The Firemen are Coming

Goodbye Dr. Seuss, Goodbye Sherlock Holmes

by Robert A. Waters

So the great books aren’t great anymore. At least that’s what the shallow-minded book-banners would have you believe.

Little House on the Prairie is out because Laura Ingalls Wilder was allegedly a racist.  A couple of her characters happened to be “stereotypical Indians,” so we’re no longer allowed to read her books. Tom Sawyer, another supposedly racist book, is likely to be replaced by some politically correct author who can’t hold a pen to Mark Twain. Sherlock Holmes should be killed off (again) because Arthur Conan Doyle believed in British colonialism.

Even more surprising is the deep-sixing of the much-beloved Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel). A political progressive, Geisel worked in the war department during World War II and designed “propaganda” cartoons that stereotyped Emperor Hirohito and Japanese officers. Because of this, the author of classics such as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” can’t escape the razor-sharp stilettos of today’s book-banners. For them, everyone has to believe exactly the same things they do, even if an author wrote 100 years ago when the world was a different place.

American leftists invented political correctness for one reason: to suppress divergent thought.

In Ray Bradbury’s book, Fahrenheit 451, the book-burners were called “firemen.” They roamed everywhere, weeding out “dangerous” books and creating huge bonfires to destroy ideas. This is the mantra of today’s leftists who fear thought that contradicts their own.

I can’t stand these people.

Think I’m gonna go into my personal library and pull out my dog-eared copy of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” and read it through and through. Then, on Sunday, I plan to attend church and study the Holy Bible, the most hated book and most banned book in America. Later, when the grandkids come over, we’ll turn on the TV and have a Dr. Seuss marathon.

After that, maybe we'll discuss the concept of freedom. And the ignominious philosophy of suppression. And, just maybe, our grandchildren will grow up reading the great books of the past, the books we read and enjoyed when we were growing up. Can't be anything wrong with that.