Has the time for normalcy bias passed? Domestic espionage scandals involving a presidential administration, Marxist race riots, stolen elections, global pandemic, none of these affairs are normal. Normalcy bias is the idea that any number of contemporary abnormalities that we're experiencing as a society is just another in a series of oddities that will pass and that what life demands most is that we're comfortable. Former Texas Congressman Ron Paul often spoke of what it took to drive change in the public. Namely, he suggested that hitting people in their wallets and bellies would demand change. I submit that messing with the children is proving equally effective.
Since COVID-19 hit, the children have been inundated with unending fear of disease that largely doesn't affect them. They've been locked in their homes and out of the classrooms, muzzled with unscientific face diapers, and isolated away from their peers. They've forgone youth sports and extracurricular activities. They've learned over a computer screen that has resulted in significant rates of academic failure, perhaps not seen in the history of our education system. Perhaps worst of all, according to the CDC suspected youth suicide attempts increased by 31% during the pandemic.
Not content with merely applying the stressors of a novel pandemic, the schools have been indoctrinating the kids with an onslaught of far-left activism. From inappropriate and mature themes in children's reading and television programming material to inappropriate interactions in protected spaces like restrooms and locker rooms, the parents have seemingly had enough. Around the nation, angry parents are showing up to local school boards and county seats with a laundry list of grievances, and Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.
In Vail, Arizona, angry parents showed up to a school board meeting to protest mask mandates. When the school board walked out, they held a mock election under Roberts Rules of Order and elected their own school board and banned mask mandates. In Loudon County, Virginia, parents have made national headlines regularly in pushing back against Critical Race Theory and a school board that covered up the sexual assault of a female student at the hands of a transgender male student in a school restroom. In Clark County, Nevada, parents served the school board with a $200 million dollar lawsuit over their mask mandates. Here in Pocatello, the school board implemented and then reversed course on a mask mandate of their own after their failure to abide by public meeting rules and accept parental debate on the issue. These types of confrontations are occurring universally and regularly around the country.
As a response to the throngs of pissed-off parents, the National School Board Association recently sent a letter to the Biden Administration requesting assistance in investigating these angry parents as domestic terrorists. The Biden Administration happily obliged in a letter from Attorney General Merrick Garland, announcing the Department of Justice's intent to prosecute dissenting parents whose protests are deemed harassment. This unprecedented step subverts the idea of the consent of the governed, our federalist system of local governance, and what's more, the role of government in the rearing of a child.
Protests to the NASB's letter as well as AG Garland's response have been widespread and their actions have been universally denounced by everyone from politicians to state school board associations. Eleven state school board associations have rebuked the NASB's letter to the DoJ to date. The Pennsylvania School Board Association sent a letter of response to the NASB indicting them for their failure to consult member state associations and also announcing their withdrawal from the NASB.
I recently saw a yard sign that read "I don't co-parent with the government", and perhaps a truer statement was never made by an enraged parent. The actions of school systems around the country to overstep their delegated authority and dabble in indoctrinating the children has been a catalyst in the activated parent movement. Where economic lockdowns and electoral malfeasance have failed to engage much of the public, messing with the kids has succeeded. If we're to push back against the absurdities of our times and course-correct while we can, it is very likely that enraged parents will be the ones to save us.
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