by Reid Fitzsimons<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Susquehanna County is a rural part of Northeast Pennsylvania that voted about 70% for Trump in the 2020 election: not the land of \"embracing diversity\" and all the other meaningless racist and progressive drivel associated with the Democrat party. So several months ago, when suspicion emerged that the local library system was going to change its book lending policy to allow minors to borrow items without their parent's knowledge, there was discontent. This took the form of mass attendance at library board meetings and associated defensiveness from the library establishment, lots of charges and counter-charges, and Letters to the Editor of the local paper, several submitted by me. Below is a recent one I composed, which hopefully is self-explanatory. In this case I went a step further and actually contacted the library director, wanting to separate the facts from emotion, which proved interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To the Editor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would like to offer some analysis on the letter from Bernard Remakus that appeared in the Nov. 1st<\/sup> issue of the Transcript and concerned the controversy over library policy; he made several arguments in favor of the establishment powers, so to speak, all varying from ill-considered to specious. Perhaps the most obvious of the latter is the statement, \u201cFor parents who want to know everything their children are reading, the board has allowed them to do so by having their children register with the library on the same library cards their parents use.\u201d The disingenuousness of this false anodyne places it in the realm of absurd: would the board somehow forcibly prohibit<\/em> linking parent\u2019s cards with their kid\u2019s (* see below)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Remakus offers us a placating and saccharine line, \u201cSociety is, and has always been, built on the family\u2026.\u201d followed by lecturing parents that they, \u201cAlso have the responsibility to engender trust and respect in their children, and engage in constructive and educational dialogue with their children about what is appropriate to read and what may become more appropriate to read at some later time,\u201d then insultingly concludes, \u201cFor parents who implicitly trust their children or, for any other reason, don't feel the need to supervise their reading preferences, the board has allowed their children to access books with a library card of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n I might suggest to Dr. Remakus that the role of parents is to love their children, nurture them, and guide them, and an integral part of this is not<\/em> to trust them. Children naturally explore their boundaries and<\/em> try to exceed them, with deceit being part of this at times: \u201cI\u2019ll be at Jimmy\u2019s doing homework\u201d when the truth is \u201cI\u2019m going to hang around with the guys and smoke cigarettes.\u201d Would Dr. Remakus allow a minor girl to visit an adult male\u2019s apartment without checking out who this guy actually is, or would he \u201cimplicitly trust\u201d her judgment? He makes a grandiloquent claim that, \u201cThis responsibility (of parenting) cannot be abrogated or delegated,\u201d but then advocates it to be delegated to either the child his or herself or to an institution, in this case being the library. Does he think it\u2019s quite a good and necessary thing that an library worker knows a \u201csecret\u201d about a child that the parent is not allowed to know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of Dr. Remakus\u2019 most tiresome and predictable assertions falls in the category of they are going to do it anyway<\/em>: \u201cIf a child's curiosity about any subject is great enough, they will find a way to satisfy it \u2013 one way or another.\u201d This trite truism gained cultural authority in the \u201csexual revolution\u201d of the 1960s and has crescendoed unabated to this day, yet is is mostly limited to things sexual: \u201cThey (children) are going to have sex anyway so we might as well facilitate it in a safe manner.\u201d The premise of this claim was never established, but has inexorably led to where we are presently, a world of free condoms in public schools, child-friendly books graphically detailing the mechanics of sex and, of course, institutions and policies designed to keep parents ignorant; a minor could be pregnant and have an abortion fully known to bureaucrats but never known to parents. Likewise, a child could contract a sexually transmitted disease from an adult, be diagnosed and treated for it, and the parent might never be apprised out of it \u201cconfidentiality,\u201d an obsession that has taken on an almost sacred aura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Dr. Remakus fails to understand is the realization that, \u201cYes, kids might well do it anyway,\u201d but that they not only need <\/em>to know boundaries but want <\/em>to know them; this is in fact the way children develop into moral and compassionate beings. Parents are not<\/em> their kid\u2019s BFF; the children certainly don\u2019t want that type of relationship and nor should the parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I will offer my own guide to parenthood: not the Utopian vision of Dr. Remakus, but a little more down to earth. First, don\u2019t hesitate to let your kids know you love them. Second, read to them everyday, beginning before they have any idea what they are experiencing and until that wonderful day several years into the future, when the child says, \u201cDad, can I <\/em>read the story to you?\u201d And lastly and perhaps most importantly, say \u201cNO\u201d a whole lot more than you say \u201cYes.\u201d This pertains to material things (\u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to buy you those new shoes because everyone else has them\u201d) and behaviors (\u201cNo, you can\u2019t watch TV anymore, please turn it off\u201d). This is increasingly and especially critical in regards to \u201cscreens,\u201d as pretty much every physical and mental health metric is yelling at us as a society. The key to happiness, self-esteem, success, etc is not having<\/em> the latest Iphone, it\u2019s NOT<\/em> having it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My intention is certainly not an ad hominem attack on Dr. Remakus, whom I have never met. He is a long-standing physician in the Hallstead area and a published author of several books of fiction. I do think he demeaned himself a bit in attempting to demean concerned parents: \u201cSo, while a large group of parents have stormed <\/em>the entirety of Susquehanna County's library system...\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is the \u201c*see\u201d below part mentioned above. On Nov. 6th<\/sup> I called the Montrose library looking for further information for this Letter, with the initial question of what, if any, affiliation the library has with either the American or Pennsylvania Library Associations, both unabashedly leftist activist organizations. I was put through to Kris Ely, the director, who was clearly on guard, asking if I was a reporter ( before I go further, I should mention she proved to be a delightful person). I assured her I was nobody important, just preparing a letter to the Transcript. In answer to my question she said the library is<\/em> a paying member of the PLA but not directly<\/em> part of the ALA, membership fees being in the 100s of dollars a year. I read to her the boldly highlighted introductory statement on the PLA website, as follows: \u201cEquity, Diversity and Inclusion:<\/strong><\/em> The Pennsylvania Library Association will actively and intentionally pursue, promote and champion equity, diversity, and inclusion within the organization and within the profession so that our association, libraries, librarians, and library staff will all thrive.\u201d <\/strong>I asked Kris Ely if she could define the three words Equity, Diversity and Inclusion <\/strong><\/em>(often abbreviated DEI), and she responded with a kind of feckless and generic, \u201cIt means the library available to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality my question was unfair, because DEI is a mindless political slogan not amenable to definition, kind of like of asking a serious person to seriously discuss which comic book superhero is the greatest...a silly undertaking. DEI is not designed to elevate people, but rather it is a soothing chant for some and a means to wealth and power for others. For upper-middle-class to hugely wealthy white people, those who are steeped in privilege but like to perceive themselves as elite and enlightened, embracing the endless DEI statements (all seem to be written by the same spoiled and selfish rich college kid pursuing a degree in gender studies) is a way to feel good about their privilege without having to actually do anything. To the celebrity and professional race hustlers- for example, attorney Ben Crump, BLM founder Patrisse Cullors, pseudo-academian Ibram Xolani Kendi (formerly known as Ibram Henry Rogers during his middle-class and private school upbringing)- DEI is a means to multiple millions and a way to make sure their marks are spineless enough to comply with their shakedown demands, especially wealthy corporations with CEOs who are happy to give away other people's money to preserve their privilege and status. There is a maxim that is completely true: the demand for racism well-exceeds the supply.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, the irony is that the policy regarding issuing library cards to minors that caused such controversy, misstated by Dr. Remakus and misunderstood by the \u201cstorming\u201d parents, is quite sane and reasonable: a child under 18 cannot be issued a library card without the consent of a parent, and the parent can decide at the time if their child will be issued a card allowing or disallowing the parent to monitor the minor\u2019s access. The parent may have the minor\u2019s card revoked at any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many thanks to Kris Ely for taking the time (perhaps an hour) to discuss library policy and even some literary and philosophical matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Reid Fitzsimons Susquehanna County is a rural part of Northeast Pennsylvania that voted about 70% for Trump in the 2020 election: not the land of \"embracing diversity\" and all the other meaningless racist and progressive drivel associated with the Democrat party. So several months ago, when suspicion emerged that the local library system was ...continue reading