To be clear I agree with you that the government has no responsibility to provide a library to anyone. The first amendment not only includes freedom of speech and freedom of association; it also includes freedom to information. If the government is providing a library, such as in a school; it should not be banning books for arbitrary reasons. I tend to trust the discretion of the librarian for which books are available in the library.
An arbitrary reason would be any reason that is used post hoc to ban books that wasn’t an issue until some outrage of the month (ie banning books like “black like me” or “to kill a mockingbird” because of anti-CRT panic)
I mean it’s fundamentally impossible to know about something before it’s, well, made known. Plenty of people have opposed obscene content in schools for ages. They simply hadn’t been made aware of anything specific or actionable until recently.
To be clear I agree with you that the government has no responsibility to provide a library to anyone. The first amendment not only includes freedom of speech and freedom of association; it also includes freedom to information. If the government is providing a library, such as in a school; it should not be banning books for arbitrary reasons. I tend to trust the discretion of the librarian for which books are available in the library.
And how do you define an arbitrary reason vs a legitimate one?
An arbitrary reason would be any reason that is used post hoc to ban books that wasn’t an issue until some outrage of the month (ie banning books like “black like me” or “to kill a mockingbird” because of anti-CRT panic)
I mean it’s fundamentally impossible to know about something before it’s, well, made known. Plenty of people have opposed obscene content in schools for ages. They simply hadn’t been made aware of anything specific or actionable until recently.