Disagreeing with the "Banned Book Week…" article

The Truth about Liberty is the casualty of the article "Banned Book Week…" on Sept. 28. With liberty comes responsibility is the theme James Madison brought forth early in our nation's origins. Civil liberty necessarily restrains natural liberty for the safety and interests of the whole people and it's individuals, that's why we have laws.

We don't have the freedom to speak or write whatever we want whenever we want. Must I give the overused example of yelling fire in a crowded theater? Or just try writing about assassinating the President and see how long before the Secret Service puts you in jail. Or writing about plotting terrorist attacks. But responsibility goes farther than those examples.

Freedom with responsibility would not allow pornography, let alone child pornography, or any other kind of pro sexually deviant material to be written, published, distributed or viewed.

In the early days of our country this would not have been allowed, and its a travesty of liberty that it is today. It is a fact that pornography contributes to heinous crimes against men, women and children. Our society does not give the freedom to drink and drive because that contributes to the deaths of many innocent people. Why then is it that many libraries think that pornography should be available to people. Ted Bundy admitted that without porn he would not have become the mass murderer he was.

Book banning can be a good thing. I totally support the right for an individual or group to voice their opposition to any form of media that they believe harmful to their children or to society as a whole. The design of the Sept. 28 article is to make us believe that it is wrong to use the freedom of speech or press to oppose a book or any media that is believed or even proved harmful.

Can you believe it! The author of the article actually supports the freedom to write and make available a bad book over the liberty of citizens to ban a book. How devious to use examples like "Little Red Riding Hood" when the real agenda is to squelch anyone from opposing books like "Sex" by Madonna, "Daddy's Roommate," or "The New Joy of Gay Sex" and other books that try and destroy the foundations on which our country was built. The Judeo Christian ethic with it's moral laws signified in our Pledge of Allegiance, "One nation under God indivisable with liberty and justice for all." Real liberty does not long last without responsibility. The other kind of freedom ends up becoming chaos.

We need more people trying to ban books, but just be reasonable. If you don't want "Little Red Riding Hood" read to your child in school, maybe you should home school.

Robert A. Kehn

Libby