On October 9, 1635 — and after many religious and policy disagreements — Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
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Roger Williams
The high school course was not “Logic and Semiotics in Western Culture” — or “Eastern.” It was not “Memes for Momes.” Or even “Cartoons from Cave Walls to Bathroom Stalls.”
It was “A History of Ethnic and Gender Studies.”
Do we dare ask what’s in it?
Doesn’t matter. Because we’re not allowed to see what’s in it.
“Michigan parents can’t request some school curricula under public record acts after the Michigan Supreme Court chose not to hear an appeal from a lower court,” explains the Michigan Capitol Confidential.
“On Sept. 25, the state’s top court denied an appeal filed by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on behalf of a Rochester parent who requested the curriculum for a class held in the Rochester Public Schools district.” Using the “the state’s Freedom of Information Act, Carol Beth Litkouhi in 2022 sought course materials” for the class mentioned above. “Rochester Public Schools refused. The district argued that the law did not require it to provide records held by teachers.”
And so far — and barring a revision of state law — the public schools have won.
Not a happy story, but even more than bad news for Michigan parents and (by extension) their children (the students in public schools), it demonstrates a mindset we’ve encountered before, and not confined to one school district or one state.
According to educators in public service, they have a right to teach your kids and not tell you what they are doing.
They are committed to doing this.
They are indoctrinators and not on your side.
They must be stopped. Politically.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Doris Lessing
Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.
Doris Lessing, The Sunday Times (London, May 10, 1992).
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Solzhenitsyn for the Win
On October 8, 1970, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in literature. In his acceptance speech, given after his deportation from the USSR, he said that “during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known.” In 1962, Nikita Khrushchev had allowed Solzhenitsyn’s short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch to be published, and defended the novel at the presidium of the Politburo, claiming that there is “a Stalinist in each of you; there’s even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil.” Nevertheless, Solzhenitsyn’s works were not published in the Soviet Union from 1964 through 1989. Stalinists won, for a time, with Solzhenitsyn being deported to West Germany in February 1974.
Do Democrats support noncitizen voting?
It depends.
Which Democrats do you mean?
A clear majority of voters who identify as supporters of the Democratic Party oppose giving the vote to noncitizens. Specifically, they support the Citizen Only Voting Amendments (COVA) on the ballot this election in eight states — Idaho. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.*
For instance, polling shows Democratic voters in North Carolina favor the only citizen voting measure by an eight to one margin. Among Republicans the margin is a whopping 22 to one. Most Democratic legislators joined every Republican in voting to place the amendment on the ballot, but less enthusiastically: 42 yes votes, 16 no votes and ten abstentions.
In Georgia, 70 percent of Democrats supported passing a Citizen Only Voting Amendment. Republican support was 93 percent with 76 percent of independents in favor. But while every Republican in the Peach State’s House of Representatives voted in the affirmative on HR780, not one single Democrat did so.
Though not as lopsided as Republicans or independents, 83 percent of whom favor citizen only voting, 59 percent of Kentucky Democrats are supportive, a four to one margin. Yet, while every Republican legislator voted yes, less than one in five Democratic legislators were supportive.
In Wisconsin, 76 percent of voters like the Citizen Only Voting Amendment, including 57 percent of Democrats residing outside the legislature. Inside the legislature, every single Democrat opposed the amendment.
In this two-year legislative cycle, votes were cast in 21 chambers in eleven states. The partisan difference between elected Republicans and Democrats was stark. Not a single Republican voted against the COVA, compiling over a thousand yes votes. Conversely, more Democratic legislators voted against COVA than for it.
Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? Most elected Democrats, yes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: Additionally, all 19 of the cities where noncitizens are now legally voting, including noncitizens in the country illegally, are very progressive. All are sanctuary cities and governed (nearly) exclusively by Democrats.
* Voters have previously passed COVAs in six other states going back to 2018: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio.
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David Brin
Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.
“Interview de David Brin” at ActuSF.com (March 2008).