• Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
    187·
    4 months ago

    Found the article.

    It’s so incredibly stupid how he takes himself so seriously; he’s like if Poirot had a satchel of lead beads he would stick up his nose occasionally.

    And then like a coward he won’t elaborate on his master plan of making education and edification punishable by law.

    He wasted important people’s time and then just fucked off, pretending it never happened.

    What a dunce; no wonder he became a cop.

    • CO5MO ✨@midwest.socialEnglish
      121·
      4 months ago

      TY for sharing the article!

      “London, who has ties to the anti-government constitutional sheriff’s movement and tried to launch a local chapter of the far-right Oath Keepers militia in 2020, did not respond to questions.” No surprises here.

      Also, homeschooling parents complaining @ a school board meeting? Wtf?? 🤔

      • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
        72·
        4 months ago

        Also, homeschooling parents complaining @ a school board meeting? Wtf?? 🤔

        Reactionary entitlement knows no bounds.

      • modifier@lemmy.caEnglish
        361·
        4 months ago

        Speaking as someone who was homeschooled by people like this K-12, it’s all about control. They only home school because it’s the only way to control what their children learn, but if they can control what all children learn, well, that will do just fine.

        • Kedly@lemm.eeEnglish
          21·
          4 months ago

          So like I get what you’re getting at, but even in the most altruistic choice to honeschool a child, where you are doing it so you can best meet their educational needs, wouldnt it still be a control level decision? You’d be choosing homeschool over public so you could have more control over meeting your childs needs

          • modifier@lemmy.caEnglish
            5·
            4 months ago

            I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, exactly. People homeschool for a variety of reasons; sometimes that is to have more control over the learning schedule or to have more control over the level of stimulation a child receives. Most of these seem like responses to an emergent circumstance rather than a wholesale rejection of a system of learning.

            That seems like an unnecessary distinction though, since I already specified that this is about controlling what children can learn, not how or when.

            My parents didn’t homeschool me to accommodate a strange schedule or to ease any kind of social anxiety I had. They homeschooled me to prevent me from encountering anything that would challenge the idea that the God literally made the earth in 7 days six thousand years ago and that the Bible was the literal and perfect word of God.

            Seems like a different conversation entirely.

            • Kedly@lemm.eeEnglish
              5·
              4 months ago

              Yeah ok, my bad, It was a reading fail on my part. You did indeed specify what they wanted to control and I entirely missed that and read it as control in general, so not only was I being pedantic, I was also wrong xD. Sorry about that!

      • VerdantSporeSeasoning@lemmy.caEnglish
        17·
        4 months ago

        I was reading another article about this same town (Granbury, Texas), discussing a massive bitcoin mining operation literally giving the people & animals there sonic damage. Anyhow, the cop there trying to make things better is also noted as a former Oathkeeper. So… I guess that’s part of the local ‘culture’ 🤦‍♀️

        Also, if you want to hear more in-depth coverage of Texas school district fuckery, one of the authors of the above articles, Mike Hixenbaum, has two podcasts and a book about it: Southlake (2021-2022), Grapevine (2023), and They Came for the Schools (2024). I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend any of them.

      • fukurthumz420@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        4 months ago

        it would be a shame if a group of leftists turned the tables on him and made him feel intimidated. it would be even more despicable if someone just carried through on the threats and we never had to worry about that piece of shit ever again.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.eeEnglish
      45·
      4 months ago

      So this guy went around reading books found in a children’s library that he thought were disgusting. Then he looked up the names of the children who checked them out?

      That sounds like something a pervert would do.

      • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        4 months ago

        This is one reason why most libraries don’t keep records of individual’s past checkouts.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      4 months ago

      The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature — such as “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison — that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.

      Summary of The Bluest Eye from Wikipedia:

      The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison’s hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as “ugly” due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with “whiteness”.

      The novel is told mostly from Claudia MacTeer’s point of view. Claudia is the daughter of Pecola’s temporary foster parents. There is also some omniscient third-person narration. The book’s controversial topics of racism, incest, and child molestation have led to numerous attempts to ban the novel from schools and libraries in the United States.[1]

      Now, if he read the book, like he claims to have read it, he would know that the only obscene thing in the book is that it shows why things like racism and incest are, themselves, obscene. And that sounds like something kids should learn.

      Unless, of course, this cop doesn’t find one or both of those things obscene and rather finds the obscene thing to be telling people racism and/or incest is wrong…

    • entropicshart@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      Wait until he find out about the internet and all the “obscene” content it has, a simple search away from any electronic device his children have.

  • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    146·
    4 months ago

    From the article:

    Paul Hyde, a Granbury attorney who served on the volunteer committee tasked with reviewing dozens of school library books, said he informally advised two of the accused librarians early in London’s investigation and saw the toll it has taken on them.

    “These women, that are amazing educators and librarians, have been terrified for over two years now that they’re going to get arrested, hauled off to jail on a felony charge of providing pornography to minors,” Hyde said, noting that one of the librarians left the district as a result.

    “We lost a great librarian,” he said.

    Anyone who thinks it’s a non-issue because charges weren’t filed should understand that intimidation is the point. It looks like the intimidation worked.

    • baltakatei@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      16·
      4 months ago

      Drive out enough librarians and eventually youʼll find yourself needing to drive 4 hours to get a tool pulled or a melanoma whacked off since good dentists and doctors usually want decent schools with libraries for their kids.

      • Rev3rze@feddit.nlEnglish
        15·
        4 months ago

        needing to drive 4 hours to get a tool pulled

        This is why you should always use tools with a flared base.

  • gdog05@lemmy.worldEnglish
    99·
    4 months ago

    The five year investigation concluded when he finished reading the three books.

  • cybersandwich@lemmy.worldEnglish
    86·
    4 months ago

    This reminds me of the south park sting episode where the cop is just blowing dudes (dressed up like a hooker) and yelling “busted!”

    This guy’s is just reading whatever smut he can find then yelling “busted”

    Lmfao

    • orbitz@lemmy.caEnglish
      91·
      4 months ago

      You know what I’m saying?

      I got minimal more to add (okay had more than I expected) except that’s such a power tripping cop, like let’s attack people who help kids expand their horizons. To be fair I’m extremely pro library, even had a chance to work in one for a summer yay small towns. Had to read to pass time in the long before internet era (well not much before really) with limited video games available.

      Anyways libraries and librarians rock and don’t need to be targeted for offering kids (or anyone) a way to explore a world or think in a new way.

  • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    55·
    4 months ago

    Dream job lol. Do whatever you want, no strings attached, no requerements, no responsibility, and you are entitled to a higher position in any dispute with civilians. They aren’t a part of the working class, they are a class of their own, lapdogs of the ones in power. How could this happen?

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.eeEnglish
    40·
    4 months ago

    But they distributed them to a adult man, not a minor.

    I mean, I’m sure he has baby-brain, but that’s not legally binding.

    • Adalast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      4 months ago

      They didn’t distribute them to him either, he fucking took pictures then went home and found PDFs or used police funds to purchase eBook copies.

      • Random DentEnglish
        14·
        4 months ago

        Which I assume he didn’t actually read, but rather just did a Ctrl+F and typed in as many rude words as he could think of.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.eeEnglish
    26·
    4 months ago

    This is a MUCH BETTER use of Taxpayer Dollars then LITERALLY FEEDING STARVING CHILDREN IN AMERICA (which Republican States opted OUT OF because then they wouldn’t have Tax Dollars to do THIS!)!

  • hopesdead@startrek.websiteEnglish
    231·
    4 months ago

    Why don’t stores that sell books get the same amount of scrutiny? I see A Court of Thorns and Roses books everywhere.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.devEnglish
      322·
      4 months ago

      Serious answer, probably because books from book stores aren’t available to the poorest classes. Libraries are (and are meant to be!) a threat to every status quo.

    • Starrifier@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      4 months ago

      Because this is a boil-the-frog situation. The path is k-12 school libraries -> public libraries -> academic libraries and bookstores. The way fascists get the public comfortable with the idea of banning books is by starting with examples that look like “common sense” to the uninformed, and then ramp up the attacks as they gain institutional power.

      While attempts to ban books from stores are currently few and far between, one notable example was this attempt to get Gender Queer removed from the shelves of bookstores in Virginia: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/20/gender-queer-barnes-and-noble/