Last week Sen. Ed Setzler (R- Acworth) announced he was considering legislation that will allow County Commission races to be non-partisan. This would allow candidates across Georgia to run “undercover” and prevent them from having to publicly state with which party they affiliate.
It is self-evident how politicians would benefit from this new secrecy, creating more ignorant voters, but would voters and taxpayers benefit from not knowing the ideology of the candidates?
“You look at Smyrna, Marietta, Acworth as examples, Powder Springs,” said Sen. Setzler. “These are well-run cities that run on consensus. There’s a lot less acrimony, and I think they do a whole lot better delivering services for our citizens than the Cobb County Commission of the last couple years has shown us. And I think Cobb would really benefit from making the change.”
One has to wonder why a self-professed Republican might be scared of candidates identifying with the Republican platform positions. Furthermore, why would we want to allow Democrats to hide their extreme ideology? After all, they are the ones who deny the basic biology of sex and believe it is morally good for minors to be exposed to pornography and permanently destroy their reproductive system with surgery.
“As Shakespeare has said, ‘A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet’ and a Democrat by any other name would be just as bad,” said Nathaniel Darnell, Cobb RA Chairman. “We often observe that in other non-partisan races, such as judicial races, that low-information voters default to re-electing the incumbent.”
Some politicians like to talk like there is no ideology at play in local government, but this is false and anyone who has attended a Cobb Commission meeting in the last year knows it.
Please contact Sen. Ed Setzler and let him know you oppose making the Cobb Commission candidates pretend to be bi-partisan.
• Contact Sen. Ed Setzler:ed.setzler@senate.ga.gov
Ideology Matters in Local Government
The “acrimony” in Cobb’s local government that Sen. Setzler is concerned about points to the fact that there is indeed ideology at play in local government. One of the fundamental differences between the political parties is a disagreement about what “services” local government should provide. Should the government give you cradle-to-the-grave, nanny-state socialism?
In 2022 the Cobb County Commission wanted to provide the “service” of a county-wide trash removal program, a government monopoly to the company lucky enough to get the contract, thereby destroying the free-market competition provided by competing trash service companies. Democrats on the County Commission thought this “service” was a great idea to let the government forcibly take money from taxpayers and coerce them into receiving this “service”, whether they liked the service or not. This would have resulted in yet another monstrous, unaccountable, non-optional, government bureaucracy that is far more slow to respond to the needs of the people than the free market. Thankfully, Cobb RA members organized the community in a “Save My Cobb Trash Collector” campaign and successfully stopped this egregious assault on freedom.
Should the County Commission fund a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” program to indoctrinate citizens with tax dollars? How would you know if a candidate is likely to support a DEI program if they don’t state a party affiliation up front?
On Thursday, Cobb School Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced 13 books that will no longer be available in Cobb government school libraries, due to the content being inappropriate for children. Concerned parents have been sounding the alarm in Cobb County and this decision is doubtless the fruit of their efforts.
“We are declining to provide access to materials with sexually explicit content in the same way we decline to provide access to rated-R movies and—in compliance with federal law—use internet filters to prevent students from accessing websites with adult content on school district computers,” said Ragsdale.
Ragsdale pulled the first set of inappropriate books last September and received tremendous opposition from all of the Democrat School Board members and intense protest from left-wing activists. Twice during the School Board meeting public commenters attempted to read from the books in question and were stopped because the content they were quoting was too graphic to be broadcast on the meeting recording. The speaker was allowed to continue only after the recording was muted. This begs the question, if the content is too graphic to be featured on the school system website, why should minor children have unrestricted access to this content in their school library?
If you have to mute the speaker to protect the citizens, maybe children shouldn’t be allowed to read it?
One Cobb RA Member described the books as “pure porn.” One of the many concerns with exposing children to lewd content is that it is likely to make them more susceptible to groomers who would more easily exploit them, and that the child may develop a life-long addiction to pornography that would wreck their future marriage and relationships.
The titles removed by Superintendent Ragsdale were these:
Today the Cobb School District is adjudicating the appeal of a teacher who was fired for reading a transgender book to her class. This hearing began yesterday morning and is likely to be long and hard fought on both sides.
The charges brought by the Cobb School District are insubordination and willful neglect of duties. The school procedure for teachers, who want to use materials that parents may find objectionable, was ignored by Rinderle. Testimony shows that the teacher did not attempt to get a consent form signed by the students’ parents, nor did she inform the parents that the book she chose without their permission was about “gender identity,” “gender fluidity,” and “gender non-binary.”
On March 8th, in a class of 10-11 year-old gifted students, Katie Rinderle read and held a class discussion about the book My Shadow is Purple.
The back cover reads: “My Dad has a shadow that’s blue as a berry, and my Mom’s is as pink as a blossoming cherry. There’s only those choices, a 2 or a 1. But mine is quite different, it’s both and it’s none.”
The cover of the book features a boy wearing pants, but his shadow is wearing a skirt.
The School District said reading the book is inappropriate, but the defense argued it was merely a difference of professional judgement between educators. The defense attorney argued that the Board doesn’t have authority to fire someone for “political reasons,” but only for educational reasons.
Concerned parents, teachers and citizens flood the hearing.
“We are here to defend Katie Rinderle from the culture war. We are here to prevent a group of parents from running out a good teacher… This is what happens when politics overtakes education. The politics of outsiders and angry parents do not come into the classroom.”
The defense attorney alleged in his opening argument that parents who were concerned were the ones being “political,” not the teacher. He also made the point that “only a few parents complained.”
The room was full and many of the attendees were wearing purple T-shirts with the words “Ban Bias Not Books”, as if they believe all books are appropriate for elementary school minors.
Audrey Neu, the School Board Liaison for the Cobb GOP, and a Cobb GRA member, helped to keep parental rights supporters informed of the developments of the case and many of them showed up for the hearing to support the school’s decision to terminate Ms. Rinderle’s employment with the school.
“Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to attend day one of the teacher tribunal. Based on the evidence presented and questions asked, it is clear Cobb School District is determined to defend parental rights and maintain educational standards, as defined by the state of Georgia. This is a direct result of the strong leadership Cobb has in place. We will have to wait and see what day two testimony holds,” said Audrey Neu.
Attorney for the defense reads from the book in question, argues parents are being “political”
The panel deciding this case is made up of retired principals who were appointed by the school board. These retirees are not in an age demographic that is likely to be supportive of sodomy or transgenderism.
The class was for gifted students, sometimes called a target class. Target classes only meet one day a week. One parent testified, that if she had been notified the book My Shadow Is Purple was going to be read, she would have requested her child stay with his regular teacher.
One of the school policies referenced by the prosecution prevents teachers from trying to influence students toward one political party or a partisan side of an issue, however, in 2022 Ms. Rinderle read a book to her students by Stacey Abrams, then candidate for Governor. Rinderle admitted to posting a book review about it on social media, tagging Abrams. Some parents complained about her introducing a book by a political candidate.
Rinderle admitted that her students were doing “service projects” on “LGBTQ+ advocacy,” but she had informed her Principal about it.
The attorney for the school district called Rinderle to the stand as her first witness. Referencing the cover of the book she said: “Would you not agree with me that a skirt is traditionally worn by girls?”
Fired Teacher Katie Rinderle Being Sworn In as a Witness
“I don’t feel comfortable talking about a gender norm. Females can wear many different things,” said Rinderle.
Another question had to do with whether Rinderle was aware that transgenderism is a “controversial, hot-button topic,” to which Rinderle replied indicating that she was not aware of that.
“One wonders which is more concerning, that we have a teacher who is indoctrinating children in ideologies that have no basis in reality, or that a teacher employed by Cobb schools is unaware of the national controversy over transgenderism?” said Nathaniel Darnell, a Cobb County parent and the Cobb Republican Assembly Chairman.
“I am deeply disappointed to hear of yet another example of our tax dollars funding the indoctrination of children in woke ideology, but I am grateful that the school district in this case has taken action to protect children and parental rights. I am hopeful they won’t back down,” said Darnell.
After the tribunal the panelists will have five days to present their recommendations to the Board of Education. The Board of Education consists of four Republicans and three Democrats, one of the few areas still controlled by Republicans. The Board is expected to vote on the matter at their August 17th meeting.
The attorney for the teacher’s defense showed that Ms. Rinderle was never trained in or given examples of what a “political or partisan issue” was or what the terms “controversial” or “sensitive” meant.
He compared it to “hot button topics” such as slavery in the South. However, parents today aren’t divided over whether slavery is moral or immoral. Parents do not send complaint emails anytime a teacher talks about the existence of or immorality of slavery.
But morality really is the core of the issue, here. There is a school policy that says that parents have the right to direct the moral and religious views of their children. But experience would show us that a thorough education about the world cannot be neutral. Ethics and morality are inescapable.
The narrative of history, what is considered societal progress, the information a teacher or author chooses to exclude or feature, all of these decisions are impacted by someone’s presuppositions and worldview. Not to mention the questions of which historical characters are the heroes or the villains, and the theory about the origin of the universe.
Is There Really Such a Thing As a “Neutral” Classroom?
The Cobb County School system claims to strive for a “neutral classroom” and yet they cannot be neutral about morality. Questions such as: Should historic slavery be presented as moral or immoral? Should government welfare, increased statist involvement in people’s lives, be considered moral or immoral? Was the Federal Reserve a positive or negative development for American economics? Does absolute truth exist? Does man have a moral obligation to care for the environment? If so, when and how does that moral obligation override property rights?
Environmentalism is an Outflow of One’s Worldview
The answers to all of these kinds of questions hinge on a moral framework, which is in turn based on a theological framework. Each of these subjects, though perhaps addressed only implicitly in a classroom setting, would stem directly from the teachers’ basic standard of morality. Educators simply cannot escape their own worldview as they attempt to teach children about the world in which they live, and the more they attempt to be unbiased and avoid any moral presuppositions, the more boring and meaningless their lesson becomes.
Woke-ism is in fact a facet of a religious or theological viewpoint. Woke-ism defines something considered to be akin to a “sin” in that worldview (racism, intolerance of LGBT-ism, etc.) and then lays out a means of atoning for that sin (e.g., reparations, affirmative action, social justice, special rights for certain identity groups, etc.).
Secular humanism and it’s accompanying statism are also of a religious or theological nature, as has become clear in recent days. “No god will save us,” declared the Humanist Manifesto II (1973), “we must save ourselves.”
It has a competing standard of morality. It has a specific competing belief about the origin of the universe, a belief about God (denying His existence), a belief about salvation (man must save himself), and a method of salvation by which man would save himself — and that method is statism.
In 2020 Was It Morally Wrong to Not Wear A Mask?
Therefore, American civil government schools cannot really be said to be “neutral.” They teach the religion of humanism or a conglomerate of religious views, depending on the teacher.
Humanism invariably leads to statism. G.K. Chesterton hit the nail on the head of statism when he said:
“It is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the government … Once abolish God, and the government becomes the god. That fact is written all across human history; but it is written most plainly across that recent history of Russia; which was created by Lenin. There the Government is the god, and all the more the god, because it proclaims aloud in accents of thunder, like every other god worth worshipping, the one essential commandment: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods but me!’ “ —G.K. Chesterton
Unlike Christianity and other theologies, Woke-ism’s standard of morality isn’t found in any allegedly inspired holy book. It also is not consistent, since many of the proponents of woke beliefs also adhere to post-modernism and maintain that “what’s true for you, is true for you. What’s true for me, is true for me.”
We maintain, like our founding fathers, that the laws of the United States ought to be based upon a transcendent moral standard: “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” This is a much more consistent standard that protects both the interests of the individual and of the community. A standard of morality based on God’s revealed Law and the laws discovered in nature is anything but neutral and yet provides the greatest liberty and justice the world has ever seen.
When the Cobb County School System strives for “neutrality” in education, they want what never has been, and what never will be.
Transgenderism in the public school system is just one reason why the 2021 Georgia Republican Assembly convention passed a resolution urging all Republican families to remove their children from these harmful institutions and the 14th District GOP passed a similar resolution at their convention earlier this year.
If you would like to encourage the Cobb School Board to uphold the decision to protect children, send them an email saying “Thank you for protecting minor children from transgender indoctrination.”
On Wednesday, pro-life activists disrupted the status quo of Kennesaw State University exposing hundreds of students to images of abortion victims. The activists were staff and volunteers for the Center for Bio-ethical Reform.
“We’re here with the Genocide Awareness project which is a graphic display depicting the victims of historically recognized genocide alongside the victims of abortion in our modern day. The whole point of that is to draw attention to the inhumanity of abortion and to draw attention to the humanity of the pre-born,” said Lincoln Brandenburg, spokesman for the organization.
Lincoln Brandenberg, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Project Director with his display at Kennesaw State University
“Ultimately the reason our society tolerates it, really comes down to the fact that it’s invisible and that because it’s invisible we’re able to salve our conscience and not have to confront the worldviews that we use to justify it and the slogans that we use to justify it.”
At any point throughout the day a crowd of some fifty students surrounded the display having conversations with the pro-lifers and each other. The display met with a very mixed and emotionally-charged reception.
By working at the local level to defeat mask mandates we will bring freedom to our state while building a coalition of pro-freedom Georgians to make sure the mask mandates stay gone.
This is how we fought and won in Whitfield County, and how we can help you win in your community. Read More
In a great example for Cobb and other counties in Georgia, on January 11th the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners voted to repeal a controversial mask mandate imposed on all citizens within county facilities and vehicles. Reconsideration of the mask mandate was not originally on the meeting agenda, but after receiving stacks of petitions, calls and emails from constituents decrying the mandate the week prior, the Commissioners amended the agenda to address their concerns. Supporters of the repeal are calling it a “huge win for freedom and personal responsibility in Whitfield County.”
Billy Jo Wilson delivers End the Mask Mandate! petitions to County Clerk Blanca Cardona
Billy Joe Wilson spoke at the meeting in favor of the repeal “I have heard the comments that this is only for county buildings, this is still a mandate that I can’t use these buildings which are tax payer funded unless I abide by your arbitrary mandate.”
Wilson is a life-long resident of Whitfield County and when asked why he chose to do something about the mask mandate replied, “The almighty God does not force me to obey His righteousness, He convinces me that His way is better. Just because you have a good idea doesn’t mean you have the right to give a man a gun and force it.”
On January 8th, U.S. Congressman Jody Hice (R GA-10), Cobb County’s GA State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart (R HD 36), and Cobb’s GA State Sen. Bruce Thompson (R SD 14) joined with a panel of doctors and child and parental rights activists to host a webinar about the “Vulnerable Child Protection Act,” a bill to be introduced in the 2021 legislative session of the Georgia General Assembly. If successful, this bill would provide protection for children who are gender confused by making it a felony for a doctor to prescribe sex-altering drugs or perform sex change surgery on a minor.
State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart
State Rep. Ehrhart represents West Cobb County’s House District 36, which is still one of the reliably “red” areas remaining in Cobb. As the bill’s sponsor in the State House, she said this legislation “would place critical parameters for the medical community to protect our children.” She reported that a poll showed 92% of Georgians support protection of this kind.“There are harmful, dangerous, unproven, irreversible effects of sex change drugs and procedures,” she warned. (The GRA has not yet scored Ginny Ehrhart as a state legislator.)
On Monday morning, members of Georgia’s black community gathered in Atlanta at the Mariott Marquis to hear from America’s Frontline Doctors, the group of physicians who made headlines earlier this year by holding a press conference in Washington D.C. where they advocated for the use of Hydroxychloroquine for patients infected with COVID-19. This conference was partly a response to the recent national discussion about the possibility of distributing the vaccine for COVID by race, prioritizing the black community first. Angela Stanton King, the Republican nominee in the recent congressional race for the late John Lewis’ seat, introduced the Frontline Doctors at the event.
Dr. Simone Gold, who holds both a medical degree and a law degree
“I want you to no longer say ‘vaccine,’” said Dr. Simone Gold, the group’s founder, “it is an ‘experimental vaccine’. That is the legally correct description.” She went on to warn that, by receiving the experimental vaccine the implication is that they will track those who receive it because they are a participant in this experiment.
“The CDC is telling the public at large that getting an experimental vaccine is a good thing and, for the black community, a matter of racial justice,” Dr. Gold stated emphatically. “Racial justice has no place in scientific inquiries… There is scant scientific evidence that suggests race is a factor and some that suggests it is not a factor at all.” The Doctors asserted that Africa has been virtually untouched by the virus and suggested that if minorities appear more susceptible, it is likely the result of lifestyle and living conditions not their ethnicity. The physicians, based on their research, expressed grave concerns about the safety and efficacy of the new, experimental vaccine for anyone of any race.
