Book bans are making headlines and garnering lawmakers’ and school administrators’ attention.

In a nation founded on freedoms of press and expression, the groundswell of bills and proposals to limit access to books is misguided and disheartening, and, perhaps, an implicit expression of a lack of confidence in ourselves as thinking people.

Is our nation, is our community, so fragile that a book on a shelf is a threat?

School libraries have always faced questions about which books and materials to offer to students and which they shouldn’t. Educated people made educated decisions. It was never a print-on-paper free-for-all. There have always been selections deemed inappropriate for students of certain ages. If a parent had a problem with a book or a magazine, the first line of defense was the family. Parents make decisions all the time about what’s best for their children. That’s the burden and privilege of parenthood, helping to shape a young mind.

Setting a curfew, establishing house rules, requiring chores and deciding what forms of entertainment — apps, movies, websites — are appropriate is part of the job. A parent should be able to decide what’s best for his or her child and help draw the line between acceptable, brief exposure to controversial topics and too much immersion in them. A parent or a lawmaker or an administrator shouldn’t decide for someone else’s child.

Restricting information and discouraging freedom of thought through censorship undermines one of the primary functions of education: teaching students how to think for themselves.

By sealing ourselves and our youth from certain ideas and concepts we weaken ourselves. And anyone who thinks a book ban will keeps books — and their ideas — from youth hasn’t seen a 4-year-old sneaking a cookie from a cookie jar or a teen-ager smoking or drinking.

The surest way to interest a young person — or an old person — in anything is to tell them they can’t do it.

It might score political points or bolster a soundbite, but banning books does nothing to strengthen the will or character of our youth. And it erodes the freedoms our nation was founded upon. What will the next generation of leaders take from these lessons in censorship? That they can’t be trusted?

Youth and parents are equipped to make many of these decisions — for themselves but not everyone. If a dialogue is needed, it should be civil and err on the side of personal liberty. Not every book is for everyone. But our nation is founded on the principle that those decisions are made as close to the individual as possible.

— Lincoln Journal-Star