Volunteer Censorship?
 

So I went to the local public library to pick up a few books to read. One of them was <i>Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot</i> by liberal satirist Al Franken. To my bewilderment, someone who checked the book out earlier and hand-wrote rebuttals to Franken's arguments. To presume that future readers would welcome these rebuttals on par with the actual contents of the book is presumptive and ludicruous. If what this person had to say was so clever, they would probably be getting paid as much as Franken. Granted, that's not necessarily censorship, but I couldn't find another word to call this.

This is the first time I came across such phenomena. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

EDIT: As I continue to read this book, I notice a new, more annoying practice. The vandal speaks to Franken in second person. He foolishly assumes that Franken will become a resident of North Miami Beach, Florida, get a library card, and check out his own book.

I agree that it's presumptuous and ludicrous. No one checks out a book to read someone else's opinion of it. It's also defacing public property. I would've told the librarian about it so they could revoke that person's library card.

The librarian wouldn't know who did this. It may have been the person who checked this book out right before me. It may have been someone from 5 years ago.

Vandalism occurs in all facets of life. To avoid it, you would have to limit, and hold accountable, all members of the society you participate in. Much like this one. As soon as John Q. Public gets his hands on the book, he can do as he likes, until someone calls him on it. This situation is much like hearing street preachers or performers. They are going to tell you what's going on, whether or not you want to hear it while you walk to work.

Did you notify the librarian that the book was defaced and that they should order another copy from the publisher?

I don't think another copy is necessary. The vandal took care only to write on the margins of the pages. I guess he/she is a vandal with a heart.

I agree. If you have a problem with Franken, there is a better way of releasing your feelings.

I have noticed a similar thing in a different venue.

I was browsing books on Amazon and reading the "reviews" that people who "read" the book submitted. I can only speak for the books that I perused (conservative: politics and economics) but they had similar things in the "reviews".

The "reviews" were just nasty slams and attacks at the author(s) by people who obviously hadn't read the book. They were just using the "review" section of the book to herald their own political views.

Both methods of attacking the person and content make the person and his argument look worse.

For User Name, it re-affirms his opinions about the book and it leads him to believe that the opposition are idiots.

For me it does the same thing. By acting this way they only make me feel better about my views and beliefs.

Just last week, I was reading a library book where someone had written notes in the margins. However, the book I was reading was about physics, and the vandal was pointing out factual errors with what the author was saying. In principle I'd say that it's wrong to write in a library book, but in this case it saved me a whole lot of trouble and confusion.

I've seen plenty of comments in margins that have been interesting; like, I was reading this postmodern philosophy book, and someone wrote in the margin "Turn to page 132-- Author says EXACT OPPOSITE of what he does here"... it was actually pretty insightful... and it was just one line, instead of a whole long rant, so the reader could just ignore it if they wanted to...

I do agree that this crosses the line, though, but it just goes to show there are no absolutes out there.