Ep. 16: Our American libraries and how they support our system of self governance

America's founders knew that if our experiment in democracy was to survive, and people were to effectively govern themselves, the citizenry needed access to good information. While freedom of the press was enshrined in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, public libraries were equally important to the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. In this episode, Ellen and Joe speak with Dr. Shawn Healy (01:07) of iCivics on the rule of law and why it is important. Next up is Lisa Varga (06:00), the executive director of the Virginia Library Association and spouse of a Navy veteran to discuss how libraries serve our communities far beyond the collecting and issuing of books. And lastly, we speak with Kelsey Lawrence (50:30), a citizen, patriot, and mom living in rural Virginia who led an effort to fight off attempts to censor what library patrons could read. As our second President, John Adams said, "Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write!" Onward!

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

You know, I've given this a lot of thought because libraries are so integral to my life, it's hard to stop and think about. Well, what what started these? And honestly, our founding fathers had a lot to do with it. Um, Thomas Jefferson famously, you know, Library of Congress. Ben Franklin had a library in Philadelphia. The foundation of democracy is rooted in information and equitable access.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Welcome back to the Vetted Conversations Podcast, where we delve into the foundations, workings, and current challenges to the American way of self-governance.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

In today's confusing world, it's more important than ever to understand how our government works and how we, as citizens, can actively participate in the discussion to safeguard our liberties and continue freedom.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Our mission is to ensure you, our listeners, have the knowledge and insights needed to become more informed and engaged citizens and active members of your community. So let's get into it. Based on your feedback, we're adding a short civics discussion to the front of each episode to help better explain how our government is organized and how it's designed to work so that we all can more effectively engage with our elected and appointed officials to help create a more perfect union. Joining us today is Dr. Sean Healy, a civics expert and the senior director for policy and advocacy at iCivics.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Our question for today is what is the rule of law and why is it important?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

So our framers uh designed a system uh where we would have a government of laws uh and not of men. Uh and what that means is they, of course, uh established a constitution, which is our our blueprint, our national blueprint uh for governance, uh, a system where legislative bodies, Congress in particular, uh pass laws, pass statutes. Uh, and of course, there's also uh a court system. So our constitution, Article III of the Constitution uh sets up the U.S. Supreme Court delegated to Congress the ability uh to establish uh lower courts. So we have a three-tiered system at the federal level. Most states have a similar system in place. Uh, and ultimately those courts are charged uh with the responsibility of interpreting the laws. Uh they, through their decisions, uh establish legal precedents, which uh take the effect of law. Uh so that that body of law is defined by our constitution, our federal constitution, our state constitutions, the statutes that are adopted at various levels of government, and those legal uh precedents uh established by our courts, uh establish rule of law and guarantee all of us uh citizens uh in this country uh due process of the law. Uh and it's it's critical also not just uh for uh the the supporting of our individual rights, but also in the continuity of our institutions. And uh it's one of the reasons we're we're nearing the 250th birthday of the country uh since the Declaration of Independence that we've endured uh because of this respect for a rule of law, uh not only are rights of citizens perpetuated, but uh as are our institutions.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

I love that. And and you brought up an important point, right? Even if you know, say I go to court and lose, it's still important for me to respect the decisions of the court and the process because before there was that system in place, it was basically grudge matches that decided who won and who lost, right? Vendettas, tribal warfare, clans fighting each other, Hatfields and McCoys, I mean, uh a tremendous amount of violence uh took place to settle disputes.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

But you don't yeah, you don't want a system where uh the the to the victor go the spoils, right? And and enemies are punished. Yeah, we have a system instead uh where uh there there's this premise of peaceful transfer of power. And critically happened in our country in uh the 1800 election, where it was the first transfer of power between uh political parties, and and that uh that that's such an important ceremony that happens not just in the the presidency but every level of government that uh we we uh participate in free and fair elections and that we ultimately uh respect the outcome and that power is transferred sometimes within parties, sometimes across parties, uh, but our system thus endures.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Absolutely. Yeah, and I think just the amount of certainty um it adds to societies with knowing a predictable path forward, how do we get recourse for grievances, and even transitions of power, like you mentioned. I mean, I I could think of so many wars in history where every time a king or a monarch or an emperor was kind of on their last breath, the whole country was on pins and needles because they knew you know, typically great instability would follow, a lot of bloodshed, a lot of fighting, um, until like kind of a dominant power emerged out of that chaos.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

So yeah, it's critical to our our livelihood, too, right? So rule of law is so critical to doing business, right? So uh businesses rely on predictability, and so sure uh it's it's important that we have continuity once again across governing regimes, uh, so that our our businesses, which employ so many of us and uh provide uh goods and services for all of us, uh the rule of law is very important for our economy, too.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yeah, no, I love that. And it reminds me of like the two kind of big takeaways I took from Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan was one, the government needs to retain the monopoly on violence, right? And its two most important duties are to protect the people from attack and punish the unjust. And part of that goes into enforcing contracts, which allows business to flow, right? You know, that trust in the system. So yeah. Awesome. This is great. Thank you so much. Joining us today in studio is Lisa Varga. Lisa is the executive director of the Virginia Library Association. She has a BA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master's of Library and Information Science from Rutgers. And she's been recently named Library Journal's Librarian of the Year for 2024. She joins us here today to talk about how libraries serve our communities, why they were founded, and how they support our democracy. So, Lisa, welcome. First, um, maybe we should start off by asking how are you and where are you in the Commonwealth?

SPEAKER_05 6:29

Thank you so much for having me today. Um, I'm doing well this morning. I'm located in Virginia Beach.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Just like me, just like me, Lisa, which is so exciting. And uh I can tell you that living right near the uh the Great Neck Library in Virginia Beach and having it positioned next to the fire station ladder eight that we we use and across the street from a school and a public playground. Um, it is uh that our library is incredibly well positioned as a public asset with kind of all the other public institutions that people can take advantage of right around it, making it very obvious uh what a library is meant for.

SPEAKER_05 7:07

If I can also add, I'm currently the chair of the Virginia Beach Public Library Board. So I appreciate you very much uh giving the public library its proper due.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah, it's incredible. What what a resource. And I think one of the my my my kids all thought that their their they think their first credit card was a library card because it was the the first you know non-play thing that they had that would actually do something for them.

SPEAKER_05 7:31

I love it, and no interest rate, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:33

That's fake. Yeah, like this is easy. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Interest rate in a different way, like you're interested in the books and in the material, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Like Yeah, oh nice one. But I will say, Lisa, in Virginia in Virginia Beach, I also took my kids to the free music class um in, you know, in in our Great Neck Library. And um, we've as I've I'm the Girl Scout troop leader here, and we've done an incredible um event doing a library cleanup. So I think you know, it's it's it's a it's such an unbelievable asset. And the fact that you're right local for me is is really, really cool about this conversation.

SPEAKER_05 8:06

Yeah, we're definitely gonna have to meet up and talk more about libraries. I think one of the great things about Virginia Beach, in addition to um our public libraries, is that we have a really innovative thing here called the Joint Use Library, which is a public library that also shares space and all kinds of resources with our local community college. Um it's a really incredible model for some.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

That's so cool. Well, before we get into Virginia Beach, can you tell us just, you know, what why does America have public libraries? What's the story? What's the backstory on public libraries?

SPEAKER_05 8:37

You know, I've given this a lot of thought because libraries are so integral to my life, it's hard to stop and think about. Well, what what started these? And honestly, our founding fathers had a lot to do with it. Um, Thomas Jefferson famously, you know, Library of Congress, Ben Franklin had a library in Philadelphia. The foundation of democracy is rooted in information and equitable access. Now, for a long time back in the day, libraries were subscription. You had to pay for them. And the only way you could pay for them was if you had the financial stability or income to do that. When the public library became a more popular model, the idea was anybody, regardless of their economic situation, should be able to learn, to educate themselves, and have access to information. And that has helped raise generations of people who maybe couldn't go even finish high school, but they still wanted to better themselves. And so this system was created, a public institution supported by tax dollars and sometimes augmented by personal donations to allow anyone in a community access to information from cradle to grave.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

That's such an important point because I think a lot of people today might fail to realize how the cost of information has decreased, like plummeted. You know, I remember reading like back in the Middle Ages, you know, where the monks were kind of like studiously copying texts from like Greek and and uh you know Phoenician into more modern languages back then, like only the wealthy and only the church or the clergy had the even the ability to read. Most nobles couldn't read, and books because they were all hand-copied were super expensive. And now I mean they're so cheap on on Amazon, and they're even free in the library. So um I guess where I'm going to that is your point about democratizing information is important because before the American Revolution, we lived in pretty much the the powerful just told us what to think and what to do. And if we disagreed, you know, you took a great risk to your life. You know, disagree with the church, disagree with the king. And you know, when America was founded, we kind of shut that off. But then that that created a whole new need for the public to actually understand the world to make their own decisions.

SPEAKER_05 10:58

So um yes, and then you have Andrew Carnegie who gave millions of dollars to create the public library, to create buildings. If you've never been in a Carnegie library, but there's one in your area that you can get to, please go check it out. It's really kind of amazing, the architecture and design, and um just the idea that there is a community space for people, I think is something really important that we have to uphold. Modern libraries have evolved so much. I think about when I went to the library as a kid, you could check out records and that evolved to CDs and now digital music available for free through your library. You don't need a subscription to a music service. Talk about, you know, the availability of audiobooks. You know, I have a lot of people that I know that use Audible, but when you're in a situation right now where just everything costs so much money, being able to reduce that subscription and use Libby at your library for free for audiobooks and ebooks is also important. So cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Um, so so you know, okay, why we we got like sort of the the backstory, but but you know, is there do you have any other historical touch points of like why the the founders of our country were in and and what their feelings were about libraries? You know, we're we're very kid's trying to think about civics and the founding of our of our, you know, the thinking of our founding fathers and the documents they they created. Um you know, was there do you I mean obviously I'm not asking as a as a library historian, but you know, do you have any other sort of context, especially because here we are in Virginia, about some of those early um interactions with sure.

SPEAKER_05 12:37

I mean I could say to you, um, one of my favorite lines is um librarians may not have all the answers, but they do know where to find them. So I'd be happy to send you some documentation to put in the show notes for that. I just think that it's so clear that they agreed that the concept of accessible information regardless of status was so important that they put time and energy into it as they were building this great experiment. And that the idea that information should be free was really just part of that cornerstone of democracy.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

That's amazing. In Virginia, especially, you know, the the the Thomas Jefferson history was very much right around us. Um the amount of books that those people read when, you know, um was was incredible. Obviously, they they had few other, I guess few other distractions um to take their mind off books, but you when you when you read about the books that they read, our you know, our founders and our early, the early um, you know, sort of shapers of our country, it was incredible the breadth of their of their reading.

SPEAKER_05 13:50

Yeah, and I'd also like to bring up, you know, we've got James Madison University, right? James Madison was a huge proponent of um freedom of information. And so I think there's even some connection to um the FOIA requests we see these days, right? The the uh Virginia Coalition for Open Government, those things are direct descendants of some of those philosophies and actions. Yeah, and also Go Dukes. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah, no, I'm a big fan of JMU. I teach like one class a semester down in Harrisonburg. So um awesome. Yeah, no, thanks for the plug for JMU and uh another one of our founders. And you know, um when I got out of the Marine Corps in 2015, I went to work over in Annapolis at the Naval Institute, and and their motto is Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write, which I didn't realize at the time was a poll from our second president, John Adams. Uh it was a line he wrote in a dissertation on canon and feudal law where he was driving at this whole idea of an educated public being vital to democracy. So not only is like a free press, and we know that Jefferson said he'd rather have a free press than a government, right? Newspapers uh than a government if given the choice. Um, but now you know we've got that layer, and it's interesting because media is kind of like what's being told to us by other people, you know, observing events. The library is kind of like just the source itself, right? I mean, it's a repository of information where you can go and and sift through to get many views of of different current events and history.

SPEAKER_05 15:22

Well, and I think one of the best parts about the library is the serendipity of it. The idea that you can go in maybe intending to get a book on a particular thing, but then you walk by a display or you walk down the stacks and you find something that, oh, that strikes my interest. I'd like to read more about that. Um, and that idea, you know, you can have that same serendipity in a bookstore, but at a bookstore you have to purchase the item. In a library, we have this shared communal resource. And, you know, our public libraries are evolving so much. I hate to use, I'm using that word again, but you know, Ellen bringing up Virginia Beach Public Library, the Princess Anne branch over here, you can check out surfboards, you can check out pickleball equipment, you know, you can check out um other things to for entertainment that might, you know, a giant Jenga set that maybe you're having a party and you don't want to invest in that, you can come and borrow it. We also have a seed library where people can come and get seeds and plant flowers and vegetables and things like that. And then the majority of people who do that then will donate some of their access to food banks. It's this whole ecosystem of being a responsible citizen.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, it's interesting. As a as a parent, um, you know, I think libraries are something you guys, the the American Library System has done such an incredible job of you know creating the missing community, I'd say for a lot of, especially young moms. Um, you know, it is a place where the playroom is so great. The, you know, there they're they're you know interesting educational toys. The kids don't have they don't have to be quiet in the library playrooms. It's okay. Um there's there's free programs, there's you know, even some, obviously the early childhood development programs. And you know, when you're when you first have a have a child and you're kind of alone with this, you know, blob that you have to take care of. Sorry, um, mother of three. I'm allowed to say that. I'm allowed to say that. Um, you know, the the library is one of the few places where, and I will say this as a military spouse, you move to a new community. I moved here and and had a you know a one and a half year old, and one of the first places I went was the public, was the Great Neck Library because I was like, I know there's gonna be a playroom, I know there's gonna be books, I it's uh there'll probably be other moms there. And of course I met people, and then I I now see people in my community that I know, and they tell me about, hey, there's this other music class over here. And that is resources in today's world, right? It's not just, hey, what are the books? Um, and and I think, you know, all of those things are public goods that we have committed to doing together as part of a democracy, as part of a pluralistic society. And that's why I think another question is, you know, what are other ways that you see libraries strengthening our democracy? Because I saw it very clearly as like public place, work together, meet new people, you know, talk about issues. But what what other things do you do you kind of see?

SPEAKER_05 18:14

I see a space for connection, absolutely, for people of all ages. If you think, you know, you're talking about being um a young mother, maybe um feeling a little isolated in your new community and not knowing where to find folks, knowing that the library is a beacon of helpfulness to you. Um we're also looking at a society right now in which people are incredibly isolated, incredibly lonely post-COVID. The place they can come is the library, right? You've got a whole generation of folks that really prefer to read a newspaper in the morning, maybe can't afford the cost of a subscription these days. They come to the library, they sit, they read their newspaper, they maybe interact with some folks, they can get some information about their taxes, about registering to vote, um, seeing all kinds of just being out in public, first of all, I think is important intergenerationally. We tend to live in spaces that isolate us, right? So when and I'm gonna speak about Virginia and um and parts of it that I've lived in, you have suburban areas with lots of families all roughly in the same age range, and you don't necessarily have the multi-generational way people used to live, all in the same family staying in the same community. So for older adults, going to the library and seeing family, seeing young kids, seeing, you know, people interacting is very uplifting and healthy for them. If you live in an active adult community or maybe a 62 and up, you are surrounded only by people in your own age range. But we know that people get so many benefits from interacting with one another and crossing those generational lines. The library is a place where that can happen.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

100%. You know, and and and I'm glad you mentioned that. At least like one of the reasons I like, you know, I'm 52 this year, and one of the reasons I love teaching um at the college level is that it puts you back in the 18-year-old demographic, right? And yeah, you know, it's like they learned from me, I learned from them as as much. Um you know, about our profession, how things have changed and staying current. But I think back to your point about the library being a community resource, last time I was in uh two weekends ago to our public library here in the Front Royal area, I mean there's a lecture on geology going on. And and about 20 people, you know, rock hounds who are sitting in in uh one of the conference rooms there having a robust discussion about the geology of Virginia, you know. I mean, um, you know, I think I also saw people searching for jobs, right? You know, like if especially you know folks who might be down on their luck, it's like one of the few places you can actually get free internet access, right? To come in and search the job boards and get you know coaching on writing a resume and you know and and applying.

SPEAKER_05 20:56

So I have a couple of anecdotes about I'm sorry to interrupt.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

No, please go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

No, I have a couple of anecdotes about that, and that is that you know, back when the internet um first became really popular as a means for applying for jobs, we had a lot of folks when I lived in Fredericksburg who would come into the library and say, I've been a truck driver for 20 years. I I've never filled out an online application. Like, how do I do this? And we would help them with that, right? So all these people that were in positions that were transitioning to using digital um applications, the library was the place they would go. Who else would go and help them? Also, you would need to sometimes print documents, right? Even though you submitted them electronically, everywhere else you wanted to print something cost you money. The library offers that service to you for free, right? It's all part of your tax dollars, it's part of us contributing as a society. Um, a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that um they were moving into a new apartment, and they need it was gonna take three days for the internet company to set them up, and they were gonna have to take PTO because they weren't able to do their work. They went to the library, they got a Wi-Fi hotspot for free, don't have to pay for it, was able to take this to her new apartment and work until the company was able to come out and connect her. Where else would you get that? Right? Anywhere else you'd have to pay for it. Yeah, you just libraries have seen what people need. You know, we look at um the pandemic, Williamsburg Regional Library in the first couple of weeks of the pandemic, converted their bookmobile into a mobile hotspot and put out a schedule and said, we're gonna sit in this parking lot for this many hours, and cars would just pull up and people would be with their laptops and their kids with their Chromebooks, and they would be getting the work done that they needed to do. Because I think that once people get to a point where they can afford comfortably to pay their internet bill and their phone bill and their cellular bill and get unlimited internet, they forget what it's like to be paycheck to paycheck. They forget what it's like to not be able, like you said earlier, Joe, to be able to just go and buy a book. Kids' books are expensive these days. This picture book is 20 bucks. When my kids were going through, you know, dozens of books a night, I couldn't afford to keep that up.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Right.

SPEAKER_05 23:19

Yeah, right. You know, the library was a place for it. When my kids got addicted to watching the wiggles, right? Back back in the day, like I could take all the videos from the library. I didn't need, you know, all of these subscription services to access the things my kids wanted.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Or before that blockbuster, right? Yeah, exactly. VHS cassette tape. Uh you know, I think you know, you know, it there's so many good things. I mean, my earliest memories of the library was a summer reading program. My mom was a great school teacher, education is super important. I gotta tell you, like, I remember at the end of summer lamenting going back to school, but being super proud of having read like 76 books that summer. You know, it was kind of like Excellent. You know, as a kid, it was just like amazing. But I love your point about like so much of people's information behavior today is biased confirmation, right? They're just looking for information that reinforces their existing point of view. Whereas if you're browsing the stacks in a library, inevitably you're gonna be confronted by material and content that is different than what you subscribe to, right? And and I saw it, you know, just walking around the stacks the other day, and I love it for that reason because it's just kind of like you know, I think it's always important to be curious and challenge our own belief system just to make sure that you know, what are we missing? What else might be out there? What lenses might we not be looking through? And I've noticed like over the last couple of years, right? Um, like libraries being under attack. And so can you tell us like from your perspective, like what's going on out there, the why of of why people are are speaking against libraries, which you know, Ellen and I both see as immense, immense civic good. Um what's going on out there?

SPEAKER_05 25:02

This is a big question. And I'm gonna say that the attack on libraries and books is part, we are a spoke in the wheel of folks trying to break democracy in general, right? So when we talk about the attacks that libraries are under, we also have to look at some of the fundamental attacks happening to other aspects of our community and democracy because we're just a piece of it. We are, like you said, Joe, um, when you're getting information from one source and you're not getting anything else, you will start to see all these pieces fall into place and you will say, the problem is the library. The problem is the library giving access to material that I disagree with personally, and so I don't want it available. I don't want my kids to happen upon it if I'm taking them to a public place. And it's being done in a couple of different ways. So we're looking at school libraries and we're looking at public libraries that are being attacked. And in the public library sense, we've always had an open relationship with all of our users. There's always been a way for you to come in and say to the librarian, I disagree with this, and the librarian will discuss with you how that book earned its place on a shelf. Back when I was in Fredericksburg and Harry Potter was very popular, parents would come in and say, I don't want my kids seeing that witchcraft. That witchcraft is not important for people. It is offensive, it shouldn't be accessed. And with a one-on-one discussion, you could absolutely come to an agreement that the purpose of the library is to provide information and access to everyone. And you as a parent are empowered to make choices that benefit your family. You don't have to check out the book, but other families might want to. Harry Potter set off a firestorm of reading and literacy for multiple generations of kids, right? The problem now is that people are seeing information on social media, they are copying and pasting it, and they are writing things either on social media to attack folks, or they're showing up at board meetings, reading passages of books out of context that have been fed to them and objecting to that material. What we're seeing is mostly viewpoint discrimination, which is I don't like that book because it tells a story that I'm not comfortable with, which is that there are LGBTQIA plus or um black indigenous people of color stories and lived experiences being shared in a way that makes me uncomfortable. They're saying it's not that, it's just that those items happen to be sexually explicit. Sexually explicit doesn't really have a clear definition legally, and so if you show a picture out of context or you read a passage out of context, that fires people up. They're using a lot of misinformation to fuel their tactics. So, for example, you'll get someone show up at a school board meeting and read a passage out of beloved that is graphic because it's part of the overall, it's the part of the book. You have to look at the book as a whole. FCC regulations are very different than education and learning and libraries. And so people will say, Well, you won't let me say this at a board meeting. Why can you teach it in schools? Why can you have it available in the libraries? It's because the FC, because that um meeting is being streamed and that has guidelines.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Right.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

But when you're talking about education, you're looking at an entire book, not passages out of context. I know I've said a lot, so please feel free to interrupt me with questions.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Yeah, but my my next question is like, well, who decides like what goes in the library? You know, what's that process look like?

SPEAKER_05 28:58

I love this question because it really leans into our knowledge as librarians and our master's degrees and certifications. We have been trained as part of our um advanced education how to select books that fit the guidelines of our communities. And all of our communities and libraries have what we call collection development or materials management processes. Now, those words sound pretty boring, but it's actually really impressive when you look at all of the different things a library considers when it's purchasing items. So, for example, some things will always end up in a library collection. If a book has been given the Newberry Award, Caldecott Award, if James Patterson writes a book, if Stephen King writes a book, Nora Roberts writes, these things end up on the shelves. But other things are selected for a variety of other reasons. And I'd be happy to bring up, I have a list of all the criteria that, say, the city of Virginia Beach uses at their public library. There's timeliness, there's relevance, there's the audience. You know, some of our communities in Virginia um have heavy populations of folks who speak different languages. So their collections might lean more toward the languages spoken in their communities as opposed to other libraries. And that can even vary branch to branch in um one community.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

You know, it's interesting. As a mom, I have a you know, a first grader and two pre-K uh twins. And I look at I look at certain books. Um, for example, my son, um I think through maybe through school, preschool, I don't know, he he he got exposed to uh I don't know, some characters that I I mean I I don't let them watch certain shows. I don't let them um I I I think that the the the the fact that there's like a Captain Underpants series to me as a mom is like kind of gross and inappropriate. And I find it like I don't want my kids, that's not what I want my kids reading. I I I don't love some of the framing of like, you know, just I I would I look at a shelf and I think diary of a wimpy kid. I'm like, I don't know if I want I don't that's not something I would want to give my kids to read, calling a kid wimpy, all of that. But should those books be banned? Like I I really I think Captain Underpants is trashy, maybe, and I don't want my kids reading something like that. That's me. That's my mom that's me as a mom. I don't think most moms agree with me. I think a lot of moms have their kids read those books. So that's an example of something I would find kind of weird. I don't know if I want my kids seeing it because then they're gonna put their underwear on their head. But is that right? Where does that fall?

SPEAKER_05 31:50

I think that that's a great discussion about parental choices and being an active parent and saying to your kids, that's not something that we do in our home. Your friends might do it, but we don't. And that's a great discussion for all kinds of things, right? You might have a different religion than a friend, and you can say, we don't, you know, subscribe to that in our home. And also you can then have a discussion with your kid after you've after you are maybe a certain age and you have read XYZ and you have proven to me that you are mature enough, depending on level of maturity and age relevance, that we can read that book together and talk about it. Right. And that's the kind of parental involvement that we really we want happening. And I think there's also been this false narrative that parents are um don't have a choice in what their kids are. It blows my mind because I think if you talk to any educator, they will tell you that they want parents more involved. That one of the biggest things that they faced as an educator was sending notes home, asking for involvement, looking for people to have opinions and thoughts on things, and then there was nothing. And then suddenly there was this huge influx of, well, we're not being given enough opportunity. But the opportunity's always been there. So yeah, I mean, I will say, Ellen, um, Diary of a Wimpy Kid came out um when my youngest son, um, I'm not even I don't even know what age he was, but every year the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book came out on his birthday. Oh, wow. And he's he's 20, and I just bought him one back in November. Um, I don't think he's read them in a while. But when he was four, no, it wouldn't have been the thing that I chose for him. But we know our kids best, right? Right, exactly. What we're seeing now, you know, I picked up this book. So this was a Front Royal. Um, this was one that made its way to the sexually explicit list and objections from people. So this is a story about a family that is getting ready for grandma's visit, and there's some miscommunication about what you're supposed to be doing. Um, for example, I'll sweep the dishes, dad will scrub the fishes. And this book was um they asked for it to be removed from the library or moved to a different section because this is sexually explicit.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

People holding hands.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

That's two people that you can't, they're just like drawings of people with one lighter skin, one darker skin holding hands, one person holding a cat, another person holding a baby.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

I don't get it. And and so this is where I go. You're gonna you're gonna look at that and say that's explicit, and you're gonna look at a picture with a kid with their underwear on their head and say, This is one of the most popular children's series.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

I mean I see I see a loving nuclear family there, you know.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

Um because this is two men, the implication is that those men have sex and that makes this picture book sexually explicit. Wow. People are gross.

SPEAKER_04 34:54

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 34:55

The way people this is where we get into viewpoint discrimination. I don't want my kids to know that there are families that look like that, so I don't want that book available to them or anyone else at all. Or I want you to put it in the adult section. Yeah or young adult. What young adult is going to pick that book to read it? It's aimed at a certain age group. And so when you try to say we're gonna put a lasso around all the sexually explicit books or books that have concepts we disagree with, that lasso is very loose. There's a lot that goes into it. Um yeah, I'm sorry. Ask me questions. I apologize.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

I'm no, it's but it's it's like I said, as a parent, it's so what's the the point of this conversation is that what I think is like quote unquote bad is like actually totally normal for the vast majority of people, right? Like I have some certain viewpoint that makes me, you know, conservative about this type of book and this type of of color. And then I look at that picture of two people holding hands and I don't like there's nothing about that that registers to me. Um so that's why I'm not gonna go and start, I'm not gonna come to the library meeting, Lisa, next time and say I demand that all Captain Underpants books be removed. I will, I won't, I promise you I won't do that.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah, I mean we we've got this this go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_05 36:20

I was gonna well, because you recognize that this is a democracy and we're not meant to reflect just what we want to see. This is the part I think that staggers me about what I've seen, and especially some of the folks that have been driving this, because there has been a large proportion of I I I want to be careful with my words here. There have been people who are veterans who have fought for democracy, have been in other countries where there is not democracy, and have had their oath to the constitution, still have involvement in trying to remove these books. Now, it's not the majority of veterans at all, but I I think that I want to get the word out. You know, my husband um passed away in 2018. He was uh Navy commander, and I watched him take his oath multiple times throughout his career, and he supported entirely the idea of freedom to read, the idea that we don't infringe on other people's rights to access. And it is a core value of mine to ensure that what was important to him is honored.

SPEAKER_04 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah. Well, as a fellow, fellow Navy spouse, first of all, thank you for your service. And uh, we're so sorry about your your husband. And thank you. And and I I couldn't agree more with that, that you know, the parenting can happen in your home about things that you think are right or wrong and that you teach. But you know, what we f what I know, my husband, your husband, Joe, what what people fight for is that we can make those choices and that someone's not making those choices for us. And the idea that things being available means that the government is somehow making a choice for your family is really strange. I mean, like, you know, I I I don't like skateboards are available. I st I'm not letting my kids do it because they're too young. I don't I don't know. Like I like that's that doesn't I mean it's just I I think this is it's a it's that's what's so strange to me as a mom. Like I there's a lot of things I see, because I think a lot of this is a parent conversation, which is why I keep bringing this up. But like there's a lot of things I see as a parent that I I will not, I there's certain TV shows. There's I don't let my kids use the, you know, watch anything on YouTube. Nothing. Zero. You are not allowed to look on YouTube because I don't know what's gonna come up, right? So there's parents I know who will let their kids watch YouTube and then will talk about some books that they think should be removed from libraries because of sexual content. I'm like, um, that seems a little ironic to me.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Yeah, I think there's they've got bigger problems in their house with with information than than yeah, for sure. I I mean for me, it's just kind of like do parents have a right to um control what content their kids uh consume? Absolutely. But does that, you know, how how do we balance that with the public's right to read, right? You know, and I mean, because if if if and who decides? And I think you know, if we decide together, um, you're gonna have a multiplicity of views. And I think, you know, more choice is typically better in this case because like, you know, as as a two-time combat veteran through 20 years, you know, I get incensed when people are trying to tell me what I can and cannot read in my own public library, you know, after I've I've risked my life and served two decades to defend our constitution. So you you know to me, it's just like I also get really, really itchy and nervous around people who want to tell us what to think, right? You know, it's kind of like you know, they want you know, because if if it was like up to them, there would be one worldview that would be um Subscribe to and you know there's a reason we don't have the Church of England in in the United States when we formed America, right? We were you know the colonies were brought up under that, but you know, as soon as we became our own country, they kind of threw all that overboard, and and they said, Okay, well, you know, First Amendment, right? You know, freedom of religion, you can worship like any way you want. So, you know, there is tolerance baked into the founding of America, and I think that's kind of what's being lost. And another thing that I get really, you know, I I've studied um propaganda and authoritarian regimes, you know, for more than two decades, and I know like when you want to try to control a population and crack their faith, you gotta keep them poor, you gotta keep them afraid, and you gotta keep them ignorant, right? And that's how you know so many dictators around the world uh control populations. So I think you know, libraries are an antidote to that. A free press is an antidote to that, right? So, you know, I think it's bigger than just, oh, well, I don't agree with this worldview, or I don't agree with that, or I don't agree with you know, these people the way they live their lives. No, I mean this is about like how do we choose our elected leaders, what policies do we adopt? I mean, all this kind of gets baked into uh into the this 240-plus year experiment we call America, right?

SPEAKER_05 41:12

So um sorry I get a little fired up about that, but no, and I I appreciate this so much because um you're right. And I see people trying to say, well, I I don't think libraries should have books that my kids might take home that might have um topics in them that I might find uncomfortable. So you want to build this bubble around the library. Well, listen, you know, Ellen, you live in Virginia Beach too. There are some stores or clubs you drive by with kids in your car and they go, mommy, why is that woman, you know? Um you have to have a discussion about what that store is or what that club is.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

There are ads, there are ads at on during the Super Bowl that I'm like, how is that on a family that like violent you know movie trailer? How is that on the TV program that the that the most Americans you know watch together? And like I find that as a parent, I find it offensive. I do. And what am I gonna do? Call every you know TV channel in America and say, you know what, from now forward, only G-rated ads on T like, you know, right? You can't.

SPEAKER_05 42:22

There's an old joke that you know a good library has something in it to offend everyone. And that's the that's one of the reasons we have if you want to have a library that has nothing to offend anyone, then you can have a subscription library where you pay where people pay you to come in and you only have a specific curated collection. But in a public library situation, the point is that you should be able to walk through the biography section and see all of the people reflected of different communities, you know. Um, or you walk through a certain section and you can see, you know, books by President Obama next to or near books by Ann Coulter. You know, these items exist for people. Folks want to know and read these things, so we make them available. That they've been these folks have been targeting very specific titles and very specific types of books. And, you know, we saw Joe in Front Royal where it was 53 people associated with a specific religion, and they were using their um religious beliefs to infringe on other people's rights. And that I don't get at all either, because the Christianity and Catholicism I have been taught by friends, I'm I'm Jewish, but that I've been taught by friends that I've seen examples of are examples of love and acceptance.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 43:47

And so seeing people use that um really it led me to the Interfaith Alliance. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, but they have a great section um about the censorship of books and materials and trying to limit based on religious beliefs. I think there are so many places out there doing good to try to combat this. It's I've been a librarian for 25 years. I never imagined that my profession would become political in the way that it has, the way that the American Library Association has been under attack. And and so you've got this professional association that has almost 150 years of experience, policies, best practices that can't be used to help explain how to support people in other localities because the people who are against the books are also so against ALA that all of the knowledge, all of the experience, all of that um wisdom and policy process suggestion is completely wiped away because people believe some propaganda they've heard about it.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that that's that's unfortunate. But I think um, you know, having grown up, having grown up in a diehard uh Catholic household, you know, Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Notre Dame nuns for teachers when I was a kid. I mean, I I kind of get um that worldview, but then I also think, well, also we don't live in a theocracy, and thank God we don't, because we know how that turns out, right? You just need to look towards like the um Inquisition and all the all the abuses that that took place under that. So I think there's a very good reason why we have freedom of religion and also freedom from religion in our country. And you know, I think the the library being the place where you know you can go and improve yourself in in a remarkable way. Like, you know, the why why did we have such an expansion of human progress with the Enlightenment? Because for the first time in a long time, people thought maybe we don't know everything about the world. You know, that it was through curiosity that that launched the Industrial Revolution and that launched to you know the the technological and and medical and scientific advances that we have today. So I think you know it it all stems from you know, at a young age, just implanting that that curiosity in humans and say, hey, you know, the world is a big, complicated, confusing place. Um, in order to navigate it successfully as an adult, you need to educate yourself, right? You know, it all comes down to um, you know, I hate to say cliche, but it's like knowledge is power. So um we uh this has been a great great conversation. I mean, we've we've covered a lot of topics, a lot of very important things. We've kind of connected the local level to global and history, you know, the history of American democracy. Um, what final thoughts do you have for for people who might be listening to this podcast?

SPEAKER_05 46:45

Wow, that's a lot of responsibility. I'm supposed to sum it up. Um I just, you know, I I'll quote the great Ted Lasso, be curious, not judgmental. Um I think that when you're hearing that books are sexually explicit and people are only showing you a page or a snapshot of them, recognize that the Supreme Court says that you can't judge a book and call it pornographic or obscene unless you're looking at the the item in its entirety, the work as a whole is something that's really important to look at. Um, read the books yourself. Read them in their entirety. Make assessments and judgments for your family, but please don't pressure others to feel that same way. Give people the benefit of the doubt that they want to explore and read and connect. And please don't attempt to paralyze a library's financial service because you disagree with the concept of a fraction, a fraction of the number of items in their collection.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Yeah, so it's so so well said. I mean, all all the free services I listed it in the in this conversation, if if those important elements of our democracy, you know, and our parenthood are taken away, wow, what an incredible loss. That would be really, really hard to get back.

SPEAKER_05 48:15

Um I don't think that if libraries didn't exist today, it would be very difficult to get them started, right? And I think that's true for a lot of things. But libraries do provide a social safety net that I think is a lot of invisible work that folks don't always see. If you talk to library workers, they will tell you all the kinds of ways in which they help and fill a gap that is not being provided by other areas of their community. And um, you know, it's hard work. It's I will say this it's absolutely not sitting around and reading all day. Although I people ask me or say that a lot to librarians. I would love to just sit and read all day. You know what we would too, but we're actually not allowed to read on work time. So we do all our reading after work.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Nice or at lunch. Yeah, no, that's that's this has been a great conversation. I think my my final thought, you know, after reflecting on you know both what you, Lisa, and what Ellen have said about this whole debate is that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. It's something that we say in the military, it's something that I hold to be true. So, you know, we all have a decision to make. You know, I think you know, our libraries are tremendous civic resources, and you know, when you think about it, you know there may be things in there that offend you. Good. Um, you know, it all comes down to do you want to have the freedom to read, think, speak, and write, or do you want to be told by other people what to read, think, speak, and write? And you know, me for one, I want to make that choice myself. I think many of our listeners out there want to make that choice for themselves, even if there's content in there that might be a little bit offensive or might, you know, um show a different view. But I think that's a good and healthy thing for American democracy to have these debates. And our libraries are clearly a place where we can educate ourselves on current issues. So Lisa, thanks so much for joining us today. This has been a tremendous discussion. We really appreciate the gift of your time and your wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

Thank you so much for having me. And thanks on behalf of Virginia Beach uh readers and parents for your work in our libraries.

SPEAKER_05 50:16

I appreciate that so much. You all have been delightful. Thank you for understanding and asking such great questions. Um, I'm happy to do any follow-up or answer any questions your listeners have. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Thanks. Stay tuned, everybody. Next, we're gonna hear from a local mom and patriot by the name of Kelsey Lawrence, who defended the Virginia community's right to read. All right, joining us today in studio is Kelsey Lawrence. She is a resident of the state of Virginia and was at the heart of one of the controversies surrounding a local public library. Uh, I'd like to welcome you to our podcast. And um, in your own words, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what happened this summer?

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Absolutely. Um, my uh my name is Kelsey Lawrence, and I live in Fried. Um I am a mom to four young kiddos. I have two boys, two girls, uh nine and under. Um, and I love our local public library. It's one of the reasons I moved to Friedal. It has incredible resources for families and kids, and as a mom, it's kind of um a hangout spot, I would even say. Um, I joined a book club at the library, and there were librarians in this book club, and there were also people um who volunteer, so they're heavily kind of involved in what's going on with the library. Um, and they explained that there were was a group of people who um had put in a ton of requests for removal forms, which are forms you fill out if you want a book removed from the shelves. And that these people they didn't just want books removed, they also wanted the library to be defunded for having um LGBTQ books, um, especially in the children's section. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

Interesting. So when um when you first heard about this group trying to one, ban certain books from the library and two, pull the funding from the library, how did that make you feel?

SPEAKER_03 52:15

Um frustrated and sad. I like I said before, I love this library. It's a huge part of um our our lives. Not we don't we didn't just check out books there. We also attended activities from I for myself, with my kids, with friends. Um it's in front royal, we don't have a a community center, like it's the closest thing we have to a community center, and and so I was angry that that was in jeopardy because I needed it, and I know that our community needed it. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Yeah, I noticed that um when I visited the Front Royal uh Samuels Public Library, it was probably the most vibrant and active library I've ever seen in my entire life. And and I've been going to libraries for 50, you know, some years. Yeah. Um ever since my mom took us, she was an elementary school teacher, you know, it took us to start doing the summer reading program.

SPEAKER_04 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

Um what other ways do libraries help uh help the community besides just issuing books?

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Sure. Um they provide events. Uh our public library um provides obviously like COVID testing, and it can do um other, they do like STD testing and they provide a lot of even, you know, kind of like little healthcare things like that. They also um are a place to be cool in the winter, or sorry, cool in the summer and um warm in the winter. They um provide a place of peace and quiet and order. Um as a mom of busy kids, I I needed that. That's one of the things it provided. Um when I would go by myself, of course. Um, it's so much more than books, it's it's it's people and community, and the librarians themselves are also an integral part of what makes the library um wonderful because they are incredible, incredible people, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

So there's like almost like a double threat. So this this group of folks um was not only going after what was in the library, but almost like a punitive measure saying, hey, well, we'll cut the funding because you even dare to have this material in the library in the first place. Is that that correct?

SPEAKER_03 54:26

Or yeah, they I know there were some initial discussions about can we move these books? Um and this is probably something that you'd maybe want to talk too a bit more about with um the ALA, but there's like code based on like where books are in our library. We can't just have an LGBTQ section, we can't just have a black history section on the shelves. Um it's because it's it's discriminatory to not shelve them with the rest of the of the books we have. We don't we don't segregate books. Um and they so they were they were kind of pushing for that. And when the librarian said, no, this is against the law and it's discriminatory, we you know, um, and and they does it's not just discriminatory, right? We deserve to have a library that has all kinds of representation. Um it's just the right thing to do. And um they so there were kind of those talks, and they said, Nope, we're not gonna move these books, and they went above the head to the board of supervisors, which are the purse of our county, and and lobbied for defunding.

SPEAKER_01 55:35

Um at what point did you decide to get involved? Because you you led an effort and created an effort to mobilize like-minded people in the community. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_03 55:47

Well, I was talking to a friend and she was like, someone should make a Facebook event about it. And I was like, Oh, I can do that. That's not hard. I'd never made a Facebook event, but I was like, I'll Google it, right? Um and it kind of went uh viral a bit. And we had um like 150 people said they were coming, and over 300 said they were interested in the event. Um, so it was it was in in our town, it became something shared and people noticed. And then they showed up. Um there were there were some efforts to kind of limit our voice at that initial first meeting. Um, but with so many people becoming involved, we decided to to be to make it a a group um after the event was was so successful in terms of engagement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

Yeah. So a a bunch of people showed up and then what happened next? Like how did how did you because I'm sure that your opponents didn't stop at that point once they saw an outpouring of support for the library.

SPEAKER_03 56:43

No, no, they didn't. I mean, then there was that first kind of um that first meeting where there was public comment section, and that meeting lasted hours. It was it was until midnight. Um and then the next week they decided to hold a vote where they held um three-quarters of the library's yearly funding. Um, and they gave no stipulations. This is our board of supervisors. They gave no stipulations about what um what the library needed to do to get their funding back. They really were just kind of holding holding the funding hostage um because of this loud minority who who wanted these books removed.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Yeah, and and this is a library whose founding goes back, I think, to 1799, I think. I mean, this has been an institution in Warren County, Virginia for centuries.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

Yeah, we're one of the oldest libraries in the Commonwealth.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

And so it's also semi independent, right? It's it's not like a county or county government institution. Could you talk to me about that?

SPEAKER_03 57:46

Like, sure. Yeah, so it's a private public partnership, and the age of it is part of the reason why it does so well, right? I mean, um, obviously land and things like that, things have increased. Um, so anything that was donated in the 1700s, you know, is a lot is worth a lot more than it was, um, than it would be if it was donated currently. So I mean that's why the that's why it works so well. Um you they're also able to take donations, um, which if they were fully public, that wouldn't um that wouldn't be an option. The um there are 23 other libraries in Virginia that do kind of have this partnership, but ours is just it's so well done because it's it's one of the longest. Um and yeah, it has its own private board. Um it's able to it it has more continuity, right? When we have board changes or um, you know, diff different ideologies politically, like the the board's independent of that. And it's it's it's it's it's it's an um it's an asset. It's part of what makes it one one of the best things in Front Royal is is because it it has both public and private.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Which is an amazing thing. It's like a community asset in which the Board of Trustees was able to tell the county supervisors, board of supervisors, we're not complying. You could threaten us, but we're not complying. And let me ask you this question. Let's say they they prevailed. Like what would what would the impact have been on library patrons, on the community? What then?

SPEAKER_03 59:30

Yeah, so the library was prepared to close its doors um if they did not fund um, if they didn't approve the funding in October. So um, and this is kind of something that's talked about event in some of the letters to the editor. The library does, because it's a private institution, it does have savings, um, which is which is responsible, right? Especially when you're dealing with something like a board that could take away your funding because it doesn't like the books. It's it's very responsible to have a a savings kind of um pot there if if you're gonna have to do layoffs, if you're gonna have to do um severance pay. So they were or and lawyers fees even. So because of that reason, even though they did have some money in the um kind of in their reserves, they weren't going to use it to keep the library open. They would have had to close the library in October. And it complicates the matter as well because like the the county owns the building but the library owns everything in the in in the library. So there there would have been a lot of complications but it would have it would have fundamentally changed because um they would not have allowed the board of supervisors to to take over the library. I mean they would have had to liquidate all of the estimates they would have and then if Warren County wanted a wanted its own library it would have had to start up it would have had to hire new librarians. It would have to hire and find books and computers and staplers and like all of the all of the things it needs. So it costs a lot of money. Yeah and then if and then if some they got someone who wasn't properly trained in library code and they removed LGBTQ books or or you know heaven forbid did something as drastic as Texas has done or or Fulham has done with their um you know their school system and removed black history books as well like that is a lawsuit waiting to happen and so it would have cost the county even even more so uh it would not have been been good for for anyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Yeah I mean you know in America we're we're founded on the principles of democracy we're a constitutional democratic republic you know our government was formed to have the will of the majority prevail but not to the detriment of minority group you know minority groups I don't mean in in terms of like ethnic minorities but in terms of people who disagreed with the majority opinion right um what's the danger in having one small opinionated group dictate what what is read and what's not read by everyone else in the library or what we have access to I think it's incredibly dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:17

I mean um if we if we silence an entire group of people's experience we silence all of our experiences we silence all of our voices it is it's it's more than books it sounds like it's just it's not just about books. If our library is a representation of our society then the books on our shelves and is is it shows how we we want our society to be we want our society to be inclusive we want our society to be open um minded and and reading is such a huge a huge part of that being able to say what you want to say and and write what you want to say there's a reason we have the first amendment and then there's a reason it's the first because you don't have anything any other rights without that freedom of speech. Everything else kind of builds off of that so to s to have a a group of people say well your speech is is not valid it's not correct it needs to be removed from a public space um is a slippery slope towards um authoritarianism.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Yeah three thoughts come to mind from from your your comments one um you know from the individual responsibility perspective by by decree if they if they were to if they were to win and your side were to lose it would be out of your hands what you could um expose your kids to or not within the public library so it's no longer the parents' decision it's the decision of of the state or of the government over the county number two it's interesting that I hear a lot of talk um on a lot on the airways and in public opinion forums about freedoms and my rights right and it's interesting like how many people are for freedom until somebody expresses that right to be free in a different way than they agree with and it's like oh wait hey don't be free like that. Yeah right so you can't be for freedom and then you know advocate for limits on what adults parents do within the confines of raising their own kids as they know best right you know it's it's it's it's a completely hypocritical position right you know it's just kind of like if if if if for instance two consenting adults want to engage in in behaviors that harm nobody doesn't harm the environment but don't be free like that. Don't love like that like to me you know that is it just blows my mind that that they can kind of hold those thoughts simultaneously in their head um yeah yeah yeah one of the one of the people in this movement they have a shirt they like to wear that says I don't co-parent with the government which is which is hilarious to me because um there there is no co-parenting with the government when they come in and take books off of a public library shelf or a school shelf they have made that decision completely for you they have made that decision for every family in this county um and and and they make excuses like oh you can just buy it off of Amazon but they know good and well that those are the only books some people have access to like it's it's especially in a in a community like ours where it's rural we don't have a bookstore like we have some used bookstores we don't have a chain we have you know the our access to books is more limited than somewhere like oh yeah and there's Barnes and Oval like 30 miles away right like well you know and let's let's talk about that too because you know it's a community resource you and Jackie and several other people banded together to um to mobilize support for the library you took it to the the county count uh board of supervisors what finally won them over like you know because if if if initially a significant portion of the county board of supervisors was sympathetic towards the book banners what won them over um uh quite a few things I think um one is is we we made a lot of noise and we uh we let the community know because that the majority of parents and citizens are against book banning the majority of of um of people believe like in gay marriage and that gay marriage should should not just be legal but should be represented in in in books and literature like this is the this is this is our world like these are what families look like um so we are the majority we just don't always know how or when to speak up and um a lot of things came together to be able to to organize and to to talk to make it easier to talk to each other about what was going on and we we did lots of I mean there's lots of like kind of organizing tactics we could get into but we we did not let up.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:56

We kept talking and speaking out and showing up and getting more people involved and holding them accountable.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

For sure for sure and and I think you know like that's the beauty of our system and our and our way of life and our way of of governing ourselves is that the people are the final check on power. Yeah right and and that like that is not a lesson to be lost it's just like many times it just takes brave citizens like you to step up and say nope nope we're not we're not giving up this freedom and uh it's hard fought. You know I spent 20 years in the Marine Corps in uniform two wars deployed all over the world and I wrote Jackie a letter because when I read about that in the post I was just like I looked her up found out what organization was in charge and um I sent her a letter I was like I can't make your next meeting um but you know feel free to use this and it was just like I was incensed as as a two-war combat veteran that some people would tell me what I can and cannot read in my own public library after you know it's just kind of like you know here we are my wife and I she's she's also a Marine did 20 years you know defending freedom around the world you're gonna tell me what I can and can't read in our own public library is like no just no so you know I was so glad to see um you know that just like patriots come in all different you know forms of uh like from all different walks of life and you know serving your country and serving your community also comes in many different ways and that's exactly what you and Jackie and and you know others did is like you stood up for freedom you defended the public library and and made this community better for everybody. Oh well thank you from from a combat veteran thank you for your service to our community it really does count and you know those are um no small acts of bravery you know I think there there are people who want to tell us what to think what to believe what to do and take that control away from ourselves and I think you know what was interesting like when I read that the board of supervisors was finally persuaded by the thought of this is government overreach right yeah you know and even the the head of the Republican Party in Warren County was like let's stop this is nonsense this is I don't believe in the government being able to to have this amount of power or sway over us I was like wow what what a compelling argument right so absolutely and it speaks to both sides of the aisle right it's it's very much a um it's an American value like it's not a Republican or Democrat value it is it's American it's built and baked into everything that is a part of what makes this country great is for for sure for sure and you know arguably I you know I came from I was grew up in a fairly religious house and you know went to parochial school and you know religion classes mass every Friday and Sunday you know like I mean you could make the argument if you want to read about violence and rape and torture and murder and genocide all that's in the Bible. So like does that go out the window too? Because that's in the public library. So you know I I agree with you it's a slippery slope you know I think typically in questions of of speech and First amendment more speech is typically better not less and at no point in history have but the book burners and the book banners ever been on the right side of the long arc of history.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:18

Mm-hmm yeah and I think something to remember too is is violence and and more explicit content exist and they exist because they're part of the human experience too and books are a very safe place to um to think about and to understand and to feel empathy for people who live differently than us. Obviously within age appropriate ways which I believe the library does do that. But you know I that's a part of being alive and being having a human experience. So for sure. And and I understand the the library came to some sort of solution where they created a young adult section like 16 and above they did yeah put all the books that kind of fit in that content category in a in a separate thing from like the kids' books right so like you know to me that's yeah our library is set up very nicely you have like you when you walk in there's the kids side and then there's the adult side and um they're very you know obviously children the children's side library is like loud and the the adult side is quiet. So there's very much and there's an aisle like visually there's a distinction and they move those 16 to 18 year old books over to a shelf on the adult side so visually there is that that difference and um it wasn't explicit content that moved things over there. It was any book that's marketed to 16 to 18 year olds or 16 to 21 um were moved over there. So I think it ended up being over 800 books. So um you know and and I think that shows too that they're they they care about what people who their patrons are are are saying. Like I I think that shows that they're trying to work with um parents and and and allow them even more freedom to choose what your children read. They were kind of working it out themselves. They didn't need any they didn't need any kind of pressure there. They were they were already on the path to to making those things a reality so definitely definitely is there anything I didn't ask you or is there any final thoughts you have for for our listeners I don't I don't think so um I do feel like um and and maybe this is maybe talking just kind of my experience um I mean and you and you mentioned kind of bravery and courage and I I don't think that happens over overnight either. I I had a lot of I had a lot of help I had a lot of people who took me under their wing and and coached me or encouraged me and um and I did a lot of things badly like I couldn't even look at those supervisors the first time I spoke to them. I was terrified um and I think taking the first step even not knowing where it's gonna lead um has um incredible rewards. And don't be afraid of fail initially still do it still because it's the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:13

That's right. Yeah that's right sometimes you have to put your body where your values are and you know we we'd say that in the in the Marine Corps like courage is not not being afraid courage is doing the thing despite the fear right accomplishing the mission. So I I gotta tell you I I'm so proud of you and your organization. I'm so grateful and thankful as a as a resident of Warren County who uses that library. So uh you've heard it right from the source folks this is Kelsey Lawrence mom citizen patriot freedom fighter thanks so much for being on the show today.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:45

All right thanks appreciate it we'll see it thank you so much for listening if you found this podcast episode interesting or useful please share it with the people you know. This episode was co-hosted by Joe Plensler and Ellen Gustafson. The audio and video were edited by King's Collab Studios this podcast is a production of We the Veterans and Military Families 501c3 not-for-profit nonpartisan veteran and military spouse led organization focused on promoting positive and patriotic civic engagement to strengthen American freedom and liberty find out more about us at we the veterans.us and follow us on social media