Written by Ed Straka

In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, author Neil Postman describes the growth and outright dominance of the entertainment industry and the all-pervading influence it has had upon American culture. More to the point – the book illustrated how a culture could literally be dumbed down by the type of entertainment it dealt with and consisted of. Equally telling in the author’s mind was how much time was spent viewing and reading material that was as frivolously meaningless as it was sensual and vulgar.

Yet, and co-relative to the above was the unfortunate reality that people no longer spent time reading, thinking about, or discussing things of import (Phil. 4:8). Rather, they chose to contemplate the words of some popular gadfly, movie star or rap musician, or lose themselves in endless hours of television. In other words, Proverbs tells us that the fool’s eyes are in the ends of the earth (Proverbs 17:24), but in our case – it’s the TV, video games and the tabloids. Postman suggested that our media was used like the drug “Soma” in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to medicate the masses into complacency.

Now and Then

As much as I agree with Postman’s assessment of our culture and the mindless rabble it appears to be producing exponentially, I would also like to suggest there is an even greater and more pernicious threat out there today that not only invites people into an alternative world – but a world of randomness and outright oblivion. A world so absorbing, not to mention stimulating, that young people prefer it to reality – and in time – seem to detach themselves from reality.

Consider: When we were growing up, the big thing was movies. There were no video games, only Checkers, Monopoly and pinball games at the bowling alley and the big concern of our parents was sexuality. Hollywood then – as it continues to now – constantly pushed the envelope with both language and the dress code. The racier movies were a cause of concern for our parents who, more often than not, banished us into the other room where we lamented our excommunication from the world of adults which meant access to movies with bad language and loose dress codes.

This was only natural: our desire was for the things that adults were aware of and participated in, accentuated by the fact that our parents kept it from us. Even to this day sexuality is cause for concern not only in the sense of living in a carnal society that seeks to seduce everyone and everything, but also in the real world of teen pregnancy and the unfortunate abortion of those unwanted babies (despite the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade).

What movies especially did for the young, however, was to teach us about the world and the things in it. Above all, it taught us to dream about being a hero and heroes generally did the right thing. Even Jimmy Cagney when playing a gangster on his way to the electric chair could be counted on to say that his life was a waste and he had made a mistake if it meant scaring some kids straight. The biggest downside to TV back then was we probably watched too much of it.

Stories had a definite beginning with a goal, a problem, a solution to the problem and the struggle to apply the solution. All stories had an ending which was clear to the eye of the beholder. When it was all said and done, we kids knew they were only movies although we wanted to be like the people we saw in those movies.

Ideas Within

Today, however, things are different. In fact, there is an even greater problem in society that is wrapped up in the very fiber of our youth culture today that goes beyond bad language and loose dress codes. This “problem” stems from the pens and typewriters of men who rule the world from the grave, philosophically speaking: Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud, B.F. Skinner, and Jean Paul Sarte.

Each of these men had a profound, atheistic philosophy of life that influenced various academic disciplines and their perspective on the field of anthropology and what it means to be human. We don’t see it as clearly for two reasons:

First off, it is embedded in many of the movies, music, video games and comic books that our young people are involved with and if we do catch a glimpse, we just label it as “violent.”

Secondly, most people don’t study philosophy, so they don’t know the major players and the terms and phrases used by these men nor the implications of these terms and phrases when applied.

I can assure you, however, our modern media is much more than just “violent” but decidedly dangerous in terms of the human psyche because it stems from the internal dynamic latent within us all: sin. Modern technology amplifies sin and the desire for it with all the bells and whistles and unbelievable graphics. Equally, there is something latent within the various forms of media in terms of the ethos portrayed philosophically.

What’s not realized by most people is that many philosophers over the centuries perpetuated various non-Christian beliefs through their writings and these ideas ended up in educational institutions and the students of these educational institutions eventually graduated and joined mainstream America as educators, musicians, script writers and novelists.

Playtime?…

In time would come the world of high-tech video game developers who themselves pirated many of these ideas they encountered in a class, or in a movie or book, and used them to build what is called in movies a “story line” or “plot” and in the gaming world a “scenario.”

Some movies are obscene in the true sense of the word’s definition: it belongs “off stage” meaning it’s not necessary to advance the plot of the movie or play. Hollywood is replete with these movies and with the rise of Netflix we now have access to movies from abroad that have no moral sensibilities at all in terms of what they allow on screen.

Video games are not much better. Although I’ve never seen the games, nor did my boys buy them, there are games one can play featuring scenarios that can be anything from shooting up a school or public building to rape and out-right destruction of a city. I believe the most infamous such game is called “Grand Theft Auto.”

What needs to be understood is this: these are not just games and movies! They are philosophical & psychological conditioners that proselytize a specific world and life view that is antithetical to Christianity. Equally, it is a world designed to draw us in because it panders to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16): the very things the script writers and game designers have given themselves over to (Jude 1:8).

The themes of most of these novels or movie story lines or video game “scenarios” are built on the witch’s brew of atheism and historical relativism and the reality of what men and women are capable of who were influenced by the ideas of the above-mentioned men if not restrained by a transcendent moral code.

In other words, if the above-mentioned men, and those like them are correct, and there is no fixed reference point in the universe residing metaphysically in an actual God – then there can be no ultimate standard of right and wrong to base morality upon. A prospect which leaves the human race “home alone” as it were, driven by the blind forces of nature which itself is driven by unknowable forces of biological necessity and determinism and nothing else. Man is all impulse and exercises his will with no remorse (1 Corinthians 2:14).

It is this world of relativism mixed in with the idea of man as animal trained by unknown outside forces with no beginning, no purpose, and thus no real goal in life that acts as the backdrop for these games and the various novels and movies available to young people today. All of which is designed to show that there is no ultimate meaning to life: only a colorful, high-tech invitation into the Void.

Granted, my generation caught glimpses of endless, violent life with little purpose in Clint Eastwood westerns and Charles Bronson fighter movies, yet these characters still portrayed a sense of crude justice and generally defended the weak and put down bad guys. Things are different now.

The dominating thing in all the movies, music, comic books, and games today is the quest for three things: ecstasy, escape or power. Each of those concepts has its appeal to different individuals for all human beings have a sinful tendency. But for those to whom God is a non-existent entity these three things are the focus of life, as opposed to what Scripture admonishes us to focus upon (Philippians 4:8).

When It’s All Said and Done

Understand: I’m not suggesting if you or your child plays a video game you will both become a nutcase. I am suggesting that those whose total free time is spent in the world of unreality end up with difficulty when faced with reality and will utilize those tools they have been “evangelized” with via entertainment (1 John 4:3). The new Avatar movie is case and point: history sold with fantastic colors, special effects and graphics that in the end suggests that Western Civilization is cruel, greedy and selfish and if we could only return to the pristine past of the noble savage – in this case blue with tails – all would be well. Ironically, the very system that Cameron castigates is the social-economics system responsible for his great wealth and fame as a director, but what’s $700,000,000 have to do with it?

Thus, as parents who seek to raise their children as well as educate them intentionally for hopes of a brighter, productive future serving in the Kingdom of God, it is important to realize that “education” does not stop with the homeschooling lesson of the day but continues with your child’s entertainment (1 Corinthians 15:33; ESV).

Choose wisely!

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Edward Straka has spent most of his adult life in education having taught at the collegiate level  as well as the high school level in the areas of Ancient and Medieval History, U.S. History, World View, Economics and US Government. He has pastored churches in Wisconsin and Mississippi and taught Japanese at Honda of America, and Piqua Community College in Ohio. He has written both historical fiction and futuristic dystopian fiction with a bio-ethical slant as well as nonfiction social theory books available on Amazon. Currently, Mr. Straka teaches Theology and is the acting Director of Christian Liberty Homeschools headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois, yet having students throughout the world.

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This article was originally published by our friends at Christian Liberty Homeschools.

Many politicians and educators want to steal our children. According to these activists, parents can feed and house children, but can’t guide their education or tell them how to choose right from wrong. Parents merely act as custodians of the State’s property. Here are recent samples of this line of thinking.

Media says that parents have no right to interfere with a public school education. The Washington Post printed a guest editorial that claims:

[E]ducation should prepare young people to think for themselves, even if that runs counter to the wishes of parents.

…

When do the interests of parents and children diverge? Generally, it occurs when a parent’s desire to inculcate a particular worldview denies the child exposure to other ideas and values that an independent young person might wish to embrace or at least entertain.[1]

That is, parents have no right to shield their children from any sort of predator or groomer having evil intent. As we’ll see later, this “no rights” idea comes from the claim that the interests of the child are automatically at odds with those of the parents.

Politicians also say parents have no such rights. In his campaign for reelection, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe promoted this statist argument against parents’ rights in education. He said it this way:

“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions … I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”[2]

This statement was a key reason for his electoral defeat. But he didn’t get this opinion out of the blue. His friends and donors, teacher unions and school administrators, encouraged this thought.[3] They even call these nurturing parents “terrorists.”[4]

Parents are tyrants. Noah Berlatsky, a prominent liberal author, claims:

parents are tyrants. “parent” is an oppressive class, like rich people or white people.

…

socialists should be wary of the nuclear family; Marx is pretty definitive about that.[5]

Berlatsky has the traditional Marxist fear about the family, that its primary loyalty is to itself and not the (socialist) community.

We must abolish parenthood itself. According to columnist Joe Mathews[6] we must forbid parents from raising their own children. This amounts to abolishing parenting altogether. His article says:

Fathers and mothers with greater wealth and education are more likely to transfer these advantages to their children, compounding privilege over generations. As a result, children of less advantaged parents face an uphill struggle, social mobility has stalled, and democracy has been corrupted.

…

My solution — making raising your own children illegal — is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: the rich and poor should trade kids, and homeowners might swap children with their homeless neighbors.

…

In his “Republic,” Plato adopted Socrates’ sage advice — that children “be possessed in common, so that no parent will know his own offspring or any child his parents” — in order to defeat nepotism, and create citizens loyal not to their sons but to society.

…

But don’t pay those critics any mind. Because they just can’t see how our relentless pursuit of equity might birth a brave new world.[7]

(Note: Mathews’ is apparently embarrassed by what he said. Other web sites have a version of this column that reads “My solution is simple”, along with other minor changes. Just what is Mathews’ afraid of you reading?)

If a mother is banned from raising her own newborn – how can one even contemplate this confiscation? (Jeremiah 31:15) – then it’s likely that women won’t bother to have children at all. Whether Mathews offered satire or no, his “universal orphanhood” proposal aligns with socialist thought.

Why should we care what they say? These screeds against parents’ rights give us glimpses of why these activists, including teachers and school administrators, have become our opponents. Their words disclose their desires and plans. Believe them when they say they want to make changes. And if unopposed, they’ll create a cultural revolution by government fiat. Read on to understand what drives their animosity. You’ll also find some thoughts on how to confront this war on parenting.

The war against families and parental authority

Whose child is this? Does the child “belong” to his or her parents, or to the State? The answer to this question shapes our society. For example, without families raising children you wouldn’t have multi-bedroom homes, minivans, or even suburbs. We’d merely have loose communities of selfish, self-centered people, for the responsibility of nurturing children teaches commitment, devotion, and compassion.

By tradition and law, the parents have the primary responsibility for a child’s custody, care, and nurture. This responsibility also covers teaching morals and values, and deciding the content of education. That these decisions are for the parents to make, and not the State, has been repeatedly confirmed by the courts. One such Supreme Court case is Wisconsin v Yoder:

The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition. – Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) [8]

But recent academic agitators have decided to debate the issue anyway. They say that parents are unfit to teach because they’re tyrants.[9] One of these agitators is Elizabeth Bartholet,[10] who wrote this about parents directing their children’s education:

The legal claim made in defense of the current homeschooling regime is based on a dangerous idea about parent rights—that those with enormous physical and other power over infants and children should be subject to virtually no check on that power. That parents should have monopoly control over children’s lives, development, and experience. That parents who are committed to beliefs and values counter to those of the larger society are entitled to bring their children up in isolation, so as to help ensure that they will replicate the parents’ views and lifestyle choices.

This legal claim is inconsistent with the child’s right to what has been called an “open future”—the right to exposure to alternative views and experiences essential for children to grow up to exercise meaningful choices about their own future views, religion, lifestyles, and work.

It is inconsistent with state laws and constitutional provisions guaranteeing child rights to education. It is inconsistent with state and federal laws guaranteeing children protection against abuse and neglect.[11]

By “open future,” she means State-approved morals and perspectives. Her view, and distortion of family law, is meant to break our society. She claims that children must be presumptively protected from their very own parents! James Dwyer,[12] a close associate of Bartholet, claims that “parental rights” amounts to kidnapping. He wrote:

But it is only because state statutes make biological parents the legal parents of a newborn child and give legal parents presumptive custody rights that birth parents have legal permission to do what would otherwise be kidnapping—that is, to take a person to their home and confine the person there without that person’s consent.[13]

And elsewhere Dwyer wrote:

The reason that parent-child relationship exists is because the state confers legal parenthood on people through its paternity and maternity laws.[14]

According to Dwyer, the concepts of “parenting” and “family” are mere legal constructs, that they didn’t exist until some government made them happen. Instead of government existing to serve the community, he thinks that people exist solely to serve the government. In the end, these activists want to make all children wards of the state.

Through this analysis, it becomes apparent that the claim that parents should have child-rearing rights – rather than simply being permitted to perform parental duties and to make certain decisions on a child’s behalf in accordance with the child’s rights – is inconsistent with principles deeply embedded in our law and morality.[15]

In Dwyer’s world, once you bring your children home you may only do for them what the government permits.

I propose further that the law confer on parents simply a child-rearing privilege, limited in its scope to actions and decisions not inconsistent with the child’s temporal interests. Such a privilege, coupled with a broader set of children’s rights, is sufficient to satisfy parents’ legitimate interests in child-rearing.[16]

In short, the mother and father may only play at being parents, being sure to not to instill virtues not preordained by the statist bureaucrats. This mirrors what the Soviets tried, and failed at, in Russia:

What responsibilities are left to the parents, when they no longer have to take charge of upbringing and education?… The state does not need the family, because the domestic economy is no longer profitable: the family distracts the worker from more useful and productive labour.[17]

Even today, Communists want to abolish the family:

Today, the main backwards role the family plays is the oppression of children, who are subjected to a tyranny of the parents and denied the basic rights which should belong to every human, most importantly the right of free development of the personality.[18]

To summarize, we don’t find American parents begging the government to take away their rights. Rather, academics have invented a rift between parent and child. They want the government to institutionalize their divisive, never-tried, and ungodly ways of dealing with children.

Defend all of our rights of parenting

Elected officials promise to represent all of us. However, they keep aligning themselves with tiny activist groups. Maybe it’s for the campaign money, or maybe the officials feel threatened by the activists’ political threats. Senator Everett Dirksen said about politicians, “when they feel the heat, they see the light.”[19]

To preserve our religious and parental rights, Christians need to do more than just vote. We must bring our own “heat.” Here are my suggestions for bringing political heat, some of which may surprise you.

Be persistent in pleading your cause. Politicians expect any that outrage against them will fade over time. Usually, political persistence is found only in those people wanting favors, and who have the money with which to buy them. If politicians don’t hear opposing voices, then they’ll forget their true constituencies.

Christians must frequently remind their officials just whom they represent, and that they’re supposed to be both just and impartial (Exodus 23:1-3; Leviticus 19:15). For example, isn’t trading donations for favors showing partiality? We must be like the widow who petitioned her unrighteous judge both day and night (Luke 18:1-5).

Be persistent in prayer. After telling us of the widow and the wicked judge, Jesus told us to be persistent before God. He will surely bring forth justice (Luke 18:6-8).

Be loud and be heard. Don’t be crude, but also don’t be timid. After all, the prophets weren’t gentle with the people concerning with God’s word (Jeremiah 36). And even Jesus riled up people when he scourged the Temple (John 2:13-16). Make sure that your officials have heard you, even if it means following them around. Make them uncomfortable, and even give them midnight serenades. After all, it’s protected political speech.[20] 

Be the all-important precinct captain. The best way to get politicians you like is to help weed out the bad ones before they even get to the ballot. That means becoming your own precinct’s captain, the most important political role in the country. Both the Democrats[21] and Republicans[22] recognize that political power starts with the precinct. The precinct captain walks through the precinct, at each home promoting the candidates he or she approves of. This means the captain has great power to influence elections.

Becoming a captain is easier than you think. See the site precinctstrategy.com to find out how.[23]

Be bold in the courts. The right to worship (First Amendment) doesn’t mean only the ability to think religious thoughts. It means being able to physically practice your religion in your private and public life. This also includes how your religion affects your parenting, such as in the Wisconsin v Yoder case (see above).[24] And ever since the Fourteenth Amendment, state law can’t be used to limit religious rights or activity.[25] But government officials, or the courts, won’t proactively fight for your rights. You yourself must act, challenging bad actions, laws, and decrees (“executive orders”) in court.

Be obedient to God, not to evil commands. In Romans 13, the apostle Paul speaks of obedience to authorities. The ruler is a “minister of God to you for good” (Romans 13:4). That is, a ruler is God’s delegated authority to encourage and enforce godly behavior. But if a ruler issues evil commands, he or she does so outside of that delegated authority to be a “minister for good.” You have no obligation before God to obey any evil commands.[26]

This principle was understood, and used, many times. Here’s a few cases:[27]

• In the 16^th century, Lutherans resisted the Emperor. He told them to abandon “salvation by grace” or be killed.

• In the 17^th century, Scots resisted King Charles. He gave them a new, “official” way to worship which denied their Presbyterian beliefs.

• In the 1770s, the American Colonists resisted King George. He tried numerous means to deny their God-given rights and freedoms.

All three of these cases have the same idea: while a ruler may have physical power, he or she has no moral or legal authority when acting beyond the ruler’s scope of office. In all three cases the communities resorted to military force to resist the unrighteous commands.

This “minister for good” concept is worth understanding well. It’s guidance for when you must decide to either obey God or obey an ungodly command. I recommend you read the referenced article, to be sure of yourself.

Be a shield against cultural insurrection. As we see, teachers, advocates, and politicians are seeking control of children that aren’t theirs. This is a power grab, a literal insurrection by elites. If Christians, and if parents, don’t block this then we might lose both our children and our American society.

Protect our children from subversive public schools

We’ve been blind and lazy about our public schools. We trusted our teachers and school officials, but they betrayed this trust by actively, and unapologetically, working against community values. They deny parental input, and also refuse oversight of their dealings.[28] We can’t even believe them when they do tell us things.[29] Perhaps as a joke, President Ronald Reagan said about the Russians “Trust, but verify.”[30] We could been verifying public schooling a long time ago, saving ourselves much grief.

If the public school people won’t teach community values, and reject community oversight, then why pay them with community property taxes? They promote society-altering socialism: Critical Race Theory,[31] the anti-American 1619 Project,[32] and liberating children from their parents (see above). These aren’t American community values!

Therefore, protecting our children revolves around getting them into schooling that their parents can trust. This generally means private schools or homeschooling. But what about families for this is a pipe dream? For them, leaving the public schools is hard for reasons like these:

• Private schools aren’t cheap. One survey has the tuition of Illinois private high schools at about $12,000 per year.[33] You might find a lower-priced school hosted in a subsidized building, or supported by charitable donations. You also might find a school with a fancy campus, because it’s intended to attract wealthy parents. But on the average, attending a private school is a substantial burden on the family budget.

But even at those rates, a family still might be able to swing a private school education. That is, if that family wasn’t forced to also pay for the expensive public schools. For example, in 2020 Chicago public schools spent about $30,000 per student![34] Even Paul Vallas, who used to run the Chicago public schools, now wants a practical school voucher program.[35]

• Parents are at work, and not available for homeschooling. Many families are single-parent households, or have both parents working outside of the home. They can’t take advantage of homeschooling because no adult would be at home to supervise their children.

• Educating special needs children is costly. When schooling children with severe mental or physical handicaps, extra aides, specialists, and facilities are needed. Parents of these children can currently turn only to the public school systems.

I don’t have big, comprehensive, plans that fix community schools to everyone’s satisfaction. And I don’t want such plans, for they lead to big, comprehensive bureaucracies. Rather, when people act in their own self interest they uncover small solutions to limited problems. Those that work get adopted by others. Here are my ideas for small solutions to education problems.

Take over your local school board. If you don’t trust the public schools, then why not clean house? Once you, and your friends, have control you can get rid of the bad people, fix the curricula, create transparency, etc. Sure, the teacher unions would be determined and formidable opponents. After all, you’re cutting in on their game. But a community coalition can win.

I’m serious about this. Here is a campaign cookbook that teaches how to network, and how to campaign to win.[36] Yes, it’s hard work, but it pays off. At the very least, you’ll have created the sort of “heat” your local politicians pay attention to.

Invent, and promote, easy-to-use homeschool systems. Homeschooling has a reputation for being hard to do. Yet:

• There are already homeschooling systems that claim to be easy to use. The parents get guidance on setting up their school. The student lessons might even be supplied as computer lectures. And the vendors do the hard work of getting the students’ efforts academically recognized.

• There might already be an online catalog or directory of easy homeschooling systems.

But if these easy systems are out there, then why are they so hard to find? And if there is a catalog of them, then where is it? My point is that self-promotion goes a long way to multiplying the number of families willing to try homeschooling.

I’m willing to use my blog to promote easy-to-use curricula providers, and catalogs of curricula. I also think that other blogs would do likewise. And if these online catalogs don’t yet exist, then who can start the first one?

Create models for bare-bones, but affordable, private schools. Modeling a private school on the public school model results in a pricey education. After all, public schools aren’t designed to be economical.

But what if a school pattern was created that has no frills: no sports teams, no fancy campus, no snob appeal for parents. Its attraction would be providing a competent, but inexpensive, education. The parents could shop among such schools, choosing which one best suited their desires. Such schools could be held wherever empty office space, or empty meeting halls, could be found. And they’d be priced so low that parents could use them even while paying for the public schools they aren’t using.

How inexpensive can we get? A school is just curricula, a teacher, some students, and a place for holding classes. Suppose that:

• Online curricula were used to do the actual teaching. The students would be largely interacting with the computer lessons. Such online teaching is already available from various private schools, and from some homeschool curricula publishers. It ought to be inexpensive to license these for a private school.

• Teachers and assistants monitor the students in their online learning. Their main teaching role would be to help the students over particular lesson difficulties, so you wouldn’t need many people. Perhaps you could get by with three or four adults per hundred children. That, and reminders from the parents that their children behave “or else.”

• The school could be held in a church basement, a rented hall, or some underused business property. There are enough of these places that a school could be placed most anywhere in a community. A quick online search of school codes reveals few conditions on building suitability, the biggest concerns being those of the fire departments.

A school of a hundred students, with full-time staff, held in a business property (that is, paying rent), might get by with an annual tuition of less than $6000. The actual numbers depend on the details.[37]

For me, an added benefit of inexpensive private schools is that it forces the public schools to scale back, for their funding is partially based on actual student attendance. A shrinking student base means they must sell underused properties, and perhaps become more responsive to their communities.

Promote a “community chest” to help special needs children get their education. Public schools are primarily funded by community property taxes. This means that parents of public school students don’t pay the entire costs of that year’s education. They’re subsidized by other homeowners.

This subsidy is even greater for special needs children. For example, a student with severe disabilities might need a one-on-one aide. The community, through the school, subsidizes this student more than it does other students.

If the switch to private schools works out, and the public school system shrinks, then we must remember these special needs students, along with their families. But we should help them through private donations, and not through taxes. A community, and not its government, should take care of its own. For example, look at what President Grover Cleveland said.

In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said,

“I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.”

President Cleveland added,

“The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”[38]

You already see Facebook and Go Fund Me appeals for certain individuals and causes. That is the same sort of giving spirit that these parents will need for their disabled children’s education. What did you think those Monopoly “Community Chest” cards meant? Give, to help those in your community.

May I help?

I’d like parents to regain control of their children’s education. I currently know precious little of the details concerning private schools, but I think I can help anyway. For example, I could help catalog and promote useful homeschooling systems. And I could help work out details of “model inexpensive schools.” I also know a thing or two about computers.

If you’d like to write and see if I really can help, leave an email at this (slightly-obfuscated) address:  trusted.schools –at- fixthisculture.com

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Footnotes 

[1]      Schneider, Jack and Berkshire, Jennifer, Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t., Washington Post, October 21, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/parents-rights-protests-kids/2021/10/21/5cf4920a-31d4-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html

[2]      Terry McAuliffe’s War on Parents, National Review, October 1, 2021, https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/terry-mcauliffes-war-on-parents/

[3]      Duggan, Laurel, Teachers Union President Backing McAuliffe Promotes Article Claiming Parents Don’t Have A ‘Right’ In What Kids Are Taught, Daily Caller News Foundation, October 26, 2021, https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2021/10/26/randi-weingartin-terry-mcauliffe-teachers-union-curriculum/

[4]      Sims, Gwendolyn, Concerned Parents Are ‘Immediate Threat’ Says National School Boards Association President—Some Are Even Domestic Terrorists!, PJ Media, October 1, 2021, https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2021/10/01/concerned-parents-are-immediate-threat-says-national-school-boards-association-president-some-are-even-domestic-terrorists-n1521073

[5]      Berlatsky, Noah, Parents are tyrants, Twitter, December 14, 2020, https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/1338586940157927427

[6]      Joe Mathews, LA Progressive, https://www.laprogressive.com/author/joe-mathews/

[7]      Mathews, Joe, Column: California should abolish parenthood, in the name of equity, Yahoo News, January 13, 2022, https://www.yahoo.com/news/column-california-abolish-parenthood-name-181725030.html

[8]      The Supreme Court’s Parental Rights Doctrine, Parental Rights, https://parentalrights.org/understand_the_issue/supreme-court/
The left column has several legal quotes, accessed by clicking on the line of “dot” links. The Yoder quote is merely one of these quotes.

[9]      Poole, Christian, The Case for Homeschooling (Part 1): The Strangeness of the Anti-Homeschool Movement, ThinkingWest, May 19, 2020, https://thinkingwest.com/2020/05/19/part-1-the-anti-homeschool-movement/

[10]    Elizabeth Bartholet, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bartholet

[11]    Bartholet, Elizabeth, Homeschooling: Parent Rights Absolutism vs. Child Rights to Education & Protection, Arizona Law Review, Volume 62, Issue 1 [2020], https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/62-1/62arizlrev1.pdf

[12]    James Dwyer, William & Mary Law School, https://law2.wm.edu/faculty/bios/fulltime/jgdwye.php

[13]    Dwyer, James, A Constitutional Birthright: The State, Parentage, and the Rights of Newborn Persons, UCLA Law Review, page 762, 56 UCLA LAW REVIEW 755 (2009), http://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/56-4-1.pdf

[14]    Prominent Law Prof: ‘State Should Take Over the Legal Parental Role of Children’, Truth and Action, http://www.truthandaction.org/prominent-law-prof-state-should-take-over-the-legal-parental-role-of-children/2/
Alas! The original quote was in an interview on the CRTV network, but any transcription isn’t found on the internet. In some cases, the internet is NOT forever.

[15]    Dwyer, James, Parents’ Religion and Children’s Welfare: Debunking the Doctrine of Parents’ Rights, page 1373, William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository, Faculty Publications, January 1994, https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1167&context=facpubs

[16]    Dwyer, James, Parents’ Religion, page 1374.

[17]    Kollontai, Alexandra, Communism and the Family, published in The Worker, 1920, collected in Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, Allison & Busby, 1977, found at https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm

[18]    Meghany, The communist abolition of the family, Destroy Capitalism Now!, March 26, 2017, https://destroycapitalismnow.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/abolish-the-family/

[19]    “Politicians see the light when they feel the heat”, The Big Apple blog, December 2, 2010, https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/politicians_see_the_light_when_they_feel_the_heat

[20]    Schow, Ashe, Washington Post Defends Protesters At Senator Josh Hawley’s Home: ‘Peaceful Vigil’, The Daily Wire, January 5, 2021, https://www.dailywire.com/news/washington-post-defends-protesters-at-senator-josh-hawleys-home-peaceful-vigil

[21]    Rural Organizing & Engagement Toolkit for Precinct Captains, Democratic Party Official Website, https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Rural-Precinct-Chair-Toolkit.pdf

[22]    5 Duties of the Precinct Chair, Collin County Republican Party, September 3, 2015, https://www.collincountygop.org/news/5-duties-of-the-precinct-chair/

[23]    Shultz, Dan, Precinct Strategy, https://precinctstrategy.com/

[24]    The Supreme Court’s Parental Rights Doctrine, Parental Rights

[25]    McCarthy, Mary, Application of the First Amendment to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, Notre Dame Law Review, Volume 22, Issue 4, Article 2, May 1, 1947, https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3880&context=ndlr

[26]    Perry, Oliver, American Christians, Tyranny, and Resistance, Illinois Family Institute, May 20, 2021, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/faith/american-christians-tyranny-and-resistance/

[27]    Ibid.

[28]    Kingkade, Tyler, They fought critical race theory. Now they’re focusing on ‘curriculum transparency.’, NBC News, January 20, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/critical-race-theory-curriculum-transparency-rcna12809?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

[29]    LaChance, Mike, Report: California Public School Teachers Being Told to Hide Critical Race Materials From Parents, Legal Insurrection, April 14, 2021, https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/04/report-california-public-school-teachers-being-told-to-hide-critical-race-materials-from-parents/

[30]    Watson, William, Trust, but Verify: Reagan, Gorbachev, and the INF Treaty, The Hilltop Review, Volume 5, Issue 1 (Fall), Article 5, Western Michigan University, December 2011, https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=hilltopreview

[31]    Perry, Oliver, Critical Race Theory is anti-Christian, Illinois Family Institute, October 8, 2021, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/marriage/crt-racismblm/critical-race-theory-is-anti-christian/

[32]    The 1619 Project, Critical Race Training in Education, https://criticalrace.org/the-1619-project/

[33]    Illinois Private High Schools By Tuition Cost, Private School Review, https://www.privateschoolreview.com/tuition-stats/illinois/high

[34]    Conklin, Audrey, Chicago Teachers Union demands to know how Lightfoot is spending $2B in federal COVID relief for schools, Fox Business, January 5, 2021, https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/chicago-2-billion-covid-relief-schools
The article has an embedded link (see below) that effectively hides per-pupil spending by dividing it between fixed costs (the buildings, etc.) and instructional costs (the teaching). See http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=environment&source2=perstudentspending&Districtid=15016299025

[35]    Vallas, Paul, Guest Column–Paul Vallas: There is No Choice But School Choice, John Kass News, https://johnkassnews.com/there-is-no-choice-but-school-choice/

[36]    Toolkit: Combatting Critical Race Theory in your Community, Citizens for Renewing America, June 8, 2021, https://citizensrenewingamerica.com/issues/combatting-critical-race-theory-in-your-community/

[37]    Let’s try to estimate annual tuition for a school of 100 students.

1. A private school needs adult staff, which are full-time jobs for them. Factoring in benefits, let’s estimate one school master at $100,000, plus two assistants at $50,000, plus one administrator at $70,000. This gives annual labor costs of $270,000. We can use so few people because the teaching is done largely through computers, and we’ll have substantial moral support from the parents, pressuring their children to cooperate.
2. There are various homeschooling curricula that can be used. We could also turn to existing online schools whose online lessons we can lease. These sources will provide lessons, as well as proof (like “accreditation”). I see advertised costs of somewhere near $1,000 per pupil. I’d think that for a hundred students at once you could get a substantial discount on leases, so estimate licensing at $500 per pupil, or $50,000 per hundred students.
3. The school needs a suitable site. It might be the “between friends” use of a church hall, or currently vacant business space. Lacking specificity, I pick a number out of the air and say that facilities and utilities cost $300,000 for a year.
4. The annual costs for teachers, curriculum, and facilities comes to about (270,000 + 50,000 + 300,000 =) $620,000, or $6,200 per student.
5. A particular school could end up with much lower operating costs, but because of donated labor or facilities. Additionally, does the school intend to make even a small amount of money, or is it offered as a community service?

[38]    Williams, Walter, Charity Not a Proper Function of the American Government, The Liberal Institute, http://www.liberalinstitute.com/CharityNotProperGovernmentFunction.html

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Critical Race Theory is hard to understand, perhaps deliberately so. Its advocates use common terms differently than do the rest of us. For example, almost everybody associates “racist”[1] with someone who thinks one race is superior to others. But to these advocates, every American is automatically racist, even if no racial intent exists at all.

Even Christians are being deceived by Critical Race Theory. For example, one religious college held a conference that claimed “there is no such thing as being white and being a Christian.”[2] This statement underscores the need to understand the claims of Critical Race Theory and how it impacts Christianity. This article:

• Provides a simplified definition of Critical Race Theory.

• Examines its most important claims.

• Compares these claims with what the Bible says about having equal justice for all.

• Demonstrates that Critical Race Theory is anti-Christian, and wouldn’t fix racism anyway.

• Shows that, although using Critical Race Theory is both illegal and unconstitutional, it is already found in our schools and government.

• Asserts that this push for Critical Race Theory is an evangelistic push for the Marxist worldview. It’s a religious battle for American hearts.

The Bible is our baseline

The promoters of Critical Race Theory claim that America is racist, that:

…the United States was founded as a racist society, that racism is thus embedded in all social institutions, structures, and social relations within our society.[3]

One of these advocates, Robin DiAngelo,[4] in her book Is Everyone Really Equal?, says that:

we do not intend to inspire guilt or assign blame… But each of us does have a choice about whether we are going to work to interrupt and dismantle these systems [of injustice] or support their existence by ignoring them. There is no neutral ground; to choose not to act against injustice is to choose to allow it.[5]

These are strong assertions, but are they legitimate? To evaluate these claims we need to go back to first principles (Hebrews 5:12-14), such as why are we here, and what God has required of us. Otherwise, we can fall under the spell of false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-4). Remember what got Adam into the most trouble? It was deciding that he, himself, would decide what was right and wrong (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:4-6, 22-24).

The first thing to understand is that everything in the universe begins and ends with God. He created it (Genesis 1:1), judges the peoples throughout history (Leviticus 18:24-28; Jeremiah 18:5-10; Acts 12:21-23), and will bring all of creation to an end (Revelation 20:11-21:27). If short, everything always is all about Him (Colossians 1:15-17).

Once we understand that God is not an “absent watchmaker,” but one who even today interacts with His creation, we need to know what He requires of us. Sensible answers to this are found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, of 1648. Here are its first three questions.

1. What is the chief purpose for which man is made?
A: The chief purpose for which man is made is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

2. What rule has God given to direct us how to glorify and enjoy him?
A: The Word of God, which consists of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how to glorify and enjoy him.

3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?
A: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.[6]

We’re to search through the Bible to understand the meaning of right and wrong, how to interact righteously with each other, and how to build a God-fearing society. Then we’re to use our understanding in our personal and social activities. Religion is not merely what goes on in your head (James 2:14-26).

The Bible has plenty to say about justice and a just society. Here is a traditional on-line dictionary definition of justice:

• the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause.

• rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.

• the moral principle determining just conduct.

• conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.

• the administering of deserved punishment or reward.

• the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings: a court of justice.[7]

That is, justice means having some standards by which your deeds or work will be measured, and then being impartially judged against those standards. Note that this particular on-line dictionary has this other definition:

• just treatment of all members of society with regard to a specified public issue, including equitable distribution of resources and participation in decision-making[8]

By adding this new definition the editors are chasing “social justice,” which isn’t justice at all. In fact, this new clause contradicts the other clauses. For a more detailed discussion, see my previous article Social Justice: what does it really mean?[9]

In the United States our laws, our justice, are based on English common law, which in its turn comes from a Bible-based culture. We charge individuals, and bring them before judges, for actions they committed. There is no legal concept of group guilt, or that “it is society’s fault.”

One feature of true justice is the expectation of evenhandedness, that the judge, and jury if there is one, will impartially examine the facts and rule on them. They must not favor, or disfavor, a person because of wealth, fame, power, or race. As the Bible describes it:

• Provide even-handed and truthful justice (Amos 5:12).

• Give judgments that don’t favor either the rich or the poor (Leviticus 19:5).

• Be even-handed in our treatment the aliens in our midst (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

With Christians there is to be no favoritism of men or women, or of race, in Christ Jesus (Acts 10:34-35; Galatians 3:28; I Timothy 5:21; James 2:1). A Christian society is to be no respecter of persons or of race – a colorblind society.

Now that have our baseline – that this is God’s show, and that we’re to build a just society according to God’s version of justice – we can examine Critical Race Theory and its claims.

What is Critical Race Theory?

It’s hard to find a simple description of Critical Race Theory. The most accessible one I’ve found comes from Got Questions, a reliable Christian blog:

Critical race theory is a modern approach to social change, developed from the broader critical theory, which developed out of Marxism. Critical race theory (CRT) approaches issues such as justice, racism, and inequality, with a specific intent of reforming or reshaping society. In practice, this is applied almost exclusively to the United States. Critical race theory is grounded in several key assumptions. Among these are the following:

• • American government, law, culture, and society are inherently and inescapably racist.
• • Everyone, even those without racist views, perpetuates racism by supporting those structures.
• • The personal perception of the oppressed—their “narrative”—outweighs the actions or intents of others.
• • Oppressed groups will never overcome disadvantages until the racist structures are replaced.
• • Oppressor race or class groups never change out of altruism; they only change for self-benefit.
• • Application of laws and fundamental rights should be different based on the race or class group of the individual(s) involved.

In short, critical race theory presupposes that everything about American society is thoroughly racist, and minority groups will never be equal until American society is entirely reformed. This position is extremely controversial, even in secular circles. Critical race theory is often posed as a solution to white supremacy or white nationalism. Yet, in practice, it essentially does nothing other than inverting the oppressed and oppressor groups.[10]

Critical Race Theory concepts, such as “each race gets different laws,” show its anti-Christian roots. If we should remake our society on its concepts, then we also abandon our society’s Christian worldview, beliefs, and laws. After all, no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). We either base our lives on honoring God’s word, or on dishonoring it.

How does Critical Race Theory dishonor Christianity? Let’s look at these key assumptions, to see if they align with a Christian worldview:

• America is inescapably racist.

• The personal perception of the oppressed trumps evidence.

• Our laws should have on-purpose discrimination according to race.

Is America is inescapably racist? Or is it false guilt?

The Bible condemns racism. It is judging, and treating, people by their appearances (I Samuel 16:7; Luke 16:14-15; John 7:24). Our society is to have have equal justice for all, including any foreigners (Exodus 22:21; 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34).

Is America now so racist that it can’t possibly be redeemed? Must our society be smashed and rebuilt, using blueprints provided by Critical Race Theory activists? Addressing these assertions requires a walk through American history.

1. Early in American colonization, many places legalized the ownership of slaves.
2. In forming our new nation, the Founding Fathers recognized that some states had, and liked, their “peculiar institution” of slavery[11] But the founders also looked at ending slavery, such as through the Constitution’s Slave Trade Clause.[12]
3. The long-forecast reckoning with slavery occurred with the American Civil War. In its aftermath, the Constitution was changed to ban slavery (13^th Amendment), prevent racial discrimination in laws (14^th Amendment), and guarantee voting rights regardless of race (15^th Amendment).[13]
4. However, the former slave states still retained much racial animus. For example, the “separate but equal” discrimination against black people.[14]
5. Not until the 1950s did we see the breaking of “separate but equal” laws.[15]
6. In the 1960s came new laws, such as the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Act. These laws were effective in removing obstacles to racial equality, letting black people finally enjoy their Constitutional rights.
7. In our current era there are few incidents of actual racism. After all, if there were actual incidents then we’d hear about them. There are stories of people making false claims,[16] but fake racism wouldn’t be needed where the real thing was easy to find. And if real racist acts do occur, you’ll see prosecutors jumping to indict people. You’d also hear about the incidents from any number of watchdog organizations.

When you peruse this timeline you see a trend towards a race-neutral society. Our progress has been jumpy, but America has been “escaping from racism” for a long while. However, the advocates of Critical Race Theory think otherwise, that racism is in the very air we breathe. DiAngelo says:

“Antiracist education recognizes racism as embedded in all aspects of society and the socialization process; no one who is born into and raised in Western culture can escape being socialized to participate in racist relations.”[17]

How do they justify this claim? After all, they don’t have racist incidents to support their arguments. Rather, they look to statistics, to spreadsheets, saying that “unequal outcomes” between racial groups amounts to “systemic racism.”[18] They find, or create, studies that makes their arguments look good, and call it proof.

Let’s look at one prominent claim. Studies show that black people are jailed at a much higher rate than are non-blacks.[19] The advocates claim that this disparity proves racism. I see the higher rate, but I don’t buy that this is racism. It looks more like the disparity in jailing is influenced by the effects of many unrelated decisions. Not that this is the only rational explanation, but it’s a reasonable and non-racist one. This is my explanation:

• Since the 1960s American industry largely left the cities. Thanks to improved transportation methods, factories could satisfy their customers even from foreign locations. Was this trend caused by many decisions of individual company presidents? Was it encouraged by the lack of government policies to keep factory jobs here? Whatever the reasons, one effect of this trend has been cities lacking jobs having “raise a family” wages.

• In its “War on Poverty” initiative, the federal government made policies that discouraged welfare recipients from being married.[20] You now see a great many unwed mothers in the urban black community, proportionally far more than for any other group of American society. Without fathers at home, how do urban black youths learn good morals? And why try to excel at school if there won’t be good jobs waiting for them when they graduate?

• Law enforcement in American cities have largely given up trying to stop people from buying “recreational drugs.” The demand for these drugs is being satisfied through urban street gangs. A lot of idle urban youth will join these gangs for money and a sense of belonging. However, gang warfare is the major driver of murder and violence in our cities.[21] So we see high rates of black arrests, along with the resulting convictions.

Our suburbs don’t have these same circumstances. The people who live there already have good jobs. They tend to have stable two-parent families, who train their children to be responsible citizens. Drug dealers avoid these suburbs, and there are fewer opportunities to get involved in street gangs. Hence, suburbanites have fewer temptations to crime.

It isn’t that black people are prone to crime any more than are non-black people. But enough of them in the cities yield to temptations, then do crimes for which they’re jailed. And their stories become part of arguments about disparities in incarcerations. That said, where is the racism in all of this?

• The individual decisions about factory locations weren’t racist.

• The policies about welfare and single-mothers weren’t racist.

• The policies about not persecuting drug users, and instead going after drug sellers, wasn’t racist. By the way, it was the same policy used in the Prohibition era.

• The theft, or murder, was probably of another black person. That wasn’t racism.

Yet the bottom line is supposedly invisible systemic racism, because black people are in jail more often. Suppose that the decisions turned out somehow different, and non-white people had the higher incarceration rates. According to the advocates, that outcome isn’t racism. On this DiAngelo says:

“This chapter also explains the difference between concepts such as race prejudice, which anyone can hold, and racism, which occurs at the group level and is only perpetuated by the group that holds social, ideological, economic, and institutional power.”[22]

That is, non-whites can’t experience racism. To Critical Race Theory advocates, statistical outcomes become racist proofs only if the outcomes support their arguments. Their cries of “racism!” are phony, because there isn’t any actual racism going on. They’re complaining about certain supportive statistics. Their goal isn’t to fix racism, but to inflict America with a false guilt about it.

To finish this discussion on racism, what wisdom do these Critical Race Theory advocates have for bringing true racial harmony? As we’ll see in later sections, they only want to bring more racism, and more pointed than ever.

What have we learned about claims of American racism?

• America is not “inescapably racist.”

• It is hard to fix problems by instituting policies. As with the decisions affecting the jobs in our cities, there can be many unexpected side effects.

• The Critical Race Theory advocates can’t find actual racism in America. They wave around selected studies and call it proof of racism.

• The accusations of “systemic racism” are meant to trigger false guilt.

Do personal perceptions trump evidence?

You’ve just been accused, and the charges are quite serious. What process will be used to judge your guilt or innocence? The answer to this depends on whether you have Bible-based justice, or justice according to Critical Race Theory.

The Bible says that because God shows no favoritism (Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25), our judgments shouldn’t either. We must confine our judgments to the evidence (Deuteronomy 19:15-19; Matthew 18:16; II Corinthians 13:1, I John 4:1-3). We must not be influenced by money, power, friendship, or race (Exodus 23:8; Leviticus 19:15; James 2:1). Finally, an informed verdict can be reached only after both the accusers and defendants have been heard from (Proverbs 18:17). The American legal system follows this pattern because is based on English common law.

However, if our society is rebuilt around ideas from Critical Race Theory, then the standards for evidence will change. Critical Race Theory wants us to consider personal perceptions, sometimes called “life experiences” or anecdotes, as being unassailable truth.

For example, a signature of CRT is revisionist history. This method “reexamines America’s historical record” to replace narratives that only reflect the majority perspective with those that include the perspectives and lived experiences of minority populations. In this way revisionist history attempts “to unearth little-known chapters of racial struggle” that can validate the current experiences of minorities and support the desire for change. This is just one example of how CRT can be used to elevate minority voices and work towards equity….

This means that the community and their experience is only seen through the filter of the dominant culture. To resist this erasure, counter-storytelling creates space for community voices to create the narrative that defines their own experiences and lives. By giving power to the voices of individuals and communities, counter-storytelling fights against the dominant culture narratives that lack the knowledge and wisdom that minority individuals hold about themselves and their traditions, cultures, communities, homes, struggles, and needs.[23]

In “replacing narratives” the activists aren’t talking about remaking old movies to include minority subplots. Rather, laws and policies would be rewritten, influenced by anecdotal testimony. The “knowledge and wisdom that minority individuals hold” would acquire the same legal weight as findings of fact by a court. Says the American Bar Association:

Therefore, as many critical race theorists have noted, CRT calls for a radical reordering of society and a reckoning with the structures and systems that intersect to perpetuate racial inequality.

For civil rights lawyers, this necessitates an examination of the legal system and the ways it reproduces racial injustice. It also necessitates a rethinking of interpersonal interactions, including the role of the civil rights lawyer. It means a centering of the stories and voices of those who are impacted by the laws, systems, and structures that so many civil rights advocates work to improve.[24]

This “centering on the stories” intends to use the experiences as though they were validated facts. The idea is to shut down dissent, crediting these storytellers with “absolute moral authority.”

Storytelling serves a particularly important function in CRT. Since each identity group has “different histories and experiences with oppression,” this gives “black, Indian, Asian, or Latino/a writers and thinkers” a unique voice that may be able to “communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know.” Because they are minorities, they alone are uniquely capable of speaking about their experience of oppression. This has led some CRT proponents to tell white people they have no right to dispute any claims about the lived experience of any minorities, and that, instead, oppressors should just shut up and listen (an actual term in CRT) to the stories of marginalized peoples.[25]

That roughly means “you’re guilty because I say so.” Compare that to the Bible: “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” (John 7:51). There is no justice if only one side in a trial gets to present evidence. What’s more, the testimony and evidence must itself be tested. For example, a judge makes witnesses swear that they’re telling the truth. The courts know that people, even those having “absolute moral authority,” sometimes make things up.

The advocates of Critical Race Theory won’t stop at changing our legal system. To achieve their goal of breaking American society, they want our cultural communities to believe that they have nothing in common with anybody else.

One of the greatest concerns over CRT is that it denies the importance of being able to reason in a dialogue or debate. Traditional ways of establishing truth—through empirical evidence, rational argument, or even the scriptures, are considered to be forms of investigation that come from “white, male-centered forms of thinking that have characterized much of Western thought.” They also argue that “objective truth, like merit, does not exist, at least in social science and politics. In these realms, truth is a social construct created to suit the purposes of the dominant group.”

Since members of any hegemonic group (especially white males) can never understand the experience of a member of a minority group, critical race theorists say persons of a dominant race are never permitted to dispute the views of a person in a minority group who is sharing their lived experience of oppression. Determining truth through individual perspective is called standpoint epistemology. This is why the phrase “that’s your truth” is popular in our culture.[26]

If they’re successful in convincing communities that they can have their own facts, their own truth, then that would break American culture. After all, what is culture but the overwhelming consensus of shared beliefs and customs? They would replace our culture with tribalism, with each community fighting for a share of power and resources. And in a land of non-cooperating interests, most anything can become possible, especially for men with evil intent.

What have we learned about using personal perceptions as evidence?

• When judging a case, testimony from both sides is needed.

• All of the evidence and testimony must be tested for truthfulness.

• “Lived experiences” are pushed not for its truthfulness, but to silence opponents.

• Critical Race Theory advocates want to break America’s cultural consensus.

• A land without common beliefs is not a nation. It is ripe to be remade into something else.

Deliberately adding discrimination to our laws

The Bible speaks of equality in how we’re ruled and judged (Exodus 23:6-9; Leviticus 19:15; II Chronicles 19:5-7; Galatians 3:28). Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[27] sought this equality for each of his children when he said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.[28]

But Critical Race Theory advocates don’t want to see racial equality. That would hinder their goal to replace our individualist culture with a form of group or class struggle.

With regard to public policy, critical race theory’s key analytical and rhetorical framework is to portray every instance of racial disparity as evidence of racial discrimination. In the metaphor of one recent paper, “white supremacy” is the “spider in our web of causation” that leads to “immense disparity in wealth, access to resources, segregation, and thus, family well-being.”  To adopt the vocabulary of the race theorists, the forces of “hegemonic whiteness” have created society’s current inequalities, which we can overcome only by “dismantling,” “decolonizing,” and “deconstructing” that whiteness.  In their theoretical formulations, the critical race theorists reduce the social order to an equation of power, which they propose to overturn through a countervailing application of force.

Practically, by defining every disparity between racial groups as an expression of “systemic racism,” the critical race theorists lay the foundation for a political program of revolution. If, in the widely traveled phrase of author bell hooks, American society is an “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” radical changes are needed. Although critical race theory has sought in some cases to distinguish itself from Marxism, the leading policy proposals from critical race theorists are focused on the race-based redistribution of wealth and power—a kind of identity-based rather than class-based Marxism.[29]

If these advocates get their way, America would know more racial conflict than ever. But this time each racial group would be fighting to get money and property already controlled by the other groups. They’d be looking for the government to discriminate, this time in their favor.

In one of the founding texts of critical race theory, Cheryl Harris argues that property rights, enshrined in the Constitution, are in actuality a form of white racial domination. She claims that “whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law,” and that “the existing state of inequitable distribution is the product of institutionalized white supremacy and economic exploitation, [which] is seen by whites as part of the natural order of things that cannot legitimately be disturbed.”

Harris, on the other hand, believes that this system must be disturbed, even subverted. She argues that the basic conceptual vocabulary of the constructional system—“‘rights,’ ‘equality,’ ‘property,’ ‘neutrality,’ and ‘power’”—are mere illusions used to maintain a white-dominated racial hierarchy. In reality, Harris believes, “rights mean shields from interference; equality means formal equality; property means the settled expectations that are to be protected; neutrality means the existing distribution, which is natural; and, power is the mechanism for guarding all of this.”

The solution for Harris is to replace the system of property rights and equal protection—which she calls “mere nondiscrimination”—with a system of positive discrimination tasked with “redistributing power and resources in order to rectify inequities and to achieve real equality.” To achieve this goal, she advocates a large-scale wealth and property redistribution based on the African decolonial model. Harris envisions a suspension of existing property rights followed by a governmental campaign to “address directly the distribution of property and power” through wealth confiscation and race-based redistribution. “Property rights will then be respected, but they will not be absolute and will be considered against a societal requirement of affirmative action.  In Harris’s formulation, if rights are a mechanism of white supremacy, they must be curtailed; the imperative of addressing race-based disparities must be given priority over the constitutional guarantees of equality, property, and neutrality.[30]

Our new “anti-racist” society would steal (redistribute) to satisfy claimed wrongs, and would keep stealing: “property rights…will be considered against a societal requirement of affirmative action”. To enable this redistribution, the government would nationalize property. You’d merely get to hold onto “your stuff” until they find a need for it. America would have all of the hallmarks of biblically corrupt government: discrimination, favoritism, bribery, theft, and no fear of God. The Thirteen Colonies went to war with England over less tyranny than that.[31]

So far we’ve seen that Critical Race Theory:

• Can’t find actual racism in America, only invented statistics.

• Would weaken justice by accepting anecdotal stories as though they were verified truth.

• Would replace our largely-Christian worldview with something foreign.

• Would introduce permanent forms of discrimination and racism.

People are listening to Critical Race Theory, and think that there must be good in there somewhere. However, the Bible says that “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:15-20). Critical Race Theory comes out of Marxism, a very bad tree.

In simple terms, critical race theory reformulates the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of white and black. However, the political foundations of critical race theory maintain a clear Marxist economic orientation.[32]

Christians can’t accept the claims of Critical Race Theory and also remain true to God. After all, no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Critical Race Theory is the gospel of an anti-Christian worldview.

Critical Race Theory is already in our schools

We know that Critical Race Theory means to destroy our society. So why are our schools, both public[33] and private,[34] teaching it to our children? Perhaps some teachers don’t know any better, but their unions are certainly pushing it. At the National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, its delegates passed these resolutions about Critical Race Theory.

The resolution “New Business Item A” further encourages teaching the theory in schools.

The National Education Association, in coordination with national partners, NEA state and local affiliates, racial justice advocates, allies, and community activists, shall build powerful education communities and continue our work together to eradicate institutional racism in our public school system by:

…

2. Supporting and leading campaigns that:

…

Result in increasing the implementation of culturally responsive education, critical race theory, and ethnic (Native people, Asian, Black, Latin(o/a/x), Middle Eastern, North African, and Pacific Islander) Studies curriculum in pre- K-12 and higher education;[35]

The resolution “New Business Item 39” instructs teachers to fight through parent opposition.

The NEA will, with guidance on implementation from the NEA president and chairs of the Ethnic Minority Affairs Caucuses:

A. Share and publicize, through existing channels, information already available on critical race theory (CRT) — what it is and what it is not; have a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric; and share information with other NEA members as well as their community members.
…

C. Publicly (through existing media) convey its support for the accurate and honest teaching of social studies topics, including truthful and age-appropriate accountings of unpleasant aspects of American history, such as slavery, and the oppression and discrimination of Indigenous, Black, Brown, and other peoples of color, as well as the continued impact this history has on our current society. The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics, it is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.
…

E. Conduct a virtual listening tour that will educate members on the tools and resources needed to defend honesty in education including but not limited to tools like CRT.

F. Commit President Becky Pringle to make public statements across all lines of media that support racial honesty in education including but not limited to critical race theory.[36]

The resolution “New Business Item 2” authorizes spending money on opposition research.

NEA will research the organizations attacking educators doing anti-racist work and/or use the research already done and put together a list of resources and recommendations for state affiliates, locals, and individual educators to utilize when they are attacked. The research, resources, and recommendations will be shared with members through NEA’s social media, an article in NEA Today, and a recorded virtual presentation/webinar.[37]

The NEA has gone all-in on Critical Race Theory, committing resources so that “our members can continue this important work.”[38] The American Federation of Teachers prefers to obfuscate, pretending to not teach Critical Race Theory by instead calling it “honest history.”[39] What these unions are doing underscores the trend in schools nationwide. They encourage the schools to teach what they please, and then to hide their doings.[40] Sometimes they’ll resort to the courts to keep an investigation at bay.[41]

There are dozens of articles about schools hiding their curriculum from the parents. Listing them might lead you to outrage at their audacity, but won’t help you to solve anything. Instead, here are some resources to help you monitor and influence your schools.

• How To See If Critical Race Theory Is In Your Kids’ School—And Fight It[42]

Discusses buzzwords like social justice, equity, diversity training, anti-racism, culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-bias, inclusion. Reminds you to talk to your children about what they’re learning. Gives suggestions on auditing your school board.

• How to Identify Critical Race Theory[43]

Discusses buzzwords like “systemic racism,” whiteness, equity, “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).” Provides details on how to properly monitor and audit your school board, such as filing FOIA requests, engaging your school board. Encourages you to be a whistleblower about any moves to teach Critical Race Theory concepts in your local schools.

• How will you know if critical race theory is taught in your child’s school?[44]

Lists buzzwords with their definitions, too many of them to show here. But its most important resource is is a downloadable PDF.[45] This document describes Critical Race Theory, shows you how to build a network of activists to monitor your school board, and finally how to become your school board. After all, the incumbents are showing that they’re unfit to teach your children. Why not replace them?

• LIST: CRITICAL RACE THEORY TERMS[46]

Lists 86 terms frequently found when discussing Critical Race Theory. Since saying “Critical Race Theory” gives away their game, buzzwords are used in internal school communications.

• Critical Race Training in Higher Education[47]

This site is primarily concerned with how colleges and universities are handling Critical Race Theory. Has an institution issued a statement on Critical Race Theory, or put it into its lesson plans? It gets listed here. As a bonus, it has lists of articles in these categories:

• • A long, and readable, description of Critical Race Theory. It also has many articles on rebutting it.
• • Lists of articles tracking how Critical Race Theory is being spread in elementary and high schools.
• • Lists of articles tracking the “1619 Project,” bad history that works hand-in-hand with Critical Race Theory.

When misdirecting you, school administrators will tell you things like “We talk about the Civil Rights Movement. We talk about the causes of the Civil War, we talk about the experiences of Black Americans, of white Americans. It’s comprehensive history, but it’s not critical race theory.”[48] They misdirect you. Our complaints aren’t really with the history topics. It’s with the added Critical Race Theory spin.

Critical Race Theory is unconstitutional

When officials plan and govern, they’re bound by what the law says. They’re not free to act according to what they’d like the law to be. But with Critical Race Theory we have officials not respecting the law. As examples:

• An Evanston, IL, public school teacher sued her school board about its Critical Race Theory training. She asserts that the emphasis on equity violates Constitutional provisions of non-discrimination. The school board excused its actions in this statement:

“When you challenge policies and protocols established to ensure an equitable experience for Black and brown students,” the board reportedly said in an open letter, “you are part of a continuum of resistance to equity and desire to maintain white supremacy.”[49]

• Five thousand public school teachers vow to base their lessons on Critical Race Theory, even when they’re legally banned from doing so.[50] Said one signatory: “I refuse to teach my students an alternate history rewritten by the suppressors in power.”

• President Biden issued an executive order meant to result in race-consciousness in the hiring and firing of federal employees.[51] It “establishes an ambitious, whole-of-government initiative that will take a systematic approach to embedding DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility] in Federal hiring and employment practices.” If this order is allowed to stand, it would result in having the entire government filled only with advocates of Critical Race Theory. It also would mean official sanction of “anti-racist” discrimination.

Even school board officials take an oath of office. In Illinois this oath includes a promise to obey the U.S. Constitution, the Illinois Constitution, and state laws.[52] When they plot to implement Critical Race Theory they violate these oaths. Where is the punishment for violating their oaths?

Getting to the bottom of things, laws and government policies that implement Critical Race Theory are unconstitutional. The 14^th Amendment guarantees equal treatment of individuals regardless of race. But policies incorporating Critical Race Theory – whether “equitable experience,” or “embedding diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in Federal hiring and employment practices” – amount to discrimination on basis of race. In Montana, its Attorney General was asked to weigh in on the legality of Critical Race Theory. This was his response:

Knudsen’s “list of widely reported ‘antiracist’ and CRT-related activities that … violate federal and state law” includes:

• • “segregating students or administrators in a professional development training into groups on the basis of race”;

  • “ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or to an individual because of his or her race”;

  • forcing individuals “to admit privilege” or punishing them for failing to do so;

  • forcing members of certain races “to ‘reflect,’ ‘deconstruct,’ or ‘confront’ their racial identities or be instructed to be ‘less white’ (or less of any other race, ethnicity, or national origin)”;

  • “instructing students that all white people perpetuate systemic racism or that all white people are born racist”;

  • “asserting that an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or that individuals need to be ‘accountable’ due solely to their race, or that they are ‘culpable’ solely due to their race.”[53]

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans use of racial preferences or discrimination.[54] But even if this Act gets changed, the Constitution still requires equal treatment regardless of race. However, Critical Race Theory demands continuing discrimination, calling it “anti-racism.” The activist Ibram Kendi[55] comments on this reverse racism:

The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.[56]

If you fill the government with Critical Race Theory advocates you will get discrimination in every policy and decision. Although Critical Race Theory advocates scream about systemic racism, if you let them have their way we’ll get actual systemic racism. And that part about being unconstitutional? Kendi’s answer is to change the U.S. Constitution.

To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.[57]

Kendi’s desire for an Amendment shows that even he knows that Critical Race Theory is unconstitutional. He also shows that the advocates’ end game even includes controlling your every thought (“change their racist policy and ideas”).

Worldviews have consequences

Your worldview helps you understand the things around you, interpret the events you get involved with, and influences how you should treat the people you meet. In practice, your worldview is based on your religious beliefs. Let’s compare a Christian worldview with one based on Critical Race Theory.

In a Christian worldview everything revolves around God. The universe is created by Him for His pleasure and purpose. We use the Bible to understand God’s nature, to find patterns for organizing our lives and society, and to give us perspective. From the Bible we learn that God is concerned for each of us individually (Matthew 10:29-31; Ephesians 1:4-5, 11-12), and that we will individually stand before His judgment seat (Romans 14:10-12).

Regarding science, the Bible shows us that the universe runs by God’s laws (Jeremiah 33:25-26). Because God is both its designer and creator, and that nothing exists except that which He created, this implies that the universe is orderly, having predicable behavior.

The Bible has relatively little to say about the natural world, but at least the book of Genesis makes it clear where the universe came from. It is not eternal but created by God at the beginning of time. In the fourth century, St. Augustine clarified the doctrine that the world was created ex nihilo, out of nothing. God did not use preexisting material whose properties He had to work with. Thus, as Genesis affirms, creation was “good” and as God wished it to be.

From the twelfth century, Christian theologians began to explore what this meant in practice. One consequence was that nature was separate from God and followed the laws He had ordained for it.[58]

Observing the world, and discovering its predictable behaviors, pretty much describes science. Why was the scientific approach peculiar to Christianity? Because if your non-Christian worldview believes there is still caprice in how the world behaves, then why bother looking for patterns? This is why science first flourished in Christian societies.

Critical Race Theory is also a worldview, representing the religion of Marxist humanism. Marxism asserts that there is no God, and that we all must live to maximize mankind’s physical potentials. Marxism has regard for different “classes” of people, but not for the individuals themselves. Each of us are merely servants for the collective: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”[59]

(Of course Marxism is a religion. For proof, see my article Socialism is also a religion.[60] Another great resource on this is The Anti-Marxist Marxist: A Response to Christianity Today.[61])

As a stand-in for Marxism, what does Critical Race Theory say about science? Science is what you want it to be. DiAngelo says:

By socially constructed, we mean that all knowledge understood by humans is framed by the ideologies, language, beliefs, and customs of human societies. Even the field of science is subjective”[62]

And what about truth? Again, truth is what you need it to be. DiAngelo also says:

“Critical theory challenges the claim that any knowledge is neutral or objective, and outside of humanly constructed meanings and interests.”[63]

The premier example of “science becomes what you want it to be” is the reign of Trofim Lysenko[64] over agriculture in the Soviet Union. Seeking to prove that socialism had superior science, the claimed to be able to turn wheat plants into rye, described as “equivalent to saying that dogs living in the wild give birth to foxes.”[65] This sort of science was justly criticized:

“Science cannot long remain unfettered in a social system which seeks to exercise control over the whole spiritual and intellectual life of a nation. The correctness of a scientific theory can never by adjudged by its readiness to give the answers desired by political leadership.”[66]

I suppose that this is how you get men thinking that, because they claim to be women, that they really are women. Then they demand that the world accommodate them.[67] When science and facts themselves depend on who wants them to be true we enter the world of the novel 1984,[68] where the past was being continually rewritten to suit current politics.[69]

Preserving our Christian America is where YOU come in

The arguments over Critical Race Theory boil down to Marxist evangelists trying to woo America out of its Christian beliefs. Will they succeed in impressing the public with their worldview? That depends on what American Christians do.

We can succumb to Marxism because we’re weary of being picked on. Or we can renew our evangelistic commission, and again preach Jesus’ lordship (Matthew 28:18-20). We preach His lordship not only by traditional evangelism, but also by insisting on Christian righteousness in our workplace, where we shop, our schools – everywhere we go. We are the yeast that is to transform society (Matthew 13:33).[70] Don’t be shy about your beliefs. This sort of evangelism is what we can do, and should do, every day.

Some of us will be attacked and have to defend ourselves. For example, that mandatory “diversity training.” But in defending Christianity, and our Christian worldview, we remind the others that their new values are merely a replacement religion. As a bonus, we get to use the civil rights laws in our defense, much like Paul did (Acts 16:35-40; 22:22-29), and prevail in unexpected ways.

If we pray, and not hide our Christian beliefs and activities, God will work through us, that we might prevail. Remember that the battle is the Lord’s (I Samuel 17:45-47; II Chronicles 20:14-17; II Corinthians 10:3-5).

This article is also available at FixThisCulture.com. 

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Footnotes

[1]     Racist, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racist

[2]     Dismantling Whiteness: Critical White Theology, University of Oxford, April 17, 2021, https://www.ox.ac.uk/event/dismantling-whiteness-critical-white-theology

[3]     Cole, Dr. Nicki, Definition of Systemic Racism in Sociology, ThoughtCo, July 21, 2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/systemic-racism-3026565

[4]     Robin DiAngelo, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_DiAngelo

[5]     Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021, https://shenviapologetics.com/quotes-from-sensoy-and-diangelos-is-everyone-really-equal/ (Shenvi is quoting DiAngelo, Robin, and Sensoy, Özlem.)

[6]     The Westminster Shorter Catechism, WSC, https://matt2819.com/wsc/

[7]     Justice, Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/justice

[8]     Ibid.

[9]     Perry, Oliver, Social Justice: what does it really mean?, Fix This Culture blog, July 27, 2019, https://fixthisculture.com/buzzwords/social-justice-what-does-it-really-mean/

[10]   What is the critical race theory?, Got Questions, https://www.gotquestions.org/critical-race-theory.html

[11]   Peculiar Institution, Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/peculiar-institution

[12]   Lloyd, Gordon and Martinez, Jenny, The Slave Trade Clause, Interactive Constitution of the National Constitution Center, https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/761

[13]   Schmidt, Ann, The US Constitution has 27 amendments that protect the rights of Americans. Do you know them all?, Insider, January 7, 2021, https://www.insider.com/what-are-all-the-amendments-us-constitution-meaning-history-2018-11

[14]   Plessy v. Ferguson, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

[15]   Brown v. Board of Education, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

[16]   Prager, Dennis, If America Is So Racist, Why Are There So Many Race Hoaxes?, Townhall, July 7, 2020, https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/07/07/if-america-is-so-racist-why-are-there-so-many-race-hoaxes-n2571987

[17]   Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021

[18]   Burton, Kelly, 100 Statistics that Prove Systemic Racism is a Thing, LinkedIn, July 13, 2020, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/100-statistics-prove-systemic-racism-thing-kelly-burton-phd

[19]   Lemoine, Philippe, On the racial disparity in incarceration rates, NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR, March 2, 2017, https://necpluribusimpar.net/racial-disparity-incarceration-rates/

[20]   Rector, Robert, How Welfare Undermines Marriage and What to Do About It, The Heritage Foundation, November 17, 2014, https://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/how-welfare-undermines-marriage-and-what-do-about-it

[21]   Ryan, Jason, Gangs Blamed for 80 Percent of U.S. Crimes, ABC News, January 30, 2009, https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/story?id=6773423&page=1

[22]   Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021

[23]   Castelli, Mateo and Castelli, Luna, Introduction to Critical Race Theory and Counter-storytelling, Noise Project, https://noiseproject.org/learn/introduction-to-critical-race-theory-and-counter-storytelling/

[24]   George, Janel, A Lesson on Critical Race Theory, American Bar Association, January 11, 2021, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

[25]   Lesperance, Diana, CRITICAL RACE THEORY: An Introduction from a Biblical and Historical Perspective, The Faithful Church, August 18, 2020, https://thefaithfulchurch.com/2020/08/18/critical-race-theory-an-introduction-from-a-biblical-and-historical-perspective/

[26]   Ibid.

[27]   Martin Luther King, Jr., Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

[28]   King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr: I have a dream speech (1963), U.S. Embassy and Consulate in the Republic of Korea, https://kr.usembassy.gov/education-culture/infopedia-usa/living-documents-american-history-democracy/martin-luther-king-jr-dream-speech-1963/

[29]   Rufo, Christopher, Critical Race Theory Would Not Solve Racial Inequality: It Would Deepen It, The Heritage Foundation, March 23, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/critical-race-theory-would-not-solve-racial-inequality-it-would-deepen-it

[30]   Ibid. 

[31]   Declaration of Independence: A Transcription, National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

[32]   Rufo, Christopher, Critical Race Theory Would Not Solve Racial Inequality: It Would Deepen It, The Heritage Foundation, March 23, 2021

[33]   Higgins, Laurie, Despite Nationwide Condemnation, Illinois Passes Leftist Teacher-Training Mandate, Illinois Family Institute, February 18, 2021, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/education/despite-nationwide-condemnation-illinois-passes-controversial-leftist-teacher-training-mandate/

[34]   Neese, Alissa Widman, What is critical race theory? The controversy has arrived at Columbus Academy and here’s what we know, The Columbus Dispatch, July 9, 2021, https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2021/07/09/ohio-columbus-academys-critical-race-theory-issue-what-know/7913212002/

[35]   New Business Item A (adopted), archived from National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, https://web.archive.org/web/20210704150901/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-00a/

[36]   New Business Item 39 (adopted as modified), archived from National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, https://web.archive.org/web/20210704151536/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/

[37]   New Business Item 2 (adopted as amended), archived from National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, https://web.archive.org/web/20210701134801/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-002/

[38]   Ibid.

[39]   Stepman, Jarrett, Critical Race Theory in Classrooms Isn’t Just About Teaching ‘Honest History’, The Daily Signal, July 23, 2021, https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/07/23/critical-race-theory-in-classrooms-isnt-just-about-teaching-honest-history/

[40]   Knighton, Tom, Schools Trying To Get Critical Race Theory Into Classrooms Under Parents’ Noses, Tilting at Windmills, July 28, 2021, https://tomknighton.substack.com/p/schools-trying-to-get-critical-race

[41]   Solas, Nicole, I’m A Mom Seeking Records Of Critical Race and Gender Curriculum, Now The School Committee May Sue To Stop Me (Update), Legal Insurrection, June 1, 2021, https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/im-a-mom-seeking-records-of-critical-race-and-gender-curriculum-now-the-school-committee-may-sue-to-stop-me/

[42]   Barrett, Julie, How To See If Critical Race Theory Is In Your Kids’ School—And Fight It, The Federalist, August 18, 2021, https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/18/how-to-see-if-critical-race-theory-is-in-your-kids-school-and-fight-it/

[43]   How to Identify Critical Race Theory, The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/heritage-explains/how-identify-critical-race-theory

[44]   Roberts, Kevin, Ph.D, How will you know if critical race theory is taught in your child’s school?, The Cannon Online, July 1, 2021, https://thecannononline.com/how-will-you-know-if-critical-race-theory-is-taught-in-your-childs-school/

[45]   TOOLKIT: COMBATTING CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN YOUR COMMUNITY, Citizens for Renewing America, June 8, 2021, https://citizensrenewingamerica.com/issues/combatting-critical-race-theory-in-your-community/

[46]   LIST: CRITICAL RACE THEORY TERMS, Center for Renewing America, May 25, 2021, https://americarenewing.com/issues/list-critical-race-theory-buzzwords/

[47]   Critical Race Training in Higher Education, https://criticalrace.org/

[48]   Roberts, Kevin, Ph.D, How will you know if critical race theory is taught in your child’s school?, The Cannon Online, July 1, 2021

[49]   Dorman, Sam, Illinois teacher sues school district, claims ‘equity’ push violates US Constitution, Fox News, June 29, 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/us/evanston-illinois-teacher-lawsuit-equity-trainings

[50]   Nester, Alex, Thousands of Teachers Vow To Defy State Bans on Critical Race Theory, Washington Free Beacon, July 9, 2021, https://freebeacon.com/campus/thousands-of-teachers-vow-to-defy-state-bans-on-critical-race-theory/

[51]   Ginsberg, Michael, Biden Executive Order Mandates Divisive, Unscientific Race ‘Training’ At Every Level Of The Federal Government, Daily Caller, June 26, 2021, https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/26/biden-executive-order-crt-diversity-equity-government/

[52]   Oath of Office: School board members, before taking their seats on the board, are required to take an official oath, Illinois Association of School Boards, https://www.iasb.com/conference-training-and-events/training/training-resources/oath-of-office/

[53]   Critical Race Theory pedagogy already illegal, Montana attorney general holds, American Enterprise Institute, June 4, 2021, https://www.aei.org/education/critical-race-theory-pedagogy-already-illegal-montana-attorney-general-holds/

[54]   Canaparo, GianCarlo and Stimson, Charles, Judge Defends Equal Justice Against Tide of Critical Race Theory, Disparate Impact, The Heritage Society, August 9, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/judge-defends-equal-justice-against-tide-critical-race-theory-disparate

[55]   Ibram X. Kendi, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibram_X._Kendi

[56]   Kendi, Ibram, How to Be an Antiracist, What I’ve Been Reading, https://highlights.sawyerh.com/highlights/Wc3cIP436n60JRoYYTVe

[57]   Kendi, Ibram, Pass an Anti-Racist Constitutional Amendment, Politico, September 2019, https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/

[58]   Hannam, John, How Christianity Led to the Rise of Modern Science, Christian Research Institute, January 17, 2017, https://www.equip.org/article/christianity-led-rise-modern-science/

[59]   From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs

[60]   Perry, Oliver, Socialism is also a religion, Fix This Culture blog, May 31, 2019, https://fixthisculture.com/socialism/socialism-is-also-a-religion/

[61]   Bair, Phil, The Anti-Marxist Marxist: A Response to Christianity Today, Free Thinking Ministries, July 25, 2020, https://freethinkingministries.com/the-anti-marxist-marxist-a-response-to-christianity-today/

[62]   Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021

[63]   Ibid.

[64]   Trofim Lysenko, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

[65]   Trofim Lysenko, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trofim-Lysenko

[66]   Zielinski, Sarah, When the Soviet Union Chose the Wrong Side on Genetics and Evolution, Smithsonian Magazine, February 1, 2010, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-the-soviet-union-chose-the-wrong-side-on-genetics-and-evolution-23179035/

[67]   Koreatown’s Wi Spa At Center Of Controversy After Complaint About Transgender Customer, CBS Los Angeles, June 30, 2021, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/koreatowns-wi-spa-at-center-of-controversy-after-complaint-about-transgender-customer/ar-AALDIeM

[68]   Nineteen Eighty-Four, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

[69]   1984 (George Orwell), Manipulation of History, Spark Notes, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/quotes/theme/manipulation-of-history/

[70]   Perry, Oliver, Yeast Wars: Rebuilding an American Christian Consensus, Fix This Culture blog, January 8, 2020, https://fixthisculture.com/religion/yeast-wars-rebuilding-an-american-christian-consensus/

It is incredible how a failed theory—Marxism—continues to make inroads into the hearts and minds of millions of fellow Americans. A new poll out the other week found that for the first time, a majority of Democrats say they prefer socialism over capitalism. FoxBusiness.com (8/12/21) reports:

“A new Fox News poll showed that more Democrats favor socialism over capitalism, in a sharp reversal from just a year and a half ago. The poll…showed that 59% of registered Democratic voters who participated had a positive view of socialism, compared to just 49% who felt that way about capitalism.”

It’s possible in some cases that they are just simply mistaken about definitions—that they think capitalism means greed, whereas socialism means sharing.

No, capitalism means freedom to earn, whereas socialism means the government is free to steal from those who earn.

Everywhere around the world, we see the bitter fruit of Marxism. Everywhere his ideas have been put into practice, death, misery, loss of basic freedoms, and poverty follow. Can anybody name a square inch spot on the planet, anywhere, where Marxism has brought anything good? Certainly not in China, Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

And yet there are millions of Americans who have been brainwashed into thinking that Marxism is good, that it means compassionately sharing with others. No, it effectively means the government stealing from its citizens…for the sake of the ruling class to be enriched.

Here’s an example: Most Cubans live on $44 (U.S.) per month. In contrast, when Fidel Castro died in 2016, his net worth was estimated at $900 million. In America, wealth is created by providing value in voluntary exchanges, and there is no inherent limit on it. But in a Marxist setting like Castro’s Cuba, the government controls the economy, and it’s a zero sum game. Castro’s wealth was at the expense of the Cuban people.

Even Critical Race Theory, which is tearing many school boards apart, is merely repackaged Marxism, enforcing the never-ending Marxist principle of “oppressor” versus “oppressed.”

And all of this gets back to a miserable anti-Christian man in 19th century Germany—Karl Marx. I recently learned from Dr. Paul Kengor something I didn’t know about Marx—his favorite quote. It speaks volumes. Kengor is a bestselling author and a professor of history and political science at Grove City College. I’ve interviewed him many times.

In his latest book, The Devil and Karl Marx, Kengor points out that Marx loved the line that comes from the devil character, Mephistopheles, in Goethe’s Faust:

“Everything that exists deserves to perish.”

Dr. Kengor elaborates:

“Friends said Marx would chant this. He would recite this—‘Everything that exists deserves to perish. Everything that exists deserves to perish.’ This is a philosophy that’s about tearing down, burning the foundation, leveling the house, to where you have Marx standing there in the smoldering embers, saying, ‘Now we are ready to begin.’ So anybody that thinks that this is a philosophy that is just about helping one another or sharing the wealth or redistributing wealth, they do not understand Marx and Marxism.”

And what do we see in our streets today? Destruction, riots, tear it all down. Let’s build a new and supposedly better world.

Ironically, Marx couldn’t even feed his own family. Even when he received a windfall of cash, he selfishly spent it all on himself. Marx couldn’t balance his own checkbook, but he presumed to tell the rest of the world how to run their economies. And everywhere his ideas have been implemented, they’ve driven their economies right into the ground.

Some people may naively assume that you can have socialism without the violence. But that is not the case. As Marx stated: “Socialism cannot be brought into existence without revolution.”

And what has been the results of atheistic communism because of Marx? Kengor writes,

“A legacy of over one hundred million dead, not to mention the robbing of so many basic liberties and incalculable harm to so many souls has been nothing short of diabolical—truly a satanic scourge, a killing machine…It plagues us to this day.” (The Devil and Karl Marx, p. 402).

When there is no God to whom we must give an account, then the state can become god. That was certainly true in the minds of many a totalitarian dictator.

Why has America lasted all these years? For all the problems of America’s founding, the founders said our rights from God. The God factor is the key to America’s enduring success.

In contrast to Marx’s philosophy that everything should perish, Jesus said,

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

What a better approach to the world—and with infinitely better results all around the planet.

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This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

Extreme sexualization and LGBTQ+ indoctrination of children at younger and younger ages in public schools is now ubiquitous nationwide—and it’s part of a much broader agenda that goes well beyond just encouraging confusion and promiscuity for its own sake.

The real goal is ultimately to destroy the nuclear family as the foundation of civilization, experts say. As Karl Marx and countless other totalitarians understood, the state will step in to fill the void left by the family unit. In short, sex-ed is aimed at undermining the very building blocks of society.

In the not-too-distant past, so-called sex-education for young children and normalizing gender confusion in tax-funded schools would have been unthinkable and even criminal.

Today, the most extreme forms of sex education imaginable—including encouraging young children to engage in fornication, sodomy, group sex, abortions, and even “sex-change” surgeries—is a reality in the United States and beyond.

If it were not for exceptions offered to school employees in state obscenity laws, it would still literally be a crime to give children much of the material being used in classrooms nationwide under the guise of “sex education.”

But the worst is yet to come. If the well-funded sex-education behemoth gets its way, sexualization of children in schools masquerading as “health” and “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” (CSE) will undermine the final restraints on unchecked government control over the individual.

Liberty, family, and civilization are all in the cross-hairs now. The stakes could not be higher.

What It Looks Like in School

Virtually all of the curricula being used to teach sex to children are deeply problematic to anyone with a shred of decency, modesty, or common sense.

In many states and districts, the sexualization starts as early as kindergarten, with children being introduced to homosexuality, gender fluidity, homosexual parenting, “anatomy” that includes graphic images of genitalia, and more. Oftentimes, the sexualization and LGBT material is mandated under state law.

One of the most frequently used resources in public schools across America that has been endorsed by state and local officials nationwide as “compliant” with state mandates is known as “Rights, Respect, Responsibility” (3Rs).

Created by sexual revolutionaries at Advocates for Youth, a partner of tax-funded abortion giant Planned Parenthood, the program has shocked parents from across the political spectrum—for good reason.

Starting as young as kindergarten or first and second grade, children learn (pdf) that girls can supposedly have male genitalia and vice-versa. This self-evidently fraudulent claim is emphasized over and over again throughout the child’s younger years, causing widespread confusion among impressionable youngsters.

When they become teens, the program teaches them about “pansexuality,” among other absurdities and perversions.

Throughout elementary school, children are exposed to obscene images that have been widely condemned as pornographic, including “cartoons” in books such as “It’s Perfectly Normal.” The book features cartoon images of naked children, sexual intercourse, children masturbating, and more.

Under 3Rs, by the time the children are around 11, they are taught how to seek out information about sex on the internet. The children are constantly taught to rely on Planned Parenthood for information and “services,” too.

Before becoming teens, they learn about “making changes in the world” through “LGBT advocacy.”

At around age 12, abortion is introduced as an “option” to deal with unwanted pregnancies. And by age 13, years before they reach the legal age of consent, the children are taught how to obtain various forms of contraception and birth control.

Gender Confusion

Throughout the curriculum, which is aligned with the National Sex Education Standards (pdf) developed by Advocates for Youth and other advocates of sexualizing children, young people are led to believe that they can choose their gender and that they may have been born in the wrong body.

Worse, they are taught how to act on it, putting them at risk of seeking out dangerous hormonal and surgical “treatments” with lifelong consequences. Studies show most children confused about their gender end up growing out of it by adulthood.

This indoctrination is despite the fact that the American College of Pediatricians (pdf) argues it’s “child abuse” for adults to try to convince children that a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal or healthy.

Another frequently used resource is “Teaching Tolerance” (now known as “Learning for Justice”) created by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

As part of promoting “tolerance” to children, the SPLC recommends the highly controversial book “10,000 Dresses” by Marcus Ewert for students in kindergarten through second grade.

Among other lessons, the book teaches the children, typically aged 5 through 8, to ignore their parents and impersonate the opposite sex if they feel they were born in the “wrong” body.

Numerous state education bureaucracies and officials have endorsed the extreme SPLC program despite the objections of parents.

Making matters worse, those officials sometimes act on it, too. From California to Florida, school districts are using “Gender Transition Plans” to help students start “transitioning” to a new gender, even without the consent of parents.

Public-school efforts to confuse children have been so successful that a 2017 UCLA study found more than one in four California children ages 12 through 17 are now “gender non-conforming.”

Even in ultra-conservative Utah, state prescription data show that the number of minor girls undergoing “gender transition” processes increased by about 10,000 percent from 2015 to 2020.

Dangerous Lies and Propaganda

While the creators of the 3Rs program claim it is “medically accurate” to comply with state law, that is objectively false.

On a worksheet for 7th graders purporting to outline the risks of various sex acts, for example, children ages 11 and 12 are taught “anal sex using a condom correctly” is a “low risk” activity.

In reality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that they are only 60 to 70 percent effective in preventing HIV even with perfect and consistent use. The Food and Drug Administration has never approved condoms for anal sex.

In other words, children who believe the sex-ed lies being taught in government schools are at serious risk of becoming infected with deadly venereal diseases.

Similarly, consider Planned Parenthood’s “Healthy, Happy and Hot“ booklet (pdf), which tells youth infected with HIV that they do not have to inform their partners about their infection. In fact, the document even claims that laws requiring disclosure “violate the rights of people living with HIV.”

Another Planned Parenthood sex-ed document (pdf) recommends teaching children 10 and under that “sexual activity” can be part of “commercial sex work,” and that they have a “right” to “decide when to have sex.”

The same toolkit encourages teaching children under 10 about homosexuality, masturbation, gender fluidity, and more. It also teaches them that they have a “right” to abort their unborn child.

Planned Parenthood, funded by the American taxpayer, is one of the world’s largest peddlers of sex-ed resources. Its materials are used and promoted in government schools worldwide.

Incredibly, despite the group’s rhetoric about “choice,” women’s rights advocate Reggie Littlejohn has repeatedly exposed Planned Parenthood’s cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party’s forced abortions and other brutal population-control schemes.

The Last Taboos

The pervasive sexualization of children in public schools is now pushing the boundaries against one of the last taboos: pedophilia, pederasty, and adult sex with children.

Under California’s LGBT mandate for schools, the Brea Olinda Unified School District (BOUSD) was caught including ancient Greek men’s proclivity to have sexual relations with boys—considered child rape in every state in the union—as part of teaching children LGBT history.

When confronted by outraged mother Stephanie Yates of Informed Parents of California, BOUSD Assistant Superintendent of Curricula Kerrie Torres said the children were being taught about it “because we are talking about historical perspectives of how gender relations and different types of sexual orientations have existed in history.”

Yates, the mom, sounded incredulous. “So sex between a man and a boy is a sexual orientation?” she asked.

The assistant superintendent held her ground. “It’s something that occurred in history, and so this is really important for us to include,” Torres said.

Despite there being a video of the exchange, frantic “fact checkers” tried unsuccessfully to quell the outrage, bizarrely defending the lessons.

But the truth is there for all to see. Increasingly, public schools are working to normalize sexual relationships between adults and children.

The message throughout 12 years of sexualization and indoctrination in school in essentially all the sex-ed major programs is simple: If there’s “consent,” nothing else matters, anything goes, and there are no rules when it comes to sex.

This view flies in the face of the teachings of all the world’s major religions and civilizations for thousands of years. In fact, it’s practically unprecedented in human history, with the possible exception of what the Bible records in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Outside ‘Sex Ed’ and Intersection With Critical Race Theory

Even outside of sex-ed classes, where in some states parents can technically opt their children out, the extreme sexualization and perversion has reached epidemic levels.

In English classes, for instance, children are told to read abominable “books” that feature extremely graphic descriptions of sexual acts and sexual violence.

There is also an intersection between the radical sexualization and the Critical Race Theory indoctrination exposed in part 19 of this series.

One exercise with endless variations that has been deployed in government schools nationwide has children “deconstruct” their identities and examine their “power and privilege” based on their race, gender, and sexual identity.

As part of the scheme, children are taught that being “cisgendered” (not transgender) or “heterosexual” gives them power and privilege, along with being white, while being transgender or homosexual makes them oppressed.

In such an exercise forced on 7- and 8-year-old government-school victims in Silicon Valley, the children were offered an example to drive the point home: “a white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman.”

Just like Marxists have divided populations for over a century, children are classified into “oppressor” or “oppressed” categories based on whatever fault lines the subversives can concoct—with “sexuality” and “gender” now a key part of the mix.

Global Problem

This is not just happening in America. The United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), exposed in an earlier part of this series, is at the forefront of the effort to sexualize children worldwide, and especially in the West.

Indeed, many of the most outrageous elements of America’s most frequently used “sex-education” programs are perfectly consistent with UNESCO’s 2018 “International technical guidance on sexuality education.”

Citing Planned Parenthood’s ideologically driven “research” and “evidence” more than 20 times, the UN sex-ed standards call teaching children about “sexual pleasure” before they hit 10.

Incredibly, by age 5, children are supposed to describe how “gender and biological sex” are supposedly “different.”

By age 9, the UN guidelines teach children about masturbation and call for children to “describe male and female responses to sexual stimulation.” Children should also “demonstrate respect for diverse practices related to sexuality” and “explain how someone’s gender identity may not match their biological sex” by 9, the standards say.

By 12, children are expected to believe that “non-penetrative sexual behaviors” are “pleasurable” and less likely to result in infection than normal sex. The UN’s “learning objectives” demand that 12-year-olds “support the right for everyone” to “express their sexual feelings.”

Critics have blasted this as “grooming” children.

The UN document even includes helpful tips for educators on how to handle outraged parents and religious leaders concerned about the indoctrination.

Of course, there’s a reason the UN sex-ed document calls for sexualization of children “from the beginning of formal schooling.”

As UN LGBT czar Vitit Muntarbhorn put it in a 2017 interview with an Argentinian newspaper, to change the mentality of the population in favor of new sexual norms, “it is so important to start working with young people, the younger the better.” (Emphasis added).

Real Agenda

The focus on sex and perversion is clearly and literally ubiquitous in government schools across America and beyond. But why?

This was not seen as even acceptable until very recently—much less necessary. In fact, prior to the grotesque pseudo-science of pervert Alfred Kinsey, it would have been considered a criminal offense to subject children to these obscenities.

Advocates of sexualizing children as early as possible typically frame their arguments in terms of reducing STDs and unwanted or teen pregnancies while pursuing nebulous notions of “health” and “reproductive freedom” or “reproductive justice.”

Despite the fact that the explosion in teen pregnancies and venereal disease coincided with the sexualization of children in school by sexual revolutionaries, the tax-funded behemoths behind the push pump out endless junk studies purporting to support their fraudulent claims.

But obviously, if children were not having sex outside of marriage, the problems that “sex education” purports to solve would virtually cease to exist.

In short, there’s a much darker agenda at work. The sex “educators” themselves barely bother to hide it anymore.

Consider SIECUS, the group that grew out of Kinsey’s perverted pseudo-science. While it was once known as the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States, now it is just SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change. And indeed, “social change” is the goal—radical, horrifying “social change.”

As far back as 1979, the CDC admitted there was an ulterior motive. In a report headlined “An Analysis of U.S. Sex Education Programs and Evaluation Methods,” researchers revealed that the “goals” of sex education in American schools had become “much more ambitious” than parents realized. Those goals included “the changing of … attitudes and behaviors.”

The government has long understood the consequences of this. Late psychoanalyst Dr. Melvin Anchell, who worked on President Lyndon Johnson’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, warned that these sexual indoctrination programs targeting children cause “irreparable harm” to their victims—damage that lasts their entire lives.

Among other dangers, Anchell identified severe damage to children’s future marriages, families, relationships, and lives. In some cases, it can even contribute to psychopathy, suicide, and mass murder, he warned.

Long before that, communist revolutionaries sought to demonize marriage and obliterate the family, too, producing unprecedented disaster. Consider, for example, the horrifying experience of Soviet Russia in the decade after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Sexual revolutionaries in the West have understood this for over a century, too. Atheist “psychiatrist” Dr. Wilhelm Reich, a self-styled “Freudo-Marxist” who was a Communist Party member and an associate of sex fanatic Sigmund Freud, saw what he first termed the “sexual revolution” not as an end in-and-of itself.

Instead, Reich saw it as a means to obliterate the family, and thereby facilitate the destruction of religious values. Ultimately, the hope was to achieve the breakdown of Western civilization by destroying the familial transmission belt by which values are passed on from one generation to the next.

The goal: allow Marxism to truly take root on the blank canvas created by the destruction of the old order.

To that end, Reich strongly encouraged “sex education” in school to “divest parents of their moral authority.”

As the family and the church are weakened through the unleashing of sexual anarchy via “sex education,” the government steps in and takes over in the roles formerly reserved for those two divinely ordained institutions.

The World in the Cross-hairs

Sharon Slater, president of Family Watch International and co-chair of the national Protect Child Health Coalition, told The Epoch Times that the goal is eventually to get the world onboard with this new value system.

“If they can raise up a generation indoctrinated in their harmful abortion rights, promiscuity rights, and radical transgender ideology, they will have indoctrinated the future leaders of the world,” she said.

“In fact, CSE is the number one tool of the abortion rights and LGBT rights lobby to promote their agendas worldwide by shaping the views of youth,” added Slater, who works to counter the agenda at the UN.

One of the most important tools created by her organization is a documentary called “The War on Children: The Comprehensive Sexuality Education Agenda.” It shines a light on the horrors being forced on children.

“CSE is a dangerous worldwide agenda intended to sexualize children at the youngest ages,” she explained. “I couldn’t sleep at night knowing what I knew and knowing most parents had no idea their children were being taught such harmful things.”

Sex Educators Sound the Alarm

Even former sex-ed teachers have blown the whistle on the subversive agenda behind sex ed. Monica Cline, for instance, spent a decade working as a comprehensive sex educator with Planned Parenthood before defecting and starting an organization dedicated to countering that.

“A big piece of this, which for some people, it’s something I think [is] hard for them to understand, is that there is a huge movement through socialism that really wants to do away with the nuclear family,” she explained to The Daily Signal, noting that abolishing private property is also part of the agenda.

“Sex education is a big piece of that, because when you teach children to dehumanize themselves, to take intimacy and family and marriage out of sex, even to the point of killing your own children through abortion, you are essentially killing the family,” Cline continued. “You’re destroying the family.”

Encouraging people to “read any curriculum” being used in sex-ed programs to see the tactics and graphic nature of the material, Cline noted that parents are always cut out of the picture when it comes to sex education.

“They want the children dependent on the government, or on public health, whatever it may be, but they do not want the children to be depending on the parent anymore,” she said. “And so, all of this really is to break down the family. And they’re essentially … we’re watching it happen.”

Disintegration of Family, Sterility, Slavery

In extended comments to The Epoch Times, Kimberly Ells, author of “The Invincible Family” and a longtime researcher and activist against the global sexualization of children, warned that the radical CSE programs have dangerous objectives that must be resisted.

“He who wins the youth wins the future,” she explained, echoing a common axiom. “So if government schools shape children’s views on sex, gender and family formation—and if those views reject the family as the core of civilization—then the core of civilization is up for grabs, and the government intends to grab it.”

Among other concerns, Ells warned that these programs are undermining parental authority, family values, and even family formation by encouraging children to reject their parents’ teachings and view sex as merely a pleasurable “right,” rather than part of a stable marriage.

The results of undermining family and marriage were predictable: over 40 percent of American children are now born out of wedlock (pdf), with almost one in four American children now living in a single-parent household.

The consequences of this family disintegration are horrific—and the problem is getting worse. But even beyond the crime, dependence, and poverty is the danger of tyranny stepping in to fill the void left by parents and families.

“Children who become slaves to the sexual appetites of their bodies early are more likely to become slaves in other areas of their lives,” added Ells, who has spoken at the UN.

Teaching children to reject biological sex as a relevant characteristic of one’s identity is even more nefarious. “At its core, this two-pronged ideology rejects the biological family—based on physiologically oppositional sex—as the fundamental unit of society,” she said.

“The T in LGBT is by far the most problematic,” Ells warned. “Same-sex marriage annihilates the idea that men and women are complementary. But transgenderism annihilates the idea that men and women inherently exist at all.”

Already, she said, legal movements around transgenderism are setting the stage for the “marginalization” of mothers, fathers, and families by law.

“When parents’ ties to their children are obscured or weakened it creates an environment hospitable to government intervention and socialist-communist revolution,” Ells continued. “That is why Marx’s Communist Manifesto openly called for the ‘abolition of the family.’”

“Dethroning the family creates a void that can and must be filled—though it is impossible to adequately fill it,” she said. “If we are to avoid the disembowelment of the family and the domination of the state that follows its disembowelment, we must resist efforts to cancel biological sex.”

Ells called on parents and policymakers to resist the erasing of male and female and end funding for UN agencies peddling the dangerous agenda. She also urged the removal of “sexual rights” advocates such as Planned Parenthood from schools and an end to CSE programming at all levels.

Protecting Children

Governments and school boards all across America have failed in their duty to protect children from the ubiquitous evils that now pervade the so-called “public education” system masquerading as “health” and “tolerance.”

In an earlier part of this series, the gut-wrenching history of this abusive sexualization of children in school was exposed featuring extensive interviews with Dr. Judith Reisman, who recently passed away. It literally goes back to perverts who sexually molested large numbers of children under the guise of “science.”

Americans are now confronted with a tax-funded monster that threatens not just the innocence of their children, but their liberties, families, and even the very future of their civilization.

Obviously, government at all levels has failed to protect children from the dangerous agenda they themselves unleashed. That leaves parents as the last barrier.

If the grotesque sex-ed extremism destroying America and her youth is going to be stopped, it will be up to loving moms and dads to lead the fight.

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This article as originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.

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More information:

Reasons to Exit Illinois Government Schools

Illinois School Proficiency FAILURE

Did You Know?

How to Rescue Our Children

“Comprehensive” Sex Education

For Parents, Grandparents and Church Leaders

Overcoming Objections

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Long before California’s infamous “ethnic studies” curriculum made national headlines in March for literally suggesting children chant to the Aztec gods of cannibalism and human sacrifice, the insidious weaponization of “race” and “racism” had already overtaken the nation’s government school system.

The racist effort to divide and conquer Americans by “race,” all under the guise of examining everything through the “lens of racism” and fighting “structural” or “systemic” racism, has come to be known as critical race theory, or CRT.

Just think of it as half-baked pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook aimed at stirring up as much racial hatred, resentment, division, and conflict as possible.

Like cult leaders, the growing overpaid legions of tax-funded “experts” in CRT want the public to believe that this is some complicated and mysterious “epidemic” that only overpaid “experts” can understand. But the reality behind CRT is actually pretty simple.

The premise is basically this: All “white people” are racist oppressors with power and privilege, and all non-white people are oppressed victims.

From that flows the silly premise that America—among the least racist nations on earth, studies show—is a “systemically racist” abomination that must be “decolonized” and dismantled.

In fact, any institutions created by peoples or nations of mostly European heritage are evil and must be pulverized. And any people who lack sufficient melanin must repent for their collective guilt.

If all that sounds evil and unhinged, good—it is.

Unfortunately, it’s also now a staple in the diet of impressionable young victims of government schools across America.

The goal isn’t really fighting racism, as its proponents claim.

In fact, a number of studies show that “diversity training,” an offshoot of CRT aiming to put the cult’s views into practice, “can activate bias or spark a backlash,” the Harvard Business Review warned.

“Many participants actually report more animosity toward other groups afterward,” it said.

Duh!

The same is true for children: When they’re bombarded with racial division and hyper-racial extremism, they not only begin thinking in terms of race, they also begin resenting those supposedly in other “groups” alleged to be in conflict with them.

And that’s precisely the point. In the Soviet Union, like Karl Marx decades earlier, totalitarians divided people by “class,” driving a wedge between the “bourgeoisie” and the “proletariat.”

Similar divisions were created and exploited by Chairman Mao in communist China.

In America, where the poor live materially better than the rich in many nations, the “class conflict” narrative was not as effective.

And so, as in National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, socialist and communist agents from abroad and homegrown subversives turned to “race” as the key fault line to exploit.

It has been bubbling beneath the surface in America for years—even decades. But in recent months, it has exploded into the national consciousness as increasingly extreme examples of tax-funded CRT indoctrination spark outrage from parents and normal people.

There’s a long history behind this ideology of hate in America.

Part 6 of this series explored the enormous influence of the Marxist Frankfurt School and its “critical theory” schemes on American culture—and particularly in its government-controlled education system. CRT is an outgrowth of this deadly weapon, adapted to the American scene.

A big part of the lie depends on fraudulent history taught to children such as the almost universally discredited “1619 Project” and the debunked diatribes of communist Howard Zinn, as documented in this previous article in this series.

The end result is disaster.

Tax-Funded CRT at School

Naturally, adults of all “races” with even basic critical-thinking skills, common sense, and a rudimentary understanding of history could see right through the CRT propaganda.

But young children in government schools for five days a week? They make for easy victims. After all, mommy and daddy said to listen to the teacher.

That’s why the forces behind CRT are focusing so heavily on targeting children.

What do CRT and the race-mongering look like in practice?

In California, for example, the newly adopted “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum,” approved by the state Board of Education on March 18, suggests children seek help from pagan Aztec gods for “a revolutionary spirit” in a chant.

“The chants have a clear implication: the displacement of the Christian god, which is said to be an extension of white supremacist oppression,” writes Christopher F. Rufo.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest district in the nation, has already indicated that it will be requiring “ethnic studies” for graduation starting in 2023. The whole state may eventually follow. And the cancers that begin in California often spread nationwide.

In one of the wealthiest districts in the nation, Silicon Valley’s Cupertino Union School District, third-grade students were reportedly ordered to “deconstruct” their racial, gender, religious, family structure, and sexual identities.

After that, they were told to create an “identity map” and rank themselves based on the “power and privilege” received from the “intersection” of their various “identities.”

“A white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman,” offered the school materials in an example of how to understand the results.

In short, under this twisted worldview, your melanin content makes you either an oppressor to be destroyed, like the bourgeoisie, or a victim who must destroy others, like the proletariat.

This sort of madness is taking place all across “red” states, too.

North Carolina’s largest school district, Wake County, for instance, launched a campaign to eradicate “whiteness in educational spaces.” As part of that, teachers were ordered to “disrupt whiteness” and “override families,” according to Rufo.

It’s not new, either. In 2017, outraged parents fumed at a Rockingham County, North Carolina, Board of Education meeting after learning that a teacher forced children of European heritage to stand in front of the class and apologize for their “white privilege.”

In Ames, Iowa, and other cities and towns across America in recent years, the “Black Lives Matter Week of Action” has been peddling “diversity and globalism,” “the disruption of the Western nuclear family,” “transgender, queer affirming, and collective value,” and more.

To understand just how aggressive the peddlers of this Marxist narrative in schools have become, consider news reports from mid-March about government-school teachers who plotted to “infiltrate” parents’ groups opposed to the indoctrination, use “hackers” to mess with their communications, and even “expose these people publicly” for speaking out.

Similar Tactics in Communist China

Victims of these tactics who have lived through the horrors that stem from them recognize the same schemes clearly.

Prominent Chinese exile Lily Tang-Williams, who grew up under Mao but eventually fled to the United States, remembers those exact tactics being used in Mao’s government-indoctrination centers for children, masquerading as “public schools.”

“It creates hatred, guilt, and division in our country,” she said about CRT being peddled on children in school. “It is a tool used by the radical left to divide and conquer.”

Having grown up during Mao’s reign and experienced the entire 10-year Cultural Revolution, Williams sounded the alarm about what’s happening in America today.

“Let me tell you, this racist theory is nothing more than a tactic to separate citizens into ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressor’ classes, and it is something I have heard before,” said Williams, who recently testified before the New Hampshire legislature on this issue.

Mao’s regime sought to destroy the “four olds,” she claimed, referring to the mass-murdering communist Chinese tyrant’s campaign to eradicate China’s old ideas, culture, habits, and customs.

“He and his regime used identity politics to divide people into 10 classes: five red and five black,” she explained. “The red classes included poor and lower-middle peasants, workers, revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary cadres, and revolutionary martyrs. The black classes were landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad-influencers, and rightists.”

Every member of the “black classes” was considered guilty by association, simply for having been born into a family, and was said to have been “born black.”

“Mao urged Red Guards to publicly shame the black classes by raising their fists, making them do self-criticism, confess and denounce themselves, or they would get beat up, locked up in a room to write about their ‘blackness,’ apologize for their families or themselves, and be sent to re-education camps to do hard labor,” Williams continued, adding that some young members of the families would do anything to escape the shame and association, including reporting their own relatives to the Chinese Communist Party.

Tens of millions of Chinese died amid the Cultural Revolution “due to those murderous policies,” said Williams, who serves on the advisory board of U.S. Parents Involved in Education along with this writer and others in the field.

“What is happening in America today with CRT, in our schools, in our workplaces and governmental agencies, really reminds me of what happened during the Cultural Revolution,” she added.

Bad for Children

Aside from being destructive to society, the CRT madness is going to harm children of all types, too, experts say.

“It is horrendous and utterly harmful psychology to tell people, especially young children and teens, who do not believe that they are racists, and may actively despise racism, that there is nothing they can do to stop themselves from being racists,” explained Doctor of Clinical Psychology Gary Thompson with the Early Life Child Psychology and Education Center.

“Woke Supremacy is just as psychologically destructive on people as White Supremacy,” added Thompson, who happens to be a black American.

Thompson claims that many public schools are now teaching children as young as second and third grade that “whiteness is synonymous with evil, that the police systematically hunt down and murder black men deliberately, and all these other highly charged political convictions that they’re teaching as if they’re uncontested fact.”

How to Fight Back

Parents across the nation are scrambling for ways to fight back and protect their children.

Thompson, who also serves on the advisory board of U.S. Parents Involved in Education, said his personal opinion is that attempts by average parents to eliminate CRT from their children’s public school would be “futile.”

“If CRT does not fit your family values, the option of leaving public schools may be a viable option for parents,” he said, echoing a growing sentiment in America as enrollment in public schools continues to plummet.

Partly in response to CRT propaganda, millions of parents have fled government schools over the last year for homeschooling and private schools.

Unfortunately, the CRT madness is no longer confined just to government schools. Even many “woke” elite and self-styled “Christian” schools have been jumping on the bandwagon, so parents must do their due diligence.

Ignoring the voices of some of America’s most prominent black Christian leaders—Voddie Baucham and Bishop E.W. Jackson, for instance—many liberal churches and seminaries have taken the plunge, too.

Some critics have argued that indoctrinating children with CRT at taxpayer expense is already against the law.

Wu Wenyuan, executive director of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, has been fighting the battle in California and beyond for years. She argues that CRT in the classroom is “illegal and unconstitutional.”

“Teaching CRT that’s predicated on racial divisions and a social dichotomy of victim versus oppressor fundamentally violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—which guarantees equal protection of the laws—Title VI/VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, California’s constitutional principle of equal treatment, and a plethora of anti-discrimination laws,” she warned.

In Florida, top officials are taking action. In fact, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis just promised the ideology would not be included in his state’s public schools.

“Let me be clear there is no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory, teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money,” DeSantis said.

“They’re trying to make people view each other based on race, I want to do the opposite. I want to treat people as individuals,” he added. “I want to treat people based on character.”

But of course, dividing people is the goal—not an unintended side effect—and the constant appeals to “white supremacy” are simply a red herring designed to force critics to remain silent.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

CRT’s leaders and cult-like adherents have labeled virtually everything the far-left and Marxists hate as “white supremacy”: the U.S. Constitution, Christianity, math, the rule of law, punctuality, individualism, Western civilization, the nuclear family, objective truth, and more.

Nothing and nobody is safe.

Adults largely recognize the evil and idiocy of this. However, America’s children—like children in other nations who have been indoctrinated to hate their parents and their compatriots before committing ghastly atrocities—do not know better.

It will be up to parents to protect their own children, and thereby the nation and its freedoms.

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This article as originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.

Written by Ryan Scott Bomberger

I’m half white and half black. My melanin doesn’t change my worth or my propensity to sin. Yet we live in a culture where we are told that our skin color confers upon us a status that is fixed, assigned by an elite class of humans who call themselves “scholars.” They want us to see everything through the broken lens of “race”—a human construct that has only served to dehumanize us throughout history. As a person with brown skin, I reject my assigned “status” and refuse to see everything through that distorted prism.

It leads to blindness.

Instead, I choose to see through the breakthrough filter of Scripture that opens our eyes to the truth of our identity, the perfect bond of love, our oneness through Christ, and the freedom of forgiveness. Our human condition, and the frailty that marks us, can never be illuminated by the darkness of tattered theories.

And that’s exactly what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is.

How can a theory derived from anti-Semites who were virulent racists hell-bent on abolishing the family and religion bring healing to the sin of racism? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw Christianity as an impediment to their socialist ideology. How can a godless theory be used as an “analytical tool” to address issues needing a Godly solution?

I’m particularly irked by Christians who don’t want the struggle of wrestling with solutions but simply hop aboard the latest bandwagon sponsored by an insanely profitable victimhood industry. Racism is evil as is every other sin known to humankind. Sin diminishes and destroys us. It is a brokenness that cannot be remedied by more brokenness. But for many, the goal is not to offer a solution but a continual subscription.

Famed educator and leader Booker T. Washington, a former slave, explained this industry well on page 144 of his book “My Larger Education”:

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Today, that class of people is of varying hues and NY Times bestsellers capitalize on a form of activism that seeks to divide us, erase equality, and offer forced redistribution in the form of “equity”. Dr. Carol Swain, the brilliant former (black) professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, offers a helpful definition of Critical Race Theory:

“Critical race theory is an analytical framework to analyze institutions and culture. Its purpose is to divide the world into white oppressors and non-white victims. Instead of traditional forms of knowledge, it holds up personal narratives of marginalized minority “victim” groups (blacks, Hispanics, Asians) as evidence (considered irrefutably by its nature) of the dishonesty of their mostly white heterosexual oppressors.”

As someone who is “biracial,” I’m both the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.” Through no fault of my own, since no one controls the circumstances of his or her conception, I’m foisted into perpetual perplexity simply based on the sins or the sufferings of my lineage. Just to further illustrate the absurdity of this deeply prejudiced CRT approach to classification, I can simply highlight my own origin story. I was conceived in rape. So, am I responsible for my (black) biological father’s heinous act? Of course not. Interestingly, my white father—who chose to adopt and love ten children (of varying beautiful hues) that other men abandoned—is branded as part of the “white supremacist patriarchy” that is guilty of every negative outcome of black Americans. My dad, Henry Bomberger, recently passed away. The only legacy he left behind was one of unconditional love and self-sacrifice. His devotion to us proved that it’s not color that binds us; it’s love.

Despite Scripture’s insistence on the unity of believers and how Christ makes us one (Galatians 3:28), CRT diabolically separates us using the deeply flawed human construct of race. Ironically, in a culture that rejects the science of binary gender the progressive priests of CRT demand we can only be the “oppressed” or the “oppressors”. How nihilistic. It also preaches perpetual “guilt” and undeserved “privilege” based solely on one’s skin color.

Fake guilt will never erase real problems.

As Christians, we are all privileged to know and worship a God who could’ve merely condemned us but chose to redeem and rescue us (John 3:16-17). We are privileged to no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). We are privileged, through Christ’s strength, to be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

The Bible tells us to no longer conform to the pattern of this world in Romans 12:2, yet this is exactly what we do when we embrace the warped worldliness of CRT. Blame, Deceive, Repeat. This destructive pattern is recognizable throughout Scripture. Satan is the accuser, and he constantly coaxes us to embrace the lie instead of the Light.

CRT is a debilitating disease. Its malignancy in the body of Christ is spread by pastors who don’t believe the Word is enough. Some of these leaders apparently think the World has the answers to the temporal and eternal devastation of sin.

Mainstream media gave voice to a handful of black pastors who support using CRT and several who left a major denomination over it. Pastor Charlie Dates, of the Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, exited the Southern Baptist Convention over SBC Seminary presidents’ rejection of Critical Race Theory, despite their clear denouncements of the sin of racism. I thoroughly agree with their statement. I’m not a Southern Baptist, so I have no interest in defending a denomination but merely want to uphold the Truth. Pastor Dates, who embraces unbiblical Black Liberation Theology and the Black Lives Matter movement, issued a defiant (and historically challenged) OpEd sharply condemning those who oppose CRT. He claims the rejection of CRT is due to “fear of liberalism.” I don’t fear liberalism. I wholeheartedly disagree with it because of its dependence on deception and division. Dates strangely then attributed certain social movements to “liberalism” (aka the Democrat Party) such as abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights. On all three, Republicans led the fight. But CRT and its advocates value feelings far more than facts.

I don’t think there’s any more eloquent a pastor speaking about cultural issues and Biblical authority than Pastor Voddie Baucham. As a black adoptive father, he embodies what many Christians should aspire toward—Godly character and critical thinking. He exposes and denounces CRT—not with emotionalism (like Pastor Charlie Dates) but with factualism.

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, credited as a co-founder of “Critical Race Theory” (of course, derived from Marxist Critical Theory) is a leading proponent of this poison. Never mind this accomplished black woman was the recipient of Ivy League education at Cornell and Harvard Law School. But, you know, systemic racism. She sees it in everything…well except the abortion industry which massively and disproportionately kills black lives. Crenshaw, who is radically pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, anti-nuclear family and denies the clearly evident consequences of fatherlessness, blames racism for everything that victimizes black people and other “marginalized” groups. Her organization, the African American Policy Council, is holding an event on April 29th featuring Crenshaw, Brad Sears (Executive Director of UCLA’s dubious and radically pro-LGBT The Williams Institute) and Planned Parenthood’s President, Alexis McGill Johnson, as keynote speakers.

But sure, let’s use Critical Race Theory—an ideology that is hostile to Christianity in countless ways—as a means by which Christians should see the world. CRT activists claim to fight for justice but regularly reject truth and morality. Psalm 89:14 says: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne. Mercy and truth go before Your face.” You cannot have justice without mercy (the compassion or forgiveness toward an offender) and truth. To ignore this is to welcome a cancer instead of the cure.

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This article was originally published at TheRadianceFoundation.org.

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Join us in Collinsville on Saturday, May 22nd for an IFI Worldview Conference about CRT!

Written by Larry Sand

Forcing Critical Race Theory on children is psychologically damaging.

I come from a time when schools existed to teach the ABCs, basic math and the amazing story of the American founding. While it’s true that Horace Mann, the man who first promoted universal public education, was a central planner, government schools usually turned out educated students whose values comported with those of their parents. But these days, driven by fads and pseudoscience, many schools seem to exist to frighten children by forcing them into believing some craze-du-jour that is often alien to their parents. Of late, the global warming (or is it climate change?) and gender fluidity fads have been cruelly forced upon children as young as five.

Then, most recently, we had the hysterical response to COVID-19. The ensuing school lockdowns have led children to live lives of social isolation, which have increased rates of anxiety, depression and suicide. Additionally, the learning loss has been incalculable. And now, many of those who have been able get back to in-person classes are being subjected to woke schooling and its foundational underpinning, Critical Race Theory (CRT). Those who condemn CRT pedagogy, which maintains that racism is pervasive and permanent, and divides students into “oppressor” and “oppressed” factions, usually comes from those who have an issue with its inherent radicalism. But what about its effects on children’s psyches?

In an eye-opening piece, Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation president Lewis Andrews writes that “woke curricula involve much more than warped views of history, the scientific method, and social relations – they also employ instructional methods that have been shown to inflict serious psychological harm completely independent of what is being taught. These include the frequent use of shaming, forced public confessions of so-called ‘privilege,’ the acceptance of one’s socioeconomic background as an excuse for not achieving, and the promotion of ideological conformity as the best way to deal with social conflict.”

Quoting psychologist Anna Smith, Andrews adds that shame is the ultimate divider. “It’s a me versus them feeling. A deliberate act to cause one to feel like an outsider. As ‘a finger-pointing gesture,’ she says, it can easily induce the very reverse of what was intended.”

Here in Wokefornia, where CRT has reached religious status in some circles, the state is getting close to passing AB 101, which would mandate teaching a one-semester course in ethnic studies in high school. As written, the bill does not include specific content, however. That decision would be left to each school district. And like the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood,” the red CRT wolves are waiting to pounce. In Los Angeles, the school district is considering a curriculum that disdains “merit” and “individualism,” and claims that “history classes and textbooks focus on the perspective of white colonial culture.”

The San Diego Unified School District is no better. There, students must “confront and examine your white privilege” and to “acknowledge when you feel white fragility.” Additionally, children are told to “understand the impact of white supremacy in your work.”

The good news is that a “civil rights violation complaint” has been filed against San Diego schools. The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation along with five partner organizations have filed the complaint against the school district for unlawful, discriminatory critical race training of teachers and employees. CFER claims, “Culturally Responsive Sustaining Practices & Ethnic Studies and other relevant training violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Article I Section 31 (a) of the California Constitution, as well as state anti-discrimination laws and Board policies.”

One can only hope that this lawsuit – and perhaps others – will put a crimp in the rampaging Cultural Marxism we are experiencing. And make no mistake about it – this is Marxism. The godfather of Communism taught his followers that the world was divided into two categories –oppressors and the oppressed. Marx also despised the nuclear family, which he claimed “performs ideological functions for Capitalism” and teaches “passive acceptance of hierarchy.” He thought that the destruction of the family model would make it easier to abolish private property.

Traditionally, teachers have tried to empower kids, but now the regnant pedagogy aims to foster tribalism, anger, resentment, and victimhood. As Lewis Andrews notes, “Sadly, today’s woke curricula do far more to erode a child’s sense of intrinsic worth than to build it up. Indeed, one can hardly imagine a more effective way of grooming disorganized and incompetent adults. As one veteran teacher in the Buffalo Public School system recently put it, anti-racist classrooms have devolved into little more than a series of ‘scoldings, guilt-trips, and demands to demean oneself simply to make another feel empowered.’”

Yes, for many government-run schools and increasing numbers of private ones, it has come to this – child abuse plain and simple – and it’s being perpetrated in plain sight.

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Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. 

This article was originally published by the California Policy Center.

Understanding that future generations are the key to building political power and lasting change, socialists and totalitarians of all varieties have gravitated toward government-controlled education since before the system was even founded.

The communist “Frankfurt School” was no exception in its affinity for “educating” the youth.

Almost 100 years ago, a group of socialist and communist “thinkers” led by Marxist law professor Carl Grünberg established the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany. From there, they would move to the United States. And from their new home in New York City, the subversive ideas they espoused would eventually infect the entire planet like a deadly cancer—mostly through the education system.

A Cultural Revolution

The group actually had its genesis in Moscow before officially being founded in 1923. By the early 1920s, the Bolsheviks—as Antonio Gramsci would later conclude from his Italian prison cell—realized a change in tactics was needed. The much-anticipated violent revolution of the proletariat predicted by Karl Marx to bring about communism, it turned out, would be much more difficult in Western Europe and the United States than previously anticipated. In fact, it wouldn’t be possible at all without first breaking down the cultural barriers to collectivism, they reasoned.

As such, the Communist Internationale and mass-murdering Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin’s minion Karl Radek arranged a meeting at the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. Among the participants, according to historical records, were Soviet secret police boss Felix Djerzhinski, Hungarian Bolshevik “cultural commissar” Gyorgy Lukacs, and Communist Internationale (Comintern) bigwig Willi Muenzenberg.

At the Moscow meeting, the conspirators decided that what was needed was a more gradual “cultural revolution,” or what eventually came to be known as “cultural Marxism,” in the West and beyond. To advance that program, the subversives agreed on a sinister but brilliant plan. This would involve the destruction of traditional religion and the Christian culture it produced, the collapse of sexual morality and the deliberate undermining of the family, and a wrecking ball to infiltrate and demolish the existing institutions.

Some of these men had experience. For instance, Lukacs, who served as “minister of education and culture” in the Bolshevik Hungarian regime of Bela Kun, had introduced all manner of perversion and grotesque “sex education” in public schools, starting in elementary school. It was part of a campaign to destroy “bourgeois” Christian morality and sexual ethics among the youth. The objective was to eventually de-Christianize Hungary, thereby facilitating a total communist restructuring of the human mind and all of society.

Moving to America

A key tool of these conspirators in Moscow would come to be known as the Frankfurt School. From the Institute in Frankfurt, and later in New York, these cultural revolutionaries would promote feminism, communism, atheism, mass migration, globalism, humanism, multiculturalism, nihilism, hedonism, environmentalism, and all sorts of other “isms” that tended to undermine individual liberty, traditional culture, and morality. Rampant morality-free sexuality and Freudian pseudo-psychology were central to the agenda.

To anyone who has studied America’s public education system today, which spends far more time peddling these “isms” to captive children than providing actual education, the stench of the Frankfurt School’s machinations is unmistakable. In fact, the whole system reeks.

Despite some differences, the group maintained close ties with the Soviet Union. Ironically, though, analysts have long argued that the work of the institute peddling Nietzsche and others helped lay the foundation for the National Socialist takeover of Germany. As the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler gradually parted ways with the more internationally minded socialist tyranny of the butchers in Moscow, the civilization destroyers at the ISR fled to the United States.

There, with crucial assistance from socialist and humanist “education reformer” John Dewey and his disciples, these characters attached themselves to Columbia University’s important Teachers College in 1934. Dewey had been a leading “philosopher” and “educator” at Columbia, retiring just a few years before the Frankfurt School influx was in full swing. Others settled at Berkeley, Princeton, and Brandeis.

With Rockefeller money, Dewey would play a key role in helping the Frankfurt School’s operatives put down roots in America. More on the role of the major foundations in subverting American education will be detailed in an upcoming piece of this series.

The importation of Frankfurt School luminaries was a match made in totalitarian heaven, as Dewey and his disciples had much in common with the cultural Marxist social revolutionaries.

As previously recounted in this series on education, for instance, Dewey was a devoted fan of the Soviet model. In fact, he wrote glowing reports about the supposed successes of Soviet communism in the “New Republic” magazine. Dewey was especially infatuated with the indoctrination centers masquerading as schools—and particularly how they were instilling a “collectivistic mentality” in the children. Dewey’s collectivist, anti-Christian “religious humanism” also appealed to the Frankfurt operatives.

Once the institute’s minions set up shop at Columbia and other prestigious U.S. academic institutions, the Frankfurt School’s rhetoric had to change, at least superficially, as Americans were still ardently devoted to God, country, family, and individual liberty. And so, instead of speaking openly of Marxism and communism, Frankfurt School subversives spoke of “dialectical materialism.” Instead of attacking the family, they attacked “patriarchy.” But the agenda remained the same.

Fighting ‘Fascism’

Almost as soon as they arrived, they began plotting the destruction of America’s traditional values, religion, and form of government under the guise of fighting “fascism.”

Indeed, the luminaries of the Frankfurt School, who represented a wide variety of disciplines, used “education” as a crucial tool for advancing their totalitarian, civilization-destroying philosophies. But they infected much more than just the education system, with their sick ideas spreading out like a poison throughout the intellectual veins of America: the social sciences, entertainment, politics, and beyond.

One of the ways in which Frankfurt School operatives and academics advanced their desired social changes via education was through so-called critical theory. In his 1937 work “Traditional and Critical Theory,” ISR Director Max Horkheimer argued that critical theory—a neo-Marxist tool used to demonize the market system, Christianity, and Western civilization—was aimed at bringing about social change and exposing the alleged oppression of people by capitalism.

Another useful tool for undermining freedom and traditional society was the 1950 work by key Frankfurt School theorists known as “The Authoritarian Personality.” These social “researchers” claimed to discover that the traditional American male and father was actually “authoritarian” because, among other reasons, he held traditional values. Thus, the “patriarchy” and the traditional family—among the most important barriers to tyranny—came under relentless attack as a precursor to “fascism.” Public schools were viewed as tools to combat this alleged problem, and they did so vigorously.

Influence

To understand just how central Teachers College (infected by Frankfurt School and Dewey ideas) would become to the public education in the United States, consider that, by 1950, estimates suggest that a third of principals and superintendents of large school districts were being trained there. Many of these left the college with radical ideas about reality, government, society, family, and economy that came straight from Dewey and the Frankfurt School.

Of course, the damage to America from anti-God, anti-freedom German “intellectuals” began even before the Frankfurt School migrated to Columbia. In fact, Dewey was trained by G. Stanley Hall, who was among the many Americans to study under professor Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig University.

Among other notable highlights, Wundt pioneered the idea of the human being as a soulless animal. Essentially, he viewed people as biological stimulus-response mechanisms that could, and should, be trained in a manner similar to circus animals. This Darwinian, materialist view of the human being reigns supreme today in the education system but has been catastrophic.

Fringe left-wing extremists who support the Frankfurt School’s anti-American agenda have dishonestly attempted to paint criticism of the relevant institutions, academics, and their ideas as “anti-Semitic.” But in reality, the dangerous ideas pose a major threat to Judaism, too, and so countless patriotic and liberty-minded Jews have also joined the fight against the Frankfurt School’s poison.

The threat of these subversives and their cultural Marxism has been recognized at the highest levels of the U.S. government, even recently. Former National Security Council Director of Policy and Planning Richard Higgins, for instance, blasted it in his now-notorious 2017 “Higgins Memo” to President Donald Trump about the ongoing war against the administration and the United States.

The wars against Trump and America “cannot be separated from the cultural Marxist narratives that drive them,” warned Higgins, saying cultural Marxism was most directly tied to the Frankfurt School. “The Frankfurt strategy deconstructs societies through attacks on culture by imposing a dialectic that forces unresolvable contradictions under the rubric of critical theory,” he warned. Higgins then quotes Herbert Marcuse, a leading Frankfurt thinker, on how to crush the political and cultural right through persecution and phony “tolerance.”

To this day, reflecting the ISR influx of the early 1930s, Teachers College remains a leading purveyor of socialist poison masquerading as “education.” Its recently released book list includes titles by Bill Ayers, the communist terrorist whose terror group Weather Underground, working with communist Cuban intelligence, bombed the State Department, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, police stations, and more. The Teachers College Press fall selection also includes endless nonsense on “social justice,” racialism, multiculturalism, and other “isms” with roots in Marxism and Frankfurt School strategies.

With society and civilization becoming increasingly unstable as the final vestiges of traditional education are destroyed, the Frankfurt School and its American allies such as Dewey would be pleased with their handiwork. After all, cultural Marxists including Gramsci and ISR thinkers believed that once the old order was destroyed via a “long march” through society’s institutions, Marxism could eventually triumph. On the education front, they now appear largely victorious.

But their overall victory is hardly assured. What comes next depends on whether Americans can be roused from their slumber in time to restore civilization. As the socialists and totalitarians understood well, education will be the key either way.

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This article was originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.

When humanist John Dewey and his disciples took over the emerging government-education system created decades earlier to advance collectivism, the fledgling system was still in its infancy.

By the time he died in 1952, though, it was a well-oiled collectivist machine that would obliterate America’s religious, intellectual, and political heritage more effectively than any force previously imaginable.

Dewey is often lauded as the founding father of the “progressive” education that now has more than 85 percent of American children in its grip. Although he wasn’t alone—he stood on the shoulders of fellow collectivists Robert Owen and Horace Mann—Dewey certainly deserves much of the credit, or blame, for unleashing it on the United States and humanity.

Like Mann and Owen before him, Dewey had ulterior motives when he dedicated himself with missionary zeal to the cause of “education reform.” Fortunately for future generations and historians, he was a prolific writer who cranked out a seemingly never-ending stream of essays, papers, manifestos, and articles. His views and objectives, then, are hardly a mystery.

Dewey wanted to fundamentally transform the United States. He wanted it to look more like the Soviet Union, in fact. To do that, he believed a total transformation of education and society was required—literally “changing the conception of what constitutes education,” as he wrote in “The Relation of Theory to Practice in Education” in 1904.

Education must bring about a “new social order,” he argued.

As was the case with virtually all of the key figures involved in the government takeover of education, Dewey rejected Christianity and even the very existence of God. More on his religion later. He also rejected the individualism and liberty that defined America up to that point, with its strong protections for God-given rights, private property, and free markets.

Instead, Dewey worked fiendishly to continue the severing of American and Western education’s Christian roots. The process was launched by Owen, the Welsh communist whose commune in Indiana failed. It formally took root under Mann in Massachusetts, when he imported the Owen-inspired Prussian model of education. But that was all to be just the beginning.

By the time Dewey and his disciples worked their magic, the scheme would culminate in a nation in which the overwhelming majority of high-school seniors violently reject the biblical worldview, and in which most young people describe themselves as socialist.

On top of that, the system would produce a nation in which less than a third of those same seniors would even be considered “proficient” in reading and math, according to federal data gathered from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Replacing Freedom With Collectivism via Education

Interestingly, Dewey was from Burlington, Vermont—socialist Bernie Sanders’s stomping grounds. And like Sanders, Dewey styled himself a “democratic” socialist. But many decades before Sanders visited the Soviet Union on his honeymoon while it was slaughtering and torturing dissidents, Dewey made a pilgrimage to Moscow under Bolshevik rule.

Of course, Karl Marx called for government control of education in “The Communist Manifesto,” and so the Soviets complied. Decades earlier, Owen, another communist, did the same. Dewey picked up where they left off, fervently advocating total control of all education by the state with even more passion than Sanders does today.

Writing in the far-left magazine New Republic, Dewey provided glowing reports about the communist system being imposed upon the people of the Soviet Union. He was especially pleased with its so-called education system, celebrating the way it was instilling a “collectivistic mentality” in Soviet children in his “Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World” published in 1929.

Despite his fondness for Soviet totalitarianism and the communist “ideology” behind it, Dewey would publicly criticize Stalin and Stalinism later in life. His model for a communist United States, by contrast, was outlined in Edward Bellamy’s 1888 book “Looking Backward,” a fantasy about a wonderful collectivist America in the year 2000 where all private property would be nationalized by government.

Dewey’s socialist views were hardly a secret. In “Liberalism and Social Action,” he wrote that the “only form of enduring social organization that is now possible is one in which the new forces of productivity are cooperatively controlled.” “Organized social planning,” he continued in his well-known 1935 work, “is now the sole method of social action by which liberalism can realize its professed aims.”

In common with virtually all the totalitarians of the 20th century, Dewey understood that the education of children would be fundamental to achieving his Utopian vision of collectivism. “Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness,” he claimed. “The adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.”

Out With 3 Rs, in With Collectivism

In his important 1898 essay “The Primary Education Fetich [sic],” Dewey argued strongly against the then-heavy emphasis on reading, writing, and arithmetic in the younger years. It produced highly literate, independent-minded individualists with faith in God and freedom. That was not conducive to a collectivist Utopia, obviously.

Instead, Dewey thought the main focus of education during those precious early years should be socialization and emphasizing collectivism. In particular, the reformer wanted to ditch reading and writing in the primary grades to concentrate on giving children “the habits of thought and action” that he believed were “required for effective participation in community life.”

An astute operator, Dewey recognized that the liberty-minded and overwhelmingly Christian teachers, taxpayers, and parents of America of that era would never knowingly support his radical educational and political ambitions if they understood them. “Change must come gradually,” he explained in that same essay. “To force it unduly would compromise its final success by favoring a violent reaction.”

So instead of going to the American people, Dewey went to the Rockefeller oil dynasty, which was giving away unfathomable amounts of money for “educational reform” through the “General Education Board.” The “philanthropic” outfit gave Dewey millions of dollars to create an experimental school to try out his ideas—a school that successfully cranked out reading-disabled collectivists.

In his crucial 1916 work “Democracy and Education,” Dewey argued that the education regime he envisioned would be “the process through which the needed transformation may be accomplished.” And so, he set about taking control of the education system.

Having failed as a primary- and secondary-school educator, Dewey’s effort to seize control of the school system began with a leadership position in education at the Rockefeller-funded University of Chicago. Later, he went to Columbia University’s Teachers College.

From his ivory-tower perch, Dewey would train up legions of teachers and disciples to unleash on an unsuspecting United States and carry forward his vision. It worked. Dewey became the founding father of America’s “progressive” public education system, and his ideology went mainstream.

Another Dewey “achievement” while in academia was resurrecting quack methods for teaching reading that had been discredited in the 1840s under Mann in Boston. That incredible saga—the root cause of America’s current illiteracy crisis—will be the subject of a future piece in this series.

Perhaps even more important and far-reaching than being able to advance his views on education and politics was Dewey’s influence on the religious views of Americans. Dewey was a self-proclaimed humanist, with his public declarations on religion fusing atheism with socialism and communism. His success on this front is unquestionable and will be the subject of an upcoming piece in this series as well.

In fairness to Dewey, Owen, Mann, and the lesser-known characters behind the government takeover of education, they didn’t have the 20th century in the rearview mirror. It might be said, in their defense, that they did not know the ideology of collectivism, when implemented, would lead to the untimely deaths and mass slaughter of hundreds of millions of people. Now, we should know better.

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This article was originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.

Standardized tests show Americans are getting dumber and dumber with each passing year. And polls now consistently show that more than half of young Americans today prefer socialism over freedom. This is obviously not sustainable—at least if the United States is going to survive as a free society.

It’s also not an accident.

To solve this crisis, it’s essential to have an understanding of where public schools came from and what existed prior to their establishment. After all, before the proliferation of government schools, Americans were the best-educated people on the planet—just consider the Founding Fathers, and the “Federalist Papers,” to get a sense of the level of education that once prevailed in America.

The history of how the government was able to take over—and the characters behind that effort—is almost incredible. Much of that shadowy story, though, is barely known today, even among educational experts. That’s a problem, and potentially an existential threat.

When examined honestly, the history of public education—and a study of the key men who laid the foundations for the system that now exists—reveals a long-term plan by Utopians to totally re-shape humanity and civilization along collectivist lines. This agenda has been remarkably successful thus far, as the polling data show.

Everybody involved in education knows about John Dewey and Horace Mann, of course. These two socialist luminaries are almost universally credited with having created the modern public education system in the United States. Their backgrounds and views will be addressed in upcoming articles in this series on education.

But the true story of government schools has its origins long before Mann became the first education commissioner of Massachusetts, with his radical plan to have the government take over education, using the Prussian model.

New Harmony

Much of the earlier history of public schools—before Mann picked up the baton—remains not just obscure, but practically unknown. Were it not for the meticulous research of the late Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld, a passionate educator who devoted six decades of his life to studying education and the science of reading, it might still be awaiting discovery in dusty old libraries and university archives in the United States and Europe.

The real story of government education can be traced to a long-forgotten communist commune in Indiana called “New Harmony,” and its eccentric founder. Established in the 1820s by Robert Owen, a Welsh Utopian who rejected Christianity and private property, the idea behind the settlement was to show the world that collectivism was actually superior to individualism.

Like the communist experiments of the 20th century—Cuba, Zimbabwe, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and so on—New Harmony was a disaster, albeit not as bloody as the socialist experiments of later years. Within two years of its establishment, though, everybody knew New Harmony was a total failure.

The utter implosion of this experiment in collectivism, which preceded Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” by some two decades, is the reason those early advocates of collectivism made the adoption of mandatory government schools for all children their top priority. The thinking was that the commune failed not because of anything wrong with communism or collectivism, but because the people living there had not been properly socialized and “educated” to be collectivists from childhood.

Just like Marx and Engels would claim decades later, the Owenites believed that what was needed were government schools that would take over child rearing from the earliest possible ages. And so that became their sole focus.

Character Education

Among other ideas, Owen rejected the prevailing Calvinist views of America in that era. These held that man is innately depraved and that his heart is desperately wicked. Owen believed the reason men were evil, selfish, individualistic, and violent was the result of their upbringing, not their nature. He believed human nature was essentially good, and that a collectivist education would help create what would later come to be known as the “New Soviet man.”

Even before he set up New Harmony, Owen had well-developed ideas on the sort of education that would be needed to build his imagined Utopia. He published some of his views on this subject in 1813 in a collection dubbed “A New View of Society or Essays on the Formation of the Human Character.”

“It follows that every state, to be well governed, ought to direct its chief attention to the formation of character, and that the best-governed state will be that which shall possess the best national system of education,” Owen declared.

“Under the guidance of minds competent to its direction, a national system of training and education may be formed, to become the most safe, easy, effectual, and economical instrument of government that can be devised. And it may be made to possess a power equal to the accomplishment of the most grand and beneficial purposes.”

Years later, Owen explained in his own autobiography that his essays on education had been given to the king of Prussia by the Prussian ambassador. According to Owen’s account, the Prussian ruler had “so much approved” of these ideas that he ordered his own government to create a national education system based upon them. And thus, the Prussian system of education—schooling of the state, by the state, and for the state—was officially born.

This Owen-inspired totalitarian model of schooling, which segregated children by age and coerced parents to surrender their children to the state for “education,” would eventually become the model for Massachusetts—and then the nation as a whole. And the history would gradually be forgotten as the rotten fruit of this system began to undermine traditional American values and ideas.

Secret Society

Long before the horrific communist slaughters and genocides of the 20th century, Owen and his ideas found enthusiastic supporters among certain segments of the American elite. One of Owen’s early disciples was Orestes Brownson, a prominent New England writer and editor who became totally dedicated to the cause.

Unlike Owen, who went to his grave passionately believing that simply getting control of the children through government schools would produce Utopia, Brownson eventually rejected collectivism, converted to Catholicism, and blew the whistle on the schemes of his former associates.

“The great object was to get rid of Christianity,” Brownson explained in “An Oration on Liberal Studies” after seeing the light. “The plan was not to make open attacks on religion although we might belabor the clergy and bring them into contempt where we could; but to establish a system of state, we said, national schools, from which all religion was to be excluded, in which nothing was to be taught but such knowledge as is verifiable by the senses and to which all parents were to be compelled by law to send their children.”

Today, that is the norm. But back in the early- to mid-1800s, it would have been inconceivable to average people.

The first element of the plan, Brownson revealed, was to establish a system of government-controlled schools. “For this purpose, a secret society was formed,” Brownson continued, saying the plan was to model it on the Carbonari in Europe.

“The members of this secret society were to avail themselves of all the means in their power, each in his own locality, to form public opinion in favor of education by the state at the public expense, and to get such men elected to the legislatures as would be likely to favor our purposes.”

While Brownson didn’t know how far the secret society’s tentacles extended, he did know that a “considerable portion of the State of New York was organized.” He knew that, he said, because “I was myself one of the agents for organizing it.”

By the very nature of “secret” societies, much of the history of this network remains concealed. But it is obvious that they found great success in advancing government schools. In less than a century, government education proliferated all across the United States.

Stay tuned to this space for more of that incredible history in the weeks and months to come.

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This article was originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.

One of the most effective ways that Marxists advance their agenda is to change how we talk about things.   When clever rewordings replace the truth, it’s easier to fool people.

For example, the Washington Post this past week said a transgender plaintiff “was designated female at birth, but identifies as male.”

In the blink of an eye, a biological fact – that someone was born a girl – is brushed aside and replaced with a term that implies that male or female sex is assigned, not a natural phenomenon.

In fact, the idea that your sex is “assigned at birth” is an increasingly common description. It validates the Gnostic-based insanity that one’s sex has nothing to do with physiology, just what goes on in people’s heads.  By this reasoning, birth records can be altered to distort reality, which is a way to lie officially.  And to force others to do so as well.

Gavin Grimm, who is now 21, sued the Gloucester County, Virginia school district in 2015 to force them to allow her to use boys’ facilities.  Two years later, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court but was set aside when President Donald Trump overturned a Barack Obama gender identity school mandate.

But last Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the school board had violated Grimm’s 14th Amendment right against sex discrimination. The high school had offered a gender-neutral bathroom, but the plaintiff’s attorneys rejected that solution, as did the two Obama appointees who sided with Grimm. A George H.W. Bush appointee dissented.

They drew from the bizarre Bostock opinion in June written by, of all people, Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, which expanded the definition of “sex” in the Civil Right Act of 1964 to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”  Just like that, the Court put every institution in America that won’t kneel to the LGBTQ gods in jeopardy of ruinous lawsuits or even governmental sanctions.

Given the Court’s reasoning, how could any sex-based distinctions, predicated on real and important differences between the sexes, be maintained? Sports teams? Locker rooms? Bathrooms at any business of any size? Private schools?

The transgender movement, for all its caring rhetoric, is not really about eliciting compassion for sexually confused people – something we should embrace. It’s part of the Marxist Left’s campaign to overhaul society and force people to lie.

Anyone not toeing the line, which keeps changing, is “canceled.”  That means being censored, fired, shut out of promotions or jobs, and de-platformed on social media.

Over the years, the Left has peppered our discourse with advocacy-filled descriptions. “Choice” long ago replaced abortion, “gay” replaced homosexuality, and “hater” and “racist” became all-purpose descriptors for anyone dissenting from the Left’s worldview. Erasing biology is just more of the same.

Sometimes, the ideologically-driven changes are more subtle. Journalists now capitalize racial terms, as in Black people and White people. The adjectives, which describe merely one important aspect of the human race, instead become the whole. No more thinking about people just as fellow human beings created in the image of God. Race must be first and foremost in everyone’s minds.

Herded into identity groups, we’re more easily divided and manipulated. Regardless of the impressive racial progress that America has achieved since eradicating slavery and Jim Crow, the media are utterly obsessed with race as the only aspect of humanity worth talking about.

But if America’s “systemic racism” is the main driver of the riots that have raged for the last three months, why are mobs beheading or defacing statues of Jesus and Mary and black heroes like Frederick Douglass or Arthur Ashe, burning churches and Bibles, and looting stores in Chicago’s Magnificent Mile?

There’s method to this madness. Racism is an excuse to pour gasoline on a larger cause – that of taking down America as we know it and replacing it with a socialist utopia. The founders of Black Lives Matter, after all, admit to being “trained Marxists.”

During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s (which is still with us), activists began forcing journalists and medical professionals to use the term “living with HIV,” as a way to de-stigmatize the disease. You could get kicked out of a medical conference for talking about “AIDS infections” or the “AIDS disease.” They’d not hesitate to beat the drums for “living with covid” if they thought it would advance their cause.

Language is a formidable instrument for human progress when used properly.  But, all too often it can be abused, destroying souls, families, or even entire societies.

The most profound and positive use of language in history was when Jesus offered Himself to everyone on Earth, saying, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” and when the Gospel writer John referred to Him as simply The Word.

Amid the current chaos, we need to work hard to preserve America. And, we need to pray that the Marxist-inspired madness and abuse of language will crack up, a victim of its own hostility to truth.

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This article was originally published at Townhall.com. You can follow Robert Knight on Twitter @RobertKnight17 and his website is roberthknight.com.

An important new book by historian Paul Kengor sheds considerable light on Karl Marx and by implication the madness and mob violence that has descended on the country.

The throngs setting fire to police stations, looting stores and tearing down America’s cultural history are acting in the name of Black Lives Matter, a Marxist group that our ruling elites have airbrushed and turned into a totem of worship.

The current conflict is not merely a political disagreement over rectifying racial disparities; it’s a clash of religions: atheistic Marxism versus Christianity and Judaism.

At issue is whether the mobs, allied with the Democratic Party and leftist groups, can overthrow America’s Christian-inspired self-governing republic, where our rights come from our Creator, not fickle men in power.

In “The Devil and Karl Marx,” Prof. Kengor explores not only the communist icon’s religious views but how they corrupted so many others over nearly two centuries.

Marx hated God and Christianity with a white-hot passion. His prose is packed with attacks on faith, and his youthful poetry bristles with malice:

Look now, my blood-dark sword shall stab

Unerringly within thy soul.

God neither knows nor honors art.

The hellish vapors rise and fill the brain

Till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.

See the sword—the Prince of Darkness sold it to me.

For he beats the time and gives the signs.

Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.

Citing numerous biographies and Marx’s own writings, Prof. Kengor reveals a man whose own family and friends were frightened by his demonic fits of rage and dark babblings about violence.  His own father said he was “governed by a demon.”  A key biographer, Robert Payne, described Marx as having “the devil’s view of the world and the devil‘s malignity.”

In 1849, Marx wrote,

When our turn comes, we shall make no excuses for the terror. There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

A direct line can be drawn from Marx to Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, all of whom despised Christianity and embraced murderous forms of socialism.

Before Marx, violent socialism was unleashed in 1789, with the guillotining of 40,000 aristocrats and others.  The French Revolution was ultimately an atheist revolt against the church and the rule of law.  The Jacobins in revolutionary France sought to wipe out history in order to create a Godless utopia. A hint of their fanatical atheism can be seen today in the beheadings in America of statues of Jesus and Mary and the torching of churches.

Communist revolutions, beginning in Russia in 1917, have taken at least 140 million lives, enslaved literally billions of people and spread unspeakable horror everywhere Marxism has taken root, Dr. Kengor notes.

When Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullours boasted in 2015 that “myself” and BLM co-founder Alicia Garza “are trained Marxists,” was she aware of the poisonous pedigree of her stated worldview?  Perhaps it didn’t matter.

BLM’s website is packed with Marxist rhetoric and flat-out lies like this: “In 2014, Mike Brown was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.”  Mr. Wilson, who was acting in self-defense, was cleared during the Obama Administration.  Never get in the way of a useful narrative.

Among other things, BLM is using the LGBTQ movement as a blunt instrument:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure… foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.

Families produce independent-minded people, which is why socialists promote sexual anarchy.  Marx and his co-author Friedrich Engels denounced families, saying the state should seize and raise children.

The rapidity with which virtually every sizable institution in America has bent its knee to BLM is stunning.  To be fair, most probably think it’s just about racial remonstrance and reforming police procedure, and even love of neighbor and equality before God.

But the call for getting on one’s knees to this movement and parroting their Marxist slogans is anything but sacred. How do Christians, in particular, justify kneeling to anything other than God Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ? A few courageous athletes have refused to go along.

For many, fear of man has triumphed over devotion to God.  Aided by a relentless media, Democrats have embraced Marxist mob rule while few Republicans other than President Trump have found the courage to call it what it is: un-American and evil.

A final word on Marx. If he had had a glimpse into the murderous misery his philosophy would unleash, would he have shelved his books and spared the world?

Hardly likely. Prof. Kengor shares a line from the heroine in one of Marx’s poems:

Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well. My soul, once true to God, is chosen for Hell.

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This article was originally published at Townhall.com.

Written by Walter E. Williams

Most people who call themselves Marxists know very little of Karl Marx‘s life and have never read his three-volume “Das Kapital.” Volume I was published in 1867, the only volume published before Marx’s death in 1883. Volumes II and III were later edited and published in his name by his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels. Most people who call themselves Marxists have only read his 1848 pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto,” which was written with Engels.

Marx is a hero to many labor union leaders and civil rights organizations, including leftist groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and some Democratic Party leaders. It is easy to be a Marxist if you know little of his life. Marx’s predictions about capitalism and the “withering away of the state” turned out to be grossly wrong. What most people do not know is that Marx was a racist and an anti-Semite.

When the U.S. annexed California after the Mexican-American War, Marx wrote: “Without violence nothing is ever accomplished in history.” Then he asked, “Is it a misfortune that magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it?” Friedrich Engels added: “In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will be placed under the tutelage of the United States.” Many of Marx’s racist ideas were reported in “Karl Marx, Racist,” a book written by Nathaniel Weyl, a former member of the U.S. Communist Party.

In a July 1862 letter to Engels, in reference to his socialist political competitor Ferdinand Lassalle, Marx wrote:

It is now completely clear to me that he, as is proved by his cranial formation and his hair, descends from the Negroes from Egypt, assuming that his mother or grandmother had not interbred with a nigger. Now this union of Judaism and Germanism with a basic Negro substance must produce a peculiar product. The obtrusiveness of the fellow is also nigger-like.

In 1887, Paul Lafargue, who was Marx’s son-in-law, was a candidate for a council seat in a Paris district that contained a zoo. Engels claimed that Paul had “one eighth or one twelfth nigger blood.” In an April 1887 letter to Paul’s wife, Engels wrote, “Being in his quality as a nigger, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district.”

Marx’s anti-Semitic views were no secret. In 1844, he published an essay titled “On the Jewish Question.” He wrote that the worldly religion of Jews was “huckstering” and that the Jews’ god was “money.” Marx’s view of Jews was that they could only become an emancipated ethnicity or culture when they no longer exist. Just one step short of calling for genocide, Marx said, “The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.”

Marx’s philosophical successors shared ugly thoughts on blacks and other minorities. Che Guevara, a hero of the left, was a horrific racist. In his 1952 memoir, “The Motorcycle Diaries,” Guevara wrote,

The Negro is indolent and lazy and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.

British socialist Beatrice Webb griped in The New Statesmen about declining birthrates among so-called higher races, which would lead to “a new social order” that would be created “by one or other of the colored races, the Negro, the Kaffir or the Chinese.” The Soviets espoused the same “Jewish world conspiracy” as the Nazis. Joseph Stalin embarked upon a campaign that led to the deaths of Jewish intellectuals for their apparent lack of patriotism. By the way, the Soviet public was not told that Karl Marx was Jewish. Academics who preach Marxism to their classes fail to tell their students that his ideology has led to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. What’s worse, they fail to even feign concern over this fact.

White liberals are useful idiots. BLM, Antifa, and other progressive groups use the plight of poor blacks to organize left-leaning, middle-class, college-educated, guilt-ridden suburbanite whites. These people who topple statues and destroy public and private property care about minorities as much as their racist predecessors. Their goal is the acquisition and concentration of power and Americans have fallen hook, line, and sinker for their phony virtue signaling.

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Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Why do so many members of the Hollywood elite espouse such radical, leftist causes? Why are they so pro-abortion, so pro-queer activism? Why are they so passionate about saving trees and caring for cows? How and why did Hollywood become so “woke”?After [this year’s] Oscars, the Daily Mail ran this lengthy headline: “And the award for the most self-righteous Oscars acceptance speech goes to . . . Joaquin Phoenix lectures about animal rights, Brad Pitt slams impeachment trial and Obama documentary director urges ‘workers of the world to unite.’”

What? “Joaquin Phoenix launched a passionate speech about animal rights, veganism and Speciesism” while the director of an Obama documentary quoted Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto? The elite, the mega-rich, and the powerful called for the uprising of the oppressed working class?

Other tag lines in the Mail included:

• Hair Love creator Matthew Cherry advocated for the Crown Act, a California law that prohibits discrimination based on hair style or texture, in his speech

• American Factory co-director Julia Reichert – who is fighting terminal cancer – quoted from the Communist Manifesto

• Janelle Monae opened the show by declaring herself a ‘proud’, ‘black queer artist telling stories’

• Sigourney Weaver declared: ‘All women are superheroes’ when she presented an award

Yes, Hollywood has been “woke” for many years now, fashioning itself to be the prophetic voice of conscience. And, the truth be told, many in Hollywood are passionate about their causes, from animal rights to climate change, and from same-sex “marriage” to immigration.

In other words, for many of them (if not most; only God knows), this is not just a show. They truly believe they are in the right. They truly believe conservative religion is damaging people’s lives. They truly believe we are destroying the planet.

To quote Joaquin Phoenix at length,

“I think whether we’re talking about gender and equality, or racism, or queer rights, or indigenous rights, or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one people, one race, one gender, one species has the right to dominate, control, use, and exploit another with impunity.”

Not only so, but, “We go into the natural world and plunder it of its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and then steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable.”

So, pity the poor baby cow (after all, it is a living creature), but rip those human clumps of cells out of their mother’s wombs. This is the hypocrisy of Hollywood.

But this doesn’t answer two fundamental questions. First, why is this segment of the population so outspoken about social and political issues? Why do they claim to care so much? Second, why have they taken up positions on the extreme left with issue after issue?

Obviously, we can only speak in general terms, since Hollywood is not a monolith. But perhaps the answer to the first question is simply this: Everyone in Hollywood is involved with producing movies. Most movies carry a message. So, the people involved see themselves as messengers.

The editor of a major newspaper once told me that many journalists see themselves as having a prophetic role. They do not just report the news. They challenge injustice. They seek to correct wrongs. Consequently, some of their writing will reflect a particular bias.

Perhaps, in the same way, as actors play certain roles and screenwriters produce the scripts and directors oversee the process, they feel they are playing a prophetic role in the society. They are telling stories that need to be told. They are making social statements. Consequently, they themselves have something to say. (For my response to this, see here.)

But how, then, did their message become so slanted? Why a quotation from Karl Marx? Why the concern about inseminating a cow?

This, in my view, is the result of taking up causes from a me-centered perspective. (I would say “man-centered,” but that uses the dreaded “m” word. To say “human-centered” doesn’t seem to cut it as well.) In other words, rather than seeing things from God’s perspective, they see things from an earthly perspective.

So, rather than see the meaning of marriage as God intended it for human flourishing and the well-being of society, they see the “injustice” of two women not being allowed to marry.

That also means that see animals as equal to humans (since humans are not uniquely created in the image of God). They even see trees as equal to humans (and even better than humans, since trees are noble creatures that never hurt anyone).

As to how these views became so dominant in Hollywood, this would seem to reflect a process similar to that in our universities. Specifically, after the counterculture shift of the 1960s, an increasing number of leftist intellectuals and artists and cultural influencers rose to the top. And they now hold positions of dominance, effectively silencing and suppressing those who dissent.

Interestingly, though, many “common people” – the proletariat, if you will – are not having it. As the Mail also reported, “while the well-heeled crowd at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles applauded their speeches, their ‘lectures’ nauseated the audience at home.

“Many viewers took to Twitter to slam the stars as ‘hypocrites’ and called the event the ‘wokest Oscars ever’.”

Perhaps a little too “woke” for the tastes of many?

Personally, I can appreciate how gifted many of these actors and writers and cinematographers and directors are.

I can appreciate the sacrifices some of them make for their trade (in other words, their riches come with a price).

I can even appreciate their concern for the environment (within reason) and their compassion for animals (again, within reason).

But when wokeness means quoting Marx, celebrating queerness, and caring more for baby cows than for baby humans, then I have a simple message. Hollywood, you need a spiritual awakening. You are not yet truly woke.

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This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.