Protect me from scary ideas, please?

​THE BANNED BOOKS TOP TEN:

1. Have you actually read it?
2. You realize that banning a specific book, with all the attendant media coverage, immediately and dramatically increases its sales, right?
3. Has sanitizing any form of art, throughout the course of human history, ever solved whatever real or imagined problem it was meant to address?
4. Is it possible that your child has already been exposed to the Internet at some point, rendering your desire to shield them from dangerous sentences somewhat illogical, if not entirely counter-productive?
5. Is it a coincidence that banned books overwhelmingly tend to be those that cast characters reminiscent of pro-banning parent's politics, religion, and fear of cultural evolution in a negative light, and that taking offense at "bad language" is really an excuse not to confront the fact that conservative white southern Christians are not the hero of every story?
6. How exactly would you propose that a graphic novel about The Holocaust be handled so as not to have to deal with upsetting elements of The Holocaust?
7. Could it be that allowing your teenager to work through disturbing, transgressive, and historically difficult thoughts and ideas via literature is actually one of the safer ways of opening a genuine dialog with them, and if so, is it possible that what you really fear is your child's honest appraisal of your own belief system?
8. And how did it work out for Tipper Gore, Andrew Volstead, Just Say No, Rushdie's Fatwa, Guy Montague, hairy palms, Mapplethorpe Hysteria, William Jennings Bryan, 2 Live Crew, Midnight Cowboy, Elvis' pelvis, Name a Pope, or Naked Lunch?
9. Hey, look at it from a totally selfish, Ayn Rand/Libertarian slant: while you're busy innovating your Best Possible Life with no help from society at large, are your Objectivist goals more likely to be met surrounded by a younger generation that's increasingly intelligent, well-read, and exposed to complex ideas, or one that's sheltered, bowdlerized, seeped only in their parent's worldview, and afraid of confronting historical truths?
10. If your child wants to find it, they will find it. Delusions of control are exactly that. A society that allows MAUS to be read and taught and circulated with abandon is one that just might forestall the coming End Of Empire.