caseysoftware

> The "American Experiment" isn't an empty concept, but it is about democracy and law and rights as opposed to conservative cultural values, and when people in power start to argue that the former must be sacrificed for the latter they certainly deserve to be clowned on. Not because they are wrong to imagine an American Ideal, but because they have its contents exactly backwards.

From the many responses on this thread, it appears that many either don't want a defintion of "pro-American" or "anti-American" or "an American Ideal" or don't have one but these are core to your point.

How would you define each?

Not sure if it's a pattern but when I interviewed with an EU company recently, they explicitly asked if I was married and if I had kids. They explained it as they had a "European mindset towards weekends and holidays" and they expected me to NOT be online.

I was fine with the mindset but never expected to get those questions in an interview, as it'd be illegal in the States.

That's a very American mindset. I've worked across both the US and EU at a variety of companies with customers, partners, etc and it's a clear pattern:

- Americans are usually willing to skirt the rules and figure it out later. This comes with risk but is ideal when you're early stage, low stakes, and you couldn't follow the rules anyway.

- Europeans absolutely want to do it by the book and will be shocked if you suggest otherwise. Being process oriented is great for high stakes industries where lives and safety are on the line but destroys startups, likely slowing or even killing innovation.

There is no floor to the level of "petty" that can happen here: the UK - granted, not the EU - goes after individuals who don't pay their TV license and determine the who by triangulating unlicensed TVs via radio trucks and inspectors looking in your windows.

"I don't want to share a book that the government has actually banned" is quite a position on this thread.

THAT would be awesome bravery and freedom: "Come and take it" has been powerful before.

> Is a specific institution or library are banned by their decision makers to have a book - that book is banned in that context.

By that reasoning, all PG-13 and R rated movies are "banned" just because your elementary school library doesn't carry them. Absurd, huh?

"10000s of people" can create new definitions of words as they choose, just don't be surprised when educated people think they're fools.

Thanks, this is useful.

> "any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished."

Though this is a fascinating definition.. anytime, anywhere says "no thanks" to carrying a book outside of purely budgetary or physical space limits, it is now a "ban".

The more fascinating question would be discovering the boundary of what PEN, et al consider a "good ban" because I bet we could come up with a few.

"libraries and educators to forgo specific books" is neither "banning" nor "censoring"

In the name of literacy, we need to use words properly.

Are those just banned and censored in Portugal specifically or the EU as a whole?

A quick check here in the States showed all of them available on Amazon for under $25 each.