Former President Barack Obama is profoundly political and completely wrong

The former President enters the book banning debate not by highlighting the troubling trend of retroactively editing classics for progressive political reasons, the presence of borderline pornography in schools, his party’s censorship crusade, or even defending a single book that was unfairly targeted by conservatives in his opinion.

Last week, former President Barack Obama wrote an open letter to librarians criticizing what he called a “profoundly misguided” effort by conservatives to ban books from libraries in public schools.  “In any democracy,” he began, “the free exchange of ideas is an important part of making sure that citizens are informed, engaged, and feel like their perspectives matter.  It’s so important, in fact, that here in America, the First Amendment of our Constitution states that freedom begins with our capacity to share and access ideas – even, and maybe especially, the ones we disagree with.”  “Today,” the former president continued, “some of the books that shaped my life – and the lives of so many others – are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas and perspectives.  It’s no coincidence that these ‘banned books’ are often written by our feature people of color, indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community – though there have also been unfortunate instances in which books by conservative authors or books containing ‘triggering’ words or scenes have been targets for removal.  Either way, the impulse seems to be to silence, rather than engage, rebut, learn from or seek to understand views that don’t fit our own.”  The former President goes onto insist that the world is watching, bemoaning that a “country built on freedom of expression…allows certain voices and ideas to be silenced.” This might sound good in principle, the way President Obama’s professorial tone often does while masking a much harder-nosed purpose, but sadly, the letter says a lot more about his political priorities than it does his commitment to the very principles he is brandishing about.

However he may try to spin it, the very debate the former President is calling for is happening right now, as parents voice their opinions about what they believe their children should and should not be exposed to in school. This is among the most natural and important conversations we can have. After all, there are rating systems for movies, video games, and warnings on explicit lyrics, expressively to prevent children from encountering content that is not age appropriate. President Obama and others, however, would have you believe these principles do not apply to content in written form and therefore, even explicit material should be available in a school library, provided it is written by a preferred progressive group, of course.  How explicit?  David Harsanyi, writing for The Federalist, recently provided some excerpts of these so-called banned books.  Lawn Boy, for example, features a ten year old boy engaged in lurid sex acts.  “What if I told you I touched another guy’s d-ck?’ I said…‘I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s d-ck in my mouth.’”  This was enough to earn high praise from the School Library Journal as an exploration of “race, sexual identity, and the crushing weight of American Capitalism.”  Likewise, the graphic novel, Gender Queer, describes how “I got off once while driving just by rubbing the front of my jeans and imagining getting a blow job.”  Meanwhile, Push features incest and child rape, while others such as It Feels So Good To Be Yourself is aimed at kindergartners and teaches them the mishmash of controversial non-binary and gender fluid terminology.  Does President Obama believe all of this should be read in school by any child of any age?  If so, perhaps he should organize a public event and read these passages to children himself, as other conservatives have recommended.

To be sure, there is evidence that parents have been objecting to books in larger numbers than ever before and we can imagine that some books are being incorrectly targeted.  The American Library Association claims that some 2,751 titles were “targeted for censorship” last year, an increase of 38% from 2021. It is likely that some books most people would not find objectionable are included on this list, but that is the purpose of having a debate. USA Today, for example, recently worried that even the immortal William Shakespeare might get caught up in the frenzy in states like Florida.  “To be or not to be on the shelf? New Florida school book law could restrict even Shakespeare” describes how experts are concerned about the future of the Bard in the Sunshine State.  The cynic in me wonders where these “experts” were when progressives were actively arguing that Shakespeare should be canceled, but let’s take them at their word for now.  School Media “Specialist” Kathleen Malloy claimed, “Even Shakespeare is suspect” because of a new law that restricts works describing “sexual conduct” and districts must “discontinue use of the material for any grade level or age group for which such use is inappropriate or unsuitable.”  Ms. Malloy believes that the law could even apply to a “very valuable as a piece of literature,” with only short scenes that fall under “sexual conduct” standard.  Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive.  Even a “very valuable piece of literature” could also contain material that is not suitable for children, especially younger children, the same as a masterful film can have an R-rating.  Shakespeare is particularly close to my heart, but that does not mean I would recommend all of his work to an eighth grader by any means.  In Titus Andronicus, for example, the title character’s daughter, Lavinia, is brutally raped, her hands are cut off and replaced with tree branches, and her tongue is cut out in a sequence more suited to modern torture flick.  Even the immortal Hamlet is ripe with murder, suicide, the suggestion of incest, and more.  This does not make it any less of a masterpiece, but it does make clear that because something is literature, doesn’t mean it is appropriate for all audiences. Perhaps most telling, however, is that President Obama himself does not name a single book, nor does Ms. Malloy actually cite an incident where Shakespeare has been removed (except by progressives). Instead, they talk only in generalities.

The letter becomes even more nakedly political when you consider no book has actually been banned.  If a progressive parent wishes, they can expose their children to whatever they like.  Instead, banned has been redefined as removed from public circulation in elementary schools, where children can stumble upon material their parents find unsuitable without supervision from those same parents.  You might well disagree with some of these choices – I probably would myself in some instances given I likely have a higher tolerance for what children should be exposed to – but public schools are supposed to represent what the majority of parents think appropriate, not some far left wing, right wing, or other philosophy.  It is here where we see the starkest and most frightening reminder that progressives no longer believe our children are our own.  They are now wards of the state, to be done with as they see fit.  Most were appalled when failed Virginia gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, declared “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision,” adding, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” but many progressives were enthused as this is precisely their plan.  President Biden himself came awfully close to saying this out loud, when he recently remarked, “There is no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.”  Presumably, that requires exposing them to whatever progressives wish, the will of the parents be damned.

Of course, what progressives wish is one-sided.  Their philosophy and insanities of the day, and nothing else.  President Obama blithely touched upon “unfortunate instances in which books by conservative authors or books containing ‘triggering’ words or scenes have been targets for removal” while completely failing to mention that an entire cottage industry of “sensitivity” writers has recently sprung into existence to cleanse works of content progressives find objectionable for whatever reason.  On the one hand, we are told it’s “profoundly misguided” censorship to object to passages about ten year olds engaging in oral sex, but on another, we are supposed to accept that classics from Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, and others are so controversial, they need to be edited for polite consumption.  A child can no longer read about a fat lady or “cloud men,” much less encounter the n-word, but outright pornography is not a problem.  If one were truly concerned about book banning, censorship, and the First Amendment, this is actually where it is occurring, en masse and driven entirely by progressives, who no longer believe you should be able to purchase a book with content they find objectionable, much less get a copy at a school library.

This is not merely a difference of degree, but one of kind.  Conservatives are engaged in a debate, expressing their opinion and voicing their objections, exactly as President Obama insists the First Amendment requires, even if we do not reach his preferred outcome.  Progressives, meanwhile, are actively editing works, sometimes without anyone’s knowledge, in an attempt to prevent people from encountering ideas they do not like, period.  Just last week, a petition prompted Country Music Television to suppress Jason Aldean’s new song, Try That in a Small Town, and progressives cheered citing racial insensitivity.  An article on MSNBC claimed he “almost” got away with it. What I am not so sure, but whatever it was, progressives stopped him. The irony is even richer when you consider that in recent years, progressives have sought to silence active debate of any kind.  It was also last week that Democrat politicians attempted to censor a House Committee meeting on censorship by silencing a member of their own part, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  It is Democrats who are championing government collusion with social media companies to censor public speech, reacting in outrage when a judge recently barred coordination between the federal agencies and Twitter, but suddenly we are supposed to believe conservatives are “profoundly misguided.”  That may be so in some cases, but right now former President Barack Obama is being profoundly political, nothing more and nothing else.  It is unfortunate because a person of his stature in the public mind is uniquely well positioned to address a troubling trend towards suppressing ideas we do not like, one which to me seems far more prevalent on the left than the right, but is worthy of discussion either way.  Instead of focusing on the reality of what is happening, even if that would include defending some books he believes were unfairly targeted, President Obama chose to play cheap politics, benefiting no one except perhaps himself.