Jan Ireland, September 12, 2003

Ogres are after America’s children. There are several - outwardly pleasant, almost-earnest to a fault, clothed in the guise of liberal progressive thinking. An almost echolalic ‘for the children’ mantra shadows specious intent that it doesn’t take a village to uncover. Closer examination suggests that we may actually be facing a lusus naturae. A ludicrous deformity of natural good. Liberal thinking is not good for America’s children. Consider several organizations, and several aspects of their agendas.

With NAMBLA, relating what the letters stand for is evidence enough for most Americans. North American Man Boy Love Association. Its website advocated sex between grown men and underage boys; posted detailed how to entice literature; said ‘sex before eight, or it’s too late’; and is implicated in the death of a ten-year old boy who was raped and died from suffocation -- at the hands of two grown male NAMBLA readers. Their agenda is despicable and manifestly harmful to the interests of children.

ASFAR is Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions. Among their ‘Board of Directors’ is a 15-year old and one blowsy admitted 40-something, who says she may have been against age restrictions of any kind - from birth. Predictably, they don’t want to be forced to go to school, but they also want licentiousness -- access to birth control, car rental, hotel rooms, liquor, credit cards, gambling, x-rated movies, and voting. Presumably they are not even limiting these demands to the teen years. Clearly, not even the adults associated with the site have children’s best interests at heart.

Most Americans have a positive picture of libraries. Increasingly, however, libraries oppose the Patriot Act and even the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Led by the American Library Association, they resist internet pornography filters for children. To circumvent federal authorities, they daily shred check-out records, internet sites visited, computer sign-in sheets -- pretty much any data federal investigators might find helpful in the war on terrorism. They must have forgotten that terrorists use public computers to communicate clandestinely, and that library workers in Florida actually saw some of the 19 terrorists in their library before 9-11.

Claiming that they are protecting free speech and privacy is specious. Requests for information under the Patriot Act are only approved in cases of national security, and after stringent conditions have been met -- both as to what can be obtained, and what can be done with the information gathered. And the right to privacy in a public library is already gone -- library personnel know everything about the patron, but have arrogantly decided that the federal government will not.

Should there still be a copy in their shelves, the ALA might want to read the United States Constitution. They will learn that the federal government is charged with the defense of the nation -- and the ALA isn’t even mentioned. The ALA’s murky agenda is not good for America’s children.

Positions posted on the NEA website, combined with the agency’s history of political activity, suggests that the NEA does not have the best interests of children at heart. Visitors are told that vouchers do not work, apparently especially do not work in DC -- where some of the nation’s highest funding combines with some of the nation’s lowest scores. For 1000 scholarships to private institutions recently available, DC had 7500 applicants. DC Parents United, led by Virginia Walden-Ford, produced a knock-out ad, stating clearly that DC parents want their children out of failing schools. The children of Congress, and the children of DC public school teachers, go elsewhere. But DC children are being told they should stay, by the NEA and by the hyper-liberal Senator Ted Kennedy.

The No Child Left Behind Act, reacting to dismal test performances, wants every teacher degreed in the subject they’re teaching. NEA fights this vigorously, and there are legitimate points to their argument. But consider this statement taken directly from their site. "Ensure all children a highly qualified teacher by eliminating exemptions for charter schools and supplemental service providers." In feverishly trying to crush all competition, as they do with vouchers or home schooling, they betray their true feelings.

The Washington Federation of Teachers brands the $15 million proposed for the DC Voucher system as theft from the public school budget. Actually it is over and above the current budget, which gives public schools more money for less students -- a net gain. Perhaps the NEA knows their teachers are failing abysmally, and simply resist the loss of control they ineluctably are facing.

The most recent education act, incongruously placed under spending behemoth Teddy Kennedy’s gargantuan guidance, appropriated more dollars for education than ever before. Money is not the answer. North Dakota is near the lowest in the nation in per capita spending, but has been among the highest in the nation in scores. No matter how much it is, the money is never enough. The ignominious Senator Robert Byrd, former KKK Klansman, was just in the news wailing that funding is still billions short. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is being forced to consider whether the government should take over two underperforming school districts there. So it goes across the nation.

Masquerading as a demand for equal treatment of the sexes, is the misguided Title IX. NEA claims mandating equal opportunity and equal distribution of funds between male and female programs is a victory for all students. They couch it as equality of genders. Males, traditional higher participators in sports, are shortchanged. Some traditionally ‘male only’ sports, such as wrestling, have virtually disappeared. With the dumbing down of curriculum, has come the differencing down of athletics -- and probably what was intended in the first place, a blurring of the sexes. Instead of allowing boys and girls to develop their uniqueness, NEA has pushed them to ‘come to the middle’ of mediocrity.

Pat Tornillo, head of the powerful Florida teachers’ union for decades, lived more than lavishly on pilfered union funds. He donated as much as thirty percent of $271 million (tax free dollars, mind you) yearly to political activities, almost exclusively to Democrats. He used school children to send notes home to parents, endorsing Democrat candidates. What is remarkable, is that his case is not remarkable. This scenario is repeated time and again around the country. NEA has not explained why it needs 1800 political operatives, and has resisted IRS disclosure.

To accomplish all their goals, NEA influence will have to start earlier. That is why mandatory kindergarten and universal preschool is now feverishly on the agenda. Just as communes and socialist institutions start early, the NEA wants to start influencing our children, almost before they can walk. They aim to indoctrinate America’s children to accept homosexuality (the recent Harvey Milk, homosexual only high school in New York), so-called transgendered issues, and a so-called full range of sexuality. They downplay patriotism, distorting the history of America. NEA lesson plans about 9-11 had teachers telling students to look at atrocities America has committed in the world, and to question whether our ‘arrogance’ brought on 9-11. They preach that we must not try to impose our values on the world, read we must be subordinate to the New World Order, the UN. The NEA, unchecked, could very well be the most deleterious agent against America’s children.

If you parents have not checked out MTV lately, prepare to be shocked. Selling music has turned into not-so-soft porn. Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilerra (described by one commentator as ‘dressed like sluts, acting like whores, pretending to be lesbians’) performed at the MTV awards recently. In the same week society was forced to view the covering of the Ten Commandments monument, and the aging Madonna’s open-mouthed ‘French’ kissing of the two young girls on stage. The women have arrived at the end of limited talent. All that is left is ratcheting up immorality, to titillate the audience and keep the dollars flowing in. MTV seems to be in the same state. Their agenda is prurient, and not in the best interest of America’s children.

The Ten Commandments had trouble getting publicity about a constitutional issue; the ‘kiss’ hit just about every newspaper in the country.

Recently the two women at the center of the abortion cases from the 70’s tried to get their cases reopened, and the rulings reversed. Jane Doe’s 5400 new pages submitted to the judge were thrown out in 48 hours, giving speed reading a new name. Our nation has lost 43 million babies to abortion, and continues to lose a million a year. Operation Outcry has documented the terrible emotional guilt women experience, often for decades after the ballyhooed guilt-free ‘choice’. NOW told women it was ‘their’ body and ‘their’ choice, and has failed to change despite such heartrending evidence. Instead they find time to endorse political candidates who support abortion, including the current Democrat hopeful Carol Mosely Braun. The YWCA hired Patricia Ireland, former NOW head, as its director -- prompting many to demand that they remove the "Christian" from their name.

The ACLU has become a nemesis to America’s children, by suing and threatening to sue school districts across the nation. They have condemned prayer in school, prayer at football games, the minute of silence, the use of the word Christmas, the mention of God, God Bless America (our national motto), the Ten Commandments, the Pledge of Allegiance and on and on.

They have fought against the Patriot Act, and suggested that focusing on middle eastern men of a certain age -- despite the clear evidence of the 9-11 highjackers -- is illegal racial profiling. They have sued to allow a convert Muslim woman to wear a full veil on a Florida driver’s license -- despite proof that it is not a real religious requirement. They have sued to protect the enemy combatants in Guantanamo.

They are defending NAMBLA, PRO-BONO. They even asked the judge for a gag order, so the father of the young murdered boy could not talk about the story.

They have sued about crosses. Recently an aide in a public library in Kentucky was fired for wearing a small cross on a pendant. That case was successfully resolved, with the cross allowed and her job returned. Not long ago, however, an ‘interfaith’ group called for the removal of all crosses in America, since the cross was a symbol of ‘suffering, bigotry, and exclusion.’ Now the ACLU is suggesting that any cross on any federal land must be removed.

If the ACLU has its way, pretty soon the only crosses associated with America will not be in America at all. The 368 crosses in Flanders Field in Belgium are safe, unless the International Criminal Court decides to reappear and indict them for war crimes.

But can we say the same of the crosses in Arlington Cemetery?

The organizations listed above should scare every American. We should teach our children to be wary of them, as we teach them to stay away from strangers. More than ever before we need to be clear in what we believe. We need to stand up for America. We need to distinguish between good and evil. We need to be patriotic. We need to restore America to its full promise.

We need to do it, for the children.

Jan Ireland has a BA in English, masters in counseling, and advanced training as a certificated teacher. She is a Guest Writer at Opinion Editorials, and a Contributor to Renew America. Her articles appear in Intellectual Conservative, GOPUSA, Washington Dispatch, Prudent Politics, and many other sites.

Copyright © 2003 Jan Ireland