In her weekly column, Nancy Churchill vows that the parents of the United States will stand up for freedom and ‘we will fight for our children.’
Nancy Churchill
Dangerous Rhetoric
Last week, the National School Board Association, the Department of Justice and the mainstream news media all confused free speech for violence and violence for free speech. In a carefully coordinated attempt, these entities orchestrated a media campaign designed to intimidate parents who dissent from the regime. (https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/06/biden-launching-coordinated-campaign-intimidate-parents-domestic-terrorists/)
First, in Senate testimony regarding mask mandates and other COVID-19 protocols, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said parents should not be the “primary stakeholder” in their children’s education. Parents are “important stakeholders,” Cardona said, but educators must determine the programs.” (https://www.wnd.com/2021/10/bidens-education-secretary-parents-not-primary-stakeholder-kids-education/)
The idea that parents are not the primary stakeholders is not a new one. Most people are not aware of just how scornfully progressive professional educators view the average parents’ abilities to make good choices for his or her children’s health and education. Many educators in the highest levels of school administration and in the OSPI see themselves as saving the children from uneducated, abusive, racist, religious cult followers. The education elites believe that they know better than parents in every situation.
A few days after Secretary Cardona’s Senate testimony, the NSBA histrionically begged the Biden administration for “…immediate assistance … to protect our students, school board members, and educators who are susceptible to acts of violence affecting interstate commerce because of threats to their districts, families, and personal safety.” (https://nsba.org/-/media/NSBA/File/nsba-letter-to-president-biden-concerning-threats-to-public-schools-and-school-board-members-92921.pdf)
In essence, the NSBA believes that parents who challenge their school board are engaged in “domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” If upset parents protest unscientific mask mandates or racism training (i.e. Critical Race Theory), they are the moral equivalent of jihadi terrorists, who commit actual acts of violence and terror. This is an insult to parents who want the best for their children and it also dishonors the victims of real terrorism. The NSBA wants dissenting, complaining parents to be treated as a national security threat. They forget that the parents and property owners pay for our schools. Parents and community members rightly believe that the elected school board works for them. C. Bradley Thompson, in an excellent essay, explains why U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s response to the NSBA is a declaration of war against parents (https://cbradleythompson.substack.com/p/a-declaration-of-war?justPublished=true). Thompson states: “Rather than tossing the NSBA letter in the trash where it belongs, the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, read it and immediately ordered the FBI and America’s National Security State to mobilize its immense power against parents whose only real crime is to take seriously the education of their children. He did this within just a few days of receiving the NSBA letter.”
It’s important to know that there is NO law that defines the CRIME of “domestic terror.” One of the goals for this war on parents appears to be to energize the political momentum needed to create this new “crime”. However, in USC 18 Section 2331 (5) (A), “…the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;..” (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331#5)
This basic definition of domestic terrorism creates so many questions! Why doesn’t the DOJ investigate the many acts of real violence and criminal activity that occurred all across our nation in 2020? The rioters did more than shout in a meeting. They burned stuff down. They killed people.
Is shouting at a public meeting an action that is “dangerous to human life” and in “violation of …criminal laws?” Isn’t demanding accountability and transparency from elected officials protected political speech? Isn’t being an engaged, responsible and caring guardian the duty of every parent and family member?
I don’t think that the DOJ is confused about the meaning of the words. It is willing to silence protected political speech, while ignoring real terror. It’s an intimidation campaign, pure and simple. Will you allow them to silence you? Or will you fight back?
Take LOCAL action. Every school board in WA state is a member of the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA). In turn, WSSDA has members on the NSBA board. The Issaquah School district has two members on the NSBA board! One of your local school board members will be attending the WSSDA general assembly in mid-November. Before the General Assembly, identify your school board WSSDA representative, and contact him or her to ask that they petition for WSSDA to leave the NSBA. The Louisiana School Board Association has already made that move. (https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1609679/2021_LSBA_Update_NSBA_Letter_08OCT.pdf)
If WSSDA won’t leave the NSBA, then our local school boards need to leave WSSDA. Why should our local tax dollars be used to support organizations that hate parents and want to deny our first amendment right to peacefully petition our government? It’s time to send a clear message to those who would use political power to silence anyone who disagrees with them. Be sure to be a regular attendee at your school board meetings, and be a voice for your community. We, the parents of the United States, will stand up for freedom and we will fight for our children.
Nancy Churchill is the state committeewoman for the Ferry County Republican Party. She may be reached at DangerousRhetoric@pm.me. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own.
Don’t be intimidated by the FBI. They can be arrested just the same as anyone else for breaking local and state laws. The sheriff’s and local police have jurisdiction to make arrests on Federal authorities bullying citizens into silence if it gets that far.
This seems a narrow and uninformed position. Firstly, bringing up other acts of violence (like your views of the 2020 protests) is a FOX-like technique to distract from the real issue.
Our Education staff are tasked with making decisions about the safety of our schools, and the government at large for the safety of the community. I’m sure you’ve watched the anti-COVID activities across our country, from anti-mask people to anti-vax, and there has indeed been violence perpetrated by these people: stabbings, shootings, beatings. School board meetings have been interrupted and ended with screaming angry people saying “We know where you live,” “We will come and get you,” and “You will never show your face in public again.”
These are a minority for sure, but some have also sent death and other threats to school employees.
The discourse over what’s best of our kids has become so politicized that a loud minority is is trying to turn it into a practical war, with their anti-scientific and misguided beliefs. Speakers saying their “vibration” protects them from COVID, trying to stick pennies to their noses and shoulders, arguments that masks do nothing, claims that vaccines kill. It is a literal circus.
I understand their rage because they seem to really believe these things, but no apology is needed for the majority of us who do not.
School boards are listening to the people. They’re also listening to the violent and deluded ones, but they’re just not changing policy to service them, because doing so would harm our children and our communities. Masks and vaccines don’t just protect our kids–who are at fairly low risk–but the community at large who are exposed to those kids.
“Domestic Terrorist.” The definition of terrorism is using violence or the threat thereof to push for political change, and the loudest and most extreme I’ve seen in school board meetings definitely meet that definition.
On CRT I have no opinion because I don’t really know what it is, but if it is “teaching our true history,” I’m not afraid of it. Are you?
Well said Scott. And don’t worry about not being familiar with Critical Race Theory, the people screaming from the mountaintops that it is being taught to public school kids have no idea what it is either. The irony of the whole situation is that the people against education want to be in charge of education policy. The people against science want to be in charge of science policy. The people against democracy want to be in charge of democratic elections.
Many people that refuse to adapt as the world changes believe that being the loudest equates to being right, being violent equates to being patriotic, and being contrarian equates to being intelligent. The significant majority of citizens that don’t ascribe to that logic need to take the minority, and the threats they may pose, seriously while staying the course of sanity and decency.
The people trying to convince us that death threats and intimidation of school boards are simply examples of good parenting are the same people that are trying to convince us that the “patriots” casually visiting Congress on January 6th were just sightseeing.
I grew up in an area where people showed up to school board meetings to voice their opposition to teaching evolution, novels with naughty words and real life situations, and human biology. They made their views clear without threatening the lives of school board members, trespassing, or breaking any laws. No one ever labelled them domestic terrorists.
Maybe there is a lesson there somewhere.
There is no excuse for federal involvement in school board issues, any more than there’s any excuse for their failure to investigate the domestic terrorism that was front and center for months in Portland.
The idea that you claim “bringing up other violence… is a FOX-like technique to distract from the real issue,” justifies nothing you wrote.
Domestic terrorism IS the ISSUE. That you want to narrow it down to exclude fringe-left criminals murdering, assaulting, burning, raping, robbing and looting is irrelevant. They meet the very definition of domestic terrorists and until parents at school boards begin to riot the same way, there is zero excuse for investigating one to chill their First Amendment rights while ignoring the other.
You wrote: “Domestic Terrorist.” The definition of terrorism is using violence or the threat thereof to push for political change, and the loudest and most extreme I’ve seen in school board meetings definitely meet that definition.”
Louder than a Trump supporter being shot to death in Portland? Louder than another supporter being shot in Olympia? Louder than multiple efforts to burn down the Federal Building in downtown Portland? Louder than the efforts to burn down the Portland ICE facility or the Portland Police Guild Building? Louder than the dozens of businesses destroyed in Portland by these people?
Then you need to get both your vision and your hearing checked.
Your very definition of domestic terrorist is on display every day around the country in a variety of settings. Antifa is set to attack a block party today because those people living in that neighborhood object to being Portland’s new repository for rotted RV’s and homeless thugs.
And DOJ is nowhere to be found.
The utter hypocrisy of this obvious and totally relevant comparison reeks… And is emblematic of the hypocrisy and incompetence of the entirety of the Biden Administration.
Author’s correction, October 15, 2021> After this piece was published, I learned that EVERY school board member belongs to WSSDA. Call (or write) EVERY member of YOUR school board and ask them to attend the WSSDA General Assembly, and move for WSSDA to demand that the NSBA retract their action against America’s Parents.
Oh, if it were only things as trivial as masks that parents are raising the alarm. In the very least we have children being exposed to pornography on school issued devices, children who are not allowed to eat for up to eight hours at a time, 504 plans and IEP’s for special needs children being ignored and students unable to access their public education. And that’s just here in Vancouver. In Virginia a parent was arrested for being ‘unruly’ at a school board meeting when he came to hold them accountable for covering up the sexual assault of his daughter and allowing the sexual assault of another student by their negligence.
Masks and Covid aside, are we all willing to agree that any parent has the right to be concerned and yes, even ANGRY, when their child is being mistreated or abused by the public schools we pay for? Teachers and school officials can claim whatever authority they think they have in their ‘domain’ at school. It ends when they claim to trump our authority as parents or cause harm to our children. Gone are the days when schools were trusted institutions of learning. We don’t trust them, and for good reason.
I stumbled into this article because I was researching the redistricting for King County. I have to say your comments Ms. Church are rife with misinformation. It is very slanted against the Democratic party, calling them gerrymandering in the redistricting process when it’s very clear that Gaines especially is looking at the long game when proposing competitive districts. I’m not in Clark County and someone in King County with a high number of vaccinated residents and lower covid cases I’m surprised you are taking such a negative view on vaccinations. You have not researched the cost of the unvaccinated when they get sick. I have seen numbers as high as $100,000 when remdisavar has been introduced. You have not seen the cost to our health care system when so many healthcare professionals are stressed out. I have a granddaughter that is a doctor and she works tirelessly to save lives. It’s not wonder that people look at the unvaccinated as people who don’t care about their family, friends and community to bother getting a vaccine. The vaccines are perfectly safe, as with any pharmaceutical that is introduced into your body, there are side effects. There are very serious side effects for drinking diet coke but how many of the unvaccinated drink it. There are side effects for many maintenance drugs that are taken every day by so many but they still take them because it helps them. Vaccines help you survive if you get covid. If you have serious health conditions vaccines may not save you because you are already compromised but there is a better chance of survival with it then there is without it. I’m saddened by your column calling democrats socialists. Do you even know what a democratic socialist is? The redistricting isn’t causing polarization. You and your Republican, Trumpian misinformation is what’s causing polarization. The vaccine should be a uniting event. You are making it a polarizing event. Shame, shame, shame on you.