Are we losing our culture of free speech?

@ElwoodBlues This is why the "Enlightened Centrism" bullshit pisses me off. We have this open fascist movement that we should be destroying any way we can, and we have morons equating this with people boycotting J.K. Rowling.

@ElwoodBlues Uncle Sam still dare tell the rest of the world that is the "Land Of The Free" when even something as neutral and universal as Mathematics is subject to censorship?

The Taliban would be impressed!

That map shows more than half of the USA by area affected, but I don't know how that equates to population. It's curious that the number of proscribed titles is either under-50 or over 250. I wonder what is behind that? ]

I can imagine these states sharing lists to produce a coherent policy across as much of the USA as possible, but perhaps, luckily, that's not occurred to them.

If it is now a serious criminal offence for Florida teachers to display (i.e. even simply admit the existence) of certain books; what of public libraries and book-shops?

What of private ownership? What if a school were to discover that some student's family had read and enjoyed one of the banned ones; or found a student reading a physical or on-line copy? What would it do if other pupils asked that individual what these books are about?

What of someone circumventing the ban by buying copies by mail-order, or physically when on holiday in a free state or abroad?

Have the censors also thought that banning a book on some spurious grounds might actually increase its sales on the "Forbidden Fruits" principle?

.....

[i]As far as I know[/i], the last attempt in Britain to ban a serious work of fiction by a noted author was against D.H. Lawrence's [i]Lady Chatterley's Lover[/i].

Its publication in unexpurgated form complete with four-letter words and explicit scenes, resulted in an obscenity charge against its publishers, Penguin Books.

At the High Court hearing it was stoutly if rather pretentiously defended for its literary merit by a string of literati. Years later they did admit it not one of Lawrence's better works, but they were defending the right not the story. The prosecution case collapsed in ridicule thanks to its own barrister's well-meaning but socially-ignorant, overweeningly-pompous summing-up to the jury. It was though banned for a time at least, in some other nations, including the USA that has no qualms about gratuitous swearing and violence in films.

More recently [i]LCL[/i] appeared in some GCE Advanced-Level (ages 16 - 18) English Literature syllabi, in British schools; but I don't know if they use editions with the language and explicitness toned down a bit without spoiling the sense and nature of the text.

The footnotes in my school copy of Shakespeare's [i]A Midsummer Night's Dream,[/i] explained that in the "Rude Mechanicals' " earthy humour, "French Crowns" was V.D.; while in Macbeth, "drab" mentioned by the Three Witches means "prostitute". Shock horror: children aged only 14-15 learning 16-17C sexual slang from their set school texts.

When was that infamous trial?

1960. [/i]Sixty-three years ago![/i]

@ElwoodBlues @BohemianBoo you are against all censorship? (I think you will know where this is going)