What drives people to....

What drives certain people to write ascerbic comments in or 'correct' library books? I'd dearly love to know. More than once my reading pleasure has been soured by some pompous moron who thinks they have the God-given to foist their own narrow minded little world view upon others. To them I address the following remarks; come on, this is public property, not yours to deface as you see fit. This behaviour is analagous to fly tipping, or taking an open air crap in the middle of a public park; what can only be described as an anti-social act of moronic vandalism.

To those who would justify such behaviour I would address the additional remarks; if it is okay for someone to write "I don't know why anyone would want to read this BS" upon the flyleaf of one of Tom Clancy's lesser known works, does that make it okay for others to write "This guy should have been impeached" on the flyleaf of Bill Clinton's autobiography? For my part, my own opinion is that neither is acceptable, and that the perpetrators of such public defacement and their apologists should be publicly buggered, hung, drawn, quartered, guillotined and gassed, just to make certain. The same goes for those who burn books. Any and all of them. I don't care which book it is that they have burned, to destroy the written word is a sin against a greater humanity and perhaps even God himself.

Shocked visitor:Gosh. That's a bit extreme Mr Sticker. Would you care to outline the rationalisation for your rather extreme views?

No problem. A book in a public lending library is in it's own way a repository of knowledge, however slight, open to all to read for their own edification or damnation. To me all books are equal. From pulp romances to major scientific works. They all contain, in whatever measure, some tiny essence of a civilisation. In any library that I had control over, I would keep copies of Mein Kampf and Das Kapital alongside the comic prose of P J O'Rourke for public perusal because by said juxtaposition those entering the library could see first hand what utter cobblers was written in the works of Marx and Hitler, then have a chuckle courtesy of P J to recover their sanity. I would even go so far as to have copies of the Bible, Talmud, Koran and all the holy books ever written on the same shelves so that those with a mind to do so could immerse themselves in the writings of all religions in a kind of 'contrast and compare' exercise, and thus become a more spritually enriched and perhaps enlightened human being.

Shocked visitor: Errr, that's all very well Bill, but why the extreme penalty?

To enlarge; To burn books is to destroy knowledge. Knowledge, both technical and otherwise forms the building blocks of civilisation and thus by various proxies protects us all from barbarity and the prospect of living in mud huts. To destroy knowledge is therefore a treason against both society and the greater aspirations of man, even if that aspiration is only for the latest forty inch plasma screen to watch a perfectly good fight turn into an Ice Hockey game. All written knowledge is therefore crucial to our well being, and should be sacrosanct against all violation. Including pompous, arrogant, jumped-up myopic cretins who scrawl on things that do not belong to them.

Shocked visitor: Well, that's all very lucid Bill, but if a library book is public property, then I, as a member of the public, am perfectly at liberty to make my views known if I disapprove of a books content.

You don't get it do you. Can I phrase my argument thus; If you don't like something, no-one is forcing you to read, listen to, or watch it. This is the basis of free speech, which is one of the very lynchpins of Democracy. The right of an individual to speak or write freely without some arrogant little tit behaving like the spoilt kid in the playground who will leap up and down screaming until everyone pays them their undivided attention is central to the whole principal of liberty, which ironically the spoilt child screaming is actually abusing to the detriment of others.

Shocked visitor: Even so; even a spoilt child should be heard.

Look pal, we can go round in circles with you asking dumb variations of the same stupid question, and me giving the same answer from a different angle so that some slight meaning might drip feed into that lump of turgid underused mush you call a brain. My point is that everyone should have a say, just don't annoy the hell out of me by defacing library books, got that!

Shocked visitor: Sorry. OW!

And don't do it again!