Beginning in 1964, with the Free Speech Movement, leftists draped themselves in the First Amendment. Having attained political and cultural power, though, they no longer pretend to value free speech. That’s how you end up with the travesty of RuPaul’s anti-banning bookstore…banning books.

For several years, Moms for Liberty fought against schools using pornographic and racist material in classrooms and libraries. (Leftists justify pornography as LGBTQ inclusion, but it’s still porn, while they justify racism because it only hates white people, but it’s still racism.)

Ron DeSantis stood with Moms for Liberty and was able to get Florida to pass laws somewhat limiting these assaults on our children. The left responded that they were “book banners.” Leftists said this despite the books being freely available online and at stores throughout America. They also ignored that schools have always curated books for children.

RuPaul decided to act against this non-existent book banning. Last week, to leftist applause, he announced that he would send a rainbow-colored bus from coast to coast to deliver banned books to America’s children (something that couldn’t happen if they were actually, you know, banned).

Image: RuPaul (edited). YouTube screen grab.

He revealed, too, that he was one of the partners behind a new online bookstore called Allstora. When it first launched, Allstora insisted that it was a no-holds-barred, free-speech, non-censorship site from start to finish:

Initially, the Allstora website stated in a subsection about “offensive books” that it would “carry all books.”

“We cannot fight the ideologies of hate if we lack the ability to study, understand, and react to them. We do that by reading books,” the Allstora website previously stated. Allstora further said that “censorship of any book, perspective, or story is incompatible with the survival of democracy,” and “banning books is never the answer.”

That Voltairian language—“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”— disappeared within days when the owners discovered that they were expected to carry content with which they disagreed:

Allstora, a new online bookstore cofounded by RuPaul, is backtracking on its initial decision to include any and all books in its catalog, including anti-LGBTQ titles. They will, in fact, no longer carry the books, but the decision comes after significant controversy.

[snip]

“I’ve spent the past week listening to ShopQueer.co customers, RuPaul fans, marginalized authors, and readers who feel betrayed by the inclusion of hate-filled books in our catalog,” [store co-owner Eric] Cervini wrote. “And through these conversations, I’ve re-learned the difference between a library and a bookstore. While a library should fulfill its civil duty of making all perspectives, however abhorrent, available to all, the environment I envisioned for Allstora was one that made its guests feel safe. In building that space, I failed.”

Cervini clarified that the Allstora team has removed the titles visitors “have called to our attention” and that, moving forward, Allstora “will rely on our community of readers” to curate the site’s catalog through a mix of focus groups, customer surveys, and “a diverse committee of authors.”

“While other online bookstores will continue selling hate-filled books, Allstora will not,” he added. “We will be a community, a home, for all.”

Note how carefully Cervini argues that your third-grader’s library should continue to stock anti-white racism and gay porn—but he shouldn’t have to deal with ideas that offend him.

What you’re seeing…again…is the malignant narcissism that defines both leftism and leftists. Here’s a list of symptoms, but the takeaway is clear: Narcissists are their own gods. While they manipulate other people’s empathy, they have none of their own. There are no absolute values other than their needs. That’s why it’s book banning if you do it, but it’s an appropriate response to offensive ideas if they do it.

In this case, the narcissistic truth is that LGBTQers want as many people as possible, starting with infants, to be exposed to the ideas justifying their own sexuality. That standard means it’s not cognitive dissonance for you to be evil for wanting to keep sexual ideas away from children but for them to be good when they want to erase books challenging LGBTQ ideas. Heads, they win; tails, you lose.

You cannot change a narcissist’s mind. The only thing you can do is use your heft at the ballot box and your dollars in the marketplace to return them to society’s margins. Once there, they shouldn’t be persecuted because we are civilized. However, they must not have their anti-child, anti-family, anti-society, and anti-civilization ideas ever again returned to center stage in American politics and culture.