It seemed like such a simple request. The town where I live, Cheshire, Conn., was the scene of one of the most publicized acts of brutality in recent years—the July, 2007 home invasion and murders of a mother and two daughters. Some residents, still traumatized, asked the town library to ban from its collection a recent "true crime" recounting of the killings.
That's always how these things start, isn't it? Simply.
Not so long ago, because 18 fanatics with box cutters hijacked four planes and flew them into buildings, we were told that we no longer possessed the freedoms of assembly and speech, the right to privacy on our phone or email, or the freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention and torture. We were told, simply, that this was for "national security." And we, simply, did away with two centuries' worth of rights without much of a whimper or wail.
On a quieter level, the same process is going on in my town. But instead of having a partisan hack as attorney general and an embedded press corps that didn't think the rescinding of civil liberties was a big enough story to cover, my town has a librarian, Ramona Harten, with a backbone. She has refused to ban the book. Harten said that she does not endorse the book or even plan to read it, but she's received requests for it from patrons. For standing on principle, she is under fire from a group of hysterical residents.
At one hearing, a tearful woman justified banning the book by saying, "I'm not saying ban or censor it, just think a little bit." This woman, probably well-meaning, does not live in Cheshire, but sees fit to dictate policy to our library.
Another woman said, "I don't think my tax dollars should be used to buy trash."
Following up on her comment, I visited the Cheshire library and made an informal inventory of other trash found there: 8 titles by Bill O'Reilly, 7 by Ann Coulter, 3 by Glenn Beck, 3 by Michelle Malkin, 3 by Michael Weiner Savage. A whole lot of trash is already on the shelves! But then the library also carries Mad Magazine, my kind of trash, so it all evens out.
Another woman, whose husband is running for Town Council, has appointed herself town arbiter of morals. She has browbeaten Harten every chance she gets, saying, "It was a very unfortunate and unwarranted decision. It showed an unfortunate lack of regard for the people in this town. It is very disturbing to me on so many levels."
The pathology of this way of thinking—that because something disturbs you personally, it must be eradicated for everyone—is something for grief counselors and psychoanalysts. It's not the job of the town librarian. It also comes with the territory of the suburbs, the idea that tragedy is not supposed to happen here. It is only supposed to happen in the inner city or to "other" people.
Living a mile from where the crimes took place, my family was as shaken as any at the time. Since then, though, some residents act as if they "own" this tragedy. No one, they seem to suggest, could be more "disturbed" than they, no one's grief or pain could possibly equal theirs. Others have waved the bloody shirt for the past two years for political purposes.
The most disturbing aspect of this whole ordeal is the complete silence from my town's self-styled "libertarians" (that's what suburban Republicans call themselves when they want to avoid the stigma of the GOP brand). Here's the one fundamental libertarian issue that has arisen in the 15 years I've lived here. And not a peep of support from them for the librarian.
So much for political labels.
