Pushback: Missouri school libraries sue to keep porno on their shelves; Missouri lawmakers zero out library budget
Missouri House Republican Cody Smith
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In 2022 the Missouri legislature passed a law that made it illegal to provide any student with books containing images “‘showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse,’ ‘sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse,’ or showing human genitals.” The aim of the law was to put reasonable limits on the kind of material available in school libraries, and was passed in response to the recent nationwide effort by teachers and librarians to include such smut in these places.
A normal person’s response should be, “Gee, why do we need a law? What sane adult would ever give this stuff to kids? Isn’t that why we have a movie rating system?” A normal person would also note that anyone who did want to distribute this kind of porno to kids is really nothing more than a pedophile.
Well, it looks like the Missouri Association of School Librarians, the Missouri Library Association, and the ACLU are all pedophiles, when you get right down to it. These organizations immediately banded together to sue to overturn the law. They want to give kids porno.
On March 28, 2023 the Missouri House responded in turn to these pedophiles by passing a budget that cuts the entire $4.5 million budget for all public libraries. The cut was put forth by the House budget chairman Cody Smith, who said this:
“I don’t think we should subsidize that effort,” Smith said about the cut to money that flows through the budget of Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. “We are going to take out the funding and that is why.”
While this bill still needs to pass the state senate and be signed by the governor, it appears the House legislators are quite serious: You want to give porno to kids the taxpayer is not going to fund you to do it.
This same budget bill also included amendments aimed at cutting any program promoting the leftist and bigoted diversity, equity, or inclusion agenda.
Once again, these amendments are part of a budget that has to be passed by the state senate and signed by the governor. Based on history as well as some comments from some wimpy Republicans, it is unclear if any will survive the rest of the legislative process.
Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, said on Twitter Friday morning that the language is “is overly broad and would result in billions of dollars in cuts to hospitals, health care facilities, colleges and universities, and the Missouri House of Representatives itself.”
Rowden’s accusation here is pure bunkum, designed to produce panic in order to kill the measures. These measures will do nothing of the kind, and Rowden knows it.
We shall see if the Missouri House budget survives. Regardless, it is encouraging that some state legislators are finally willing to propose real concrete action — such as cutting budgets — instead of proposing the failure- theater-feel-good laws that Republicans have become known for.
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Missouri House Republican Cody Smith
Bring a gun to a knife fight: In 2022 the Missouri legislature passed a law that made it illegal to provide any student with books containing images “‘showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse,’ ‘sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse,’ or showing human genitals.” The aim of the law was to put reasonable limits on the kind of material available in school libraries, and was passed in response to the recent nationwide effort by teachers and librarians to include such smut in these places.
A normal person’s response should be, “Gee, why do we need a law? What sane adult would ever give this stuff to kids? Isn’t that why we have a movie rating system?” A normal person would also note that anyone who did want to distribute this kind of porno to kids is really nothing more than a pedophile.
Well, it looks like the Missouri Association of School Librarians, the Missouri Library Association, and the ACLU are all pedophiles, when you get right down to it. These organizations immediately banded together to sue to overturn the law. They want to give kids porno.
On March 28, 2023 the Missouri House responded in turn to these pedophiles by passing a budget that cuts the entire $4.5 million budget for all public libraries. The cut was put forth by the House budget chairman Cody Smith, who said this:
“I don’t think we should subsidize that effort,” Smith said about the cut to money that flows through the budget of Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. “We are going to take out the funding and that is why.”
While this bill still needs to pass the state senate and be signed by the governor, it appears the House legislators are quite serious: You want to give porno to kids the taxpayer is not going to fund you to do it.
This same budget bill also included amendments aimed at cutting any program promoting the leftist and bigoted diversity, equity, or inclusion agenda.
Once again, these amendments are part of a budget that has to be passed by the state senate and signed by the governor. Based on history as well as some comments from some wimpy Republicans, it is unclear if any will survive the rest of the legislative process.
Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, said on Twitter Friday morning that the language is “is overly broad and would result in billions of dollars in cuts to hospitals, health care facilities, colleges and universities, and the Missouri House of Representatives itself.”
Rowden’s accusation here is pure bunkum, designed to produce panic in order to kill the measures. These measures will do nothing of the kind, and Rowden knows it.
We shall see if the Missouri House budget survives. Regardless, it is encouraging that some state legislators are finally willing to propose real concrete action — such as cutting budgets — instead of proposing the failure- theater-feel-good laws that Republicans have become known for.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
When they whine and cry, you only have to read aloud, or show the pictures from the ‘books’. Then you can remind those people that you’re not banning anything, only removing it from children’s libraries.
Sick evil perverts, the lot of em. Leave the damn children out of it. Defund it. When they whine and cry, remove them from positions around children. Defund them.
Eliminate public funding for the undesirable, and private funding will produce only what is desirable!
The big publishers’ industry smiles.
Rowden is a special case, being from Columbia (or as we Missourians call it, “the People’s Republic of Boone [county]”). The only way he’s been able to stay in office as a Republican is by kowtowing to the university at every turn, hence his comments here.
No other Republican senators in the state are as beholden to a leftist constituency as he is, though that doesn’t at all mean they won’t fold in the end.
All laws rely on exact wording.
The sticking point could be the wording “or showing human genitals.”
This alone rules out huge numbers of old masters works including the whole of the Sistine Chapel. Every cherub has their stuff hanging out.
And what about biology textbooks?
The removal of biology textbooks is nearly irrelevant. They change so fast that anything in the library is junk, much like the Learning Windows 95 books).
This isn’t “generally available” it is “in libraries”, so the lack of art is sad, but hardly civilization ending. Whereas, corrupting children could very well be considered civilization ending (_I_ don’t think so, but it’s not a silly argument). Besides, how many people go to libraries to checkout art history books? It’s a non-zero number, I’m sure, but a small one.
Both arguments seem “perfect being the enemy of good enough” to me.