America’s Banning Obsession

A few years ago, I heard a professor condemn book-banning. This was in a public lecture. She condemned Christian groups in the hinterlands, because they wanted to ban books from school libraries. Books on same-sex relationships, for example.

An audience member asked if the professor and her ilk would ever do the same. Would they ever ban any books? “Yes,” she shot back, “We would ban the Bible and other books on religion.”

Since she was against the Christian sects banning books, how could she justify doing the same? “Because I know we are right,” the prof boasted.

The temperature in the auditorium plunged 20 degrees. I pitied her students.

Over the years, this type of thinking has grown fashionable in America. If you follow the news, you will see evidence of it almost every day.

More than 1,000 Google employees recently signed a petition to ban Breitbart, the news and commentary platform. They wanted to banish Breitbart from Google searches and label its articles as “prohibited content.” This would starve Breitbart of Google-generated ad revenue.

Facebook employs thought-police today — to ban content it deems unworthy. YouTube does the same. And, they love to ban stuff from conservatives.

San Francisco’s Board of Education voted to destroy murals in the George Washington High School. Murals that depict our first president — because he owned slaves.

You remember how critics destroyed statues to Civil War figures. And how anti-religious zealots have destroyed crosses and plaques of the Ten Commandments, and other religious symbols in public places.

Books like “Huckleberry Finn,” “Catcher in the Rye,” and “Little House on the Prairie” — they have to go. So say other zealots.

Banish Christ the infant at Christmas. Banish Columbus and Columbus Day — so says Columbus, Ohio. Meanwhile, Charlottesville, Virginia. banished Thomas Jefferson Day.

A CNN analyst just called for a new cadre of young liberal journalists — to be trained to do away with the likes of Tucker Carlson’s commentary on Fox News. To do away with conservative media.

Climate-change warriors do all they can to ban papers from scientists who question any of the climate dogma. They vote down tenure for them at universities. They ban their papers from science journals. They squelch thoughts of public debates on climate issues. They work to banish dissent from what they falsely claim 97 percent of scientists agree upon.

Ban the Pledge of Allegiance from city council meetings. Ban the singing of the National Anthem. Ban the displays of the American flag. Ban that flag’s appearance on pairs of sneakers. All of these have been done in our nation recently.

Banish conservative speakers from campuses. Ban them from commencement podiums. This is what is happening across America.

Ban words that offend someone’s ears. Especially on campuses where wimpy student ears are more tender. Ban calling her a her or him a him. Create safe zones, where kids are protected from such horrible words.

Banish any thoughts that came from dead white men — like the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. Banish Kate Smith’s rendition of God Bless America. 

Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, dislikes conservative Tucker Carlson’s commentary on Fox News. She calls for advertisers to abandon him and kill his show.

Many readers of this column have begged newspapers to banish my writing from their pages. Sack that Morgan, they’ve said.

We used to be a people who disagreed but discussed. We used to deploy opinions as points of view, not as hatchets. When did this urge to banish and destroy leak into our blood? And how did it get there?

Do you suppose we can ever return to civil discussion? Oh no, banish the thought.

From Tom…as in Morgan.       

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home in upstate New York. Contact him at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com, read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com, or find him on Facebook.