Burning Books is Wrong. But So is Banning Book Burning.

 On Facebook there was a post about Denmark banning the burning of the Quran and other holy texts.  The writer of the post proclaimed, "Absolutely absurd and an outright attack on free expression. Shame on the Danish Parliament."  But while I don't support the ban, I also can't support people who burn books, even books I don't agree with let alone like.

Of course saying that I don't support burning books opened up a can of worms.  The usual gamut of insults and illogical arguments.

"What about Mein Kampf?  Wouldn't you burn that?"  No, I wouldn't.  Because when you start saying some books are OK to burn, where do you stop?  And who decides?  And like Rod Serling said in a Twilight Zone about death camps, we need to keep evil books like Mein Kampf around so people will remember.  Erasing the bad can be just as harmful as erasing the good because it makes it easier for the bad to repeat itself.  Already you can see that happening as more and more survivors of the camps and veterans of the war die off; it becomes easier and easier for young idiots to think it's a hoax or just some story in a movie.  

"So I have to own a book forever?"  Um, no, there are plenty of non-burning ways to get rid of books you don't want.  Give them to a library, sell them to a used bookstore, sell them online, or like I've done before just leave them somewhere.

To which this idiot said, " If every moron gave their books to local library that would be too many books. How many books are sold in usa every year? You want to build libraries to keep them all?"

You think libraries keep every book donated forever?  And apparently no one ever checks them out.  Yeesh, such two-dimensional thinking.

"The only books I would choose to burn are *my* books to do with as I please. I wouldn't be burning somebody else's books."  The overly simplistic idea here is "as long as I own it I can do what I want."  OK, so as long as "Moms for Liberty" and other fascists BUY the books that's OK then?

"If they go out and buy copies of the books themselves and then decide to set their own property on fire, I'd encourage them to do it as many times as they want to increase sales and the profits of the (presumably) LGBT author. Do you think that's a bad thing? If so, why?"

I get it's America and capitalism is great and all that, but this isn't ONLY about money.  If authors of LGBT books put out books and make money but no one reads the books, then that's not really a happy ending.  The kind of books we're talking about aren't dreck like I put out that is just to make money; these are books about serious issues.  The point is for those books to be read, not just to make money.

Another thing about "my property" is you know what they say:  possession is 9/10 of the law.  So if people elect a fascist government and they take your books, does that make it their property at that point?  At which point, does that mean they're entitled to do whatever they want with it?  Including burning it?

The other thing about the "it's my property, I can do what I want" argument is the simple people who say this don't really think it through.  Just because you own something, doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it.  You can own a cat or dog but that doesn't mean you can butcher them or have sex with them or light them on fire.  There are things you can't do with cars and things you shouldn't be able to do with guns.

And really, until about 159 years ago, half the country could "rightfully own" people.  So by the ownership logic, a slave owner could light his slaves on fire if they displeased him.  It's his property, right?

To which someone said, "Books are just paper!"  Well if they're "just paper" why are people burning them in protest?  Obviously they aren't "just paper."  So that person called me a troll and tapped out.  And others just laughing reacted and tapped out.  When you can't fight with logic then just use icons and insults.

The point is the old saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right."  Fighting something bad with something bad doesn't make it right.  Whatever injustice you think you're fighting by burning books, it's still wrong.  And passing a law to ban that is also bad.  It's just two different flavors of fascism.  They're both pretty rancid.  A couple of other people also said something along those lines so at least it wasn't just me--for once.

On Friday I'm kinda sorta trying to bring Blogfests back!