Sep

3

The Banned Wagon.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

September 3, 2008 |

According to the New York Times, Sarah Palin, then mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, asked a librarian how she could go about banning books. When the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, refused to ban books, Palin fired her but then reinstated her after an outpouring of community support. Palin told a local newspaper that her question about banning books was “rhetorical”. And yet there appears to have been no further clarification. What “rhetorical” point was she trying to make? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, rhetorical questions “do not require an answer, but are only put in the form of a question in order to produce a greater effect”. What effect was she trying to produce? A rhetorical question is usually put forward because the questioner already knows the answer, and makes the answer apparent. Palin apparently did not do this. If her point was that she doesn’t know what “rhetorical” means, well, mission accomplished.There has been some buzz about this, and even at librarian.net someone has posted what is apparently a bogus list of books Palin wanted to ban.

The larger question, though, is, why wouldn’t Palin be in favor of banning books? I don’t know if any of her proponents have come forward to defend this move yet, but there are many people in this country who are in favor of banning books. Palin and McCain are also staunch defenders of the so-called PATRIOT Act, which includes provisions that make it easier for law enforcement officials to seize and search individual library records. As I’ve said previously, there’s nothing in anyone’s library records that could be used to build a case that a crime has been committed, much less prosecute someone for a crime. In spite of this Palin and McCain apparently believe that these provisions are important, that someone could potentially be prosecuted on the basis of what they’ve read, or at least a case could be built against them based on what books they read. If they believe that, why wouldn’t they be in favor of banning books? If criminals read books, getting rid of books will cut down on crime, right?

That’s a rhetorical question. Here’s one that isn’t: if you had the power, would you remove all copies of books you found objectionable from a library?

Update: The original New York Times article was sloppily written, but the Anchorage Daily News has produced a much more thorough account of what actually occurred.

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Comments

6 Comments so far

  1. Andrea on September 4, 2008 1:55 pm

    Rhetorical, huh? She sounds full of shit.

    Have you found out what books she was trying to ban?

  2. James on September 4, 2008 2:45 pm

    Perhaps one book that she was trying to ban was any that had the Constitution printed in it…..

  3. Mike on September 4, 2008 3:54 pm

    You guys amaze me…..I don’t care who wins, they’re both the same. But I do love books, I read she’s trying to ban dumbasses, to bad, you seemed so well informed.

  4. Christopher on September 4, 2008 6:46 pm

    Mike, you seem to have a lot of trouble with grammar. What exactly are you trying to say? Yes, I am pretty well-informed. However I can’t say the same about you. Perhaps if you were to get an education you might be able to make an actual argument instead of stringing together a few nonsensical clauses.

  5. Peptodismal on September 5, 2008 6:41 am

    Quoting the NYT, I mean the New Duranty Times, is really bad juju. I was reading the Protocols of Zion just the other day, and I swear there was a quote from the NYT editorial page in there. Kool Aid anyone?

    /

  6. Christopher Waldrop on September 5, 2008 7:03 am

    Are you sure that wasn’t Faux News? They seem to use the same sources as the authors of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

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