Dear Friends,
Our way of life is facing challenges that we must stand united to fight against. From calls for vaccine mandates to changes to our social studies curriculum, we must all work together to defend our American values that we hold so dear.
Vaccine passports? Not in our country
It seems as though every day we hear of more protests across Europe as people fight against vaccine passports abroad. I have been warning against vaccine passports since the start of the pandemic. We are slowly starting to see them appear in progressive havens, like New York City, and I’m sure other parts of the country are not far behind.
Let us be clear: Mandating vaccines before someone enters a restaurant or enjoys a Broadway show is antithetical to a free society. Freedom is not a carrot to be waved in order to gain compliance. Once government takes away your rights, they do not give them back except in the form of privileges.
America is the greatest country in the world because of the rights we are all afforded. Over the past year, our values of personal responsibility and freedom have been challenged like never before. If mayors, governors, and the federal government begin to embrace vaccine mandates, I fear we will be on a slippery slope to a new kind of society that we will never be able to recover from. We must fight against vaccine mandates to preserve our individual liberties and our American values.
A little less indoctrination, a little more education, please
Last week I mentioned that the second draft of the social studies standards was released earlier this month. We cannot have social studies standards that push political agendas ahead of academics. Students need, and deserve, a well-rounded education – not indoctrination that focuses only on America’s faults. Other troubling aspects of the second draft include:
- There are no references anywhere in the standards to key historical figures like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and no direction on how to examine key historical figures as the far-left attempts to "cancel" even our country's greatest Presidents and leaders.
- There are no references to the Emancipation Proclamation, but four references to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
- Free market (capitalism) and command (communism) economies are presented as equal ideas to be examined without any context of the atrocities committed under communist regimes.
- The group in charge of writing the social studies standard seems to have done little to incorporate the thousands of public comments from across Minnesota objecting to the divisive and controversial political agenda being pushed in the first draft of the standards.
I urge you to let your voice be heard. MDE is accepting public comment until August 16 at 4:00pm. Submit your feedback here or by emailing mde.academic-standards@state.mn.us.