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Why is there a "Banned Books" list? What about Freedom of Speech? How is Sarah Palin involved?

I just saw this article on Yahoo about a list of irrestistable banned books. Here's the link. http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/91854/ Why are good books like "The Lovely Bones", "To Kill a Mockingbird", and "Of Mice and Men" on the banned list? All of those are good books. I don't get it. I thought that this was a country where we could express ourselves and this country has the nerve to break that right by banning books from the world and denying authors who wanna express themselves? The fact that there are books that cannot be expressed to the good people of America pisses me off, especially since I love books! You know, Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451) was right about something about this happening except the banned books aren't being burned yet. Here's the link about Sarah Palin and her opinion of banned books. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080912/ap_on_el_pr/palin_librarian_4 How is she involved in this? Is she for or against banning books? If she's against banned books, then she might be likable. I need to know what the hell is going on with this issue! Why are there banned books? What happened to free speech? VIVA LA RAZA! This is censorship! I own a few books from this list.

Public Comments

1. Check out this site it tells you what happened and that she did not try to fire the librarian. She was just being hypothetical. Someone asked her so she asked the librarian.
2. There is a banned books list because someone decided to make a banned books list. It's a free country, and if you want to make a banned books list, you can. You can include any books you want on that list. Nobody will stop you. You seem to think that a list of banned books somehow actually bans the books. It's just a list. It doesn't do anything. As for Sarah Palin, there's no evidence she ever banned or tried to ban a single book. She asked about banning books, but you did that. Does that mean you are trying to ban any books? It's possible she asked because she wanted to get some books banned. It's also possible she asked because someone asked her what the process was for getting a book banned, and she wanted to know so she could answer the question. I think if she was actually interested in banning some books, she would have done something more than that. "Why are there banned books? What happened to free speech?" There is a listed of banned books. We can have such a list precisely because we have free speech.
3. she wanted a kid book banned it was named my two dads or some thing but she wanted it band but it exposed kids to homosexuality, and as far as To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men being banned i think it ridiculous those are such great books, and what did happen to free of speech???
4. Books get banned because of uptight people who are trying to shield the world from any type of reality. Homosexuality, racism, sex, etc, etc...The banned books are books that were banned or challened either in the US or in other countries. I think it does two things...1, it shows how insane people can be, and 2 it gives these books more exposure and makes people want to read them more. Kind of like putting a parental advisory sticker on a CD. Here is a website that lists some banned books and gives the reasoning as to why they were banned. http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/ At my campus, theres this Banned Books Week, where you can purchase or read banned books. Thats how I first got interested in this. Of Mice and Men is my favorite book, I believe its challeneged because of the racial language and violence. Oh, and I dont know about Palin. But she is a conservative right wing, so she probably found a book that went against her views and decided that nobody should read it.
5. All kinds of people try to keep other people from having access to certain books, because they think those books have the "wrong" kinds of ideas. As you can see from your list, a lot of very good books get attacked for this reason. It is censorship, and we should be vigilant to fight it. The people responding about Palin have it half right. When Palin became Mayor she asked the librarian whether her policy would be in regards to having some books banned. Palin did not name the books. The librarian said she was against it. Palin then fired the librarian. There was an uproar in the town, and Palin was forced to have the librarian rehired. The people at the meeting had no doubt that Palin was asking the librarian if she would agree to remove books. This occurred at a time when the pastor of Palin's church was mounting a campaign to get rid of a book called "Pastor, I Am Gay." So it is wrong to say Palin made public a list of books she wanted banned. But it is not wrong to say she fired the librarian after the librarian said she would refuse to get rid of books if asked to.
6. You got me.