by lurk2 | 2025-04-20 03:33:16+00:00
> 1. Keep moving the goal posts.

No goal posts have been moved. No common person understands the word "ban" to mean "removed from circulation by a school district."

> 2.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_gove...

Of the 19 books listed here, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption (1650) is the only one that fits, and it was banned 375 years ago. Of the remaining 18 books:

7 were banned from US mailing and transport across state lines under the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act of 1873. This notably includes Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Note that the laws which permitted these bans were overturned in 1959.

1 (Uncle Tom's Cabin) was banned by the Confederate States of America.

1 (Elmer Gantry) was banned in around half-a-dozen US cities (I do not care to investigate what these bans entailed). It looks like this one may have also fell under the Anti-Obscenity Act.

1 (The Grapes of Wrath) was ostensibly banned in "many places in the US" and the state of California (the citation for this one has no link).

1 (Forever Amber) is listed as being banned in fourteen states in the US, but the first citation listed seems to imply that it was banned under the Anti-Obscenity Act. The second citation is an independent article which does not even specify what states the book was banned in, nor what these bans entailed.

1 (Memoirs of Hecate County) is listed as having been banned in New York by the Supreme Court, but again, the citation does not specify what this ban entailed. It also strongly implies that the boot would have fallen under obscenity laws.

1 (Howl) was seized by the San Francisco customs authority as obscenity, but these charges were later dismissed.

1 (Naked Lunch) was banned in Massachusetts for obscenity.

1 (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) was "banned" from Tucson Arizona public schools, but the citation listed does not mention what this ban entailed, when it occurred, or even any proof that it occurred. The table itself mentions under the "Year Unbanned" column that the work was never illegal.

1 (The Pentagon Papers) was an attempt by US President Richard Nixon to suspend the publication of classified information. This restraint was lifted in a 1971 court case, and the papers were subsequently declassified in 2011.

1 (The Federal Mafia) was subject to a court injunction, forbidding author Irwin Schiff from profiting off the work after a court found it contained fraudulent information. This book is not banned from publication. "The court rejected Schiff's contention on appeal that the First Amendment protects sales of the book, as the court found that the information it contains is fraudulent, as it advertised that it would teach buyers how to legally cease paying federal income taxes."

1 (Operation Dark Heart) was seized by the Department of Defense "citing concerns that it contained classified information which could damage national security."

So the prime examples here are a book from 375 years ago (126 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed), a book banned by the Confederate States of America, a book intended to aid and abet the reader in the commission of a federal crime, and a couple of books which were sequestered due to national security concerns. The rest were "banned" for graphic displays of sexuality.

> I can kick harder.

I'll be waiting patiently for you to cite any other examples.