Knowledge has always been power. The more people know, the more informed decisions they can make. This does not always mean they will make the right decisions, but having knowledge gives them the ability to choose. That is why controlling knowledge is such a big deal.

For centuries, the Catholic Church held mass and printed the Bible only in Latin. This restricted who could read it and controlled how its teachings were interpreted, aligning with what the Church wanted people to believe. When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and began spreading knowledge in languages people could understand, it sparked pushback. People started questioning not only the Church but also the governments that worked alongside it.

This questioning led to reformations and revolutions across the world. The American Revolution was driven by well-educated men who opposed how things were being run. They gave speeches and distributed pamphlets to rally people to their cause.

After the war, several Founding Fathers established newspapers and schools to continue spreading knowledge. They wrote essays and books explaining their philosophies and how the government should work so that people understood their vision. This is why it is so frustrating and heartbreaking when people attempt to control knowledge while quoting these very men or arguing that this is what they would have wanted.

Millions of books are published every year on countless topics, written for a myriad of different audiences and purposes. No author expects everyone to like or read every book ever written. If someone does not want to read a book, they do not have to. If a parent does not want their child to read a certain book, they have the right to take it away. But trying to remove a book from another person’s hands simply because you disagree with its content is something else entirely.

You do not have the right to do that. No one has the right to do that. Even the U.S. government does not have that right—and when other countries engage in book bans or censorship, the U.S. media often criticizes them. But these are just bans. History has shown us the devastation of outright burning knowledge. The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is considered one of the greatest losses of ancient knowledge. Hitler’s book burnings erased crucial queer history, human research and everyday cultural knowledge. Both were acts occurred during wartime to control and manipulate the population to side with one side or another or to limiting access to information that would make them turn on the government.

While we have not seen book burnings on that scale yet, we are witnessing book bans and increasing restrictions on public knowledge. Thoughts and ideas are being labeled as dangerous simply because they question the government or societal norms. This has already led to the purging of knowledge, and if it continues, it will lead to people being jailed—or worse.

Those pushing for bans and censorship will try to justify it as “protecting children” or “rooting out traitors” who want to overthrow the government. They will claim that books challenging the status quo are a threat to society, as if stories about people who are different will somehow harm others. This is not the case and is often further from the truth.

Knowledge is power for the people. If the masses are educated and know that the government is not helping them, people will vote them out or demand government do their jobs. However, if the public are uneducated and without support and just surviving, they will agree to any boot on their neck in hopes that it stops pushing on them so hard.  In this desperation and need to survive will cause people turn against teachers, doctors, neighbors, and even their own children, blaming them for societal issues instead of recognizing the real culprits: those in power who benefit from division and ignorance.

Book bans are not about protecting children. They are about controlling public knowledge and shielding those in power from scrutiny. A story about two high school boys falling in love will not kill people, nor will it “turn” anyone gay. But it will show that queer people are human beings—people who deserve to live their lives, rather than being treated as monsters to be hunted, stripped of their rights, or erased from existence.

The next time someone argues that a book should be removed from shelves, ask yourself: What knowledge is being taken away, and why do they not want people to know about it?