“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X

“Education is a weapon whose effects depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” — Josef Stalin

I pray y’all had a very Merry Christmas and are planning for a great and Happy New Year.

That said, we must never lose sight of the ideological battle being waged in our country.

Just last week the deranged head of the teachers’ union, Randi Weingarten, proved why she is delusional. Ms. Weingarten asserted that school choice “undermines our democracy.” Heck, at this point, anything that the progressive socialist left disagrees with will be referenced as “undermining democracy.” Spoiler alert, America is a Constitutional Republic. For Weingarten to say this about parents having the choice to decide the best educational path for their children is highly disturbing. What Weingarten is advocating is that anything that opposes forcing your children into failing public school systems undermines our representative democracy is absurd and dangerous. Weingarten is saying that educational freedom is un-democratic. Silly me, I thought the basis of our country was individual rights and freedoms. I guess to be a progressive socialist means that the only “pro-choice” position they like is the one where you murder an unborn baby in the womb, up to and after birth.

I am a product of school choice and educational freedom. My parents decided that in grades 1-9 I would attend a private Catholic school, Our Lady of Lourdes and Marist, in Atlanta. No, they were not given any tax credits or vouchers; they should have, but they knew the importance of a quality education unlocking the doors of equality of opportunity for their middle son, Allen Bernard. Truthfully, my parents, Herman Sr. and Elizabeth Thomas West, believed in the aforementioned quote by Malcolm X. They saw education as that passport, as did my wife, Dr. Angela Graham-West, whose parents legally immigrated here from Jamaica and are laid to rest, together, in Arlington National Cemetery. My folks are together eternally at Marietta National Cemetery.

Randi Weingarten’s philosophy on education is completely opposite of the quote by Malcolm X. Her beliefs on education, and truly those of the progressive socialist left in America, align with the above quote from Josef Stalin. Leftists do indeed see education as a weapon, not meant to educate, but rather produce the desired effects of leftist indoctrination. As you have heard repeatedly from Joe Biden, his wife, Kamala Harris, and the White House spokesperson, our children are not ours, according to them. Their sick minds have them openly confessing that our children belong to them and to everyone.

Therefore, it does not upset Biden, or leftist “useful idiots” and minions like Weingarten, when they read statistics like those from Baltimore County, MD where less than five percent of kids can do math at grade level. After all, for those Black kids, “math is racist.”

The leftist focus is not on enabling young people to be victors, but relegating them to mindless lemmings, victims, who will serve their ideological agenda’s purpose. Who among you was not appalled at the testimony of those Ivy League university presidents? Their concern, focus, and raison d’etre, is not about the objective education of our children and grandchildren. No, their designs are to create the next generation committed to the fundamental transformation of our country and the undermining of its governing principles.

Our children are being taught that educational excellence is not to be desired or achieved. We are seeing more and more schools eliminate valedictorians and salutatorians. In Virginia we saw so-called educators define equity by failing to inform kids about earned national merit scholarships. The leftist “soft bigotry of low expectations” is evident all over our failing system of education. Perhaps someone like Randi Weingarten should watch a movie like “Hidden Figures,” and remember when public education in America was revered around the world.

As we enter into 2024, I ask you to step up and protect your children from these diabolic monsters who wish only to sexualize and indoctrinate your children. And, if you are a willing participant in such, may God have mercy upon you.

The progressive socialist leftist war against educational freedom is just one aspect of their war against our children, well, the ones they allow to live and not be butchered in the womb. They want to butcher and mutilate their bodies afterward. Who came up with gender dysphoria in children as young as two? They want to butcher the minds of our children so that they will take to the streets and support an Islamic terrorist organization that just butchered young Israelis attending a music festival. The left has convinced young people that those who do not agree with them should be censored, or even fined and imprisoned.

The quotes that began this missive give two very clear paths that lay before us here in America. One quote is the key to enabling our children to have a future where they can indeed Live Free. The other quote relegates them to a governing philosophy that undermines their freedom and exchanges equality of opportunity for equality of outcomes, as Stalin said, desired effects.

Steadfast and Loyal.

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This article first appeared at Townhall.