this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
657 points (98.4% liked)

News

23014 readers
2 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A Florida school district has literally banned the dictionary in an effort to comply with Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) book-banning law.

The Escambia County School District has reportedly removed over 2800 books from library shelves as they undergo a review process that will determine if they are inappropriate for students, according to Popular Information. Among the books currently relegated to storage are The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Webster’s Dictionary for Students, and Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary.

The district contends these texts could violate H.B. 1069, which DeSantis signed into law in May 2023.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 116 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Mmm. Malicious compliance.

Honestly, it’s pretty ingenious. If they can get their publishers to help push for appeal, then it’ll be worth it in the long run.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Ya, I get it... But now they're actively participating in making the students education worse.

No doubt, it's a lose/lose situation. But I find it quite sad for the innocent kids getting caught up in stupid adult stuff. And believe me... I use "adult" strictly to define age/authority position, not mental or maturity level.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago (1 children)

innocent kids getting caught up in stupid adult stuff.

This describes what happens in pretty much every conflict ever.

[–] sukhmel 4 points 10 months ago

And at least half of the time the conflicts start over "protecting kids" 🤦‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah kids are probably bummed they can't check out the dictionary. Maybe they can find an alternative way to look up words though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I kinda would have been, but I had a dictionary at home so didn't use the library one much.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

They all have access to the Internet now. This would be much more detrimental to learning if other resources weren't in everyone's pocket.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Some of my best education in high school was learning to circumvent school network/internet censorship. I think the kids will be alright.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

You can only hope so. However from looking in from Australia, America is going to shit at an accelerating pace.

Thwy remind me of the movie Idiocracy, something i once viewed as extreme and impossible but now plays as almost fact.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I get that it’s malicious compliance, but part of me thinks this is exactly what they want. The correct definition of words is what they are trying to keep from children. They are constantly misusing or abusing the English language to push their agenda. What better way to brainwash than remove the ability to find out what a word means?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (2 children)

So there's this thing called the internet, which has dictionaries on it.

Also, 1984 is a great fiction novel, but the linguistics within it is more than a little shoddy. Not to mention, Republicans are not as smart as you think they are.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

If you think internet censorship is going to stop at porn you're in for a surprise. It's the testing ground.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (15 children)

I think they are dumb as a box of air, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want exactly this. Just because they are dumb makes it even more believable that they actually want this and think it will accomplish anything. One of them read 1984 and said “we should do that”. More probably, one of them watched 1984.

load more comments (15 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I promise you, they simply dont know what books they are banning. They come up with some criteria and then schools have to sort through their books to make sure they all comply. A graphic novel of the book of genesis got banned from my school district. I garuntee they did not intend for that to happen.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Seems like at the point you've banned dictionaries that you should stop and reconsider what you're doing

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago

Except that would violate their objective of increasing their electorate through the erosion of education.

The more educated people get, the more they understand how morally and intellectually bankrupt the political and social right is.

[–] MagicShel 34 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Sounds like some malicious compliance there just from the summary but maybe I still have too much faith in people.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

Yeah, this is the district that keeps this deranged bigot, on the payroll, so I wouldn't ascribe any good intentions to them..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Malicious compliance in my mind would be "We haven't read all of these books completely, nor can we remember all the texts. Therefore we have to completely empty the library for review"

[–] MagicShel 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Could be exactly the argument for a dictionary. Have you read one front to back? Do you recall every single definition? No? Might better remove the dictionary. Definitely have to remove the bible.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago

Honestly Ron probably wants everyone in his state to be dumber so they'll vote for him

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (3 children)

That's not the "gotcha" it should be. If anything results in future generations becoming ignorant, gullible and uncritically docile towards authorities, that's just the system working as intended.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Tja 21 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They should ban the bilble like some other districts did. There is sex, murder, incest and all kinds of inappropriate content in there. Makes conservatives go nuts.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Banning it would annoy them, but if they all just went missing without any fanfare then they wouldn't notice; very few of them read it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Of course they had to get rid of the dictionary! It contained words like fellatio and evolution. It even contained evollatio which is the theory that man invented fellatio!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

It also contains the filthy words penis, vagina, scrotum, vulva, and gay.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

Teacher "look it up in a dictionary." Student "We won't have dictionaries outside of school." Other student "we don't have dictionaries /in/ school."

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

2 years later.... Melissa S Tafht has finally put together a new book, and what is this book about? All we know is that it is banned....

Oh yes, I started thinking, hey maybe we should write all the words we know. I'm getting older and I see my mother forgetting words so I wrote this book for her. But then, I started thinking, hmm what about kids who don't know all the words? And people might actually come up with new ones. Anyway, I'm calling this "Words Book".

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No it's a good thing. Malicious Compliance will bite Desantis in the arse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Really? People are going to destroy his political career over a dictionary?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

From little acorns, mighty oak trees grow.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That sounds like something someone with a small acorn would say

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

You are missing it.

They pulled the dictionary in malicious compliance it wasn't that DeSantis ordered it pulled.

And DeSantis is destroying his own career

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Lol this will definitely improve test rates and IQ scores

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'm a HUGE fan of malicious compliance. When people do stupid shit like, for example, being religious—if you just make them AC TUALLY live with their maleficence, then they give up faster than any other method of confrontation. If women really had to kill a dove every time they menstruated, then it would lose a bit of popularity. LMFAO, just one of an ENDLESS (well, I guess it actually is finite) number of examples.

Leviticus 15:28-30 ESV But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the priest shall use one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her before the Lord for her unclean discharge.

Edit: We'd probably run out of doves too. ><

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Most Christians believe in the new law, which abolished sacrifice like that, so it's not the trump card you think it is.

I'm not saying you shouldn't call out religious inconsistencies, just make sure you know what you're talking about, first.

Use turning the other cheek. That's a basic tenet of Jesus, which highlights the hypocrisy of gun-toting Republican "Christians."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Why would an infallible god need to revise its laws?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Serious answer from a non fundamentalist Christian: Because the old testament laws were intended for a specific society, to pave the way for Jesus. They were also a mix of religious rules and secular laws. They weren't (all) intended to be universal moral laws that apply to all of humanity.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It was just a quick low effort example, but yes, you are correct. Take my upvote! LOL

One can always leaf through and pick any of the many examples of awful highlighted on the site: https://www.evilbible.com/

I'd also say, though, that most Christians will use any law, new or old, to support their hatred and evil. If they're looking to support their bigotry or hatred, then any version of the bible is fair game. It's only abolished when it's inconvenient for them.

Sadly, I've had the misfortune of living in multiple areas with mega-churches. ><

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›