Monday, December 12, 2016

It Takes A Lot of Courage To Attack A Book



It takes a lot of courage to attack a book.

Of course, some books are heavy, especially those that are cloth-bound hardbacks.  They could fall from a shelf and fracture a skull or, at the least, cause bruising.  Ouch!  One could suffer a paper cut when paging through.  And then there are the ideas.  Oh, the ideas are most dangerous of all!  Very dangerous.  Must be destroyed.

So it is with great trepidation that we read in The New York Times that these wily books have been causing an uproar by demanding to be read.  Luckily, an army of ignoramuses, very good ignoramuses, I might add, the best.  They have been doing ignorance a long time.  They win at ignorance.  An army of ignoramuses has begun a counter-assault.  They have subdued and identified these books by defacing them with racist graffiti and swastikas to mark them for the dangerous miscreants they are.  We can’t have this.  We cannot have such ideas roaming free.

“There has been a spate of hate crimes targeting libraries, their books, or patrons, the authorities say—offenses they had rarely seen before,” writes Christopher Mele in the Times.

Who are these “authorities” who spread this fake news?

A student in a college library in New Mexico was attacked by a man who tried to rip off her hijab.  Who is this woman and what is she doing in New Mexico wearing a hijab?  Does she think she can just express her Islamic terrorism so freely in this country?  We have laws against this kind of expression of religion.

In Portland, Oregon, librarians at Reed College found racist graffiti and swastikas on library walls.  Now, we don’t know if these were actual racists or not, but they should just stop.  Until we know what they intend, what can we do?

In Toronto, Canada, a librarian found anti-Semitic graffiti scratched on library windows.  Just so happy it was not found here in America.  Canada is very weak on terrorism.  We really need to build two walls:  one on the border with Mexico and another on the border with Canada.  I’m sure everyone agrees that Canada is a dangerous country.  Very dangerous.

Right now, it seems, hate trumps reason, or truth, or decency, or intelligence.  Books are dangerous.  Ideas are dangerous.  Thank God we have the ignoramuses to protect us.  Don’t forget these are great ignoramuses.  The very best.  They will make America so ignorant, people will be sick of being ignorant.  We will be ignorant all the time.  America will be known for its ignorance.



1 comment:

  1. We're becoming a nation of idiots. No real leap to make that observation, I'm afraid. Keep promoting the life of the mind, Paul. You're doing good things.

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