We Are In Danger Of Losing Our Right To Free Speech

Yesterday NewsMax reported that a group representing local school boards is asking the Biden administration to go after parents who protest the school board’s policies.

The article reports:

A group representing local public school boards is asking the Biden administration to invoke the Patriot Act and federal hate crimes legislation, among other measures, to go after parents who have aggressively opposed board policies and members who have adopted measures such as mask mandates and the teaching of critical race theory curricula.

In the open letter addressed to President Joe Biden, the National School Boards Association asserts that ”education leaders are under an immediate threat.”

The request ”to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation” comes as reports of angry parents expressing opposition to COVID-19 policies and curriculum changes — particularly those tied to critical race theory — have become more frequent.

There is a problem with hate crime laws. You are making a judgement on a person’s thoughts–not solely on his actions. Unless you are a mind reader, your chances of being absolutely accurate in judging someone else’s actions is slim. The concept of hate crimes is simply a step toward embracing the idea of thought crimes–not a place we want to be.

There have been a few examples of parents acting inappropriately at school board meetings, but there are more examples of parents simply questioning the material that is being taught in our public schools. Education leaders are not under “an immediate threat” unless you consider anyone who disagrees with them a threat. The Virginia school board did not like it when a parent read some of the pornography found in the middle school library. The National School Boards Association representing the school boards is simply a group of people who would like to shut down the speech and/or activities of anyone who interferes with the tyranny that has appeared in some of our local school boards. School boards are elected officials and are supposed to answer to the voters. If is unfortunate if some of those voters have behaved inappropriately and they should be dealt with as individuals, but that is no excuse to accuse them of hate crimes or invoke the Patriot Act. Any elected official has to deal with a certain number of idiots, but that is no excuse to call down the power of the government on anyone who disagrees with them.