Maybe Drag Shows Should Hand Out Guns To Kids

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23 protesters charged with domestic terrorism after fiery clashes at Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ training center
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[0:02] Protesters on the left are more likely to be charged as domestic terrorists. Magas are more threatened by drag shows than guns, and universal vouchers reward conservative selfishness. I’m Doug Berger and this is secular left.

[0:20] Music.

[0:35] One of the issues that a lot of us progressive have with spending so much money on police police services that rarely, if ever, reduce crime, is the militarization of the police. And what that means is they get military style weapons. Military style clothing and armaments and military military style vehicles like MRAPs.

[1:05] And it also includes military tactics. They learn military tactics and not just for, let’s say, SWAT, which are special weapons assault teams, but for general police. And one of the military trainings that they do is they do like urban urban settings and and they practice house to house fights and things like that. Well, in the in the military, at least in the US military, they have these training facilities that are set up where they have a set up like a town or a group of houses or an apartment building, and this is primarily used for training. There’s nobody lives there, but they have the physical structures all built up sidewalks and streets and and they have buses like derelict buses that don’t run, but they use to for like hostage situations, that sort of thing. Military has these to teach small unit tactics in an urban area. Naturally, this military these military techniques trickle down to the police department. So in the city of Atlanta, they have decided that they wanted to build a what they are calling the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.

[2:30] And so what this is, is going to be several acres of training area for police. Well, there’s a lot of people in Atlanta that are opposed to it, not only because it’s a military further militarization of their police department. But it also where they’re building it is encroaching on some forest area that they want to try to preserve. So it’s a kind of an environmental issue, too. And so people have been protesting the building of what they call Cop City. And so this led to back on March the 6th. A.

[3:12] Violent protests occurred between some people that were in black clothing. That were throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at construction equipment at this location. And the video, if you saw the video in the media, you saw some Atlanta Police Department. Well, County Police Department that where where this situation where this cop city is located, were ducking for cover. And and they showed bulldozers on fire. And and and then you saw in the distance these these people that were dressed in black that were high fiving and and and yelling and screaming and everything. Well. Enough of the cops and and other law enforcement people showed up and broke up this protest and arrested about 23 people. And it looked like at least from the mug shots that I saw in the media that that most of them, most of the 23 were white people. These are probably people that were related to groups that that rioted during like the World Trade Organization meetings and things like that. They they just cause havoc.

[4:30] And so, according to the news reports here, the one that I’m going to quote from is from ABC News. It says, Dozens of people were arrested in Atlanta on Sunday evening after throwing bricks, rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at officers near the site of a planned safety public safety training facility. After attending an event near the site of the soon to be Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a group of people changed into black clothing and entered the construction area at around 5:30 p.m.. The, quote, agitators, unquote. Approached officers there and launched a coordinated attack, quote unquote. According to the Atlanta Police Department. This is not a protest, Atlanta chief of police Darren Schierbaum said at a press conference on Sunday night. This is criminal activity. So and then they also say that the officers exercised restraint and held their position until authorities from multiple law enforcement agencies responded and used, quote, non lethal enforcement, unquote, to detain at least 35 people, some of whom were not from the area.

[5:39] And they charge these people with domestic terrorism. And it just. Kind of took me aback. Was like, I hear that, right? So on the the TV news report that I saw, I rewound it. And yeah, they charged him with domestic terrorism and it got me thinking. Did they charge the January 6th insurrectionists with domestic terrorism? Because it’s almost the same thing. I mean, it was a violent protest, targeted government officials and police. Well, first of all, let me backtrack a little bit.

[6:23] I don’t believe this was domestic terrorism because they weren’t trying to overthrow a government. They weren’t trying to kill as many people as they can like terrorists do when they do terrorist attacks. They try to cause chaos and mayhem and kill as many people, innocent people, as they can. This was like a low speed, coordinated attack, if you want to use that word. That’s a military word. Bricks, fireworks, Molotov cocktails. Rock. I said rocks, didn’t I? Yeah, bricks, rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails. And they were throwing them at the police. And the video I saw the police were able to duck. None of the police were seriously hurt. If they got hit by a rock or a piece of rock or glass or something like that. You know, it totally different than, let’s say, an organized terrorist incident where you have people with machine guns mowing down anything that moves. You know, that to me is terrorism, domestic terrorism, fire bombing, abortion clinics is domestic terrorism.

[7:35] Because you’re trying to hurt people. And maybe they were trying to hurt the cops. Who knows? All they were doing, though, is they were trying to protest this this cop city in a violent manner. So like I said, it got me thinking. Did they charge the insurrectionists with domestic terrorism? And so I found an article in one of the right wing blogs, Politico. Well, not right wing. Well, they’re they’re biased towards Republicans. And the the title of the article, and this was from January of last year. It says Why the Department of Justice is Avoiding Domestic Terrorism Sentences for January 6th Defendants. And one of the things that they were talking about was that even.

[8:27] Uh, says instead, even as some judges have publicly debated whether the charges against January 6th defendants qualify as crimes of terrorism, prosecutors have repeatedly pulled back on tougher sentences, citing unspecified facts and circumstances. And basically what it is, is if you get convicted of domestic terrorism, it can add significantly to a prison sentence. There’s a sentencing enhancement for terrorism crimes. And that was created by an act of Congress after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. And and. It initially only linked to international terrorism. But after the bombing of the Oklahoma City building in 1995, they expanded it to cover domestic terrorism.

[9:21] And and it says the terrorism related language now includes federal criminal offenses calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion or to reality retaliate, retaliate against government conduct. This sentencing enhancement would add up at least 15 years in prison for people that would be convicted under it. It sets the minimum calculation at 17.5 years and also flips the person charged into the criminal history category used for serial serial offenders. So then you even get punished even more because you’re a serial offender.

[10:03] And I was like, Huh? And so what it is, if you read the Political Politico article, which I’ll throw up on the show notes, the link, what the federal prosecutors were doing were using the threat of being charged with domestic terrorism in order to get the January 6th defendants to cop a plea. And so they they would say, well, if you plead guilty to trespassing and trying to mess up the government, we’ll drop the domestic terrorism charge. So in a in most of the case, I think all the cases, none of the January 6th, insurrectionists were charged with domestic terror, ended up being sentenced under domestic terrorism. And so I was like, Boy, that’s that’s weird.

[10:55] So then did a little bit more digging and I found out that the 23 people arrested in Atlanta this weekend, this this past week, they were charged under state domestic terrorism charges, not federal, which is a whole different kettle of fish, because it’s still you’re still talking about sentence and, sentence enhancements, depending on the state. But it’s not like the federal charges. It’s still dumb, but it’s still the federal charges. So I was looking even further.

[11:29] And so one of the things, one of the arguments that the right wing uses when trying to downplay the January 6th insurrection. Hello. Tucker Carlson, is that. They they say, well, nobody got in trouble. Or why weren’t the George Floyd protesters from 2020? Why weren’t they put in prison, too? Because they’re trying to equate so they’re trying to equate people that are protesting to protect their civil rights. With people that weren’t happy about a turnout of an election was trying to overturn it. They were trying to overthrow the government. It’s not the same thing, but that’s the argument they make. So I went and checked, did some reading and found on the website The Intercept. They had an article. It says, Protesters in multiple states are facing felony charges, including terrorism. And in a lot of states, particularly red states like Georgia, people who protested the George Floyd.

[12:38] Situation were charged with domestic terrorism when they when they were arrested. But the twist is. That most of these charges were dropped when it got to the prosecution part. The the prosecutors dropped the charges because they were ridiculous. And this is an article from The Intercept from August of 2020.

[13:10] And it said just last week, following more than 60 days of demonstrations outside the state capitol. Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a law that made it a felony to participate in some types of protest, including camping out overnight on state property. Charges for the same activity were previously classified as a misdemeanor in Tennessee. People convicted of felonies lose their voting rights, making the new law a tool for disenfranchisement.

[13:38] So that’s the key. If you charge them with a felony and domestic terrorism, they lose their voting rights in most most of the state cases. It says earlier this month, police in Muscatine, Muscatine, Iowa, never, never heard of that up apprehended two people they say were attempting to drive a vehicle into the city public safety building and got stuck on a planter. They charged both men with numerous counts, including terrorism. That follows an Oklahoma district attorney’s pursuit of terrorism charges against five young people, including three teenagers and two people in their 20 seconds. The fourth term prosecutor also threw felony charges at numerous other people in relation to protests and damage to local and police property in late May. And in The Intercept article goes on. The terrorism charges reveal a false equivalency between people who kill and people who commit acts of property damage, says Kate Chatfield, policy director at the Justice Collaborative, a policy media organization focused on mass criminalization and incarceration. Maybe not a great thing. So basically what it was is these people that were protesting George Floyd’s killing were getting arrested and charged with terrorism.

[14:56] And then then it goes on a little bit later. It says, in some states where police have charged protesters in mass with felonies, prosecutors have swiftly dropped them, calling into question the reasoning behind the original charges. For example, in Louisville, Kentucky, police arrested 87 protesters who had staged a sit in on the lawn of a home belonging to a state attorney general, Daniel Cameron, as part of an ongoing call for accountability and killing of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in Louisville. The officers were acting on a no knock warrant in connection with the suspect that did not live there, says three days later, Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell dismissed the felony charges and said his office would consider misdemeanors and other violations for prosecution at a later date. And it says on Tuesday, Louisville police arrested another 68 protesters and charged them with obstructing a highway and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.

[15:51] And so this is a this has been a problem is that that a lot of these conservative states, these Republican red states don’t like protesting. And so they will charge you with a felony and with domestic terrorism. And a lot of these cases, cooler heads prevailed in the in the prosecutor’s office and they dropped those charges and just charged them with misdemeanors. You get charged with a felony, it can really mess up your life big time and all because you’re trying to exercise your First Amendment rights. Now, granted, people are going to say, but, Doug, they they did property damage. Yes, they did property damage. And they should be in trouble for that. They should get they should get in trouble for breaking windows and setting fires. And and there’s appropriate laws for that. You don’t need to charge somebody with domestic terrorism, especially here in the United States.

[16:45] Especially when you’re only targeting the government action and not trying to overthrow the government. For example, how these types of charges can affect somebody’s life. In Oklahoma, teens and young adults facing terror charges. They’re looking at the maximum of life in prison, according to the state statute. And many of these charged protesters are young teenagers. So they’re facing spending their entire lives in prison simply for, in some cases, attending a protest to try and hold police accountable. And and if you and if you’re saying, well, that’s unfair, it is unfair. Meanwhile, all these all these MAGA people that supported Trump that thought that the election was stolen.

[17:36] Actually storm the US frickin capitol, you know, assaulting police officers. And who knows what they would have done had they got ahold of the Congress that was meeting at the time. Maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe something would have happen because there was a lot of military like people in that crowd that day. And with all due respect. Well, with no respect to Tucker Carlson, they were not just sightseers on a tour. Trust me. You know the definition. If you talk about domestic terrorism, that to me is the definition of domestic terrorism is storming the Capitol to change the results of an election you did not agree on. You know, when you take it into your own hands with violence to change something.

[18:25] And I know there’s going to be some people. What about the George Floyd protests? And what about in DC when they were when they were rioting and and and throwing rocks at the White House? It’s like they were throwing rocks. They were throwing Molotov cocktails. They weren’t shooting people. The only people that were shooting guns during the George Floyd protests were white supremacists like Kyle Rittenhouse. You know, when you come to a protest with a bag of rocks and a molotov cocktail. You’re not looking to overthrow the government. You’re you’re looking to damage property. But you want to make a point that that your world is needs to change and and you want to make a point of it. That’s not domestic terrorism in my book.

Hello, this is Doug, host of Secular Left, reminding you that I like to be validated. If you like this podcast and want to thank me, feel free to buy me a coffee. Go to buy me a coffee.com/secular left and donate some cash to help make this a better show and validate me as a person. You’ll feel better in the morning.

[19:45] One of the culture war conflagrations that have been happening lately has been over drag show story times. And what this is, is these are public events, family friendly public events where drag performers read children’s books to groups of children. And it’s one way for the drag community to give back to the community in which they live and and help kids get kids interested in reading books because they have their drag persona. They’re they’re performers and they put that energy of their performance into reading this book and doing voices and and it and it’s a very good time. Okay. Well, there’s a lot of religious conservative prudes in this country that for some reason and I’m not sure why their brains are broken. But they assume that one all drag performers are gay. And to that someone who is gay is looking to molest children.

[20:59] That’s been their constant argument. I think I heard you used to hear that when I was a kid back in the 80 seconds. Back when Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were were crusading against LGBT people.

[21:15] Is that that gay people want to molest children. So we have to protect the children so they’re not molested or turned gay just by being exposed to gay people. Yes, It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. And it’s biased completely on the type of religious services they go to, which are usually evangelical cluster crap. Where they teach them all kinds of crap about about the Bible and about religion that nobody else was learning. Anytime you know about hating gay people and and being against being called out as a racist and and anti-vax stuff and and all this crazy talk. And so now they take that and go into the public and now they’re attacking drag performers, you know, because these crazy evangelicals have control of state legislatures. They’re passing bills to outlaw drag shows in front of children, supposedly in front of children. And the other funny thing. It’s not funny. But the other ironic thing about this whole situation is that some of these people that are against these drag shows were, in fact dressed in drag at some point in their younger days.

[22:43] And some of them even were friends with drag performers in their younger days like that. Kari Lake in Arizona, that still won’t acknowledge that she lost the race for Arizona governor. She used to be like in the fan club for a drag performer and went to all their all their shows. And now she’s like saying that she she adopted this this, you know, we must get rid of drag performers, you know, that sort of thing. Drag performances where men dress as women is is that’s the majority of drag performances is men dressing as women. You also have some women dressed as men. You know, it just depends on the performer. But but that’s the Christian, not the Christian, because they’re not Christians. But the religious animosity towards drag performances is always directed at men who dress as women. Maybe because they dress better or have better makeup, I don’t know. But that’s who they focus on. The thing is that.

[23:52] The whole concept of men dressing as women is almost as old as history is. You could go throughout history and find examples of men dressing as women or playing women. For example, Shakespeare. Shakespeare plays were always they had the characters were always played by men, even if the character was a woman. It was played by a man who dressed as a woman. And nobody cared. All right. Then you had leakage in in Paris that everybody went to, everybody here in Toledo. And where I’m at, we have the during the gay pride festivals, they have a drag performance and there’s plenty of drag performers in this town. There was even one from Toledo that was on a national TV show on the Food Network.

[24:51] Her name is Sugar and had a mac and cheese truck that was in the the Food Truck competition show. You know, and and then you had in the media, too, you had Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis and some Like It Hot. And through most of the movie, they’re dressed as women. So it’s not it’s not a big deal. But because these religious conservative bigots can’t get it out of their heads that you have to be gay to be a drag performer, which you don’t, and that all gay people are trying to molest children or make them gay, which is also not true. We get ridiculous laws like we got in Tennessee that bans drag performances in front of children. You know, and here’s the thing. This isn’t like drag performer walking down the street and sees a group of kids and hey, let me read you a story or here, let me perform for you. These were events that were formerly set up as charity events where the public was invited and the kids came with their parents.

[25:59] You know, these Republican nut jobs talk about parental rights, except when it’s something that they don’t like. You know, if a parent is is progressive enough to see the art form for what drag performances are and how they’re trying to give back and help kids get interested in reading and they take their little Molly or Tim to this performance to hear this book. That’s all that should matter. Okay. That’s all it should matter. If the parents are cool with it. Stay out of it. The government should stay out of it, but no. Because they think that gay people only want to molest children. They have to get involved. So.

[26:46] You see that perspective there? All right. Well, John Stewart, who was used to be the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, he has a new political I guess it’s political. Mostly political show on Apple TV. And he interviewed a legislator from Tennessee who introduced this Anti-drag performance bill.

[27:12] And questioned him very poignantly about the hypocrisy of banning drag performances in front of children, but not protecting children from guns, gun violence. And so I want to play this clip because this has been all over the Internet. You’ve probably heard it before, but I need to put some time in. So in my in my segment here, because there’s a point I’m going to make after I play this clip. So let’s hear this clip from Jon Stewart Show. I’ll go you one further. You want to ban drag show readings to children? To minors? Yes. Why? Why, why? What are you protecting? Why can we prohibit children from voting those under 18 from voting? Why are you banning that? Is is that free speech? Are you infringing on that performer’s free speech? They can continue to exercise their free speech, just not in front of a child. Why? Because the government does have a responsibility to protect I’m sorry. The government does have a responsibility in certain instances. What’s the leading cause of death amongst children in this country? And I’m going to give you a hint. It’s not drag show readings to children, correct? Yes. So what is it?

[28:19] I’m presuming you’re going to say it’s firearms. No, I’m not going to say it like it’s an opinion. That’s what it is. It’s firearms more than cancer, more than car accidents. And what you’re telling me is you don’t mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of. But when it comes to children that have died, you don’t give a flying fuck to stop that because that shall not be infringed. That is hypocrisy at its highest order. I’ve listened to that clip probably several hundred times and it makes me laugh and giggle every time because he is so on point. And as somebody on Twitter or something said Checkmate MAGAs. And that’s true because it forcibly and clearly showed the hypocrisy.

[29:15] The problem is, it doesn’t matter to the religious bigots. Doesn’t matter at all. That’s just the attitude we don’t need. Phil? Sure. Mohawk has beaten us 12 years in a row. Sure. They’re terrific athletes. They’ve got the best equipment that money can buy. Hell, every team they’re sending over here has their own personal masseuse, not masseur. Masseuse. But it doesn’t matter. Do you know that every Mohawk competitor has an electrocardiogram? Blood and urine tests every 48 hours to see if there’s any change in his physical condition. Do you know that they use the most sophisticated training methods from the Soviet Union, East and West Germany and the newest Olympic power, Trinidad Tobago? But it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. I tell you, it just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t.

[30:17] It just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Even if we win. If we win. How? Even if we win. Even if we play so far over our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days, even if God in heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field, even if every man, woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn’t matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Malacca. They got all the money. They don’t give a shit about protecting children. It’s all about the the all about their religious bigotry and supporting that. They put the Second Amendment above the first. You know, parent parental rights. Well, you better hope it doesn’t involve a gun because you’re never going to get parental rights to keep guns out of the hands of children. Trust me. So, yeah, John Stewart was excellent in this. That interview showed how bad, how hypocritical the Republicans are and the religious conservatives are about this issue. And it doesn’t matter. Worth a crap.

[31:46] Because they’re never going to change. They’re not going to go, Oh, that’s right. Well, maybe we should change. They’re never going to change.

[31:55] You know. So it’s like one of those insular things where, you know, you see on the Internet, it’s like a Dean Martin totally destroys George Gobel and it’s like clickbait. And it was clickbait. I watched it, I downloaded it, I watched it. But at the end of the day, it’s not going to change anything. Because what’s what needs to happen is the people that saw that and said, you’re right, they need to get off their butts and they need to vote to change. And get these religious zealots out of office. That’s the only way this is going to change. You know, these these religious bigots that are in charge of these state legislators, legislatures, you know, Ohio and Indiana and Tennessee and Alabama and Mississippi and all these places. The reason why these extremist bills get passed is because they believe they’re invincible. And when people don’t come out to vote. Because they think their vote doesn’t count. Then the 20 some percent or less of the people that believe that way end up being in charge. And then we get bullshit like laws that ban drag shows in front of children.

[33:19] That’s what happens when you when you have a small minority who are religious zealots get put in charge of things.

[33:31] So, you know, and and in my next segment, I’m going to talk about something that’s even similar to that. Not the drag show, but another instance where getting pissed off about the issue isn’t going to help. Typing on typing on the internet and and playing that clip of Jon Stewart besting that Republican zealot. Isn’t going to do shit.

[33:58] It may make you feel better and you might giggle to yourself down in your basement eating your Cheetos. Oh, was that out loud? Yeah. It’s going to make you feel good, but it’s not going to change the the subject. It’s not going to change the perspective that somebody who has worked for years to perfect their drag performances now is not going to be allowed to perform in front of children. Their their First Amendment right to be an artist. Is going to be violated. Now people are going to say, well, they’ll just file a lawsuit and they’ll get thrown out in the court. I don’t think. I’m not holding my breath on that. You know, we see the US Supreme Court that’s full of religious zealots that are pulling crap out of their ass in order to overturn church and state separation. Like the Bremerton decision about the the coach and the prayer. They totally pulled that out of their ass. And you think that’s they’re going to they’re going to protect RuPaul.

[35:03] And so that she can do drag time story hour. You’re high. You’re smoking something. Like I said, the only way that we’re going to be able to change these these laws that are getting passed these extremist laws is to get the extremists out of office. And we need to get on board on this today.

[35:27] And not think that somebody’s going to bail us out. We voted for Joe Biden. And extremists are still doing what they’re doing. So you need to think more locally, more in the state you live in, in the town you live in, in the school boards, in your area. And you need to go after these extremists. And get out of your house and do it. Do it in person. You know how many more people need to be hurt? How many more people need to have their rights violated by these extremists? Talk about domestic terrorism. There’s your domestic terrorism right there.

For more information about any of the topics covered in this episode, check out our show notes at Secular Left.

[36:19] Music.

[36:25] So our illegally gerrymandered extremist religious bigot led, Ohio legislature got down to business in January by introducing a slew of extremist legislation, against LGBT people. They’re trying to gut public education. They’re trying to disenfranchise more people for from voting under the guise of stopping fraud, which doesn’t exist. So it’s been a cornucopia, cornucopia of extremism.

[37:03] One of the bills that’s being considered is called a backpack. Backpack bill. And what it is, is it’s also commonly known as a universal voucher. And this would be used in education for people that want to send their children to any school that they want to. They would be given a voucher. It could even be used for home schooling. And I think that’s who is really pushing this. And the back this backpack bill, is being pushed by the Center for Christian Virtue. Giggle, giggle, giggle. Every time I hear that, it cracks me up. And what they’re doing, what they do now is they lobby these religious bigots in the Ohio legislature and get whatever they want. And one of these is this universal voucher. And what and what this would be is, I think it’s roughly $7,000 per student in taxpayer dollars would go with the student to be used on their education at any school, private or home schooling. And so this is like seriously expanding the voucher program that was usually just a benefit to the rich and wealthy elites instead of the people that were in urban school districts that supposedly were bad, they couldn’t get them. I still don’t think they’re going to be able to get these vouchers. But anyway. And so they had this.

[38:32] Um, news report on our local station. And I kind of want to play a clip of this. This is a mother in in Holland, Ohio, which is a suburb of Toledo who homeschools her children. And she talks about how this voucher scheme will really, really help her. Let’s take a look. Let’s let’s listen. Monica Vernon has been homeschooling her kids for the last four years, and she says a more personalized approach has been a game changer for her family. I have one child that excels in math and we’re able to push him a couple grades ahead of where he would be in a traditional school. Then I have another child that’s a little slow in English, and so I can meet his needs on a personal basis. But the textbooks and lesson plans come with a hefty out of pocket cost. I would estimate probably about $1,000 a year just to pay for my curriculum and then private lessons, private tutoring. But that could all change with Ohio House Bill 11. It empowers parents to give their children what they feel that they they need, and those needs might not be assessed at a traditional school anyway. So that’s her opinion. She says it will help.

[39:52] Because, hey, books are expensive, right? Am I right? The public schools in Ohio have a weird funding formula in that it uses property taxes. So I took a look at the property taxes for the mother that was featured in that news report. And they’re the home that she lives in is worth about $230,000. And they paid for the whole year, about $3,000 in taxes to the local school district.

[40:26] That $3,000 pays for the books, the building, the lights, the the busing, the sports, you know, everything. And she’s grousing about having to spend $1,000 for curriculum books to teach her kids at home. And obviously, they can also afford private tutors and private lessons which most people that go to public schools don’t don’t can’t afford or don’t need. She’s saying that she doesn’t get anything out of the tax dollars that she gives to the schools, but that is not true. Public schools were formed were initially created in this country to create a public good, something that was the relatively the same across the country because it was realized that in order for us to have have a country that grew and progressed and became more than what it was, we needed to have a well-educated workforce, essentially.

[41:35] And when you’re not educated, when you refuse to be educated, you become a burden to the state. Because you need services that the state provides because you can’t work or you can’t read or whatever. And so in order for for people to be good citizens and contribute to this country, it would be good for them to be educated and there would be a standard of curriculum that people would learn so that that you would learn two plus two is four. You know, you would learn that the War of 1812 was fought in 1812 and so forth and so on.

[42:19] So that you could live anywhere in this country and have a good education, decent education anyway, so you would have these common schools. And one of the things that they did was it would be paid for by taxpayers because the taxpayers benefit from a good school system. Not only do you get well-educated workers that that contribute to your your community, but, it makes everything else in your area good if you have good schools and then they have the regulations that you have to attend the school. You know, that is one of the laws in the land in many states and is that it’s mandatory attendance. You have to go to school and.

[43:06] You know, it was back in the day if because we were mostly farm, agrarian, agrarian economy and a lot of these kids didn’t finish the past the eighth grade because they had to work the farm or they only went to school in the winter months. And then once the spring hit, they were working on the farm. So a lot of these areas, they had these mandatory attendance because they they fully believe and it checks out in the data and in the science that kids need this education. Okay. So you create these common schools. People pay for it out of a common tax base. They pay for it. And and it works. Okay. When you do something that is general applicability to everybody, there’s going to be people that are going to fall through the cracks. You know, you’re going to have some people that don’t learn very well. You’re going to have some people that that don’t test well or whatever.

[44:06] Then you also have religious considerations. Some people don’t want their children to go to a public school because it doesn’t teach them there. It doesn’t give them their adequate what they believe there should be their adequate religious education. So the government said, fine, you know, the religions can set up their own schools as long as you conform to these general curriculum ideas, you can have your own school. So the different religions went off and formed their own schools. And some of these private schools, sectarian schools, also have a history of of being developed during the civil rights era so that white people would flee, the newly integrated school systems so that they could maintain their racism and their bigotry. And so now we get into this part where a lot of.

[45:01] Right wing religious extremists are now teaching their children at home because they can’t even tell they either can’t find a religious school that they like that conforms to their religion. You know, a majority of these private schools are Catholic, and you probably have some of these evangelicals that don’t like Catholics. So they don’t want their kids going to a Catholic school, but they want them to have religion. So they teach them at home. And that’s great. If you choose to teach your kid at home, that’s great. If you have the money and the time and the resources to to teach. And usually it’s it’s the mother that is in these types of families. It’s the mother who’s home all day. She’s not allowed to work and or she elects not to work because she wants to teach her kids. And that’s that woman that we saw in the clip from the local news channel is she has elected to stay at home and homeschool her kids. Now she’s complaining that the books and the curriculum that she has to spend money on costs too much. And the $7,000 from the state would help so much. The problem is that that takes money away from the common school, common public school. And so she has a choice. She can send her kids to public school. She has decided not to. So how is that fair that she doesn’t have to pay for the common schools? She benefits from the common schools.

[46:31] And she benefits because her property values depend on a good school system. Her economic situation in in Holland depends on having a good school system because businesses won’t locate in areas where their employees are going to have crappy schools to send their kids to. You know, that’s a determination when a when a company is looking to locate somewhere in this country, they look at a lot of factors. They look at taxes and regulations, but they also look at, you know, what’s the community like and how is the school system. And the the value of housing in any area is majorly dependent on how good the school system is. That’s why when you go out to the rural areas, like in southern Ohio, where their school systems are kind of rickety, the the property values aren’t that great. But you go into some place like here in the Toledo area, we have Ottawa Hills, which is a an affluent suburb of Toledo. They have excellent schools. They get they get awards for having excellent schools. And the reason one of the reasons they have excellent schools is they pay top dollar for their schools. They think that that’s important.

[48:01] So if somebody lives in Ottawa Hills and they’re homeschooling their children. They are taking away from the rest of the community. So is that fair? Where I live at in northwest Ohio, I have crappy roads. And I’m sure that the the mother from Holland has very nice roads. Why do I have to pay for her roads? Well, because I benefit from those roads.

[48:32] You know, the same with the fire and the police department. Why should I have to pay for her fire and police department? Because I benefit from her fire and police department. It’s a common it’s called a common good or a community good is when everybody pulls their money together in order to build some kind of infrastructure that benefits everybody, no matter how rich you are, what color you are, what religion you are. And and this bill, this backpack bill is going to destroy that. And if you watch the entire segment on the news channel, the WTOL. They talked to a Toledo public school board member who says, you know, we still have these buildings. We have to maintain. We still have these teachers, we have to pay. And so you’re taking they’re taking money out of the school system’s almost $1 billion to give to that woman in Holland.

[49:36] And so she’s going to be fine. Her kids are going to get, I guess, a good education. I mean, according to the Ohio Department of Education, you could teach your kids to be Nazis and it doesn’t matter as long as you fill out your forms and show that they’re making progress. You can learn about how to exterminate Jews, and that’s okay. But over here in Toledo, you’re going to have buildings that are falling down and and and kids falling further behind. And and the only thing the only people that are going to be left in the public school are people who can’t afford to send their kids to a private school, even with a voucher. And they can’t afford to homeschool because they have to work. They have no time to teach their kids at home. Is that really fair?

Thank you for listening to this episode. You can check out more information, including links to sources used in our show notes on our website at Secular US. Secular Left is hosted, written and produced by Doug Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content.

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