Don’t comply with book ban

Among all the recent news … Aug. 12, 6A, "Nineteen books pulled from Mason City school libraries" is a bomb to free thinking. Ban books, control minds. Nineteen is arbitrary; why not 21 or 89? Ban one book, ban them all. A law without guidance is a tactic of bullies. No public school or library in Iowa should comply with the book banning law.

What exactly will the government do to people who leave all the books they currently have on the shelves? Will storms of parents attack? Will Kim Reynolds send out the sheriff? Will we be locked up, lose our driver's licenses? Mind control has already happened when school boards gather to choose which books to remove — again it's all arbitrary. Any book can be objectionable to someone.

Teachers are no longer free to teach, period. I repeat myself: teachers should walk out, or refuse to begin the school year. No public school should comply with a law that bans books. Free reading, free minds. Anything less is … you decide. Just don't say we are a country that believes in a free press or equal rights. You don't get equal rights without the freedom to read.

Gretchen Reeh-Robinson

Mount Vernon