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No, I don't. I do not believe that "arguments on multiple sides" is codifiable or enforceable at all in any practical sense. I see no value in attempting to doing so. Making this the rule gives bad actors plausible deniability by making the rules more ambiguous, for no actual benefit.
If I'm acting in good faith, this rule is unnecessary. If I'm acting in bad faith, this rule will not help. If this rule doesn't help in the only case where it's even theoretically useful, it is of no value, and should not be preserved.
It seems to me that this might be our fundamental disagreement. You seem to believe that rules determine or at least strongly affect outcomes, simply by existing; that if you say "present two sides of issue A", the outcome will be a greater likelihood of students leaving with the impression that issue A has two sides to it. Put another way, you don't seem to think that rules fragility is a relevant issue to this topic.
Would it be accurate to say that you think such rules are a good idea because you expect people to follow them? Expecting people to not follow them is definately why I think they're a bad idea.
Yeah, I don't like them either. Do you think you can stop them, or even slow them down?
Suppose you achieved complete certainty that Book Riot's style of censorship was completely normalized nationwide. In this hypothetical, you are certain that they are going to remove any book they disagree with from all the school libraries in the country, and will refuse to stock any books they disagree with in those same libraries. Also, they stock the libraries with books that the local parents find highly objectionable. The parents want to remove the books they object to.
Further, suppose you can think of no way to stop Book Riot's censorship campaign, but you can think of a way to prevent the parents from removing the books they object to. Do you think it is right to stop the parents' censorship, despite not being able to stop Book Riot's censorship?
Another way to phrase this might be, is censorship mathematical, or is it relational? Is censorship bad in and of itself, or is it bad because of how it shapes our relationships with each other? Is censorship bad because more speech is always better than less speech, or because it allows one group to exercise power over another? If the later is truly the concern, as some of your arguments might imply, why should balanced censorship not be preferable to imbalanced censorship?
As I have said 1000 times, such rules are a good idea because they are more likely to achieve their purpose than would the absence of rules.
Once again, there is a difference between removing a book because it contains unpopular ideas, and removing it because it contains salacious content. Parents successfully remove such books all the time; the two books referenced in the video, Gender Queer and All Boys Aren't Blue, were the most frequently removed books last year. And that is fine by me. I have read Gender Queer, and I thought it was quite good. But it also has one or two racy parts, and I certainly understand why some might feel that it is inappropriate for minors. That is a perfectly acceptable reason for removing it.
The latter is the only one that is not my concern. In a democracy, the majority is always going to exercise power over the majority in some way. Just ask members of NAMBLA. But certain things are not legitimate exercises of that power.
You've had to say it a thousand times, because the claim seems so counterintuitive to me. Even now, I certainly don't agree that this is true, though I think I'm starting to get the idea at least. I keep trying to reframe it or extend it in different words, but maybe it's better to keep it just the way you have it:
"Such rules are a good idea because they are more likely to achieve their purpose than would be the absence of rules."
So there's an orderly system we're looking at, with rules governing its operation. You point out that the system is large and complex, and there are flaws here and there, but the best outcomes are secured by following the rules to the letter. I point out that the flaws are numerous, and that in fact sections of the system seem to be outright failing. But even if this is true, those sections are not the system as a whole, and neither of us can predict the outcomes of making hacky changes. You think the system is good, and we should trust it, preserve it, maintain it even at significant cost because the overall system is overwhelmingly positive, and there's little evidence that the alternatives on-hand will deliver superior outcomes overall. If I want to make changes, those changes have to be within the rules of the system. Even if other people are blatantly breaking the rules, it is important that we do not follow their example, because less compromise of the system is better than more compromise. This might not be "fair" in some juvenile sense, but life is not fair. This is what is necessary, if we wish to maintain an environment of peace and plenty. It's what is Right.
...Is that at least an approximation of your thinking?
Thank you very much for your responses throughout this conversation.
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