Virginia is a newly blue state, with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, that Joe Biden won by 10 points.
Hence, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe was an early and solid favorite to regain the office he vacated in 2017. But if McAuliffe loses Tuesday, the defeat will be measured on the Richter scale.
For if he does lose, it will be because of an elitist belief McAuliffe blurted out during a debate with Republican rival Glenn Youngkin:
“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.”
Yet, during his own term as governor, one Virginia school district pulled copies of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Huckleberry Finn” out of the schools because of the books’ use of racial slurs.
What McAuliffe was saying was that the knowledge, truths and beliefs imparted to children in public schools are to be determined by school officials and teachers alone. Parents have no role and should butt out.
His dismissal of any parental role in education did more than cause a backlash against McAuliffe. It put on the national agenda an issue that will be engaged and fought long after this Virginia governor’s race is over.
Former President Barack Obama was not amused at Virginia’s reaction to McAuliffe’s rejection of any parental role in education.
“We don’t have time to be wasting on these phony, trumped-up culture wars,” said Obama during a campaign stop for McAuliffe.
But to the voters of Virginia, who have been moving to Youngkin since McAuliffe made his now-famous remark, these are real issues.
For what their children are taught and not taught in the public schools to which parents consign them from age 5 to age 18 are matters of grave concern for those parents. For it will affect the kind of adults and citizens their children will become.
“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man” is a saying attributed to the Jesuits’ founder St. Ignatius of Loyola.
These schools are helping shape what children come to believe about the moral, social and historical issues tearing our country apart. These schools are helping shape the men and women these children will become.
Consider. Under the landmark Supreme Court rulings in Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges, abortion and same-sex marriage have been made constitutional rights. Yet both decisions contradict biblical truths, Catholic doctrine and natural law.
While both decisions are today the law of the land, have parents no right to object if public-school teachers instruct their students that these decisions were right, moral and just? Do students and parents have no right to dissent, both inside and outside the classroom?
According to the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” American history began when the first slaves arrived in Virginia, not when the colonies declared independence in 1776 or when the Constitution was ratified.
Do parents have no right to object if the tenets of critical race theory — that America is shot through with “systemic racism,” that whites are privileged from birth and blacks oppressed — are taught as truth about the country to which they have given their loyalty and love?
For generations, statues to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson stood on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Now that the statues are torn down, both are reviled as “traitors.”
Yet, until he was 40 years of age, George Washington was a loyal British subject. But when Virginia rose up against the British Crown, Washington joined the rebellion. Robert E. Lee was also a loyal U.S. soldier and hero of the Mexican War, until his home state Virginia seceded.
Both men were slave-owners. The great difference: Washington was victorious at Yorktown, and Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
President Dwight Eisenhower regarded Lee, whose portrait he hung in the Oval Office, as among the greatest of all Americans.
Whose view of Lee should be taught? Eisenhower’s or Harvard’s?
The question raised by McAuliffe is: Who decides? Who, in the education of America’s children, decides what is historically, morally and socially true? And who is allowed to participate in those decisions?
The nation is today divided over whether America is a good and a great country, or whether it has been irredeemably stained by its sins against the indigenous peoples and slavery. As the Dutch historian Pieter Geyl said, “History is indeed an argument without end.”
Again, the question: Who decides which version is taught in the public schools that are paid for with the tax dollars of the parents who send their children there?
Middle America’s view of the country is more than a little distant from the Ivy League’s, and somewhat closer to Merle Haggard’s. “When you’re running down my country, you’re walking on the fighting side of me.”
Whatever happens Tuesday, “the McAuliffe issue” will be on the table in the elections of 2022.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
Democrats believe in the policy that ‘government knows best’, this is not a new concept but an observation over a long period of time, the first real modern expression came with Hillary Clinton’s “It takes a village to raise a child!” Traditionally that would have been the local communnity where everybody knew everybody and watched out for each other, in essence every adult was a parent to all the children in the ‘village’. But that was not what she ment, she meant the government was the only entity capable of rearing children, that parents weren’t capable but childless bureaucrats were. The school crisis is an extension of the original idea of some twenty five years ago.
“It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.”
Joseph Goebbels
“To be a socialist,” says Goebbels, “is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.”,,,,,,,your kids being the first prime targets designated for submission in social mind control.
“By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals”.-Ayn Rand (About 20 million Germans alone in WWII) Russian 35 to 40 Million.
With Socialist Democrat McAuliffe the beat goes on, same old promise of heaven, same old deliverance of hell. Soon he will have the kids spying on and reporting on the parents like Goebbels did in Germany, but first must burn the American Constitution, then all the educational books that support it.
Those who would trade all their freedoms for a little socialist security soon end up with no security and no safe place to hide, even from your socially conquered kids.
Ive never understood why,with SO MUCH MILITARY there, in Virgina, it ever WENT blue in the first place.. THEN I REMEMBERED a lot of nutheads that work in/around DC< live IN Virgina.
“What McAuliffe was saying was that the knowledge, truths and beliefs imparted to children in public schools are to be determined by school officials and teachers alone. Parents have no role and should butt out.”
Well, obviously, Mr McAuliffe’s parents, as well as those of the current crop of school administrators and a good part of the teachers—fell way short in bringing up their children. Either that or they jumped ship when they got out on their own and adopted Liberal policies. In their zealous debates over education, they showcase their pure ignorance. I would want my children to learn from intelligent and patriotic, value-driven people—not these sorry America-haters who are nothing more than brainwashers and propagandists.
“We don’t have time to be wasting on these phony, trumped-up culture wars,” said Obama during a campaign stop for McAuliffe. Well, Mr Obama—chief culture war instigator—major hater of America—and Joe Biden’s puppeteer—every time you open your mouth, you merely add to the growing pile of BS that is continually spewed out by Liberal politicians. If it weren’t for you being propped up by the Media, you would be nothing—you would swoon only your tiny group of admirers. Shut up and go away—we are not interested in your garbage.
ITS In no way, a phoney culture war.. ITS A REAL WAR for the soul of this nation,!
big government commies is who teaches your kids
satan is alive and working overtime through democrat teachers, unions, politicians and any other **** pile he can find to do his dirty deeds. The main objective of these cultists is to remove Jesus Christ from the face of the earth and they neither have nor will they ever possess the power to accomplish their goal. Parents teach your children about Jesus Christ and they will be on the right road to eternal life. And what parent doesn’t want their child to live forever in peace and in the arms of God Almighty?
Pity satan doesn’t hurry the hell up, and SUCK THE SOULS OUT of all these demon worshipping democrats, AND TAKES THEM ALL DOWN TO HELL to roast!
“WHO DECIDES WHAT KIDS SHOULD BE TAUGHT”… that’s easy…one word…GOD