' methods for banning books (boycotts, picketing, occassional lawsuit) your requrests will be rebuffed, your religious beliefs laughed at, and you yourself portrayed as a dangerous maniac--not because you are, but because it makes those who oppose you praise themselves as heroic.
But use the fundamentalist Muslims' methods for banning books (bombing and killing), and off the shelves go the books you want, nobody dares to laugh at your religion (you know, just in case), and the "brave protectors of freedom of expression" run around telling people that, after all, both the writer and you are equally to blame, since the writer wasn't "sensitive" enough to guess in advance what you want banned and not write it in the first place. If he didn't want trouble, why did he write such things?
(Naturally, we never hear the same argument against books Christians want banned: nobody ever says that, say, that the uproar against The Last Temptation of Christ is partially the author's fault for not self-censoring his work in advance as to not offend Christians.)
I'm sorry, but those who will fight against Christian censorship of books and will not fight against Islamic censorship of books are, obviously, only willing to fight against censorship as long as their personal safety is not threathened in any way. Which is to say, not willing to fight against it at all. But what will they do when the Christian Right learns the Muslim trick and bombs a few bookstores as well?
MORAL OF THE STORY: If you want to ban a book, use violence. That makes the cowardice of submitting to the banning "rational" and "responsible".
As long as you only use the fundamentalist Christians' methods for banning books (boycotts, picketing, occassional lawsuit) your requrests will be rebuffed, your religious beliefs laughed at, and you yourself portrayed as a dangerous maniac--not because you are, but because it makes those who oppose you praise themselves as heroic.
But use the fundamentalist Muslims' methods for banning books (bombing and killing), and off the shelves go the books you want, nobody dares to laugh at your religion (you know, just in case), and the "brave protectors of freedom of expression" run around telling people that, after all, both the writer and you are equally to blame, since the writer wasn't "sensitive" enough to guess in advance what you want banned and not write it in the first place. If he didn't want trouble, why did he write such things?
(Naturally, we never hear the same argument against books Christians want banned: nobody ever says that, say, that the uproar against The Last Temptation of Christ is partially the author's fault for not self-censoring his work in advance as to not offend Christians.)
I'm sorry, but those who will fight against Christian censorship of books and will not fight against Islamic censorship of books are, obviously, only willing to fight against censorship as long as their personal safety is not threathened in any way. Which is to say, not willing to fight against it at all. But what will they do when the Christian Right learns the Muslim trick and bombs a few bookstores as well?
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Grammatron
Philosopher
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I think the real irony here is there're probably hundreds of books in Borders far more offensive to Islam than those cartoons could ever hope to be yet they are still there.
Nobody's saying Border's doesn't have the right not to carry the magazine. Hell, they have a right to only carry Esperanto-language translations of Finnegans Wake if they so choose.
We're just saying they're cowards for doing it.
I really don't see how this is hypocritical. This has nothing to do with Borders trying to censor an opinion and everything to do with trying to avoid having savage barbarians who believe in a religion of violence blow up their stores. What are they suppossed to do, risk having stores blown up to please some smug internet "skeptics" who think they have a point by calling this hypocrisy?
Flo
Illuminator
I really don't see how this is hypocritical. This has nothing to do with Borders trying to censor an opinion and everything to do with trying to avoid having savage barbarians who believe in a religion of violence blow up their stores.
Which means that Borders, out of cowardice, is appeasing the savage barbarians who DO want to censor everybody who disagrees with them.
What are they suppossed to do, risk having stores blown up to please some smug internet "skeptics" who think they have a point by calling this hypocrisy?
They're supposed to do what all people are supposed to do: show bravery.
Which means that Borders, out of cowardice, is appeasing the savage barbarians who DO want to censor everybody who disagrees with them.
What are they suppossed to do, risk having stores blown up to please some smug internet "skeptics" who think they have a point by calling this hypocrisy?
They're supposed to do what all people are supposed to do: show bravery.
Yeah, it is a little cowardly and just a tad hypocritical. Probably more big corporation PC going on than anything else IMO. On the other hand, I did go browsing for "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie (sp?) a few years back and they had it. As far as making a decision to not carry a certain magazine, my local Borders doesn't carry Hustler either (don't kid yourself - Larry Flint is one of the premier political statesman of our time).