Maggie's Farm

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.

Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor.

Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

P J O'Rourke

Much as I hated to, I clicked on the link to the HuffPo harangue and I couldn't help but notice that while the headline refers to a "far-right" group of moms ("far-right" meaning "not left-wing") but the url says "far-right extremist moms". Was the headline stealth edited or was the "extremist" simply implied?

But when this woman claims to be following the science in insisting school children should be masked because of the ICU's and the morgues overflowing with the sick and the dead, well, she seems to be unaware that it's not the children filling the hospitals and the cemeteries.

She also claims that CRT is not being taught in the schools when the essence of CRT is that racism is a necessary and sufficient explanation for all of American history, just as the 1619 Project posits and which is being offered as a school curriculum guide. And which she herself seems to admit with her comment that history should include both the good and "especially" the bad - what's with that "especially"? And when she claims that these right-wing moms object to subjects such as slavery, Jim Crow laws, and MLK being taught in the schools? Yeah, I'm skeptical that that's what they're objecting to. It's that that's all that's being taught, that America is uniquely evil and racist - everything is racist, from math and science and learning to read and write to fly fishing, camping, and horseback riding - and must be destroyed completely in order for our new socialist paradise to arise from the ashes. As a child of the '60s and '70s, I can remember Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee being an assigned text in history class and the most-watched TV mini-series being Roots, which I would suggest indicates the "warts and all" approach to history is hardly an unknown concept. What has changed is the idea that it's all warts.

But when she accuses the Right of twisting the meaning of such terms as "Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity" so as to politically subvert the plain meaning of those words, she's gone from being ignorant to being a liar. It's not the Right controlling the dictionary so as redefine the meaning of peace and freedom and strength. But it's always been projection with these people.