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Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five is considered a modern classic. That doesn’t mean it’s a particularly easy read. Indeed, it deals with some fairly heady topics. When I first encountered it in high school, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But it sure made me think, which, in my view, is what a good novel should do.

Funny thing about that thinking – some people see it as dangerous. And a few of those people sit on the school board in Republic, Mo.

The board voted 4-0 recently to ban Slaughterhouse-Five and another book, Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer, after a local resident complained that the books teach ideas contrary to the Bible.

Wesley Scroggins had originally targeted three books, but the board voted to keep one, Laurie Halse Anderson’s award-winning Speak, on the shelves. According to the Springfield News-Leader, Scroggins “challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible.”

After the vote, which removes the books from the curriculum and the school library, Scroggins said, “I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books. It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book.”...

If there’s any silver lining in this sorry incident, it’s this: Telling young people that they can’t or shouldn’t read a certain book or listen to a certain CD almost always causes a run on that book or CD. After all, it’s imperative to find out what it is that the adults don’t want you to see or hear.

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Welcome to Tea Party America - coming to your town soon.

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As a social conservative activist myself, I'm tired of the media dividing social conservatives and Tea Party activists in an attempt to conquer the broader "conservative" movement. There were articles following last weekend's Values Voters conference about social conservatives trying to stay relevant in the age of the Tea Party.

Is the media that dense? Palin, DeMint, Pence, O'Donnell, and Bachmann are social conservatives. We, social conservatives, are leading the Tea Party in the court of public opinion. Sure, the focus on issues may be a bit different now, but that's because we are a more sophisticated, diverse movement that understands when economic times are tough, people want to shake things up. This does not make us any less concerned about abortion or other traditional social issues. In fact, the people actually concerned are the Democrats and establishment Republicans that social conservatives have fought since the founding of the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition...

As social conservatives, we are ecstatic about the growth and influence of the Tea Party movement. Many of us felt like we were tolerated and courted by the establishment GOP but never truly belonged. Now, we have arrived.

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Social conservatives have always been anti-tax, fiscal conservatives and it is natural for us to join up and even lead the tea party. The Public Religion Research Institute reported that, “nearly half of tea party movement supporters also identify with the Christian conservative movement.” Further substantiating my claim, the survey found that those who identify with the Tea Party “are mostly social conservatives, not libertarians on social issues.”

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

Welcome to Tea Party America - coming to your town soon.

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

Mo. School Board Bans Books That Are ‘Contrary To The Bible’

....

Welcome to Tea Party America - coming to your town soon.

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes; fools and hypocrites. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.
-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, undated

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
-- Thomas Paine

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
-- George Washington, address to Congress, 8 January, 1790

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.
George Washington

I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.
-- George Washington

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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

Just because the Tea Party is relatively new, doesn't mean that any new book bannings should be attributed to the Tea Party.  [8|]

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ORIGINAL: slaveluci

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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

Just because the Tea Party is relatively new, doesn't mean that any new book bannings should be attributed to the Tea Party.  [8|]

She's totallly right. Self-righteous, ignorant, censurious assholes have always existed and have always tried to "protect" others from ideas they don't like or can't comprehend. It's not only the tea baggers and their ilk who do this. Sadly, people have been allowed to get away with it forever. To quote the brilliant Ray Bradbury: "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Fortunately, good parents get their children these "bad" books at home and don't depend on some self-censoring school library to provide them materials to open their minds.............luci

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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

Welcome to Tea Party America - coming to your town soon.

What utter tripe.  [8|]

Book bannings have been going on since the dawn of time (hyperbole there, folks).  Okay... so some small town (population less than 15,000 people as of 2009) banned a couple of books.  

Do I agree with their choices?  Not particularly, but it is their school system.   It affects their children, in the schools that they pay for.  If the majority of people don't like it, they'll elect a new school board and rescind the ban.  If they like it, more power to 'em.

Otherwise, it isn't yours or anyone else's business.

That being said, your reasoning that connects this particular book banning to the Tea Party is complete nonsense.  As I've pointed out, book bannings have been happening for a long time.  For that matter, Christians have existed for a long time.  Social conservatives have been around for a long time, too... and they aren't all Christians.

Just because the Tea Party is relatively new, doesn't mean that any new book bannings should be attributed to the Tea Party.  [8|]

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

They want the credit,they also get the blame....hun.

Extremist is as extremist does.

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

Five words.

Sarah Palin,tea-party leader.

Anything else I can help you with?

Now go get me a beer.

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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

Five words.

Sarah Palin,tea-party leader.

Anything else I can help you with?

Now go get me a beer.

Sorry... unless you can provide me a link showing where Sarah Palin or the Tea Party has claimed responsibility for the book banning in Republic, Missouri, you're simply talking out your ass.

So get your own damned beer.  [>:]

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ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

Real, I didn't say the founding fathers were atheists. However, they didn't believe in having a religion be the hammer that comes down on a society. They believed in secular government, a country were people had free speech and the right to read the books they wanted.

The fact that the Tea Party want to be so much like their Founding Fathers but act so unlike them is ironic. Sadly ironic.

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

She`s a fundie,

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ORIGINAL: Owner59

She`s a fundie,as are Bachmann and most of the other tea-party leaders.

Fundies push this shit.

The "link" between the GOP (or "tea-Party"whatever[8|]) and fundies is older than you.

Maybe if it was in cartoon form, you could understand?

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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

... mind showing me where the Tea Party has claimed credit for this?