DeSantis hasn’t prevented any adults from reading any books.

He has prevented government employees and licensed child educators from providing certain books to children, in the context of government mandated education.

There’s a key distinction:

- Facebooks censors consenting adults

- Florida restricts government actors in their relating to the public

Those are not alike things.

So, you have no problem, I assume, with the "woke" governors banning or revising classic children's books to remove anything offensive? Right?

You know, to prevent "government employees and licensed child educators from providing certain books to children, in the context of government mandated education."

I'll wait.

In parent's defense, banning kids from reading certain books is not the same as "woke" governors banning or revising classic books for _everyone_, not just kids.

If people are banning books at school because the content can be bad for kids (debatable on what "bad" means obviously) then the parents can go get the book from elsewhere and have their kids read it at home. Whatever. But changing books for everyone is stupid.

This seems like a great case against public education, since the mechanism to address this "whoever is in power decides" situation is of course competition and free choice.

Indoctrination of children is just natural a natural consequence of everyone having their biases. Parents are the ones who should choose, because that is how we have diversity. Home schooling gives parents the most choice, private school a step down, but public school is where the parent matters the least and we end up in perpetual holy wars like this.

> Indoctrination of children is just natural a natural consequence of everyone having their biases

Not for a second. There is such thing as education.

Exactly, and its actually generally blue states that have centralised education, and places like florida that allow chartered schools and similar ones.

So if you want to setup a private school in florida with LGBTQ+ education, I'm pretty sure you can just do that.

Not if you want to receive school voucher funds.

OK, and? It's still a free market. If people want schools with LGBTQ+ education, set one up, and do it. You can.

Why should local government help? Especially if that local government was specifically elected to not support issues like this?

Because local government has the power to collect taxes. If it chooses to selectively hand them out only to favored political institutions, then in practice this means many students won't be able to afford to attend their favored schools, and some schools will be financially non-viable. It may be the case that such schools will still exist in this environment (with a smaller student body), but that doesn't make the issue less problematic.

Are you talking about a hypothetical place where schools are self-funded or something, or are you talking about Florida still? It's not that much of a free market if conservative-friendly charter schools get subsidized by the state but LGBTQ friendly schools don't.

I agree with this strongly except indoctrination is not inevitable. It’s not synonymous with teaching/learning.

But it absolutely points to the problem of government in education. I don’t think most people realize how recently the schools came under the thumb of the federal government. Department of Education only started in 1980 and it hasn’t exactly raised the bar in that time.

It places constraints on educators (the experts) which make it easy to administer but harder for the educators to educate.

I don't get your reasoning, sorry. Desantis banned certain books from being taught. Anyone can go out and buy those books.

You specifically say "woke" governors banning or revising classic children's books" which is not the same thing. While I'm not familiar with this idiotic part of american politics, that does sound like the governors are actually banning these books or changing them?

That's NOT what Desantis did.

And as far as I'm concerned, yes, any publisher as a private company should have the power to change a book if they want, but then don't be upset about the blowback. You can do whatever you want as a private company, but don't expect your customer to just take it. Eventually it might hurt your profits, at which point your shareholders might have a case for a lawsuit too.

No that’s the point. He’s just doing what those people have been doing since I was a kid and only once it goes the other way is it some horrible censorship. This is why he’s liked by so many, he’s effective at beating them at their own game.

It’s a bit amusing that your comment is making fun of Americans for widely holding an untrue belief, and then you conveniently make an example of yourself doing the exact same thing. I usually find it’s about three comments deep that Americans find a way to start taking potshots at the other team whenever the concepts of “censorship” or “freedoms” arise. Canadians and Europeans are usually able to discuss these things without referencing Trump or Biden or Clinton or whomever is on the American mind these days. It’s as if one can’t imagine a world where censorship is anything but a tool the evil Red/Blue team will use to steal the next election.

I fail to see any value in trying to compare hugely diverse populations of hundreds of millions of people against each other and their ability to discuss nuanced political topics. It feels like you're just hashing out some intuitions based on what's come across your twitter feed or something? It's your prerogative to do so, but don't convince yourself it's a meaningful insight.

"whatever is on the American mind these days" lol.

Not sure what gave you the impression that I have any love for the MAGA or the self-righteous "woke".

I have never heard of this “widely held belief”.

There are many who are aware of QAnon. A portion of those are aware that it revolves around insane conspiracy theories, and only a fraction of those know the details of what that even is.

Only a few journalists have ever ventured out to explore that world, as it's really not good for one's mental health.

Dont you think there are some books that shouldn’t be in schools? Surely you can grant that it’s correct not to disseminate certain information to children.

I don’t think you have a problem with that, I think you agree with what critics call wokeism.

> Ron DeSantis bans books and he is just "anti-woke"

Although I don't necessarily disagree with you in principal here, it's worth noting that the precedent that allows him to ban LGBT books is the original banning of prayer in schools. The fact that school attendance is actually compulsory takes a little of the bite off of your argument, though - social media participation is entirely voluntary.