I’ve been experiencing book ban stuff since I was a kid in the 1980s. Sometimes bans come from the left, sometimes from the right. This is nothing new. Part of public school is training future ADULTS for the real world. Coddling can only go so far. You know in a public school, there are future criminals? Future steel mill workers next to future secretaries next to future serial killers and future rapists, all mushed together in one place, having to get along with each other. You can coddle the little ones, sure. Protect their ears from the adult things. Keep them safe and unaware. And as a society we should – it’s our duty. But then, carefully a bit more and more awareness. More mature topics. More adult level awareness of the world, the possibilities open, the ugliness, whatever, but done carefully in a controlled environment that’s theoretically mangeable. Reality’s different of course. But the ideal is not so bad.

A wedge issue is any issue that can successfully put a wedge between an US and a THEM.

So, all the daily drama, the inability to exit the constant Doritos chips feed of “what horrible thing did the left do today!?” stuff – there’s a handful of wedge issues being ARTIFICIALLY kept alive so that there’s SOMETHING to distinguish left vs right.

Immigration. Why do no Republicans ever vote on actual immigration reform? They need to keep a problem alive. It’s a wedge issue.

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