Vocal Leftists, including the ACLU and the leadership of the American Library Association (ALA), are in full hoohaw about John Ashcroft, the Patriot Act, and the supposed erosion of our domestic freedoms in the name of fighting terror.
A few thoughts come to mind during Banned Books Week, an annual opportunity to stand up for intellectual freedom.
First, it's worth noting that Banned Books Week is sponsored mainly by the ALA, which has developed an elaborate conceptual infrastructure devoted to defending intellectual freedom. ALA has enshrined its position in the Freedom to Read, a code to which all thoughtful librarians are supposed to subscribe. Good stuff. But, how then does ALA make the leap from this devotion to liberty and human dignity to defending the right of perverts to consume pornography in public library facilities? And then to defending the despot Castro's oppression of independent libraries in his impoverished, enslaved nation?
Indeed, the leadership of ALA seems to aspire to become a political force like the National Education Association, and finds itself on the wrong side of history like so many fellow-travellers before them.
In NRO's The Corner this weekend, several self-described "conservative" librarians submitted bitter comments about ALA and were concerned enough about possible retaliation that they requested anonymity.
The ALA is certainly culpable. Stalinist, self-important, pin-heads who see themselves as the last defense against fascism make up most of the leadership. They pass resolutions on Cuba (good), Israel (bad) and American foreign policy (worse).But the re-education starts in grad school. What used to be Library Studies is now “Information Science.” Librarians (oops, I mean, Information Media Specialists) are constantly drilled in the notion that they and only they can properly deliver “Information Bearing Entities” (that’s books and stuff to you) to a public desperate for “critical thinking skills.” I once mentioned in an Archives class that the archivists of old learned their trade by working in archives, without the degree. People reacted as if I advocated home-surgery kits. This is the cult of the advanced degree. After all, when ALA denounced the dissident Cuban librarians who were jailed for operating private libraries, the number one complaint about these brave folks was that they did not have a Library Science degree.
If you want to be part of the Master Race you must have a Master’s Degree.
Turning back to Ashcroft (the Left's favorite bogeyman), Dorothy Rabinowitz, who is no stranger to examining the heavy hand of government oppression, demolishes this week the paranoia about the Attorney General of the United States:
The ACLU was the first to charge, after Sept. 11, that the government's antiterrorist measures and detention of terror suspects threatened civil liberties. Even as workers struggled to pull bodies from the mountain of rubble in downtown Manhattan, the ACLU and like-minded allies had begun issuing warnings that government efforts to prevent more terrorist assaults posed greater dangers to the nation--would destroy our Constitution and the America we have always known--than the terrorists could possibly do.The arguments found instant acceptance, not surprisingly, among faculty ideologues on the campuses. Who can forget the instantly organized teach-ins, where speakers argued, even as the nation mourned nearly 3,000 dead, that the United States had received just deserts for its policies? Efforts to protect ourselves with rational means of defense--investigations and apprehension of likely suspects, increased security measures, profiling--all connected with the spirit of these arguments: We--not the terrorists so avid for our destruction--were the enemy that would cause the demise of our democracy.
This was, and remains, claptrap of the rankest kind, which the great mass of sane Americans would never buy--and still, it cannot be ignored. It cannot be ignored, that is, that we are in a time never before seen in this country--a time produced in part by what remains of the politics and values of the 1960s, but only in part. For even in the '60s, we did not see what we do today--namely significant quarters of the culture, elite and popular, sympathetic to the views of those home and abroad most hostile to this nation. A time when talk of American "swagger" and "bullying" comes tripping from the tongue.
For such times John Ashcroft was a target made to order. Devoutly religious, appointee of George Bush, he could scarcely have been a better fit for the bogeyman figure advanced as the greatest threat to our civil liberties--the perfect model to fire up the crowds at marches, and breast-beating festivals. Not for nothing do the Democratic presidential candidates out-do themselves denouncing the attorney general: they know, the candidates do, what has filtered down to their base, their main audience, after all. They all know, as John Kerry does, that he can say whatever he wants about John Ashcroft--that he views, as a nightmare, members of other races creeds and religions, or anything else the Democratic candidate finds convenient--and it will all be understood, a mark of political virtue.
via OpinionJournal
Banned Books Week is a good opportunity to think, hard, about the freedom to read and other aspects of our fundamental liberties. It's also a time to ponder our responsibilities to protect our civilization, the welfare of our children, and our nation's existence when under attack by forces of medievalism and true repression.
Besides the above, here are some relevant links for those who want to explore further:
DOJ's Patriot Act sitePosted by Alan at September 23, 2003 05:04 PMLegislative history of the USA Patriot Act
Google links to USA Patriot Act sites (mostly anti-)
Google links to libraries and the USA Patriot Act (also mostly anti-)