{"id":7713,"date":"2006-06-17T10:18:42","date_gmt":"2006-06-17T14:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7713"},"modified":"2006-06-17T10:18:42","modified_gmt":"2006-06-17T14:18:42","slug":"book-banning-isnt-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/book-banning-isnt-the-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Book-banning isn’t the answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

No matter how tempting it may be to keep certain books off shelves, this<\/a> is the wrong way to go.<\/p>\n

Commentator [tag]Ann Coulter[\/tag]’s incendiary words about outspoken 9\/11 widows have led two state lawmakers to calls for a [tag]boycott[\/tag] of her new book in the widows’ home state of New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Assemblywomen Joan M. Quigley, D-Hudson, and Linda Stender, D-Union, called on New Jerseyans last week to stop buying the book, [tag]Godless[\/tag]: [tag]The Church of Liberalism[\/tag], and for retailers in the state to stop selling it.<\/p>\n

“Coulter’s vicious characterizations and remarks are motivated by greed and her desire to sell books. By making these claims, she proved herself worse than those she is attempting to vilify — she is a leach (sic) trying to turn a profit off perverting the suffering of others,” the two assemblywomen said in a June 8 statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given all the books conservatives have wanted to ban for years, the left should know better than to pursue this.<\/p>\n

Update<\/em>: Just to clarify, I draw a distinction between some of the lawmakers’ request here. If public officials want to encourage the public to reject a hate-monger, that is, of course, fine. If public officials want to call for a public boycott of that hate-monger, that’s fine too. But public officials calling on privately-owned bookstores not to sell a title because they find it offensive is too much. I’d find it wholly unacceptable if conservative lawmakers called on private retailers not to sell a liberal book — just as a criticized Republicans who urged movie theaters not to run Fahrenheit 9\/11 — so the same standard has to apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No matter how tempting it may be to keep certain books off shelves, this is the wrong way to go. Commentator [tag]Ann Coulter[\/tag]’s incendiary words about outspoken 9\/11 widows have led two state lawmakers to calls for a [tag]boycott[\/tag] of her new book in the widows’ home state of New Jersey. Assemblywomen Joan M. Quigley, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}