Speaking as someone who was homeschooled by people like this K-12, it's all about control. They only home school because it's the only way to control what their children learn, but if they can control what all children learn, well, that will do just fine.
So like I get what you're getting at, but even in the most altruistic choice to honeschool a child, where you are doing it so you can best meet their educational needs, wouldnt it still be a control level decision? You'd be choosing homeschool over public so you could have more control over meeting your childs needs
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, exactly. People homeschool for a variety of reasons; sometimes that is to have more control over the learning schedule or to have more control over the level of stimulation a child receives. Most of these seem like responses to an emergent circumstance rather than a wholesale rejection of a system of learning.
That seems like an unnecessary distinction though, since I already specified that this is about controlling what children can learn, not how or when.
My parents didn't homeschool me to accommodate a strange schedule or to ease any kind of social anxiety I had. They homeschooled me to prevent me from encountering anything that would challenge the idea that the God literally made the earth in 7 days six thousand years ago and that the Bible was the literal and perfect word of God.
Yeah ok, my bad, It was a reading fail on my part. You did indeed specify what they wanted to control and I entirely missed that and read it as control in general, so not only was I being pedantic, I was also wrong xD. Sorry about that!
I was reading another article about this same town (Granbury, Texas), discussing a massive bitcoin mining operation literally giving the people & animals there sonic damage. Anyhow, the cop there trying to make things better is also noted as a former Oathkeeper. So... I guess that's part of the local 'culture' 🤦♀️
Also, if you want to hear more in-depth coverage of Texas school district fuckery, one of the authors of the above articles, Mike Hixenbaum, has two podcasts and a book about it: Southlake (2021-2022), Grapevine (2023), and They Came for the Schools (2024). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of them.
it would be a shame if a group of leftists turned the tables on him and made him feel intimidated. it would be even more despicable if someone just carried through on the threats and we never had to worry about that piece of shit ever again.
So this guy went around reading books found in a children's library that he thought were disgusting. Then he looked up the names of the children who checked them out?
You know, my kid's kindergarten librarian would say "anything that gets them reading is progress." So maybe we should be encouraging more dipshits to be checking out more books.
The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature — such as “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison — that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.
Summary of The Bluest Eye from Wikipedia:
The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness".
The novel is told mostly from Claudia MacTeer's point of view. Claudia is the daughter of Pecola's temporary foster parents. There is also some omniscient third-person narration. The book's controversial topics of racism, incest, and child molestation have led to numerous attempts to ban the novel from schools and libraries in the United States.[1]
Now, if he read the book, like he claims to have read it, he would know that the only obscene thing in the book is that it shows why things like racism and incest are, themselves, obscene. And that sounds like something kids should learn.
Unless, of course, this cop doesn't find one or both of those things obscene and rather finds the obscene thing to be telling people racism and/or incest is wrong...
Paul Hyde, a Granbury attorney who served on the volunteer committee tasked with reviewing dozens of school library books, said he informally advised two of the accused librarians early in London’s investigation and saw the toll it has taken on them.
“These women, that are amazing educators and librarians, have been terrified for over two years now that they’re going to get arrested, hauled off to jail on a felony charge of providing pornography to minors,” Hyde said, noting that one of the librarians left the district as a result.
“We lost a great librarian,” he said.
Anyone who thinks it's a non-issue because charges weren't filed should understand that intimidation is the point. It looks like the intimidation worked.
Drive out enough librarians and eventually youʼll find yourself needing to drive 4 hours to get a tool pulled or a melanoma whacked off since good dentists and doctors usually want decent schools with libraries for their kids.
I got minimal more to add (okay had more than I expected) except that's such a power tripping cop, like let's attack people who help kids expand their horizons. To be fair I'm extremely pro library, even had a chance to work in one for a summer yay small towns. Had to read to pass time in the long before internet era (well not much before really) with limited video games available.
Anyways libraries and librarians rock and don't need to be targeted for offering kids (or anyone) a way to explore a world or think in a new way.
Dream job lol. Do whatever you want, no strings attached, no requerements, no responsibility, and you are entitled to a higher position in any dispute with civilians. They aren't a part of the working class, they are a class of their own, lapdogs of the ones in power. How could this happen?
This is a MUCH BETTER use of Taxpayer Dollars then LITERALLY FEEDING STARVING CHILDREN IN AMERICA (which Republican States opted OUT OF because then they wouldn't have Tax Dollars to do THIS!)!
Serious answer, probably because books from book stores aren't available to the poorest classes. Libraries are (and are meant to be!) a threat to every status quo.
This is specifically a school library, not a public library. And no, I do not support book-banning in any way, shape, or form. Just keeping the facts straight.
To support the idea that it is class based, I suspect we will find it is being selectively applied to poorer communities, which specifically drives the most able-to-change-jobs (often the best) librarians to move to other communities where this is not being applied.
Because this is a boil-the-frog situation. The path is k-12 school libraries -> public libraries -> academic libraries and bookstores. The way fascists get the public comfortable with the idea of banning books is by starting with examples that look like "common sense" to the uninformed, and then ramp up the attacks as they gain institutional power.
Cop: these books made me horny, you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing me to get turned on by a book, in fact I'm going to confiscate all of them so no one else has to be turned on by this filth.
They've been doing stuff like this for years. In 1990, a Florida judge ruled that an album by 2 Live Crew was obscene, and police officers went into stores and threatened to arrest anyone who sold copies of the album. The obscenity law specifically requires a "lack of serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" and they were able to get it appealed.
Reading the article it's actually more insane than it first appears. He's been doing it for two years. This wasn't an investigation ordered by a court, it was evidence he himself was compiling for his own legal complaint, which was dismissed when finally brought to the DA.
You don't find it newsworthy that a cop wanted to use his badge to (at minimum) intimidate librarians and (at worst) charge them with trumped up bullshit?
Why is this greaseball employed if he can't find something better to do with his time than to make sure people can't read the books he hates?
The point is to try to stop taxpayer money directly funding fascism. Unfortunately it's Texas, so there's no real way around that given the current state government.
Sure sure. Two librarians were harassed and one was driven out of her job because of the investigation. But there were no charges, so everything is peachy, right?
Found the article.
It's so incredibly stupid how he takes himself so seriously; he's like if Poirot had a satchel of lead beads he would stick up his nose occasionally.
And then like a coward he won't elaborate on his master plan of making education and edification punishable by law.
He wasted important people's time and then just fucked off, pretending it never happened.
What a dunce; no wonder he became a cop.
Reactionary entitlement knows no bounds.
Speaking as someone who was homeschooled by people like this K-12, it's all about control. They only home school because it's the only way to control what their children learn, but if they can control what all children learn, well, that will do just fine.
So like I get what you're getting at, but even in the most altruistic choice to honeschool a child, where you are doing it so you can best meet their educational needs, wouldnt it still be a control level decision? You'd be choosing homeschool over public so you could have more control over meeting your childs needs
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, exactly. People homeschool for a variety of reasons; sometimes that is to have more control over the learning schedule or to have more control over the level of stimulation a child receives. Most of these seem like responses to an emergent circumstance rather than a wholesale rejection of a system of learning.
That seems like an unnecessary distinction though, since I already specified that this is about controlling what children can learn, not how or when.
My parents didn't homeschool me to accommodate a strange schedule or to ease any kind of social anxiety I had. They homeschooled me to prevent me from encountering anything that would challenge the idea that the God literally made the earth in 7 days six thousand years ago and that the Bible was the literal and perfect word of God.
Seems like a different conversation entirely.
Yeah ok, my bad, It was a reading fail on my part. You did indeed specify what they wanted to control and I entirely missed that and read it as control in general, so not only was I being pedantic, I was also wrong xD. Sorry about that!
I was reading another article about this same town (Granbury, Texas), discussing a massive bitcoin mining operation literally giving the people & animals there sonic damage. Anyhow, the cop there trying to make things better is also noted as a former Oathkeeper. So... I guess that's part of the local 'culture' 🤦♀️
Also, if you want to hear more in-depth coverage of Texas school district fuckery, one of the authors of the above articles, Mike Hixenbaum, has two podcasts and a book about it: Southlake (2021-2022), Grapevine (2023), and They Came for the Schools (2024). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of them.
Bitcoin farm opened, locals take 2D6 sonic damage per day.
Lol, sounds a lot funnier that way.
Anyhow, here's the article if you want to read it.
it would be a shame if a group of leftists turned the tables on him and made him feel intimidated. it would be even more despicable if someone just carried through on the threats and we never had to worry about that piece of shit ever again.
So this guy went around reading books found in a children's library that he thought were disgusting. Then he looked up the names of the children who checked them out?
That sounds like something a pervert would do.
This is one reason why most libraries don’t keep records of individual’s past checkouts.
You know, my kid's kindergarten librarian would say "anything that gets them reading is progress." So maybe we should be encouraging more dipshits to be checking out more books.
Summary of The Bluest Eye from Wikipedia:
Now, if he read the book, like he claims to have read it, he would know that the only obscene thing in the book is that it shows why things like racism and incest are, themselves, obscene. And that sounds like something kids should learn.
Unless, of course, this cop doesn't find one or both of those things obscene and rather finds the obscene thing to be telling people racism and/or incest is wrong...
As much as i hate quotas and micromanaging, this guy could use some of that.
Wait until he find out about the internet and all the “obscene” content it has, a simple search away from any electronic device his children have.
From the article:
Paul Hyde, a Granbury attorney who served on the volunteer committee tasked with reviewing dozens of school library books, said he informally advised two of the accused librarians early in London’s investigation and saw the toll it has taken on them.
“These women, that are amazing educators and librarians, have been terrified for over two years now that they’re going to get arrested, hauled off to jail on a felony charge of providing pornography to minors,” Hyde said, noting that one of the librarians left the district as a result.
“We lost a great librarian,” he said.
Anyone who thinks it's a non-issue because charges weren't filed should understand that intimidation is the point. It looks like the intimidation worked.
Pigfucker County: Everyone Left?
Drive out enough librarians and eventually youʼll find yourself needing to drive 4 hours to get a tool pulled or a melanoma whacked off since good dentists and doctors usually want decent schools with libraries for their kids.
This is why you should always use tools with a flared base.
You know who else did this shit?
Nazis.
"Else"?
"German Nazis."
I don’t get what you mean
They mean the else isn't necessary cause they're just Nazis. So they're doing Nazi shit like banning books.
The five year investigation concluded when he finished reading the three books.
“Green eggs? Implausible. AND ham? Elitist!”
PURPLE FISH ARE AN ABOMINATION NO MATTER HOW MANY
RED FISH & BLUE FISH DO NOT MIX
KEEP ICHTHYOLOGY PURE
LORAXES ARE FOR WIPING YOUR BUM & DO NOT GET TO NAME OUR TREES
In today's
worksworld, the Lorax would get 5 years in jail for planning a protest.First they would taze him though.
This is such a genius comment 😂
You know what I'm saying?
I got minimal more to add (okay had more than I expected) except that's such a power tripping cop, like let's attack people who help kids expand their horizons. To be fair I'm extremely pro library, even had a chance to work in one for a summer yay small towns. Had to read to pass time in the long before internet era (well not much before really) with limited video games available.
Anyways libraries and librarians rock and don't need to be targeted for offering kids (or anyone) a way to explore a world or think in a new way.
"Wow daddy, you really gave my asshole a STRETCH!"
Let me guess, he's a "christian"?
Dream job lol. Do whatever you want, no strings attached, no requerements, no responsibility, and you are entitled to a higher position in any dispute with civilians. They aren't a part of the working class, they are a class of their own, lapdogs of the ones in power. How could this happen?
I see you got new name.
I agree.
I'm happy it didn't hurt my brand recognition. It's bad for business.
These fascist snowflakes need to be marginalized in a strong way
They didn't distribute them to him either, he fucking took pictures then went home and found PDFs or used police funds to purchase eBook copies.
Which I assume he didn't actually read, but rather just did a Ctrl+F and typed in as many rude words as he could think of.
Does...
Does he not know how libraries work?
He was busy, still looking for holes drilled in between books.
Dead Uvalde children hate this one trick
All these books he's read but I guess he still didn't pick up Fahrenheit 451 or 1984
Or he thought they had a lot of good ideas.
smacks forehead "Flamethrowers, of course! Why didn't I think of that sooner?!"
Well to be fair, building houses that truly can't be burned down is a pretty good idea...
Or should I say a "good+" idea?
No pictures in them…
This is a MUCH BETTER use of Taxpayer Dollars then LITERALLY FEEDING STARVING CHILDREN IN AMERICA (which Republican States opted OUT OF because then they wouldn't have Tax Dollars to do THIS!)!
The police are so absurdly radicalized in this country.
Why don’t stores that sell books get the same amount of scrutiny? I see A Court of Thorns and Roses books everywhere.
Serious answer, probably because books from book stores aren't available to the poorest classes. Libraries are (and are meant to be!) a threat to every status quo.
This is specifically a school library, not a public library. And no, I do not support book-banning in any way, shape, or form. Just keeping the facts straight.
But public libraries and public librarians are also under attack.
https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/04/10/idaho-libraries-must-move-materials-deemed-harmful-to-children-or-face-lawsuits-under-new-law/
Just so you know, I didn't think you did. I hope my response didn't come across that way.
No, not at all, I just think calling this socio-economic class-based is incorrect. Being in school is not a class (no pun intended).
To support the idea that it is class based, I suspect we will find it is being selectively applied to poorer communities, which specifically drives the most able-to-change-jobs (often the best) librarians to move to other communities where this is not being applied.
I base my assumption on historic selective enforcement of other laws with similar vulnerability to abuse - such as selective enforcement during prohibition.
I believe that if librarians, of any kind, are being targeted, we should suspect class warfare because libraries are historically a source of improved equity.
So my assertion is that any action taken against any library should be examined carefully under a lens of suspected class warfare.
Because this is a boil-the-frog situation. The path is k-12 school libraries -> public libraries -> academic libraries and bookstores. The way fascists get the public comfortable with the idea of banning books is by starting with examples that look like "common sense" to the uninformed, and then ramp up the attacks as they gain institutional power.
While attempts to ban books from stores are currently few and far between, one notable example was this attempt to get Gender Queer removed from the shelves of bookstores in Virginia: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/20/gender-queer-barnes-and-noble/
The minor these materials were distributed to? The officer that was investigating the library. Cuz he's obviously a big fuckin' baby.
Or because he likes reading sexy books on his work time.
This reminds me of the Chickenfucker South Park episode.
Say it with me now,
All cops are bastards!
All cops are bastards
solutions to these kinds of problems are available to any patriotic american.
As if pigs can read.
Cop: these books made me horny, you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing me to get turned on by a book, in fact I'm going to confiscate all of them so no one else has to be turned on by this filth.
cops will only read a book if it means they can put someone in jail
You're assuming they can read at all
Really going out of his way there to be offended.
Oink oink! What a scumpig.
did all the idiots just discover books??
They paid no mind until their puppet masters directed them that way.
Well they've never read one so...
Yes, they never set foot in one when they were in elementary school.
They've been doing stuff like this for years. In 1990, a Florida judge ruled that an album by 2 Live Crew was obscene, and police officers went into stores and threatened to arrest anyone who sold copies of the album. The obscenity law specifically requires a "lack of serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" and they were able to get it appealed.
Reading the article it's actually more insane than it first appears. He's been doing it for two years. This wasn't an investigation ordered by a court, it was evidence he himself was compiling for his own legal complaint, which was dismissed when finally brought to the DA.
At least he read them. More than I'd expect
Where's the story here? No charges filed. Nothing happened.
What's the point of this story?
You don't find it newsworthy that a cop wanted to use his badge to (at minimum) intimidate librarians and (at worst) charge them with trumped up bullshit?
Why is this greaseball employed if he can't find something better to do with his time than to make sure people can't read the books he hates?
The point is to try to stop taxpayer money directly funding fascism. Unfortunately it's Texas, so there's no real way around that given the current state government.
Sure sure. Two librarians were harassed and one was driven out of her job because of the investigation. But there were no charges, so everything is peachy, right?
True, cops using their power to destroy people's lives for political reasons is not much of a story in America anymore.
But it should be.