Surge Summary: Teachers unions continue to leverage the COVID-19 crisis to force Left-wing policies that have little/nothing to do with beginning to educate children in the fall. Meanwhile, Progressives are trying to keep Christian and private schools from opening – and the American Church bears some blame for the Left’s boldness in this area.
Left-wing Extortion
If parents didn’t have enough to worry about, the big teachers’ unions are exploiting the coronavirus to make outrageous demands that have virtually nothing to do with education. Once again, the teachers’ unions and their progressive allies are calling for a “national day of resistance” against the idea of re-opening our schools.
Here are some of their demands:
- Canceling rents and mortgages.
- Bans on new charter schools, voucher programs and standardized testing.
- A new wealth tax on billionaires and Wall Street.
As today’s lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes, this is “political extortion” with the left-wing unions issuing “ultimatums” and holding our children’s education hostage to their demands.
First they close our houses of worship. Then they take away our right of assembly. Now they’re holding our children hostage. It’s getting hard to distinguish the progressive left from a hostile foreign invader!
Religious Schools Under Siege
It’s not just the public schools either. Montgomery County is probably the most liberal county in the state of Maryland. Nobody was expecting the liberals who run Montgomery County to open the public schools.
But with no hearing and no input, Montgomery’s progressive leaders declared that no private or religious schools would be allowed to open either. This announcement came as a shock to many parents who were getting ready to send their kids back to school. This is also happening in other progressive states and localities.
Governor Larry Hogan quickly overruled the order, but I have no confidence that liberal judges in Maryland will do the right thing. Nor do I have any confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court can be relied upon to side with religious schools given the increasing liberal bias of Chief Justice John Roberts.
Unfortunately, so many Christian churches have been passive in the face of orders preventing more than a few dozen people from attending church services. If it is okay to let the government regulate your church, how can we expect to win a legal battle over reopening Christian schools?
I think more pastors should have issued statements essentially saying:
“To be clear, we do not believe the government has the constitutional authority to close our church or limit our attendance. We reject the notion that any bureaucrat has the authority to do this given the extra protections afforded to churches by the Constitution.”
Unfortunately, almost none did that. And far too many churches conceded far too much ground.
If men and women of faith don’t push back, this power will be abused again for some other emergency, real or imagined.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
Originally posted here.
Image: Creative Commons 3 – CC BY-SA 3.0; http://alphastockimages.com/; Nick Youngson – link to – http://www.nyphotographic.com/; https://www.picpedia.org/keyboard/a/extortion.html
Gary Lee Bauer is an American politician and activist, who served in the Reagan administration. He later became president of the Family Research Council and a senior vice president of Focus on the Family. In 2000, he participated in the Republican presidential contest.
Surge Summary: Teachers unions continue to leverage the COVID-19 crisis to force Left-wing policies that have little/nothing to do with beginning to educate children in the fall. Meanwhile, Progressives are trying to keep Christian and private schools from opening – and the American Church bears some blame for the Left’s boldness in this area.
Left-wing ExtortionIf parents didn’t have enough to worry about, the big teachers’ unions are exploiting the coronavirus to make outrageous demands that have virtually nothing to do with education. Once again, the teachers’ unions and their progressive allies are calling for a “national day of resistance” against the idea of re-opening our schools.
Here are some of their demands:
As today’s lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes, this is “political extortion” with the left-wing unions issuing “ultimatums” and holding our children’s education hostage to their demands.
First they close our houses of worship. Then they take away our right of assembly. Now they’re holding our children hostage. It’s getting hard to distinguish the progressive left from a hostile foreign invader!
Religious Schools Under SiegeIt’s not just the public schools either. Montgomery County is probably the most liberal county in the state of Maryland. Nobody was expecting the liberals who run Montgomery County to open the public schools.
But with no hearing and no input, Montgomery’s progressive leaders declared that no private or religious schools would be allowed to open either. This announcement came as a shock to many parents who were getting ready to send their kids back to school. This is also happening in other progressive states and localities.
Governor Larry Hogan quickly overruled the order, but I have no confidence that liberal judges in Maryland will do the right thing. Nor do I have any confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court can be relied upon to side with religious schools given the increasing liberal bias of Chief Justice John Roberts.
Unfortunately, so many Christian churches have been passive in the face of orders preventing more than a few dozen people from attending church services. If it is okay to let the government regulate your church, how can we expect to win a legal battle over reopening Christian schools?
I think more pastors should have issued statements essentially saying:“To be clear, we do not believe the government has the constitutional authority to close our church or limit our attendance. We reject the notion that any bureaucrat has the authority to do this given the extra protections afforded to churches by the Constitution.”
Unfortunately, almost none did that. And far too many churches conceded far too much ground.
If men and women of faith don’t push back, this power will be abused again for some other emergency, real or imagined.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
Originally posted here.Image: Creative Commons 3 – CC BY-SA 3.0; http://alphastockimages.com/; Nick Youngson – link to – http://www.nyphotographic.com/; https://www.picpedia.org/keyboard/a/extortion.html
Gary Lee Bauer is an American politician and activist, who served in the Reagan administration. He later became president of the Family Research Council and a senior vice president of Focus on the Family. In 2000, he participated in the Republican presidential contest.
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