Conversation

Notices

1. Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)'s status on Sunday, 09-Apr-2023 04:02:23 JST Simon McGarr

   All books belong in every library.

   Pay no attention to any bad faith argument by loo lahs presenting themselves as concerned parents etc that any book - *any book*- is inappropriate in a library.

   Ireland was world famous for its avid censorship of books throughout the 20th C, the same time when it is now famous for abusing children.

   • Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)'s status on Sunday, 09-Apr-2023 04:02:18 JST Simon McGarr

     in reply to

     I exist as the person that I am because of my local library.

     I would go there whenever I wanted to read books.

     Books don’t just go away when you’re finished them, their words sit on your mind, to sink deeper and deeper into you, until they are a part of who you are.

     Sometimes a very important part.

     The possibility for change is anathema to people who insist they have had the whole truth already revealed to them.

   • Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)'s status on Sunday, 09-Apr-2023 04:02:20 JST Simon McGarr

     in reply to

     These people, of course, don’t accept other people’s decisions on granting their children or adult children the dignity of personal agency.

     They even tried to over turn the referendum in the Supreme Court.

     We’ve seen recently enough the sort of blinkered, barracking rejection of any alternative point of view this worldview creates.

     https://www.thejournal.ie/childrens-referendum-result-2066605-Apr2015/

     Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)'s status on Sunday, 09-Apr-2023 04:02:21 JST Simon McGarr

     in reply to

     We saw exactly this argument made explicit in the campaign against the Constitutional amendment to recognise children’s rights.

     The driving stated motivation of the splinter which opposed it on principle was to continue to exert control, ownership and power over children.

     It was, rightly, rejected almost universally at the ballot box and children’s rights and dignity as human beings confirmed.

   • Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)'s status on Sunday, 09-Apr-2023 04:02:22 JST Simon McGarr

     in reply to

     The core, obscured, objection is the granting to offspring (adult or minor) personal agency.

     Informing people, allowing them to find things out in the literal sanctuary of a library or a supportive school, is anathema to impulses or ideologies of control or ownership over offspring (again, either adult or minors).

     All education, all literature, all information, empowers people.

     That’s the power being objected to. That’s the agency they would like to claw back.