Jim Hodgson produced two COTD-worthy responses to the post about H.R.5 which…

…dares to require schools to let parents know what they are teaching, urging students to read, and otherwise indoctrinating their students. I chose this one.

The issue of federalism didn’t enter into my ethics analysis, but it is a valid point: why is the Federal government dictating education policy to the states? Well, it’s an ends and means problem: while a majority of the states are considering laws similar to H.R. 5, those dedicated to using mandatory government education to raise a generation of anti-American little Marxists who change their genders like socks present what may well be an existential threat to the United States envisioned by the Constitution. “The Constitution,” Justice Jackson memorably said in Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) , “is not a suicide pact.”

Is Jim’s Comment of the Day an ethical comment or a political one? We inevitably end up on political turf frequently here, but politics is often inextricable from ethics, as ethically corrupt as it so often is.

Here is Jim Hodgson’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Observations On The House Passage Of H.R.5 (The Parents Bill of Rights)”:

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For an old states-rightist like me, the true sadness is that the local and state governments haven’t acted on this matter (and many others) long before now. You know, enumerated powers, like the Constitution says. But, here in post-Constitutional America, that fussy old document is but a minor impediment to the communists in the land.

I have been active in a number of local, regional and state political campaigns since the 1980s, and have come to know many of the candidates (both incumbents and challengers) personally. I can state with utter certainty that only a minority of them, despite their likely protestations to the contrary, remain dedicated to the causes (and voters) that got them elected in the first place, or to following through with making the changes they declared vital and pledged to make once they got into office. Holding political office is such a process of being co-opted and corrupted for most people. The so-called conservatives have “gone along to get along” until there seems to be little left to conserve. The principled liberals have allowed their Democratic efforts to be hijacked by the radical “social justice” mob. Special interests and money control both parties, top to bottom.

I contact elected officials regularly about a variety of issues, both personally and on behalf of organizations to which I belong. I always make my communications polite, short and to the point, usually containing a bullet list of items, and often a reminder of the official’s prior stated position on the matter at hand. Except from those who know me from a campaign, I seldom get more than a perfunctory “Thank you for contacting us.” message. I get particularly aggravated by members of my state legislature when they ask for input on an upcoming committee or floor vote but seem to have their minds made up despite the amount of public input they get to the contrary of their eventual vote. These legislators depend heavily upon the short memories, attention spans and naivety of the voters to maintain their continuation in office.

I know it is cliched to say so, but obtaining and maintaining power really does become the primary objective for many if not most politicians at every level of government. That’s why it is so necessary to diligently limit the power that they do have, as our Founding Fathers so wisely intended and demonstrated in the Constitution. How intellectually poor we are to imagine that we know better than they!

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I’m back. While looking for images to accompany Jim’s commentary, I stumbled on Post Silly Person Petula Dvorak‘s attack on H.R. 5. I had been blissfully ignorant of Dvorak’s simple-minded standard-issue woke blather since dropping my Post subscription, and was happier for it. In 2016, I announced that Ethics Alarms would refer to conduct consisting of supporting a system, process, organization or individual that one knows and admits is unethical, corrupt, harmful, illegal, and bad for society  “a dvorak.” I promptly forgot about the term, but I will now resuscitate it. She clearly hasn’t changed. The op-ed’s position is that teachers and schools know better how to raise children and what they should be having pounded into their heads (like, just to take a random example, “Are you sure you don’t really want to be a girl, Joseph?”) that the parents of those children, or as Hillary Clinton might say, “It takes a progressive government to raise a child.” Petula thinks H.R. 5 is just mean and ungrateful:

This toxic bill, introduced into Congress this month and debated on Capitol Hill this week, attacks an entire profession and scorches thousands of dedicated educators under the guise of empowering parents.

Toxic! Allowing parents to see what teachers are planning—not that those teachers can be trusted to teach what is publicized, but that’s a different issue—is an attack on an entire profession? Damn right it is, because that profession has demonstrated spectacularly that it cannot be trusted. Dvorak’s screed, like all of the attacks on the bill, conveniently leaves out the reality that nothing in it dictates what is taught or what will be offered to students in the library in any way. What is Dvorak afraid of parents finding out? She says,

It’s a cheap device to divide Americans politically with culture-war scare tactics, with lies about curriculum and education. It pushes a preposterously shortsighted idea of what children need to be informed citizens in a contemporary world, disproportionately targeting accurate history about discrimination and anything LGBTQ-related.”

That’s funny, because the bill doesn’t mention any of those things. Her fear, like the fear behind the hysterical Democratic rants about how the bill is fascist, dangerous, deadly, is that parents might take action to block a partisan and ideological agenda that has no business being activated under the guise of public education.