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Jay Socrates's avatar

Neil Young, Joni Mitchell--amazing how so many of the people who in their youth questioned authority and opposed authoritarianism have now shut down their minds and become slaves to the pronouncements of corrupt officialdom.

Probably not surprising since the whole 60s was ultimately about ME, and apparently when ME is threatened all these people react badly.

Goebbels in action

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TOB's avatar

Another insightful post. Thank you, Toby.

I can't understand why families of means don't move away from places with draconian policies in schools, and why every family doesn't just call a halt. I pulled my kid out of a very nice religious school and began the homeschool journey seven years ago because the school administrators refused to honor my husband's and my views on the textbooks they were using. (Oddly enough, one of the issues in contention was whether our rights come from our Creator or from the government. The textbook said the government gives us our rights.) When our state got super-insane in 2020, making it clear that nothing--from school dances to athletics to going out for coffee--would be normal for my kid any time in the foreseeable future, we moved 1,000 miles to a free state.

Neither decision was hard. It was obvious what was the right thing to do. Actuating the decisions was difficult, of course! It wasn't cheap, and we have had to forgo not-insubstantial income. We're now 1,000 miles or more from our parents. But our child went to the homecoming dance last fall, and she went to a basketball game last night, and she competed in sports last fall and went out with friends and has a normal, happy existence. No masks, no injection QR codes.

Not everyone can afford to do what we did, but a lot of folks can afford it, and haven't done it. When I see the folks posting about "my kid is tortured for seven hours a day," I shake my head. In my current school district, parents sent their kids to school without masks, and the school board realized that principals were sending dozens of well-behaved kids home every morning for utter bull****, so the mask mandate ended. Parents and kids did that. Not by whining about the torture WHILE ACCEPTING IT in exchange for free daycare, but by REFUSING TO ACCEPT IT.

As a parent, I would die for my child. What kind of hypocrite would I be if I let her become a hostage of the lunatic regime because I couldn't take a few days of administrative hassles? If I wouldn't sacrifice some income for her sanity?

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