[krapp]

Until relatively recently in the US, "banning books" was widely considered one of those morally reprehensible things that only authoritarian governments did, and people were outraged that the US did it at all.

It is legitimately weird how quickly that seems to have changed within the culture in the light of the moral panic over transgender "groomers" and the antiwoke movement. That, and the sentiment that the government should regulate or nationalize social media, or even make it illegal... and half the country seems to be in a competition to see how fascist they can become before the Supreme Court actually calls them out. It's like someone flipped a switch and suddenly all this dystopian shit was just ok with everyone.

[shakow]

> Until relatively recently in the US, "banning books" was widely considered one of those morally reprehensible things that only authoritarian governments did, and people were outraged that the US did it at all.

Was it, really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_...

Controversial, sure; but I'm not sure it was as universally loathed as you seem to think.

[pfannkuchen]

I’m so confused. Book bans in authoritarian nations mean that you can’t purchase the book because the government prohibits it. Is that happening anywhere in the US today?

[krapp]

You're not confused, you're just playing semantic games.

[pfannkuchen]

Congratulations on your apparent mind reading ability. Also I am pretty sure your post violates HN guidelines (is there a way to summon @dang?)

[xyzzyz]

> Until relatively recently in the US, "banning books" was widely considered one of those morally reprehensible things that only authoritarian governments did, and people were outraged that the US did it at all.

This is why I loathe the “book banning” activists, because their entire goal is to confuse people by using deliberately misleading language.

The fact of the matter is that nowhere in the US has any book been successfully banned by any government in recent memory, in the dystopian, authoritarian sense understanding of the term “book banning”. Activists simply decided to call removing books from school libraries “book banning” to deliberately induce misapprehension that this sort of dystopian, authoritarian shit is reality, when it simply is not the case.

[krapp]

Calls to remove books from libraries on the basis of ideology driven by a political party are a form of book banning, the distinction between it and a "ban by government" is one without a difference.