I cannot recall ever seeing a criticism of libraries anywhere; certainly not in the print press or on television. That’s why I thoroughly enjoyed a WND piece by Dave Tombers who begins with this:
I’ll begin my comments with funding.
Federal, state and local governments; i.e., tax dollars, fund libraries. Some private donations are in the mix, but I doubt if any brick & mortar library could survive on private gifts. Aside from the economics involved, libraries glorify the printed word in one of the most self-serving institutions in America while doing nothing for wisdom.
Bottom line on funding: Tax dollars funding libraries is an indirect subsidy to the publishing industry.
Are libraries necessary?
I’d have to answer yes and no. By that I mean fiction, history, biographies, and all non-technical books should be housed in buildings paid for, and maintained, by the publishing industry.
History deserves special mention
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana (1863-1952).
Santayana’s trite truism just doesn’t standup under scrutiny. Thanks to history books, history teachers, television, radio, movies, and public education everybody knows all about past events, yet I suspect they will continue to relive them anyway.
It seems to me too much time is spent studying history. To me, reading history so you can predict the future is an awful lot like reading the Daily Racing Form’s “Past Performances” so you can predict the outcome of a race yet to be run by horses of questionable ancestry.
Knowing all about historical events going back thousands of years hasn’t done much to keep the world from repeating the same old forms of government over and over again. Socialism/communism, which is a relatively new variation of government, is basically no different than every other totalitarian government that ever was. That alone should give good people food for thought concerning the value of learning where the political world has been. Nobody has to read history to know where governments are going; they never change their destination.
The greatest form of government ever devised given to us by the Founding Fathers is the one exception and it is losing ground. I have a feeling that when America is gone governments will see that limited government is never repeated.
Resisting tyrants in your own time and place, as this country’s Founding Fathers did in their time, is the point. I doubt very much if the Founders looked in history books in order to find out what they should or should not do. The word ‘history’ appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it only refers to a living King Georges’ conduct. The founders applied commonsense to the political problem at hand. That beats a knowledge of history every time. And you can be sure that those people who abuse power will not stop doing it just because they know how the fate of a few long dead oppressors turned out. The public learns the names of dead dictators, while live dictators learn not to make the same mistakes their role models made.
Aside from knowledge of our individual fields of endeavor in search of a buck most of us know more about wars, modern and ancient, than we know about any other subject. To me, that says that killing is being taught as if some humans require lessons in the subject.
It is said that Egyptians living in the time of the pharaohs were overly fascinated with death. If that is true, maybe it’s time for the US to try shutting down the history department in every institution that accepts tax dollars that are then spent teaching about dead events and even deader people. Since the human race seems to be getting less humane with a mountain of treacherous historical facts in their heads there is nothing to lose by shutting down history departments —— nothing to lose except a few bucks should we ever get on Double Jeopardy and history is one of the categories.
If teaching history is actually shutdown maybe there will come a generation that spends more time looking forward rather than looking back. If the day ever comes when no one, including myself, will have to refer to past events in order to have a shot at more freedom from government everyone except history teachers will be a lot better-off.
When all is said and done exactly why are historians stumbling all over one another picking up the money if they’re not propagandists with licenses to tell stories?
Necessary libraries
Law libraries, medical libraries, scientific, technical books, etc., should be housed in libraries paid for and maintained by tax dollars. Even there, foot traffic should determine how long they stay open. To serve the public as physical structures disappear, tax dollars should be used to setup a website to provide all of the scientific and technical books one finds in brick library.
Naturally, The Library of Congress would be permitted to stock works of fiction because it is more museum than library.
Colleges and universities should not get a tax dollar of any kind until every work of fiction is removed from their libraries. Note that history books, biographies, autobiographies, and so on are more fiction than fact.
Admittedly, a grain of truth can be found in a piece of fiction. The problem is all of the B.S. one has to wade through to find that grain. The fiction section in every library contains 99.9999999 percent B.S. That’s a lot of manure to handle looking for a grain of truth. You’re better off looking in your own life’s experience.
My suggestion would work out real well should colleges and universities refuse to comply. Nothing would serve the public better than stopping all tax dollars from going to institutions of higher learning.
Presidential libraries
Journalists and researchers looking to write a book are the only people who read anything in a presidential library. For all practical purposes, they are libraries where nobody goes to read a book.
Presidential libraries are built with private funds then donated to the federal government so that taxpayers end up paying for staffing and maintenance. Need I say more?
Reading & Writing
The greatest myth surrounding libraries is the one that says libraries are an essential component in literacy. That line of reasoning is so absurd it defies logic. Individuals who read and write well spend very little time in libraries, if any. In the past, professional writers might have used libraries for research purposes, but they certainly have no need for them today.
Ordinary people who do not read and write well sure as hell won’t learn those skills in a library. Public education cannot teach reading and writing; so how the hell is a library where silence is required going to teach those skills?
And sure I’d like to see the library that teaches reading comprehension. It would have to be something out of a science fiction movie judging from the liberals I’ve come across on message boards.
Videos & CDs
Under no circumstance should a library get a tax dollar if it stocks movie CDs. It is my understanding that libraries everywhere provide the worst, most destructive, fiction of all in the form of CDs. Fiction becomes propaganda in every movie. That brings me back to Dave Tombers’ piece:
And this:
Revealed: The evil lurking in libraries
Association accused of 'prostituting itself out to issue propaganda'
Published: 15 hours ago
by DAVE TOMBERS
Revealed: The evil lurking in libraries
Not only do tax dollars fund libraries, I’m sure Soros takes a tax deduction for his “large grant.” That means you and I pay for propaganda promoting open borders, global government, and the entire the Socialist agenda.
Let me close by reminding everyone that The Iron Heel by Jack London was the only book by an American author that Stalin allowed in Soviet libraries. I don’t think it was there for entertainment purposes.
I’ll begin my comments with funding.
Federal, state and local governments; i.e., tax dollars, fund libraries. Some private donations are in the mix, but I doubt if any brick & mortar library could survive on private gifts. Aside from the economics involved, libraries glorify the printed word in one of the most self-serving institutions in America while doing nothing for wisdom.
Bottom line on funding: Tax dollars funding libraries is an indirect subsidy to the publishing industry.
Are libraries necessary?
I’d have to answer yes and no. By that I mean fiction, history, biographies, and all non-technical books should be housed in buildings paid for, and maintained, by the publishing industry.
History deserves special mention
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana (1863-1952).
Santayana’s trite truism just doesn’t standup under scrutiny. Thanks to history books, history teachers, television, radio, movies, and public education everybody knows all about past events, yet I suspect they will continue to relive them anyway.
It seems to me too much time is spent studying history. To me, reading history so you can predict the future is an awful lot like reading the Daily Racing Form’s “Past Performances” so you can predict the outcome of a race yet to be run by horses of questionable ancestry.
Knowing all about historical events going back thousands of years hasn’t done much to keep the world from repeating the same old forms of government over and over again. Socialism/communism, which is a relatively new variation of government, is basically no different than every other totalitarian government that ever was. That alone should give good people food for thought concerning the value of learning where the political world has been. Nobody has to read history to know where governments are going; they never change their destination.
The greatest form of government ever devised given to us by the Founding Fathers is the one exception and it is losing ground. I have a feeling that when America is gone governments will see that limited government is never repeated.
Resisting tyrants in your own time and place, as this country’s Founding Fathers did in their time, is the point. I doubt very much if the Founders looked in history books in order to find out what they should or should not do. The word ‘history’ appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it only refers to a living King Georges’ conduct. The founders applied commonsense to the political problem at hand. That beats a knowledge of history every time. And you can be sure that those people who abuse power will not stop doing it just because they know how the fate of a few long dead oppressors turned out. The public learns the names of dead dictators, while live dictators learn not to make the same mistakes their role models made.
Aside from knowledge of our individual fields of endeavor in search of a buck most of us know more about wars, modern and ancient, than we know about any other subject. To me, that says that killing is being taught as if some humans require lessons in the subject.
It is said that Egyptians living in the time of the pharaohs were overly fascinated with death. If that is true, maybe it’s time for the US to try shutting down the history department in every institution that accepts tax dollars that are then spent teaching about dead events and even deader people. Since the human race seems to be getting less humane with a mountain of treacherous historical facts in their heads there is nothing to lose by shutting down history departments —— nothing to lose except a few bucks should we ever get on Double Jeopardy and history is one of the categories.
If teaching history is actually shutdown maybe there will come a generation that spends more time looking forward rather than looking back. If the day ever comes when no one, including myself, will have to refer to past events in order to have a shot at more freedom from government everyone except history teachers will be a lot better-off.
When all is said and done exactly why are historians stumbling all over one another picking up the money if they’re not propagandists with licenses to tell stories?
Necessary libraries
Law libraries, medical libraries, scientific, technical books, etc., should be housed in libraries paid for and maintained by tax dollars. Even there, foot traffic should determine how long they stay open. To serve the public as physical structures disappear, tax dollars should be used to setup a website to provide all of the scientific and technical books one finds in brick library.
Naturally, The Library of Congress would be permitted to stock works of fiction because it is more museum than library.
Colleges and universities should not get a tax dollar of any kind until every work of fiction is removed from their libraries. Note that history books, biographies, autobiographies, and so on are more fiction than fact.
Admittedly, a grain of truth can be found in a piece of fiction. The problem is all of the B.S. one has to wade through to find that grain. The fiction section in every library contains 99.9999999 percent B.S. That’s a lot of manure to handle looking for a grain of truth. You’re better off looking in your own life’s experience.
My suggestion would work out real well should colleges and universities refuse to comply. Nothing would serve the public better than stopping all tax dollars from going to institutions of higher learning.
Presidential libraries
Journalists and researchers looking to write a book are the only people who read anything in a presidential library. For all practical purposes, they are libraries where nobody goes to read a book.
Presidential libraries are built with private funds then donated to the federal government so that taxpayers end up paying for staffing and maintenance. Need I say more?
Reading & Writing
The greatest myth surrounding libraries is the one that says libraries are an essential component in literacy. That line of reasoning is so absurd it defies logic. Individuals who read and write well spend very little time in libraries, if any. In the past, professional writers might have used libraries for research purposes, but they certainly have no need for them today.
Ordinary people who do not read and write well sure as hell won’t learn those skills in a library. Public education cannot teach reading and writing; so how the hell is a library where silence is required going to teach those skills?
And sure I’d like to see the library that teaches reading comprehension. It would have to be something out of a science fiction movie judging from the liberals I’ve come across on message boards.
Videos & CDs
Under no circumstance should a library get a tax dollar if it stocks movie CDs. It is my understanding that libraries everywhere provide the worst, most destructive, fiction of all in the form of CDs. Fiction becomes propaganda in every movie. That brings me back to Dave Tombers’ piece:
And this:
Revealed: The evil lurking in libraries
Association accused of 'prostituting itself out to issue propaganda'
Published: 15 hours ago
by DAVE TOMBERS
Revealed: The evil lurking in libraries
Not only do tax dollars fund libraries, I’m sure Soros takes a tax deduction for his “large grant.” That means you and I pay for propaganda promoting open borders, global government, and the entire the Socialist agenda.
Let me close by reminding everyone that The Iron Heel by Jack London was the only book by an American author that Stalin allowed in Soviet libraries. I don’t think it was there for entertainment purposes.
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