Summary
A man checked out 100 books from Beachwood Library in Beachwood, Ohio, covering Jewish history, African-American history, and LGBTQ topics, and later posted social media videos showing the books with captions referencing “cleansing” libraries before burning them.
Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative alerted the library about the posts.
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
Police say the matter is civil unless he fails to pay. He is now banned from returning to the library.
Should justice be served, the irony is that this man will end up paying for 100 brand new books on civil rights and LGBT topics.
Oh wait… Ohio? Nevermind, not holding my breath…
What was that thing we learned from history about burning books again?
This has been happening for a while… but I still remember the not too long ago when many conservatives were talking about how all libs were book burning Nazis. Never saw a lib burn a book, but they are, and doing it far more often and with far greater volume.
Throw the book at him!
He’ll just burn it. Got to hit him with it…
Ohio let’s you check out 100 books at a time?
He doesn’t want us to read those book, by the same logic, would it be OK to cut off that mans genitalia because we don’t want him to reproduce?
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
Police informed CCPL that, because a contract was entered when the books were borrowed, failure to return or pay for the books would become a civil matter turned over to the city prosecutor.
Should the man return to the Beachwood Library, he will be banned from the property.
Shoutout to libraries. Absolute diamonds in the rough. Burn books? Whatever, people don’t return books all the time. When they’re overdue, here’s the bill, next!
We don’t live in the age of books anymore. Shit like this is ignorant and fascist but also just symbolic. Libraries are cornerstones of a free society, but the physical paper itself isn’t nearly as important anymore. It’s hilariously replaceable.
I want the list of books. “Banned” and “burned” books go hard as hell. Maybe even files for the m@tes to get 'em all at once. The modern age can undo all this idiot’s work with a single link.
We don’t live in the age of books anymore.
We don’t, but there’s problems with only relying on electronic information that can be swapped out at any time. Don’t have to burn the information when you can make it say whatever you want.
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
honestly that’s hilarious as fuck 😂
Librarians are pretty chill, unless you’re a loud talker hehe
Except that librarian in the disc world books. He would probably rip some arms off.
I worked at an elementary school (public) in a very red state.
I had been overhauling the library computers (I was IT) all day and had been chatting with the librarian. Cool chick, probably 10 years older than me, so late 30s. I was dating my wife at the time, so I wasn’t looking to date, but got invited out for drinks with other librarians from the district.
After a few rounds, the topic turned to censorship, book bans, etc.
Every single one of them, from the churchy prim and proper lady, to the more alternative types, we against banning books and discussed how to get the kids access and and encourage them to read them, without losing their jobs.
I had to shutdown their plan to distribute cheap flash drives with banned material on them a la guerilla distribution - ie, leave it where kids would find them.
And that is why next week Mr. Case’s cyber security BS thing was about how we don’t plug random shit we find in to computers.
They got the spirit! Libraries and librarians are some of the most fundamental “good” in society. They’re basically the canary in the coal mine - when they start to go, we all know there’s nothing but toxic gas in the room, and need to do something about it.
It is a shame that there’s very few ways of going “rogue” with access to digital information that doesn’t involve tremendous security risks to the uninitiated.
“We want to secretly give kids the ability to get whatever information they want!”
“Great… let’s start with ‘don’t ever accept packets of digital information from unidentifiable sources’”
“Banned” and “burned” books go hard as hell
Every library I’ve been to in the last 5 years has had a poster of “banned books” specifically to advertise them because people (especially teenagers) love that shit.
This is the mentality of MAGA. SMH
In Ohio felony theft is over $1000.
If I were dictator I would announce a new LGBTQ and African American wing of the library and dedicate it to him, with a placard showing his payment to the library for the books he has to pay back, but he doesn’t deserve to have his name anywhere…
I think having his name represented on something in which he hates is absolutely deserved and hilarious.
Just remind yourself that if that were the case you absolutely would be a dictator.
I don’t want it
Same as it ever was.
“Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” - Heinrich Heine
Book burners have never once been on the right side of history.
How is that not criminal destruction of property? Some of those books may not even be replaceable. 😠 You could also say criminal intimidation of protected minority groups by an obviously targeted political act.
Because the man was legally in possession of them at the time. It’s the same reason that you have to go through a tedious process to have your car reported stolen if you let someone borrow it and don’t bring it back.
Generally don’t sign a TOS when tossing your buddy the keys.
Project Gutenberg is ensuring that all books are 100% replaceable. Don’t worry, this ignorance cock hasn’t done anything that can actually interfere with people being able to obtain and read any of the material he’s taken.
“this ignorant cock hasn’t done anything that can actually interfere…”
He absolutely has. Stop being a pushover. In the coming weeks this will be normalised American behavior. Push back.
Hear this well, your reaction of outrage is why he’s doing it. Should he be charged for his destruction of public property? Absolutely. But should we really be putting him on a right wing soap box by making tons of posts raging about his bullshit acts of ignorance? Definitely not.
I think we may have different definitions for “replaceable”.
Digital copies are serviceable, they are by no means a replacement.
Anything digital can be made into a physical copy with almost comical ease. I don’t want this mouth breathing red hat to have the satisfaction of doing more than simply creating a minor inconvenience because everything he has done can be replaced in a few days. At his expense no less.
republicans are swine.
He’s aware that the whole book burning thing was something that the German Nazis, the one various nations had a war with, did, yeah?
These people think the only bad thing that the Nazis did was lose. They think the Nazis were too soft, and they intend to me much stronger this time around.
Yes. These people know exactly what they’re doing.
The thing that actually genuinely confuses me is the fact that most of these people are proud that we beat the German Nazis.
I don’t how long Hitler’s reign lasted, but for how short the Confederacy was, these losers began looking at other losers to try and become one giant loser. How our most “patriotic” nationalistic MAGA losers went to Nazism still baffles me, since the propaganda I was taught was that Naxi Germans were bad and evil.
In fact, I was taught alot of propaganda that Russia and China and Nazis are all evil monsters. Now these losers think Russia taking over Ukraine is a win, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot dealing with China and the world, and Nazis are mainstream.
Sometimes I wanna save our nation, but then I look at MAGA and how loud this “minority” is. Then you dig deeper into history and this isn’t even the first occurance this has happened in the US (concentration camps, slavery, war, citizen manipulation, etc etc)
Nuance about the police, government, and politics are gone. I used to have hope our system was initially working, and that it could be fixed. But now: I wanna burn it all down and start again like it’s 1774, or leave to someplace more empathetic where people can understand the basic concept of “don’t hurt others, hurting people is bad”
Cognitive dissonance is their standard mode of operation.
I don’t think this is a particularly bright segment of the population we’re talking about here.
Neither were the original Nazis, to be fair. Stupid people tend to admire stupid people who unapologetically flaunt their stupidity.
Stare into the abyss for long enough, and the abyss will start staring into you.
Or whatever that means.Pretty sure it’s a reference to goatse
They are well aware. They are following the same playbook.
I’m not German. So obviously I can’t be a Nazi.
“ThE NaZiS wErE sOCiALiSt aNd iM nOt SoCiaLiSt”
