The War on Terror was begun after the attack on our nation on September 1, 2001, with the institutionalization of the Patriot Act and establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. This agency was to be aimed at confronting attacks on the United States from abroad.
My, have things changed since then.
After some nudging by the National School Boards Association (NSBA), requesting President Joe Biden provide “immediate assistance” to help teachers, school board representatives and students who have allegedly gotten threats over mask mandates and critical race theory, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it would be debut a series of steps “in the coming days” to address rising problematic conduct “directed toward school personnel.”
Specifically, the Biden administration annnounced it would establish a task force to ascertain how federal legal and law enforcement agencies (DOJ, FBI, U.S. Secret Service, and Department of Homeland Security) could be employed to investigate and prosecute alleged criminal conduct toward local school eployees and boards when these clearly do not constitute matters over which the federal government has any authority. The Biden administration also will use the task force to instruct local officies in how to carry out prosecutions in cases where no federal law is broken and to deliver training for school staff on how to report threats from parents to assist in investigations.
The NSBA wants the Biden administration to consider such threats and acts as forms of domestic terrorism and to claim powers to do so under the Patriot Act—basically, persecuting parents for caring about their children’s education.
What is both interesting and disturbing about all this is the portion of Garland’s statement pertaining to the feds trying to prosecute cases where where no federal law is broken. I was under the impression that if no federal law is broken, there is no federal crime, and by our federalist system there should be no federal involvement.
This turns federal agencies into the equivalent of the Gestapo or Stasi.
Imagine terrorism charges being brought against anti-mask, anti-vaccine, or anti-critical race theory organizers who are just voicing their concerns to school board members, staff, teachers, or administrators.
What will these acts of domestic terrorism be? Harassment and intimidation in the form of yelling at a school board meeting, calling administrators tyrants, and protesting outside meetings to explain that the children they are teaching are ours and not theirs.
Garland says authorities will target threats to school boards. Translation: the federal government will persecute anyone who questions the local school board.
In an age where “silence is violence” and “words are violence,” it is not at all shocking, though still outrageous, that parents saying things a school board doesn’t like will be considered violence and consequently domestic terrorism.
I recall Rep. Maxine Waters encouraging people to “Get in their faces!” to intimidate conservative politicians and media figures. There was no call by progressive liberals or even people on the Right to investigate this and countless other such exhortations as criminally punishable threats, much less domestic terrorism, even though what Waters did was an overt threat and a charge to others to engage in acts of harassment and intimidation.
That is the way it should be in this case. To begin with, the federal government shouldn’t be involved with local school boards. When the federal government starts to intrude in areas that clearly belongs to local law enforcement, it is entering dangerous terrain.
In addition, if I, as a parent, do not want my elementary or middle-school child to read or be given access to highly descriptive and sexually suggestive texts, and if I voice this to my school board in expressions of anger and disgust, does that mean I am harassing them or presenting a threat of violence? If I vehemently voice the view that books that detail graphic descriptions of rape, lesbian or gay or heterosexual sex, and masturbation are not appropriate for children in middle school or below, or that I do not want my Black child to be taught he is a victim and cannot be successful no matter what because of his race, does that make me a domestic terrorist?
This is what is occurring in school board meetings across the country, from Texas to Virginia and from Florida to New York and Colorado, among other states. According to the Biden administration’s theory, such parents are all racist white supremacists.
Any father or mother will attest to the fact that theie most prized possessions are their children, and when parents fidn out that their kids are being targeted by predators, how can one expect them not to be angry? The Biden administration, Garland, and the school board know-it-alls clearly are not open to diverging or alternative perspectives. What other conclusion is there when these people ignore parents and think they know what is best for children who do not belong to them?
Marvin John Heemeyer, a man from Colorado who is famous for having demolished numerous buildings with a modified bulldozer he made after being fed up with local government overreach, stated that he “was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.” I do not advise this course of action be taken, but governments need to understand that different folk have different pressure points, and kids are the main one for parents.
It is as if all of what we are witnessing currently is a representation of the elite’s desire to bring back the aristocracy. Our nation is heading warp-speed towards fascism when governments feel they must send in the Stasi to silence protests by parents. Maybe they are frightened and believe that they are fighting for their lives. If the government fears the people, maybe that is a sign that we are winning.
Or maybe Garland is simply motivated by a selfish interest. After all, Garland’s daughter, Rebecca, is married to a man named Xan Tanner, who is the cofounder of a company that sells Critical Race Theory materials to schools: Panorama Education.
In any case, every taxpaying citizen in any school board’s jurisdiction has not only the right to speak but also a duty to do so. If the people are prevented from doing so, those suppressing them will have to be dealt with one way or the other, in public or privately.
In Meditations 1, the classical philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, “From my great-grandfather, I learned not to frequent public schools, and to have good teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.” If this is our future, it only reminds me that history repeats itself. Prior to the Revolutionary War, representatives of the Crown in the American colonies used a comparable method to address the increasing threats from pesky colonists complaining about tax collectors, magistrates, and intentionaly oppessive laws such as the Stamp Act.
If our federal government insists on going down this avenue of increasing suppression of dissent, the government will have a big mess on its hands. There is a scene in The Wizard of Oz (I know this movie is not politically correct and is supposedly racist, but to heck with your sensitivities) in which Toto pulls the curtain to the side and the people can see who the wizard is: a weak, puny phony. Parents have peeked behind the curtain and are seeing school boards across the nation for what they are: empty, hollow would-be members of the aristocracy who have forgotten who pays their salaries.
Originally posted at Thought Crime-Permanently Banned from Twitter & YouTube. Reprinted with permission.