This is the context - an Idaho law that penalizes any library that allows minors access to "inappropriate" content, and lets each child's parent define what "inappropriate" means. So libraries could be penalized if, for example, a homeschooled Christian child reads a book on biology that mentions evolution or a YA novel with a gay character, and their parents object to it. Or if a liberal parent objects to their child reading the Bible or Quran.
Given the wide scope and uncertain limits of this law, some Idaho libraries are banning minors entirely. As was, I suspect, the goal.
Laws like this are becoming widespread in red states and will likely become federal law with Project 2025.
The United States is becoming a nation where parents' right to keep their kids stupid and bigoted is more important than children's right to learn. And if that isn't a sign of collapse I don't know what is.
I searched "book burning in history" and every hit was about the Nazi's. Pretty fitting. It's still the Nazi's a hundred years later.
A public library is literally the qunticential place a parent would WANT to find their child. If they're in the library, they're not out doing damage in town or in any physical danger. And now kids are banned. Genius.
Can you imagine having a paper to write and your mommy and daddy have to go sign an affadavit for you at the public library because you're a 16 year old and need to be protected... from books? I went to college with a 16 year old who graduated hs early - I guess she would have needed protection from studying in the school library. Can't have her... learning... (which, of course, is the point.)
Thankfully, conservatives are still stuck in the distant past and apparently don't know about the internet? Or eReaders? There is zero chance of corking any of the information they are trying to surpress - so what is stage 2 of this absurdity, exactly? We need to stop this shit in it's tracks, but we also need to be aware of the long term goals.
The goal is probably to kill library attendance numbers so that they can say nobody is going to the library, and cancel the budget. Then they're free to use that money for other things, kick-backs to their nephew who is a housing developer, extra M16's for the cops, or whatever.
Ah, this is probably it. In my head I forgot for a sec that it's never ACTUALLY about protecting the kids - this is the next step.