So my Dad sent me an article in Vanity Fair titled "The GOP is Escalating its War on Ideas" jumping all over the GOP for “banning books.” 

I knew what was coming before I ever clicked the link. In fact, I didn’t actually click the link, instead I placed a phone call to my Dad. I told him I knew what was in the article without reading it, and was ready to debunk it immediately. He told me he didn’t want to hear my opinion, regardless of if I read the article or not, and that I needed to expand my horizons, look at the opposing side, and if I wanted to rebut the article, I should write my own. So I read the article, and here is my rebuttal.

Nowhere in the article does Vanity Fair describe the actual content of the so-called “books” in question. They simply brand the GOP as book-burners and silencers of free speech, antagonists who have a desire to oppress the LGBTQ and BLM protagonists. And protect gun owners, the filthy right wingers! 

They do their level best to make sure that the reader is appalled by the efforts of right-wing fanatics to ban books, and ideas, and of course, keep their guns. They don’t delve into what, exactly, might be controversial. They frame their argument by stating, as fact, that the GOP wants to exclude any and all “education” related to sexuality other than heterosexuality, and race any other than white, and keep their guns. No context needed at all. 

They make no cogent argument in support of their assertions, but the writing is at least flowery and full of feelgood phrases designed to compel the reader into a wholesale nod of agreement. 

“Don’t Say Gay” is referenced several times in the article, despite the fact that those words appear nowhere in the Florida law being referenced. Critical Race Theory rears its ugly head, and the accusations of racism, homophobia, white oppression, etc. et al accompany the piece in lockstep uniformity to the current lefty narrative. And you thought you were reading an article about books being banned. 

I wonder, if a group of murderers were to organize, call themselves something new and catchy, like “MOthersFOTOG” (Murdering Others For Their Own Good -- it sounds like a wonderful photography group, let’s join!) would leftists embrace them and try to give them the right to kill at will? 

Oh wait, they already have that in Canada, but it’s called MAiD. That stands for “Medical Assistance in Dying.” And let’s not leave out the abortion industry, who dwarfs the MAiDs by several orders of magnitude, for now. The MAiDs are trying hard to make up for lost time though, by continually redefining the criteria for MAiD eligibility. MOthersFOTOG, come on down! 

Back to Vanity Fair. The uninformed reader is left with contempt for the GOP, despite the fact that this is actually a bipartisan issue. The way they frame their argument leaves the uninformed reader believing that the only reason the “banners” want the “bans” is bigotry and exclusion. 

Meanwhile, surely my Dad, and probably nearly every reader of the Vanity Fair article, have never actually read the content being “banned.” This author, on the other hand, and quite likely you, the reader here at American Thinker, have very much been exposed to the content of these “books.” Most of them are what we now refer to as “graphic novels” also once known as comic books. Whether thin and flimsy or hardcover, most of these “books” are filled with many pictures and few words. 

Growing up, this author was taught a great devotion to reading, and while comic books were included, most reading materials were actually multi-thousand-word novels, histories, and encyclopedias, with very few pictures. That was, in large part, the point. A good author painted you a picture with words, you could see it without an accompanying graphic. 

Today, the comic book has morphed into the “Graphic Novel,” an oxymoron if ever there was one. It is under this insidious mantle that these pornographic “tomes” have emerged and flourished. Tell me, Dad, would you have wanted me, at the age of let’s say, 10, looking at a cartoon depiction of oral sex between a ten-year-old (like me at the time) and an adult? How about a well written description without pictures? Honest answer please. 

I was 11 when you handed me the book Dune and still today, decades later it is my favorite novel. It included violence, war, loyalty, challenge, loss, victory, defeat, and nearly zero sex. But you didn’t let me read Marx or Nietzsche at that age (I did try, you took them away from me). Nor did you let me read Playgirl. I wonder why? 

Would you have wanted the five-year-old me to be told I was not necessarily a girl, but could become a boy? If I recall correctly, at five I wanted to be a horse. And a princess. And a ballerina. By eight I wanted to climb trees. Build forts. Ride bikes without hands. Shovel snow in winter for pocket change. And have a BB gun. I never got the BB gun, because, as you told me then, I could put someone’s eye out, and I wasn’t a boy. 

At times I truly wanted to be a boy: they were faster, stronger, more able to shovel a driveway, and their Dads bought them BB guns. That said, I’m very happy being a woman, I still like to shoot guns, but sadly I’m too old to climb trees these days. 

If you were raising me today, would you have instead seen fit to pump me full of opposite-sex hormones, cut off my boobs, and applaud while I had the flesh from my arms cut off to fashion myself a fake penis? Bought me the BB gun? Read me books with the ten-year-old me giving some adult man sexual favors? 

Dad, the “books” being “banned” are pure filth. They are of zero value to adults, and negative value to kids. These books are not being banned in adult spaces. Adults can access these titles at will. They are being purged from children’s spaces, as they should be. No ten-year-old needs a graphic depiction of oral sex with an adult. Not one. Ever. We don’t put Playboy, or Penthouse, or Hustler in elementary school libraries. Do we call that “book banning?” 

No. No we do not. We call that age-appropriate discrimination. As we should. Yet the very same kind of stories one can read in the above-noted publications are what these “books” for kids are promoting. Go ahead, look for yourself. Don’t let the Vanity Fairs of the world tell you how bad the GOP, or conservatives, or the Right, are for trying to protect the innocence of childhood. 

You once protected me, and my siblings, from what you believed to be harmful. Those things were nowhere near as harmful and malevolent as the ideas being presented today to those who have the least ability to resist bad ideas: kids. Go, read up. If after you’ve seen what I have seen, you still believe those “books” should be readily available to kids of all ages, well, I honestly am glad I grew up then, and not now. 

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