24
votes
Idaho libraries must move materials deemed harmful to children, or face lawsuits, under new law
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- Authors
- Kyle Pfannenstiel, Jacob Fischler, Mia Maldonado, Clark Corbin
- Published
- Apr 10 2024
- Word count
- 868 words
This is dystopian as f@ck. I feel so bad for anyone wanting to read (or view, listen to, etc) something this law deems "harmful". We know that by "harmful" they actually mean "anything that doesn't fit with our worldview". This affects adults and children alike. Ugh, I just can't anymore. So glad my child is an adult.
I'm increasingly convinced that "model legislation" is one of the fundamental problems with our government. But I don't know that there's any way to actually do anything about it. And I supposed I don't know if it's used for policies I support as well, but I'd really rather we not just copy/paste this sort of thing.
On one hand, having a proper template for a policy makes it much easier to insure it works as intended (especially if it's battle-hardened in court). This is a good thing when it comes to things like building safety inspections, or environmental regulations.
On the other, you get (gotta be charitable) extremely self-interested moral police whom will draft up a "please sign here" law that results in garbage like this being able to spread quickly.
Right like I can see that there are good reasons for it but damn if it doesn't always turn out that the worst policies definitely come pre-written from some of the worst organizations I can think of.
The alternatives are awkward though. Legislators and their aides are rarely, if ever, domain experts. I’ve had a lot of personal experience working in regulated industries and working with lobbyists and regulators, and draft legislation that was put together without industry input is frequently so broken that it would do more harm than good.
Yeah agreed, I just find it's consistently the source of the worst examples of legislation violating civil rights
Text of Bill No. 710:
(Edited to remove all the line breaks, line numbers, and strikethroughs, but keeping indentations to make it more legible)
p.s. IANAL, so please let me know if I messed anything up
I'm not a lawyer (or american), but let's see here...
Uh-huh.
Also:
As an average person, from what I know of teenagers, this means... basically anything?
Yeah, I think even without digging into it we all knew exactly what this shitty Bill to "protect the children!" was really about. It's yet another attempt by fundies to return the US to ridiculously outmoded puritanical values, and ban books with LGBT+ representation from libraries. :/
More book banning bullshit. Pen America is pursuing a first amendment lawsuit in Florida The outcome of that will likely have implications for all of these laws.
Sado-masochistic abuse" means flagellation or torture by or upon a person who is nude or clad in undergarments, a mask or bizarre costume, or the condition of being fettered, bound or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one who is nude or so clothed.
I get what they're going for but like wouldn't Spiderman technically count as someone in a bizarre costume that ties people up.
I'm so sorry for the folks that call Idaho home, but your state was the most shocking for me in terms of unexpectedly natural beauty and unexpectedly aggressive people. It was the first and only state I've ever been coal rolled on while riding my bike or kicked out of a restaurant for wearing a mask. And I was only in areas with people/buildings for 2 days. This bill feels right on the money.
Is there a ranking of "best to worst" states in terms of Republican crappiness? It sucks, I always had a soft spot for Idaho. I hope the migration of intelligence towards blue states accelerates.
Yes, but the problem with this is that it exacerbates it.