“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” — Oscar Wilde.

One would think that a liberal democracy in the middle of its third century would by now be joyously basking in the broadest possible spectrum of ideas and opinions. One would be mistaken.

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Conservatives, for instance, are routinely discovering new threats in books. In Missouri, “books containing anything that is considered sexually explicit” are banned from school libraries, albeit with some exceptions for “artistic” or “informational” material. In Texas, one school’s staff members were instructed to “pull all copies of a list of more than 40 books” until further review. In Idaho, Christian conservatives have demanded that 400 books, many on LGBTQ or occult subjects, be banned from a public library — even though they’re not on the shelves.

When it comes to schools, reasonable parental input on required studies is appropriate. But if sons and daughters cannot be trusted to conform to parents’ instructions regarding the perusal of library books, staff should not be blamed. Besides, parents who fear that exposure to controversial ideas or images will corrupt their youngsters are perhaps demonstrating, as the notorious Mr. Wilde observed, their own shame. After all, considering new ideas and then accepting, dismissing or occasionally reconsidering them should be everyone’s lifelong journey.

But many on the left are no better, as evidenced by crusades to scrub the internet of “disinformation.” Insisting on restricting “inaccurate or misleading” information disrespects the right of people to be wrong — which is indeed something we all have to tolerate — or to acknowledge that what appears wrong today is sometimes proved right tomorrow. Examples abound.

-Gary Abernathy in the WaPost