KNOX COUNTY MAYOR TIM BURCHETT EXPLAINS WHY WE SHOULD ABOLISH THE KNOX COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY. Well, when I read this piece on his lame political-posturing effort to ban sex offenders from public libraries, that’s what I thought.

To many people, making things “public” means making them available to everyone. But — as Burchett’s move demonstrates — it actually means letting grandstanding politicians make them unavailable to anyone who is sufficiently despised. Whenever you put money into a “public” project, you’re really just giving more control to politicians with a finger in the wind and an eye on future elections.

If having a public library system just means giving more power to guys like that, I’d just as soon rely on the private sector, thank you.