Fraters Libertas

Dewey Defeats No One--Shut Up And Stack

I've about had it with librarians. As Cliff Claven might say "Librarians...if there not turning down your proposals of marriage their accusing you of lascivious behavior in the bathrooms!" First they objected to children not being able to view porn and now this hysteria (a fitting description) over Section 215 of the Patriot Act?

I wanted to test just how seriously these Champions Of Liberty take their duty to provide us citizens with unfiltered access to all the goodness the internet has to offer. So down I went to my local library. Stopping one of the short-haired, cardigan-sweatered, thick-glassed crows I asked "Hey I'm looking for the 'nets hottest teens, any suggestions?" She looked at me, confused. "You know, the young ones, and none of them damn pay sites either" I also inquired if there was a computer that offered a little more "privacy" as I wanted to enjoy my constitutional privileges in a more secluded area.

Well, no, that didn't actually happen. But I am indeed sick of the constant stink of BS emanating from these book-stackers and their preposterously over-inflated view of their role in our society.

In today's WSJ there's another piece about how these people are up in arms about the Patriot Act and its Grave Threats to our liberties. I love this paragraph describing how an FBI agent was trying to convince a group of librarians that the act really isn't a threat:

Martha Jane Proctor, (Whoa...hold the phone. Martha Jane Proctor? Was there ever a more perfect name for a librarian?) her silver hair combed into stiff spikes, (are you reading as much between those lines as I am?) was having none of it. Ms. (lines!)Proctor pronounced the very idea of a library search "an abomination." And destroy records? "Of course I tell the library directors to do it. That's pretty much my opinion," she declared. Oh, it's your opinion. Well as long as you have a good reason.

Okay librarians, let's get this straight. You stack books in a building for a living. Are we clear? You run books under that beeping thing and give them to those of us who are too cheap to buy them in stores. You are not arbiters of free speech, the Constitution or our freaking civil rights. I know you probably have a little chip on your sunken shoulders because you feel you are too smart to be schlepping a wheeled cart of Barbara Kingsolver novels to section "818.23-920.34 Feminist Socialist Writers" but that aint my problem.

I'm aware of how you hate Bush and all he stands for, like normal society where people work jobs and go home and watch TV. I understand you are one of the feeling elite who is convinced that the times you live in are Historic and Important and this is your little chance to Stand Up and take your rightful place as one of the groups that said Not In My Name. How this is your chance to bite back at a society you think has marginalized you and your important skills of alphabetizing and mopping up homeless feces.

Well your little charade ends now. Laura Ingraham has Shut Up And Sing, I say Shut Up And Stack. And were this not a family blog (wha?) I would put it even a little stronger.

Growing up as a young lad in Excelsior, I remember the sullen, depressed attitudes of the librarians and how they always seemed ready to burst into angry tears. How they secretly loved telling me I had a fine of 60 cents because I brought back a Hardy Boys book a few days late. How they never smiled, never said a pleasant word and always seemed put-upon when you asked them anything.

So just relax book-stackers. The sky isn't falling. "They" are not coming for the children, the elderly or anyone else. Like most of us, you are not on some front line of the battle for liberty or any other such high-falutin' crap. So stick to what you know: the Dewey Decimal System, socialist novels and your uncanny ability to put newspapers in those wooden racks.