My liberty or yours? An open letter to Moms for Liberty
I read that you mothers are taking on health care in the public schools in general and mental health care in particular. In a social media post addressed to our president, you wrote: “Health care has no place in public schools. Mental health care is health care Mr. President.”
I take it that, hard as it might be to believe, you are serious about this, and not just counter-punching a Biden administration eager to expand mental health services in the nation’s schools.
We are all for liberty, but here we are again at an age-old conundrum: What happens when your pursuit of liberty interferes or even conflicts with mine?
In the best of all worlds good will negotiation and creative comprise can help both sides get most of what they want without giving up more than they can tolerate. But what happens when positions are dogmatic, are not motivated by real and practical concerns, and there is no good will or willingness to compromise? Think American politics today.
Bismarck (not the donut) observed: ““Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” Is that still true today, or is American politics now modeled after World Wrestling Federation rules with good guys, bad guys, melodramatic taunting and body slams leading to the ultimate theatrical “destruction” of one of the adversaries? (That was a rhetorical question, since we all know the answer, right?)
Your want the liberty to restrict school library reading materials, liberty to restrict which historical facts are taught, liberty to restrict kids’ personal choices regarding who they feel and think they are while in school, and now the liberty to restrict their access to health care and mental health care while there.
“The liberty to restrict” sounds a bit paradoxical, eh?
And what about the liberty of parents who want their kids to get the fullest education possible with no facts off the table, no books of redeeming value off the shelves, parents who want the schools to provide competent initial health care and yes, sensitivity to their personal issues, and basic attention to their mental health that might require a higher level of care outside of school?
Let’s just agree that your liberties and their liberties cannot coextist, resulting in both sides trying to use government as a blunt instrument to pound and subdue the other. So what are we to do?
The Good Book says, “come, let us reason together.” Since your “liberty” is not comfortable with the liberty of so many other parents or even willing to co-exist with it, let’s agree to part on good terms, OK?
If I am not mistaken, Moms for Liberty and their ilk advocate charter schools and school vouchers. So don’t you think it’s time to use them to establish Liberty Schools for your kids in those states with sympathetic governments?
Custom design your own curricula to leave out information that annoys you or spin it until it is unrecognizable. As you wish, restrict access to health care in the schools, and especially mental health, and eliminate vaccination requirements of all sorts. If you want, put prayer back in class. Run the schools yourselves as parents, and don’t let those pesky education professionals confound your children with uncomfortable information or critical thinking skills. And use uniforms to compel the students to dress “the way God made them.” Sky’s the limit at a Liberty School!
The fly in the ointment might be that many top-notch colleges may not be willing to accept students from those schools, and on the outside chance that they did, just imagine the student’s utter disorientation when placed in these open academic settings!
Maybe that’s not much of a problem for parents who don’t care for such “elitist” academic institutions anyway. There are already colleges where their “Liberty School” kids might feel right at home, even though they are not regarded as anywhere near “top tier” in academia and their products will likely face challenges going on to graduate school in their chosen fields.
But with the advent of lots of Liberty Schools around the nation, I have little doubt that new colleges and even professional schools will sprout up to accommodate their graduates. In no time at all America will have two kinds of medical professionals, lawyers, engineers, tech mavens, etc. — one group from conventional schools, the other the product of the “Liberty System.”
But to which kind would you turn for open heart surgery or for legal help in an acute life crisis?
Bruce Diamond is a resident of Fort Myers.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: My liberty or yours? An open letter to Moms for Liberty
