2/27/2020 - Kay Coles James Townhall.com
Why
are wealthy left-wing donors across the country, the abortion industry, and
national gun-control groups more interested in your local school board and city
council races than most of the people who live in your own town?
Because
they’re funding efforts to ensure their far-left agenda pervades our entire
society – from getting their abortion curricula into our schools to changing
our election laws – and they want to make sure that no city, no town is left to
stand against them.
National
left-wing organizations are collecting and funneling hundreds of millions of
dollars to flip local city councils, school boards, and county prosecutors’
offices to the left. They are flooding small elections with big money, and it’s
giving them unprecedented influence over our local affairs and greater access
to our children.
We’re
witnessing the election of leftist local prosecutors who are refusing to
prosecute whole classes of crimes. Rather than working with their state
legislatures or city councils to reform the criminal justice system the right
way, they are choosing to ignore the laws they took oaths to uphold and are
single-handedly nullifying laws they don’t like.
Prosecutors
who promise leniency have won races across the country, including in
Philadelphia and Chicago, cities with two of the highest crime rates in the
nation. Their campaigns have been supported by wealthy out-of-state
billionaires, one of whom spent millions just last November backing candidates
in several Virginia counties.
It’s
not only prosecutors’ offices, though. In one example, community organizers
from national organizations descended on one county in Tennessee to take over
the school board and county commission. They ran left-wing candidates for the
school board and gained control of the school curriculum. Newsweek reported on
one teacher training session that included a talk on “white privilege” that
asserted, “Even when minorities express or practice prejudice against whites,
they are not racists.”
National
abortion groups have donated millions to elect state and local candidates who
vow to weaken abortion laws and give the abortion industry access to our
schools. Those groups use their influence to get officials to adopt their sex
education curriculum in local schools. One group has even created high school
“clubs” where it trains students in abortion activism.
Another
part of the takeover agenda is gun control. In last fall’s Virginia elections,
one anti-Second Amendment group spent $2.5 million to elect gun-control
advocates to the Virginia General Assembly. It was the largest out-of-state
spender in Virginia’s elections, and its candidates have helped push the
unprecedented gun-control legislation we’re now seeing.
These
far-left groups aren’t going to stop, and they have the money and the people on
the ground to insert themselves in communities across the country. Fighting
them is going to require local citizens working together and national
organizations like The Heritage Foundation and others working to expose them.
We’ve
all heard the story when, as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention,
Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America had ended up with a republic or a
monarchy. He replied, “A republic – if you can keep it.” The same character and
sacrifice that were required to found this republic are now desperately needed
to keep her.
Our
Founders pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the
cause of a free nation. We must do the same. Fortunately, we don’t have to die
for this cause, but we do have to give our lives in the sense that we must
dedicate our time and a portion of our treasure to defending this nation –
community by community – against those who would destroy her from within.
That
means calling and writing your elected officials about proposed legislation,
attending city council and school board meetings to prevent them from adopting
these agendas, and volunteering for and giving money to candidates who will
forward limited government, free market principles and traditional American
values. Then we must multiply our voices by getting 10 of our like-minded
friends registered to vote and to turn out on Election Day.
Conservatives
must do more than complain. We must be willing to stand up and fight. We must
engage in the battle, otherwise, we will cede the battlefield and, ultimately,
our country.
I
don’t want to leave my children and my grandchildren an America that’s less
free than the one I inherited. Protecting our hard-fought American way of life
is one of the greatest gifts we can pass on to the next generation.
Kay
C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
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