A banned book is a serious matter. There have been books banned in US history. For example, a number of cities banned Elmer Gantry. Further, the federal government at times banned materials in the District of Columbia under the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act, which was better known for banning the use of the US Postal Service to send obscene materials.

Those bannings, while rare, did happen. These days though, there aren’t books being banned in America. Those saying otherwise are repeating comforting lies. Leftists, led by the weirdly extremist American Library Association, tell themselves these things so they can feel superior to others.

The lack of a banned book problem is so striking though, Dan Kleinman points out that press outlets are starting to notice, who otherwise would just parrot the “banned and challenged books line.” That’s the trick wording: The American Library Association is trying to get you to equate ‘banned books’ (which are a thing that mostly happens in the Islamic world) with ‘challenged books.’

‘Challenged books’ are an entirely different matter altogether. Challenged books aren’t even a matter of law, or related to society at large. A book is considered ‘challenged’ if one parent challenges its placement in a single school library somewhere in America. It doesn’t even matter if the book is even removed from that school library. The book is now counted as a “banned or challenged book.”

“Banned books in America” are like “the gunshow loophole” and “Bush lied about WMDs.”. Their existence is a Known Fact™ that simply isn’t so.

Photo by Kate Mereand-Sinha on Flickr