April 13th, 2024
Vernon County Delegates Reinstated
Saturday, April 6th, 2024, was a good day for grassroots conservatives in Congressional District 4 (CD4). As soon as the convention started, the CD4 chair, Carla Young, started with the shenanigans. Fortunately for us, that day was not her day. For more details, click here.
Vernon County Vetting Upheld By Court
Vernon County Clerk Adrienne Lee was ordered by Circuit Judge Gayle L. Crane to remove candidates that were placed on the ballot as Republican Candidates because their filing fee was not accepted by the Vernon County Republican Committee. The Vernon County Republican Committee has setup a vetting process for candidates who wished to run as Republicans. You can read more on the Act for Missouri (Act4MO.org) website here.
MO Freedom Caucus Podcast
There is a new edition of the MO Freedom Caucus Podcast available on Facebook.
Brattin Capitol Report
Freedom Principle MO Announces Opposition to SB 727
Freedom Principle MO says that SB 727 would “open the door to DESE control of homeschool families”. The full announcement is downloadable in .pdf format below:
Missouri First Weighs In On School Choice Bill
Ron Calzone with Missouri First issues warnings about SB 727, including input from Dave Roland, attorney and the Director of Litigation at the Freedom Center of Missouri.
Leading Constitutional Attorney Warns of Gun Rights Problems in SB 727
United We Stand?
Watching conservatives attack each other on social media is demoralizing, especially when the attacks get personal and vitriolic, which has been happening on Twitter (X) for weeks. Rather than the free exchange of ideas (which is difficult enough on that platform, given the character limit), there seems to be only sarcasm, hyperbole, and ad hominem attacks, and this is from conservatives against conservatives.
IMO, there is a demonic spirit of division at work in our communities, county, state, and nation, and conservatives appear to have been sucked in to it, just like everyone else. Any momentum conservatives had in Jefferson City this session has largely evaporated. I have little hope that any version of “School Choice” legislation will pass, and even if something does get passed, it will very likely make things worse, not better. Even as I write this, I am praying that I am wrong. I would love nothing more than to come back here at the end of the legislative session and eat my words. I would smile as I did so, I can tell you that.
What’s worse, is that the problem goes beyond one piece of legislation. It is very likely that relationships among the conservative base and legislators have been damaged, possibly permanently. This is a terrible situation to be in, especially right now. The end of the current legislative session is quickly approaching, which ramps up the intensity and the workload on legislators, in a primary election season no less, where good, conservative legislators are having to fight for their seats against much less conservative challengers, backed by big money lobbyists and special interests.
To both the grassroots conservative base, and conservative legislators within reach of this newsletter, I am asking you, with all humility, please remember the basics of effective communication and negotiation, like treating people the way you would want to be treated, and listening to understand, not just reply. Respectfully challenging ideas is good, but avoid assuming intent, or resorting to personal attacks.
Even when we are united, we are small in number. Divided, we will be marginalized and ignored. If we cannot come together to calmly discuss and debate policy issues in a respectful way, even among conservatives with different ideas, we have no hope of ever unifying conservatism enough to right the ship of the GOP, secure enough wins at the ballot box to truly move the needle, nor sway public opinion toward conservative ideas long term.
Some Thoughts on School Choice
I haven’t decided if it’s in protest, or simply to symbolize the state of mourning I am in over what should have been an exciting process of crafting a school choice bill conservatives could be proud of, but I will not be endorsing or denouncing SB 727. There are many people, much smarter than I am who took the time to work through this bill word by word and give you their thoughts, one way or the other. I will simply state some things that I believe to be true, given that I have seen people claim otherwise in justifying their position, whatever that position might be.
Homeschooling should not be regulated by the state. Period. Implying this is not enough. It must be explicitly state in statute, and not contradicted anywhere else, or it will be exploited.
Homeschooling is not an option for most of the children in Missouri.
Abandoning children that cannot be homeschooled to whatever fate awaits them in the current government school system guarantees that a conservative ideology will never become mainstream again, and leftist opposition knows this.
The public education system is failing our children, and has been for decades. Conservative economists have been publishing books on the subject since the 60s, and so little progress has been made that the contents of those books could be front page news today, and still be entirely relevant.
Whether we like it or not, reforming the education system in the state of Missouri to embrace purely free market principles is completely outside of the Overton Window, and any effort to pass legislation to do so would likely never even make it out of committee.
The concept of School Choice, whether accomplished via Charter Schools or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), or both, is absolutely a conservative idea, championed by the “Father of School Choice”, Milton Friedman, and advocated by Thomas Sowell, among other conservative economists. It is not the only conservative idea, but it is well within conservatism to be in favor of such things.
School Choice options were never meant to be a final solution. They were to be a first step to open the minds of parents, taxpayers, and teachers to the beneficial aspects of more free market principles being applied in the educational space.
Just because a piece of legislation is labeled “School Choice” does not mean it is in any way conservative, or even about real school choice. The substance of the legislation still matters.
Limiting the influence and control that the existing educational system has over ESA dollars and charter schools is important enough to make sure it is done correctly. Recreating the mess that exists in the current government school system simply moves the same issues to a new address.
Amending a conservative bill to add non-conservative ballot candy in order to get other legislators to vote for it, can still result in a bill too poisonous to pass. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
Given how legislation must be crafted, the number of pages contained in a piece of legislation is meaningless. A bill could be over a hundred pages long, and the meaningful change could be a couple of sentences, or even a couple of words. Conversely, a bill could also be two pages long, only change a single word in statute, and have far reaching consequences.
Activist administrators, officials, prosecutors, and judges already utilize every legal ambiguity and loophole they can to accomplish their goals. Ensuring there is no ambiguous language in legislation is an unfortunate, but critical responsibility of legislators.
If half a dozen attorneys that are familiar with crafting legislation and interpreting laws come way from a piece of legislation with different understandings of what the law says, wouldn’t that be an indicator that it probably needs either clarifying language added, or to be completely reworded?
If every bill was debated and amended until it was perfect, no legislation would ever get passed. Each legislator has to decide on every piece of legislation, “Is this good enough?” I do not envy them, because you can never please everyone, and there will always be people who decide to call all their friends and oppose your re-election because you supported one bill they disliked, or you did not vote for one bill they did like.
Conservatives Needed on Cass County Library Board
Current law in the state of Missouri requires that Libraries in the state must take steps to prevent age inappropriate materials from ending up in the hands of young children. This can be accomplished by simply creating a section in each library from which only individuals of a certain age, or that have received written permission from their parent or guardian, are able to check out books from. As a reminder of the types of materials I am talking about, please see a few examples listed below:
When Kayla was Kyle, by Amy Fabrikant – An elementary school picture book about a boy who “transitions” into a girl.
Teach Me, by R.A. Nelson – The “young adult” (YA) novel tells the story of a 16-year-old girl and her seduction and statutory rape by her male high school teacher.
All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by S. Mitchell – The book in middle and high school libraries contains sexually explicit and homosexual content.
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe features transgenderism and graphic illustrations of sexual activity, and is considered appropriate for students in middle school on up.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson - The memoir of a “queer” black boy, including his first sexual relationships, which are extremely explicit.
The following YouTube link is to a portion of a Judiciary Committee hearing from September 12th, 2023, in which Senator John Kennedy reads excerpts from both Gender Queer, and All Boys Aren’t Blue.
[WARNING: These excerpts are graphic and disgusting!]
Unfortunately, many people in academic circles, especially some of those who have served on the Cass County Library Board, want all children to have access to this garbage, regardless of what parents want. Moreover, advocates of this crap, and it is crap, mischaracterize the requirement that this crap be in its own section in the library as “book banning”. Now, let me be clear, I would LOVE to ban this crap. BUT, I do respect free speech, and because I respect free speech, I would no sooner ban this crap, than I would want the Bible banned.
The only way to ensure that this type of desensitization to sexual perversion of the most innocent and precious among us is stopped, is to have a group of good, strong, conservative people apply to be on the board, so that we can apply appropriate pressure on the County Commission to appoint them to the Library Board.
If interested, information can be found on the Cass County website here, and the Board Application document can be downloaded below:
Are WTP of Cass County MO Newsletters Valuable to You?
These newsletters take valuable time each week to produce. Are they helpful to you? What do you like most about them? What do you not like about them? What would you prefer I include more of? What would you prefer I not include? I need your feedback to tweak these to provide the most value to the group as possible. If they are interesting, but not very valuable, I want to know that as well, because there are other things I could be spending my time on, like door knocking for conservative candidates, finding more people to come speak to us at meetings, or a half dozen other things.