George Rebane

At a recent holiday social I chanced to talk with retired judge of a distinct leftward bent who assured me that “I am no leftwinger” while exhibiting all the symptoms of TDS and iconic traits of a progressive.  When we first discovered each other’s ideological orientations, he immediately announced that we should return to less contentious topics – as with most liberals, he was true to form and did not want to debate political matters with a conservative.  Nevertheless, as a parting shot, he did assert that the Left always wants to extend human rights while the Right seeks to stifle them.  As an example he cited book banning by rightwingers.

For evidence he expounded on the books denied to grade schoolers in some conservative school districts.  These would be books like Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (a memoir exploring nonbinary identity, often cited for explicit illustrations); All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (essays on growing up Black and queer); and titles from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas (fantasy with romantic and sexual elements).  For him age-appropriateness was not a factor to be considered for curating young children’s literature.

He was also not aware of any books banned by the politically correct Left.  When I mentioned that numerous leftwing activist organizations want to ban certain books for adults from the nation’s libraries, he was surprised and found it hard to believe that such titles included removals or restrictions of classics like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in some districts (e.g., Burbank, California), due to racial slurs and portrayals.  In short, challenges from progressive or left-leaning sources exist which apply to all of the nation’s readers.  The Left claims that their proscribed titles are properly focused on offensive language or stereotypes rather than broad ideological campaigns.  To them denying an eight-year-old the motivation and opportunity to question his own gender is part of the Right’s “broad ideological campaign” to stunt the proper development and education of our youth.

So there we have the main difference or asymmetry in how each side views the other’s disposition on education and access to information.  Parents in local school jurisdictions directing the education of their children is considered stifling by the Left, while their proscribing of established classics, history, and even science/math titles to our adult population, based on their interpretations of human rights, racism, homophobia, ethnic appropriation, white supremacy, …, is considered a public service promoting the common good of a society.  Shades of Stalinism and Nazism as expounded by Orwell.