THE GOVERNMENT’S ASSAULT ON OCEAN STATE FAMILIES
THE PROBLEM:
Rhode Island families are disillusioned … and are under assault from their own government in a multitude of ways:
RHODE ISLAND’S RULING CLASS HAS FLOODED OUR STATE WITH TIDAL WAVE AFTER TIDAL WAVE OF EXTREMIST POLICIES THAT THREATEN THE PROSPERITY AND SECURITY OF WORKING-CLASS FAMILIES
WHO WINS & WHO LOSES? Has our own government become the enemy of Ocean State families? Corrupt insiders win … families lose!
It’s time to rediscover traditional family values, “love of country,” and “trust in God.” #AssaultOnRIFamilies
Government corruption is threatening the current and future security and prosperity of our families. The preservation and advancement of the well-being of families and children should be the foremost goal of our society and government. Every resident of Rhode Island aspires to live in a peaceful and prosperous society; and every family wishes for a bright future for their children.
Yet, here in our state, too many families are struggling to keep their heads above water. Wave after wave of radical policies – from all levels and branches of government – undermine commonly held values and increasingly put the American Dream and our pursuit of happiness out of reach.
With this report, it is our Center’s mission to focus on how government policies negatively impact the families of Rhode Island. Our goal is to inspire reforms so that we can become a state where children are not living in poverty, where they are part of a loving family unit, where they receive a great education and top-notch health care, and have abounding freedom & opportunity to achieve prosperity.
The purpose of this report is to help the public understand the stunning depth of the deceit and corruption of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government and how their collective actions have created a system that is rigged against working class families. Instead, the system is rigged in favor or special interest groups and extreme agendas.
The problems we face in our state did not come down from the heavens above. They are man-made by the corrupt and greedy political class.
Will voters hold them accountable? It is important to know that when the people stand together, we can win. When people and businesses stand together against the political class, we win. When low, middle, and high income families stand together … we ALL win.
Per our cherished Declaration Of Independence, when a “long train of abuses” causes the people to “suffer”, it is the right of the people… “it is their Duty … to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security” and prosperity. Such “abuses” are detailed in this #AssaultOnRIFamilies narrative.
This election year, Ocean State voters should keep this duty in mind and determine if existing politicians should be “thrown off” … and elect new “guards” to replace them.
The current all-of-government abuses and corruption is robbing our children of a bright and prosperous future and is destroying the chances for most families to advance up the income ladder. In short, Rhode Islander’s own government is at war with their families.
America’s forgotten “Golden Triangle of Freedom” maintains that freedom requires virtue; virtue requires faith; and faith requires freedom. As part of its assault on Ocean State families, our non-virtuous government is immorally infringing upon our freedoms and our religious faith.
The 2016 national study, the Family Prosperity Index, ranked our state 48th in America when measuring the social and economic well-being of families. For decades, liberal-leaning Ocean State lawmakers have placed the interests of insider groups ahead of the prosperity of the traditional family unit. And it’s only gotten worse in the last 8 years.
It is common-sense knowledge, proven by centuries of history, that society is better off when marriage, children, and families form that society’s foundation and when government enacts policies that encourage strong families.
Instead, the Left continually enacts welfare and child care policies that push many un-married mothers into working full-time rather than following their preference to marry, work part-time, and spend more time caring for their children.
To top it all off, RI’s corrupt state government caters to a multitude of special interest groups who advocate for fringe and radical climate, race, and gender policies; policies that end up harming the traditional family unit.
Who wins and who loses? Indeed, RI public policy has become an “assault” on Ocean State families … in favor of selfish and corrupt insider cronies and their false narratives.
Survive or thrive? Sadly, Rhode Island’s political class has turned our state into a less-attractive place to call home … and to raise a family or build a career … because our high taxes and cost-of-living are forcing us to spend beyond our means just to survive.
The economic, educational, and cultural hurdles placed in our way by the political supremacists in our own special-interest-driven government are making it increasingly difficult for families to thrive. Who wins and who loses?
Centuries of empirical evidence and common sense have shown that a stable and nurturing family environment is the best path to a productive future. The “success sequence” supported by extensive research, is that path, which consists of three main pillars: 1) completing a quality education and earning at least a high school diploma; 2) securing full-time employment; and 3) marrying before having children. Following these steps alone can provide young adults with more than a 97% chance of avoiding poverty.
However, virtually all significant societal and economic issues we encounter today can be attributed to the breakdown of the traditional family structure and its security, which in turn leads to the collapse of faith. Our Ocean State’s corrupt ruling elites ignore the needs of working-class families … forcing them to pay for polices that benefit deep-pocket insiders.
Alarmingly, between 2018 and 2022, 32% of RI infants were born to a mother with less than a high school diploma, while 34% of fathers had less than a high school diploma. These troubling trends can be largely attributed to destructive public policies in our state that erode one or more of these pillars, encroach upon our freedoms, and impose more politicized government control over our lives.
For instance, as we describe below, many of our state’s public assistance programs actually create a “marriage penalty” for couples who want to tie the knot.
Unfairly for those of us who do follow the success sequence … study, obtain a good job, and get married … all too often your hard-earned tax dollars are redistributed to others who weren’t responsible enough to follow this path!
These misguided policies often stem from corruption, where government bureaucrats prioritize serving insider special interest groups and agendas – especially when under public pressure from progressive activists, the media, and academia – which inevitably results in negative consequences for families and taxpayers.
The Proof: The Great Ocean State Exodus
Nothing points to the failures of our state government more than real families and individuals who vote with their feet.
Faced with the multitude of problems caused by agenda-driven public policy as described in this narrative, families are fleeing Rhode Island. A recent Pew Research report showed that Rhode Island’s population will actually shrink over the next decade, in contrast to growth across the nation. Over the past 15 years, Rhode Island suffered the worst population loss due to state-state migration of all New England states. Clearly, our government’s assault on families is causing economic and cultural hardships that many families can no longer bear.
The prestigious Tax Foundation reported in 2024 the our Ocean State actually LOST thousands of net residents when it comes to interstate migration … the 10th worst rate in the nation … decreasing RI’s tax base by a whopping $130,000,000 in gross state product.
Corporate Exodus: And it’s not just families that are fleeing our shores. In the past decade, major corporations chose other states to relocate or expand their headquarters or operations: General Electric, Alex and Ani, Hasbro, and CVS Health.
This corporate exodus is not only reflective of a high and unstable tax environment created by government, but also Rhode Island’s poor educational system, which produces weak talent pools. Again, anti-taxpayer & anti-school-choice special-interest proponents WIN … while, families seeking good jobs LOSE!
Corrupt Identity Politics: In a disturbingly large number of instances, important public policy issues are decided upon based on false narratives manufactured and advanced by self-serving special-interest groups … often inventing new categories of victims who ostensibly suffer from some contrived or fake injustice.
Many of these false narratives defy America’s founding principles of equality for all and also defy the realities of our God given world.
These identity politics narratives are then perpetrated by the compliant local media, academia, and liberal advocacy groups … then, finally, legislative and executive actions are enacted to address these pretend social inequities, resulting in benefits for the special interest few at the expense of the well-being of the many Ocean State families.
The woke agenda is an assault on working-class families by undermining traditional values and forcing low-moderate income workers to subsidize those at the top of the economic ladder.
The public has lost complete faith in our government, which increasingly is ruled by politicians who are beholden to these obviously false narratives. Voters should put their support behind candidates who offer a change to a realistic, family-friendly, and taxpayer-centric approach. Low income families, with under educated children, have been voting for liberal-left candidates for decades and they’re still poor with under educated kids.
The gross corruption of governmental officials – beholden to these false narratives and the extremists who support them; elected and and appointed officials who oversee policies in the economy, education, housing, and the environment as well as of compliant judges in the courts – is robbing our children of their rightful opportunity for a bright and prosperous future in our Ocean State … all so that crony insiders will benefit instead. Who wins and who loses? Citizens must rededicate ourselves to becoming consecrated in God’s Truth and in America’s Truth!
Union Motived Corruption Raises Property Taxes and Puts Motorists at Risk
In a comprehensive 2019 report by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, it was estimated that through our government’s unholy alliance with public employee unions – overly generous collective bargaining agreements and state laws that heap special advantages on unions and union workers – that Ocean State property taxes are 25% higher than they should be.
The Washington Bridge debacle exemplifies yet another consequence of our state government’s corrupt dealings with one special interest group – public and private sector unions – resulting in significant incompetence and waste as well as danger for all of us. The Rhode Island Department of Transportation was aware of the bridge’s structural issues since 2012, but for over a decade, they concealed the report and failed to take action to protect the safety of motorists.
Rather than spending $8 million on repairs at that time, unionized construction firms now stand to gain over $600 million of taxpayer money to tear down and reconstruct the entire bridge.
Washington Bridge Fiasco: Corruption Defined.
It should come as no surprise that many of the same construction-related companies that stand to gain the most, were some of the very same firms being sued for negligence in the bridge matter … and … the very same firms that have pumped almost $120,000 into the campaign accounts of corrupt politicians.
We continue to give breaks to the wealthiest and most connected insiders, and now corrupt government officials are coming before the Rhode Island people and saying we need to give hundreds of millions of dollars to unionized construction firms … while simultaneously, they offer no property tax relief to the average family.
This raises the question we again must ask: who wins and who loses? Our government belongs to all of us, not just the hand-full of special interest insiders. It’s time to put our families first.
The Left’s War on Women
In Washington, DC, the Biden Administration’s 2024 reckless reforms to Title IX, which put the safety of boys and girls at risk, seeks to reshape and dismantle the role of families in the raising and education of their children, by inventing and mandating a new set of rights for gender-denying students, which have no constitutional basis.
In response, Americans are revolting and many state superintendents across America have issued directives not to comply with these dangerous new woke rules.
Fortunately, many federal courts placed a ‘hold’ on these policies … but many government entities, at all levels, continue to implement them.
War on Students?
Back here in Rhode Island, and as detailed in another section of this report, families are under further assault from our own state government and the progressive Left, beginning with RI’s Education Commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green, who refuses to change RIDE’s anti-family guidance on school transgender policies.
Conclusion … It is Possible!
While not everyone can be raised in a stable family environment, and while we have a responsibility to support citizens in our state who may be in real need, elected officials should continually strive to adopt public polices that reward marriage, promote a thriving economy with a low cost of living and free-market business climate, and provide a meaningful public educational system that respects parental rights.
The struggle to reform our state into a place where everyone has the chance to prosper will not be an easy one. The struggle to resist special interest deals has proven too difficult for our political class. But we must not give up. If we care about our kids and grandkids, we must have hope and fight to prevent irreversible economic and educational harm to our state’s families.
A state Constitutional Convention may be the only way to achieve these pro-family goals!
SAVE OUR KIDS FROM THE WOKE LEFT
Most disturbing of all, is that the Left and our government is now focusing its family assault with a targeted war on our children.
Instead, Rhode Island families are under constant assault from our own state government and the progressive Left. The critical question is whether or not woke lawmakers will wake up to the harsh realities of the consequences of their misguided policies.
While not everyone can be raised in a stable family environment, and while we have a responsibility to support citizens in our state who may be in real need, elected officials should continually strive to adopt public polices that reward marriage, promote a thriving economy with a low cost of living and free-market business climate, and provide a meaningful public educational system that respects parental rights.
No other metric best illustrates the oppressive nature of RI’s failed public polices than the well documented pattern of graduates, retirees, middle and upper income families, and high net worth individuals fleeing our state. This reduces our state’s tax base and limiting the amount of capital available to invest in starting or expanding a business, or to donate to charitable organizations.
These productive citizens are being replaced, in large part, by undocumented immigrants who often rely on public assistance – tax dollar eaters instead of tax dollar producers.
Our Ocean State’s population has stagnated in recent decades and has not kept pace with population growth in other states. As such, most experts agree that Rhode Island will lose one of its two prized House of Representative seats in the US Congress after the 2030 Census.
THIS HOW OUR OWN GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME THE ENEMY OF RI FAMILIES
ECONOMICALLY
On the economic front, family budgets are stressed to the breaking point.
Because of oppressive regulations, not only is our state one of the worst states in which to start a business and create jobs, but Rhode Island suffers from one of the highest costs of living in America due to high taxes and inflation-causing regulatory and spending policies that reduce supply and raise demand. Our Ocean State is also one of the most expensive states for seniors to retire.
Rhode Island perpetually ranks in the bottom 5 or bottom 10 when it comes to overall state business climate. This means that good paying jobs are also at risk as small and large business continue to set up shop or expand their operations in other states.
Government-induced inflation and its frenzied green energy policies are regressive … both end up punishing low-income families the most.
DRIVING FAMILIES AWAY: The Institute for Family Studies found that “families are leaving many of the most progressive U.S. states and heading for states that are more family friendly.
Because so many families are fleeing high cost-of-living states … children are becoming more scarce in “progressive” states.
Blue states are losing families at an astonishing rate.
Inflation is caused by government greed and is hurting every family in our state. When government over-spends in order to buy votes and political power, “gross” consumer demand rises. When government over-regulates to appease special interest groups, the availability of goods and services declines. This combination of too much money chasing too few supplies … is what causes rapid inflation, and permanently increases the cost-of-living in our state.
Inflation is an invisible tax caused by government.
CALCULATE your personal inflation – and how much more you are paying for standard goods and services – HERE.
When family incomes do not keep pace with rising prices, “real” family incomes go down, meaning “net” overall buying power is actually reduced.
The perpetual high cost-of-living that has caused so many Rhode Island families to live paycheck to paycheck over the past 40-50 years is not something that has been ordained by God above … these extreme local inflationary pressures are 100% caused by greedy politicians.
A June national 2024 report showed the Rhode Island’s economy is floundering, among the worst state economies in America, with the number of unemployed Ocean Staters exploding to 26,700. Our state’s unemployment rate increased 66% in July 2024 as compared with one year earlier.
The average two parent Rhode Island family will pay over $1,369,000 in taxes throughout their lifetime, over 30% higher than the US average!
In 2024, first-time homeowners in Rhode Island, because of exploding national and local inflation under liberal-left policies, are looking at average mortgage payments of about $2432 per month, more than twice as high as the $1158 monthly payments from just 4 years previously, when under conservative federal governance.
Also, family savings have completely reversed (-72% drop) under the Biden’s control over the national economy as compared with Trump’s (+129% rise).
The Left’s war on energy is major factor in the high electricity and heating costs that stress family budgets, as well as a driving force in raising inflation rates. It is immoral to heap massive energy price increases upon struggling families just to meet arbitrary and unattainable climate targets.
The tax the rich and spend mentality of the progressive-left actually makes worse the problem of wealth inequality by robbing low income families of opportunities for upward mobility; instead of encouraging them to become dependent on government assistance.
When income or wealth is over-taxed at the individual or corporate level, there is less incentive to invest cash (capital) to hire and pay workers or to start or expand a businesses, while at the same time driving high-income investors out of Rhode Island and to other, less oppressive, states.
These kinds of natural human reactions are why increased taxation often leads to decreased revenues to the government.
Such counter-productive policies that borrow opportunity from future generations, in order to satisfy the present demands of corrupt insiders, inevitably lead to many negative and unintended economic consequences for families:
- Excessively High Local Property Taxes: Per a 2019 report, about 25% of all local property taxes can be attributed to ‘excessive’ costs from overly-generous collective bargaining agreements with public employee unions, whereby government forces taxpayers to overpay government unions for services, as compared with average costs in the private sector.
- Soaring “Local” Inflation (High Cost Of Living) means families are losing thousands of dollars of purchasing power each year, as prices on many staples continue to rise. Groceries cost too much. Clothing costs too much. Housing costs too much. Electricity costs too much.
On top of the national inflation problem, Ocean State politicians have made local inflation even worse. RI politicians have continually and mindlessly collected billions of of dollars in federal aid and hundreds of millions in wasteful spending bonds … most of which end up in the pockets of insider cronies and special interest groups.
Inflation is a basic supply and demand situation: Combined with over-regulation (which limits output, or supply), these unchecked levels of federal & bond funds and indiscriminate state spending (which increases consumer spending power, or demand) are a direct and major cause why local prices have risen so significantly.
For too many families, rises in family incomes are not keeping pace with rises in the local cost of living. “Shrinkflation”, where consumers get LESS product for the same spend, is also a direct cause of government over-spending.
Real wages for families (income as compared with inflation) have fallen by 2.54% under the progressive policies of progressives in the White House
HOUSING CRUNCH
The affordable housing crisis in our state can be directly attributed to misguided government public policies that place costly red-tape burdens on builders and secret programs that designate housing units for illegal immigrants at the expense of struggling Rhode Islanders.
- Exploding housing costs and rents in RI are significantly higher than the national average, while misguided over-regulation by government has reduced the number of units to rent and homes to buy. Persistent permitting red-tape makes it harder and more expensive to build housing units.
Housing prices have exploded past the level of affordability for an increasing number of Rhode Islanders, with lack of availability even a bigger concern. Home prices are much higher, down-payments required are higher, and mortgage interest rates have more than doubled.
In fact, RI residents pay almost $40,000 per year in housing expenses … 26% above the national average, according to Cinch Home Services.
Never-ending government regulation in the housing industry has reduced the number of available units, while increasing costs on builders, sellers, and landlords all of which are passed onto buyers and renters.
Further, with RI effectively a sanctuary state, when undocumented immigrants are granted housing by the government, there are fewer available units for citizens in our state. This reduction in the available ‘supply’ of housing unit necessarily drives up the prices of all other housing across the state.
Latinos Especially Harmed: Misguided policies that restrict the building of new housing units, as forced upon our state by environmentalists and urbanists from the Left, have resulted in dramatically low home ownership rates for Hispanics in Rhode Island. In fact, Ocean State Latino home ownership rates are only about 36% of their white and Asian counterparts … the third-worst rate in all of America!
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- Property Taxes are among the highest in America, largely due to overly-generous collective bargaining agreements with unionized public employees
- Most new and available public housing units are being developed for the benefit of illegal immigrants and NOT for hard-working Ocean State families.
SOLUTION: Allow natural market forces to determine what gets built, free from onerous regulation. Repeal 2014 “RhodeMapRI” regulations that mandate social-engineering and urban-planning policies (such as “sustainable development” and “smart growth”) that artificially increase the cost of building and restrict the supply of home and rental units. End free housing policies for illegal immigrants.
TRANSPARENCY: State officials should disclose how many illegal immigrants are receiving housing assistance and housed in shelters … not to mention how many (and how much money is being spent) are enrolled in our schools and other social welfare programs.
ENERGY: Ever increasing cost of utilities and exploding energy prices while simultaneously decreasing energy choices, when it comes to heating our homes and driving our vehicles. Our state government’s foolish race to be the first net-zero-emissions state will actually result in zero world-wide benefit. Instead, it will impose massive energy costs upon families while limiting our freedom of choice.
High energy costs are a direct result of agenda-driven government officials who are beholden to a forced “green-energy” transition … ignoring reality and clinging to unachievable and costly goals.
Family budgets are being crushed by residential electricity prices are nearly two and a half times more than the U.S. average and are expected to keep rising rapidly, due to RI lawmaker’s oppressive green energy mandates.
Wind farms, we are told, are the solution. But wind energy is unreliable and extremely costly. The destruction to the environment and sea life when it comes to building, maintaining, and disposing of obsolete and oft-broken wind-turbines and their parts … is astronomical!
On top of the massive cost over-runs, and despite the now clearly evident environmental, marine, and beach-goer dangers of offshore wind farms now clearly evident … Rhode Island government officials continue to recklessly push for even more destructive offshore wind projects.
With both US Presidential candidates disavowing strict federal EV mandates … it is time for our governor to withdraw Rhode Island from its commitment to California’s even more oppressive EV mandates. Further, it is time for state lawmakers to repeal the 2021 “Act on Climate” (optional: “, which requires RI to reach net-zero emissions by 2050) in favor of a more realistic and less costly state energy policy.
The hundreds of millions of dollars paid to enrich these wind-farm developers comes at the great expense of everyday families. Who wins and who loses?
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- In recent years, RI lawmakers enacted green energy mandates for power suppliers and voluntary entered our state into a regional cap-and-trade market … each of which artificially drives up the cost of electricity, hoping many families will use less
- The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a regional compact between participating states, whose goal is to artificially raise electricity prices
- By next decade, Rhode Island motorists will be banned from buying lower-cost gas powered cars, and will be forced to buy significantly higher-priced and less-reliable Electric Vehicles … because state lawmakers mandated that RI must follow California’s (CARB) oppressive vehicle emissions standards. RI should follow the recent lead of CT and VT and decouple from CARB’s unattainable and oppressive emissions standards.
- The TCI Gas Tax: Just prior to the pandemic RI lawmakers sought to heap even more unnecessary costs on RI families, when they committed to passing a new tax on gasoline call the Transportation Climate Initiative. Fortunately, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity was able to raise enough awareness about the TCI Gas Tax, whereby Governor McKee was compelled to cancel the plans for RI. However, radical climate alarmists are sure to try again in the near future.
- SOLUTIONS:
- Every candidate for statewide office should pledge to never vote for the TCI Gas Tax in coming years.
- End Rhode Island’s EV mandate, and allow consumers to choose which type of vehicle they want to drive
- The “Act On Climate”, passed by RI lawmakers in 2021, supports our state’s unachievable path to eliminate carbon emissions … a path that will lead to increased utility and energy prices even more rapidly than we have seen in recent decades.
- SOLUTION: Accept the reality of the limitations of green energy. Repeal the Act of Climate and end RI’s voluntary membership in RGGI and CARB
- In recent years, RI lawmakers enacted green energy mandates for power suppliers and voluntary entered our state into a regional cap-and-trade market … each of which artificially drives up the cost of electricity, hoping many families will use less
JOBS: Fewer good paying jobs will be available for many Rhode Islanders as they are increasingly going to illegal immigrants welcomed into our state by Rhode Island’s and Providence’s “sanctuary state” and “sanctuary city” policies.
Small businesses, the main source of jobs in our state, are being crowded out by high local inflation and oppressive regulations imposed by progressive lawmakers that make it costly to produce goods or provide services.
Major corporations, like Hasbro and CVS, are increasingly considering leaving our state as their Headquarters or have decided to expand operations in other states.
Also, RI’s high and ever increasing minimum wage mandates, means employers will hire fewer workers and will cut back on the hours of part-time or hourly workers.
SOLUTION: Reform RI’s minimum wage laws to match the federal minimum wage minimums. This will increase job availability and allow good-performing workers to quickly earn higher wages from employers who will want to keep them.
Reductions in Public Assistance for low-middle income families are at threat because of the Left’s misguided polices. First, the influx of illegal immigrants means more public funds are being diverted away from long-time Rhode Island resident families. Second, our high tax and cost-of-living environment means thousands of people are leaving our state every year, which will lead to a loss of one of our two prized House of Representative seats in the US Congress resulting in lower levels of federal aid for Rhode Island. Who wins and who loses?
EDUCATIONALLY
We must save our kids from RIDE. Our kids do not belong to the government! Parental rights also under assault. Ocean State families have lost trust in a failed government-run public school system that is increasingly controlled by corrupt teacher unions and radical left ideologues.
Our students are being targeted – politically – by government officials … and our own hard-earned tax dollars are paying for it! Most parents do not understand the full scope of the level of political influence that their children are receiving in government-run public schools. Among those that do understand, many families are seeking to escape the system and are desperate in seeking alternative options.
It’s time for a parent revolution … to take back control of their children’s education and to reclaim their parental rights!
The RI Department of Education, at the direction of its Socialist commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green, have weaponized K-12 school districts in the Ocean State in order to advance radical and divisive theories and content. RIDE’s goal is to influence and manipulate students to become political tools of the Left. Click here to see RIDE’s Top-10 Failures
In cheating students from receiving an adequate education, one of RIDE’s specific Top-10 failures is falling and alarmingly low test scores in the two school districts (Providence and Central Falls) that were recently put under direct RIDE control, where for example, only 1 in 20 Central Falls students tested proficient in math.
Families seeking to escape RI’s poorly-run public school system, have very few options, and feel trapped:
- Teacher unions and their bought and owned legislative allies refuse to allow real reforms or expanded school choice programs
- State lawmakers and the Providence school committee refuse to allow new charter schools to open … some even seeking to impose a moratorium on future charters
To make matters worse, the woke ideology has overtaken RIDE and most RI public schools. The DEI and CRT agenda forces teachers to tell white students they are oppressors, while they tell students of color that they are less capable victims.
Transgender ideology denies biology and God’s truth, while encouraging harmful medical and chemical ‘gender-denying’ interventions that will result life-long negative consequences … often purposefully kept secret from parents.
Despite these serious problems, both major teacher unions in RI have persistently stood in the way of significant educational reform by threatening to use their massive political war chest to oust lawmakers who do not support the agenda of union bosses. In recent years, both the AFT and the NEA rejected calls to focus more on objective subjects like math, science, and English … and instead make the politically subjective issue of “social justice” a priority in K-12 schools. Who wins and who loses?
Teacher unions, with their long-time special-interest and insider crony status, have more recently devolved into just another radical-left activist group that use alleged concern for students to attain power and influence. The reality, however, is while they care about teachers, they harm students far more than they help them.
One example is teachers unions’ opposition to school choice. Those who actually care about students should support the right of parents to choose their children’s schools—just as many teachers do when they send their own children to schools of their choice.
A second example is teachers unions’ making it nearly impossible to fire incompetent teachers.
A third example was teachers unions’ demands that schools lock down for nearly two years during the COVID-19 era. The unions did so despite there being no scientific evidence in support of school lockdowns and despite ample warnings that many children would suffer intellectually, scholastically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Moreover, wrote John H. Cochrane of the Hoover Institution in The Wall Street Journal, “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions, and sexualizing young children.”
The last point brings us to a fourth example: Teachers rob young students of their sexual innocence with premature talk of, and books that deal with, overt sexual activity, and the infamous use of drag queens to perform in front of children as young as 6 years old.
Just how left-wing teachers organizations are was made clear by the sympathetic left-wing magazine The Nation in January 2024:
A rank-and-file campaign inside the National Education Association is demanding the president stop ‘sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.’ … But the rank-and-file campaign goes beyond [that]. … Members want the [National Education Association] to revoke its endorsement of Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential race until the president … stops ‘sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.’
That was only two months after Oct. 7.
Sadly, many believe that we must save our kids from RIDE – the RI Department of Education. In fact a petition drive calling for the resignation of commissioner Angelic Infante-Green has garnered hundreds of signatures and scathing comments.
The alarming collapse of educational achievement among students, combined with the cultural attack on children and parents … is even more troubling.
In 2019 the RI General Assembly granted RIDE with the authority to develop statewide curricula standards for core subjects … however, since then, under the direction of Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green, RIDE has proven to be wholly irresponsible and unworthy of such authority.
Instead of pursuing a traditional “content-based” curricula strategy, an objective method of teaching factual material, RIDE has adopted a more subjective and controversial approach, often referred to as “concept-based” pedagogy. In Rhode Island’s case, the Socialist worldview of Infante-Green and her “America as oppressors” point-of-view is persistently woven through almost all RIDE-recommended instructional content.
- SOLUTION: Repeal the 2019 statue that empowered RIDE with curricula authority and return related decisions to locally-elected school committee officials, as Senate bill S2518 attempted to achieve in 2024.
The Marxification of Education in RI: On RIDE’s own website, the prominent Marxist Paulo Freire is prominently quoted. Freire’s “critical pedagogy,” whose theoretical roots are derived directly from Marxism, seeks to indoctrinate students to become critical agents of social change.
RIDE has failed in its mission to prepare children for college and life, while also leading the way in advancing a woke, social justice agenda that has divided local communities.
Education or Indoctrination?
- Failing statewide test scores that have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, despite ever-increasing spending
- Graduation rate racial disparities remain far too high
- A radicalized and divisive curricula that politicizes education by advancing controversial race and gender theories and by exposing young children to age-inappropriate sexually explicit materials.
- Anti-American History. RIDE’s 2023 social studies standards adopt the Marxist tenets of the New York Times discredited “1619 Project”; teaches students to hate America, men, and Christians; and advances the notion that America was founded so as to “oppress” minority and native populations
- Censorship. RIDE partnered with a so-called “media literacy” group, which in reality, instructs teachers on how to censor credible political views and media organizations – in K-12 schools – just because they offered a conservative political analysis
- America’s two major teacher unions – the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association – openly support a progressive-left agenda that puts politics ahead of student achievement
- Another major player in corrupting the minds of young students with inappropriate content is the American Library Association, which continually pushes member school librarians to display and make available sexually explicit and other anti-American, anti-God, and pro LGBTQ books.
- The rights of parents are continually eroded, by forced “woke” teachings in schools about sensitive personal and cultural issues that only parents should discuss with their own children.
- To radical woke education officials, parents are considered the enemy of their own children, if moms and dads do not support the transgender delusions of their kids
- Many education experts believe that just around the corner is the threat of the State physically seeking to remove children from their loving families because they refuse to comply with gender-denying programs that being pushed by school officials.
- Lack of confidence is public schools is demonstrated by the alarming levels of student and teacher absenteeism, as well as increasing numbers of students and teachers fleeing the public school system entirely
Of course, not every family objects to the issues raised above … as many parents believe that the government should have more say in the raising and education of children. Some parents may also believe in some of the teachings that others find controversial or inappropriate.
- SOLUTION: Expand school choice options for families. Given these emotional differences of opinion on what is being taught to our children, it is more important than ever for families in Rhode Island to be afforded the same choices that parents in dozens of other states presently enjoy. More school choice opportunities … in the form of educational scholarship accounts that provide for some level of public money to follow each student to the public, private, parochial, or home school of their family’s choice … must be instituted in our state.
- SOLUTION: Repeal the 2017 state law that bans “conversion therapy” on gender-confused youth … the very therapy recommended as the first line of treatment by Doctors Protecting Children. This legislation made it impermissible for licensed health professionals working with minors to engage in the practice of conversion therapy.
- At a higher level, even greater educational freedom is required in our public , including full curricula transparency, full parental notification polices, with greater awareness and opportunities for parents to opt their children out of some of the controversial surveys and other Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs that school officials now persistently expose to young students.
CULTURALLY
The Left’s assault on Rhode Island families is decades old. The great American “pursuit of happiness” begins with a safe, prosperous, and optimistic family environment … yet, Ocean State lawmakers have continually undermined these pillars of happiness. Here’s how:
Many Americans are suffering from a cultural identity crisis. Political correctness and pop culture are pressuring vulnerable people to identify with some victim group, encouraging them to identify with their weaknesses and insecurities.
These contrived victim groups then claim and demand new “rights” be afforded to them … and all too often, governments enact laws that cater to these counter-cultural, often anti-family, self-convictions.
What was once overtly counter-cultural, now is positioned as the “new norm”, sanctioned by government. This disruption of traditional values leads to confusion and division in our culture.
Our own government is playing a major role in weakening our own great American culture; these political supremacists believe they know what is best for people and families.
Parental rights are at risk. School board members across our state are advocating that important medical and personal information be kept secret from students’ parents. It’s gotten so bad, that parents are now demanding that school boards enact policies that prevent school districts from lying to parents.
Liberal and big-government advocated believe that students belong to the government, via schools, and that parents often are not looking out for the best interests of their own children.
Common sense Rhode Islanders know otherwise. No one cares for or knows how to make the best decisions for children … more than kids’ parents.
In fact, in recent years, two examples of extreme Left policies demonstrate the government’s warped approach towards children:
- During the early months after the Covid vaccinations became available, the RI Department of Health set up “vaccine clinics” in many schools across the state. Seeking to vaccinate every child possible, regardless of parental authorization, RIDOH actually exclaimed that minor students under the age of 18 did not need parental consent to be vaccinated … and should be “emancipated” from their (harmful) parents. Imagine that!
- For middle and high school students suffering from gender dysphoria, many school districts forbid teachers and staff from notifying parents about that child’s “preferred” pronoun or gender delusions … lying if necessary to hide the truth. Instead of discussing this issue with parents and potentially seeking professional mental health counseling … many Rhode Island schools secretly aid students in advancing their gender-denying fantasies.
There are a number of other important cultural issues that are destroying the traditional family unit:
- Stand Up For Marriage: Promoting and glorifying “fatherlessness”, while paying single women to have more children … leads to increased levels of poverty, crime, school drop-outs, drug use, and incarceration for our children. Men and women who stay married accumulate much greater wealth and live far more meaningful lives than those who don’t marry. (from the book Get Married, 2024, by Brad Wilcox)
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- Eliminate the Marriage Penalty: Income eligibility guidelines for receiving government assistance continually punishes couples, financially, if the were to marry.
- Policy Solution: Marriage should be positively incentivized. A 2024 Gallup survey found that married adults consistently rate their lives far more highly as “thriving” as compared with others.
- Father’s matter: In about nine out of ten abortions, the father is not committed to the mother by marriage.
- Acceptance of a drug culture, including the legalization of marijuana; Oregon has recently rescinded its 2-year old drug legalization policies and will now re-criminalize drug possession after disastrous increases in deaths
- Mask & vaccine mandates during the pandemic that infringed on constitutional rights and cost many family members their jobs. Who wins and who loses?
- The pressure to adopt DEI and CRT policies in government institutions, in public schools, and in corporations … has led to the loss of jobs and discrimination against family members who do not fully conform with woke philosophy or who do not check certain boxes.
- The Left’s false narrative of “white supremacy” is hate speech itself. What hypocrisy … and foolishness … to believe that discrimination can be solved by a different form of discrimination.
- Woke transgender policies – that defy medical and biologic realities – often inflict permanent emotional (and physical harm) to individuals confused about their gender
- Abortion: A ‘death culture’ that glorifies abortion. It is the Left who holds the extreme and non-mainstream views on abortion … whether it’s the aborting of babies in the mother’s womb or even the killing of babies AFTER they are born!
75% of Rhode Islanders believe in some restrictions on abortion. However, the Left believes in no restrictions and openly promotes:
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- Gruesome late term and partial-birth procedures
- Taxpayer funding of the taking of a life
- NO parental notification or approval for minors seeking this life-ending procedure
Leftists also have submitted legislation in RI to once again make prostitution legal … which would encourage child and human trafficking and exploitation
In a 2024 press release, the Clare Boothe Luce Center found in a survey, that “the beliefs and aspirations of young women (largely believed to be the most woke) often unify around conservative principles, particularly those centered on femininity and family values,” regardless of political affiliation
The Left’s #AssaultOnTheRIFamily must end. And, if we all work together and take a principled stand, we are going to end it for them!
EMOTIONALLY
Government policies have also threatened the emotional stability of family members. The emerging mental health crisis developing among Ocean State youth, and recognized by virtually every expert. Woke teachings in K-12 schools that all but tell young males that they are misogynist’s, whites that they are racist, blacks that they are less capable, and religious students that they are foolish , often create anxiety that require professional help.
In legalizing recreational marijuana, RI lawmakers put regular users on a 25% path towards developing a severe mental disorder, with an increased risk of suicidal tendencies … according to recent studies in the US and Europe.
The increased emotional instability of students and their decreased social development, was exacerbated by the the mishandling of the pandemic by education officials, forcing students to wear masks and isolating them to home-based learning and away from their friends.
Further, often bullish social media engagement along with perverse Hollywood and television storylines, only add to the confusing and destabilizing influences that our children are constantly subjected to.
To top it all off, the age-inappropriate sexual, gender, and racial themes regularly pushed by most schools … only adds to the problem. Imagine being taught to question your own God-given personal characteristics or to question whether your home and you parents might not be a ‘safe space’ for you to live.
No wonder the Left’s assault on children has been so devastating to their emotional well-being.
PHYSICALLY
We no longer have have safe & healthy communities, safe schools, or safe homes!
Healthcare: Health insurance and access to quality healthcare are becoming increasingly costly and difficult for many Rhode Islanders.
Since Rhode Island lawmakers adopted virtually all of the programs under the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act, annual insurance premiums have skyrocketed … often by double-digit percentage rate hikes … making health insurance an extreme financial burden for many families.
Worse, as many Ocean Staters have been shifted into government-run Medicaid, and with absurdly low reimbursement rates that have driven many doctors and healthcare organizations out of the system, greatly reducing the supply of available healthcare professionals. This increased Medicaid patient demand, combined with decreased provider supply, has led to massive wait-times for all levels of care.
Family Units at Risk: Extreme radicals on the Left seek to tear your family apart – literally! If parents refuse to affirm certain delusions of their children – including the desire for harmful gender-transitioning procedures – woke LGBTQ activists are working to authorized the State to remove your children from your care … and make them wards of the State. They are even looking to turn many school buildings into 24/7 full-service campuses, that will house children removed from their families.
Perhaps most emblematic of government malfeasance was its physical assault on students during the Covid-19 pandemic. The mask and vaccine mandates imposed by the RI Department of Health and the RI Department of Education as well as certain school districts put our children and school staff directly in harms way.
Without any credible science-based evidence, all-day school mask mandates were imposed upon students, while vaccine mandates were imposed upon healthcare workers and certain education staff.
The school mask mandates recommended by the RI Department of Health during the Covid pandemic, and supported by Governor McKee, caused “irreparable harm” to students, ruled a RI Superior Court judge in a related lawsuit; a lawsuit that also led to a rare public hearing where members of the public could voice their concerns about the harms to their children (watch highlights here). The General Assembly failed in its oversight duties to intervene and protect our kids from this unconstitutional and negligent governmental over-reach.
In that March 2024 public hearing, testimony revealed that masking children (or anyone) for prolonged periods would force them to breath unhealthy air, as defined by OSHA. Yet in July 2024, RIDOH refused to change its regulations to adequately account for actual scientific evidence about potential harms and efficacy when it comes to the safety of students and the public. They just don’t care. Who wins, who loses?
Public safety should be a right for everyone. The Left pretends that crime is mostly a gun issue. In reality, it’s about the government’s failure to enforce our laws. Underprivileged women suffer most from a lack of enforcement, with black women now the fastest-growing demographic for gun ownership.
Protecting our children from drugs and crime should be a top priority to create safe communities. Yet our RI government has failed residents time and time again.
The Left’s recent ‘soft on crime’ push … to not prosecute and to release violent criminals back into society …. makes our homes, streets, businesses, and local communities more dangerous for families. In 2024 the RI General Assembly refused to protect shoppers and businesses by failing to pass legislation that would require jail sentences for “smash & grab” criminals.
Further, weak enforcement of domestic abuse laws and leniency towards known domestic abusers has led to far too many deaths of spouses and partners. Who wins and who loses?
Young students in government-run schools in RI are continually groomed to engage in unsafe and age-inappropriate sexual activity or to consider radical gender transitioning procedures such as chemical castration and surgical mutilation of sexual organs that often cause irreversible physical and emotional harm.
The incidents of bullying, assaults, and other crimes within schools is also on the rise due to the ignorant compliance of woke school officials to the narrative that certain groups of students should not be held accountable for their violent or threatening actions (called ‘restorative justice’).
Lax policies towards student discipline and the number of violent incidents in schools are on the rise, threatening the physical safety of many students and staff … while often there is little to no recrimination for the assaulting perpetrators. The Left’s “restorative justice” mindset forbids schools from reporting many incidents of violence perpetrated by minority students (in order to make the numbers look better); a misguided philosophy that allows criminally-inclined students to remain in schools and on the streets.
As fentanyl and other illegal drugs are the number one killer of 18- to 45-year olds in America, our state government’s lax approach towards drug use, even providing “safe injection sites” for addicts, creates even more lethal concerns for families. The state of Oregon recently rescinded its open-drug-use polices after an alarming rise in the number of drug-related fatalities were recorded.
The legalization of the recreational use of marijuana by our political class also puts young adults at increased risk of psychosis and bi-polar disorders, increasingly leading to attempted suicides. The scientific data about the harms of smoking marijuana is overwhelming, especially for young people, more of whom are now using the drug on a regular basis. Further, the weed smoked today is far more potent, harmful, and addictive than decades ago, as THC concentration levels have dramatically increased as much as 30-times higher!
Transgender Agenda Can Cause Direct Physical Harm: For children and young adults, the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of transgender transitioning procedures often lead to permanent infertility and lifelong medical problems and surgeries.
The transgender policies more and more school district are adopting (at the federal government’s encouragement) that allow boys in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, bedrooms (on overnight field trips), and athletic fields … puts young girls and women at serious physical risk.
Additionally, persistent assaults by RI lawmakers on our constitutionally guaranteed Second-Amendment rights, means families will have fewer options when it comes to protecting themselves from crime and violent intruders.
- RI’s 2024 so-called “safe storage” legislation would actually make it less safe for families to self-defend their loved ones
Our state’s tyrannical dictates during the pandemic, combined with its lax approach towards crime and drug use … has led to death, permanent disability, or severe medical conditions of family members.
RELIGIOUSLY
During this period of national cultural chaos, it is more important than ever to stand up for our religious beliefs and to be tolerant of and respect the faith of others. This simple attitude can help re-unite Americans.
America is suffering from a spiritual crisis. Government and politics are not a substitute for God … as much as they aspire to be.
And our own state government continually has practiced – or allowed others to practice – alarming levels of religious in-tolerance.
But God is not dead. Because there is such massive political upheaval … holding to, or returning to, our spirituality … and delivering a message of hope … is one certain path back towards re-uniting the people of our nation.
The unhappiness of those who dedicate their entire being to advancing and serving a political agenda is profound. More and more, government inserts itself into areas that were once the sole domain of God … and more and more, Rhode Islanders are trading their spirituality for political correctness.
After all, the motto of the United States of America is: In God We Trust.
However, conservatives and libertarians have no one to blame but themselves for the cultural and religious decay we are seeing throughout our society.
For decades, other than specially-dedicated single-issue groups, the political Right was discouraged from engaging in most of the more thorny “social issues” that pervaded much of the political discourse. “Focus only on economic and educational issues,” was what conservatives were told.
In essence, the Right ceded the cultural battle-front to the Left … almost completely unopposed … and the Left gladly marched in, seizing the vacated ground with their anti-religious and anti-family propaganda. In the process, winning election after election at all levels of government, based on their uncontested and media-backed narratives, claiming they represented the new moral high ground.
And no one opposed them! The time has come for this to change.
What the Right’s narrow-minded leaders failed to recognized is that social and cultural issues cannot be separated from economic and educational issues. Once a particular party or movement seizes the moral high-ground, they can impose their agenda on virtually every other aspect of society: religious, economic, educational, and constitutional.
Now, conservatives and the religious-Right have a major up-hill battle ahead of them. We now finally recognize the importance of engaging in this Godly and noble fight, but the ground we have to recover and over-take … is enormous.
There are many specific examples of the religious and moral persecution that extremists in our government have either directly imposed or willfully ignored:
During the early period of the Covid-19 pandemic, state officials were quick to close down and impose other oppressive restrictions upon churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious services, unconstitutionally discriminating against them … while allowing other “essential” secular establishments to remain open.
What can be more essential than worshiping your God?
The only relationship more sacred than that between parents and their children … is the relationship between people and their God. Yet, government persistently and purposefully puts itself in the way of both of these sacred relationships … if not seeking outright to destroy them.
The Left’s disdain and illegal harassment for those who believe in God continues to grow, while government turns a blind eye. In recent years, many woke and progressive activists now refer to peaceful, God-fearing Christians … as “Christian Nationalists” … as if believers in Christ are some kind of terrorist group who should be monitored by the justice department. Many in Rhode Island’s ruling class believe the same nonsense.
Freedom of religion is not only a 1st-Amendment right and core precept of America, but it is the fundamental principle that led to the founding of our own state of Rhode Island by Roger Williams.
Rhode Island’s left-leaning government and its public schools continually hide behind their purposefully misguided interpretation of the “Separation of Church and State” concept, a phrase that does not appear in the U.S. Constitution.
The First Amendment guarantees both freedom of religion and freedom from religion. This means individuals have the right to practice their faith freely while also being protected from government-imposed religious practices or beliefs.
In some states, Christians are effectively banned from adopting children or becoming foster parents. RI state government has itself implemented various regulations that make it extremely difficult and perilous for Christian parents to navigate the related anti-religious legal framework.
While state-sponsored promotion of a specific religion should be barred in public schools, voluntary religious expression by students is protected by the Constitution, as are historical books about religion or the Bible.
Yet, while such wholesome religious books are usually banned in public schools, most government-run school libraries and classrooms openly display and utilize destructive and controversial books that contain anti-God tropes, explicit sexual content, false transgender narratives … and even Satanic worship.
The woke transgender belief that a person’s biological sex, determined by God at conception, was somehow a heavenly mistake … and can be arbitrarily and cavalierly altered via a “transition” … is another direct affront to belief in the Almighty.
Every instance of government schools presenting sex and sexuality to children … is an affront to their God-given rights to grow up safe, innocent, and free from sexual abuse. That includes pornographic books, gender ideology, LGBTQ and sexuality celebrations, sex and gender surveys, drag-queen story hours, and sexuality “clubs.”
The Left’s push to legalize brutal mid- and late-term abortions, referring to a baby of God in the womb as nothing more than fetal tissue, defies religious and medical realities.
Repeatedly, the Left has substituted multiple false narratives in place of God’s truth. LGBTQ and woke extremists in government regularly seek to cancel and silence Christians and Jews who defend their traditional pro-family religious views.
There is a direct correlation between being raised in a married family with a mom and a dad and a commitment to faith. The collapse of family and faith, brought on by the Godless and Marxist policies pushed by the woke Left, are one of the major causes of our society’s problems.
In seeking to erase a faith-filled life, elitists on the Left have substituted government in place of religion, demonizing efforts to defend religious freedom, while themselves worshipping their own radical agendas instead of God’s will.
The antisemitism we have seen from the Left on the streets, at the Statehouse, and on college campuses in Rhode Island should be an affront to all God-fearing good people and is a direct threat to those of the Jewish faith. Across the nation, many prosecutors and school officials either drop-charges or turn a blind eye to antisemitic protests who ransack streets and private property.
In “Taken for RIDE“, the landmark report by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity about the misguided statewide social studies standards implemented by the RI Department of Education (RIDE), it is detailed how these standards exhibit open hostility towards Christians. RIDE’s bogus US History standards fail to place importance on America’s history of faith as critical factor in the early development of our nation.
In America, for believers, our purpose on earth is to not serve a political party, self-proclaimed elitists, or any ideological agenda … but, rather, to live a life pleasing to God and his biblical tenets.
PATRIOTICALLY
The many assaults on Ocean State families continues, even when it comes to Patriotism … the glue that should unite all Americans.
With pride in being an American continuing to waver, telling the true story of America (the Second Greatest Story Ever Told), is vital to reigniting the spirit of ’76 and a return to traditional American values.
Unfortunately, there has been a shift away from this patriotic sentiment and, instead, a push to undermine our national heritage. According to a 2022 report, our own RI Department of Education (RIDE) has implemented statewide social studies standards that fail to teach the true values of America, instead seeking to indoctrinate K-12 students with radical identity-politics ideology (CRT) … with hostility to groups such as whites, men, and Christians – and above all, with hostility to America itself.
What kind of future can we expect if we teach our citizens – and our youth – to hold contempt for America and for our country’s symbols of freedom? The disrespect for our flag, our founding fathers, and our Constitution are just some of the destructive themes openly pushed by pro-Marxist radicals.
America’s noble and Constitutional quest for liberty and equality under the law, while often falling short, nevertheless has become the model for freedom across the globe: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to pursue the ‘American Dream,’ freedom of the press, etc.
These are the values and ideas that define America and its patriotic citizens … not skin color, ethnicity, or professed identity, as progressives want us to believe.
It must become “cool” again to be patriotic: to honor ‘Old Glory’ (watch the video), to adhere to the Constitution, to respect our national anthem, to revere our founding Revolutionaries, and to put in proper perspective the struggles and instances where we may have failed to uphold our nation’s righteous goals.
Americans have historically been united by this common set of values and the concept of “love of country”, a major reason for our America’s great historical success. We were founded upon premise that each of us are individual citizens in “one nation, under God, indivisible …”
But sadly, today’s Left want to tear this patriotic premise apart. Their radical beliefs can be characterized by a deep-seated animosity towards every-day Americans and their love of the USA. Instead, progressives have influenced our own government and the media to promote anti-Americanism via the extreme practice of identity politics, which has divided our populace.
The Left’s antipathy is based on visceral disdain for rural, white, male, small-business-owning, religious, married straight parents … and towards America itself. This hostility is increasingly reflected in government policy and in university and K-12 school curricula.
This disdain is rampant within the woke Left: progressives, socialists, Marxists, identity politics activists, and other blue-leaning groups share this animosity towards red America. While each group may have its own specific grievances and interests, they are united in their contempt for traditional American beliefs and values.
In particular, the Left dishonors traditional families, by promoting any and all other non-traditional, if not perverted, concepts of family.
The Left is falsely motivated by an emotional belief that all of the perceived injustices in our society – injustices they have dishonestly contrived – have been caused by centuries of systematic American-style oppression.
The RI Department of Education, adopting the false and divisive tenets of The 1619 Project, is openly seeking to indoctrinate our state’s K-12 students with this perverse belief system.
America’s true birthright is one of “freedom.” Our 250 year struggle to achieve it equally for all citizens is yet to be fully achieved. However, RIDE teaches students “to hate America,” based on a false “oppressor versus oppressed” narrative, as part of its social studies standards that are based on the misguided tenets of Critical Race Theory.
The Left is constantly creating new classes of victims and claimed victim rights and they believe that these injustices – caused by America herself – must be addressed by direct government action, no matter how such actions may infringe upon the rights of the rest of us.
They believe that by dismantling the great civilization, built by previous generations of patriotic Americans, via government mandates and tyranny, that they can redistribute the spoils of power and wealth to their respective victim classes.
This anti-patriotic sentiment and their desire for power and vengeance has been a driving force behind many of the most divisive policies and government actions in recent years. From never-ending efforts to tarnish the reputations of our founding fathers, punish achievement, indoctrinate students, defund the police and abolish ICE, to calls for reparations and the erasure of history. The left’s agenda is driven by a desire to punish those patriots who believe in – or live out – the American Dream.
The many different factions within the Left are increasingly at odds with each other. But despite their shared and unifying hatred of America, major cracks are developing within their coalition, while more and more Americans are becoming aware of their anti-patriotic agenda.
America has achieved far more than fighting for freedom and equality in our government and within our own borders. Our country and countless Americans have fought and died for liberty for others across the globe … in multiple World Wars and a Cold War … defeating the tyrants, fascists, totalitarians, and Communists who sought to deny people their God-given rights.
The Left often rages against so-called American imperialism, advancing false notions of oppressive American influence in other countries. Instead, true American patriots understand America’s righteous role in the world and are grateful for using our ‘might for right.’
True patriots are grateful for the many blessings and opportunities we all enjoy in America with July 4th and Thanksgiving two calendar days where we all should appreciate and celebrate the wisdom and many sacrifices of the countless men and women who helped shape this great country.
These past sacrifices must be honored and viewed as blessed gifts to all American citizens today.
Our schools should foster and instill this realistic and positive view of patriotism into our children, not fill them with disdain for their own country.
Rhode Island voters must come to realize that they have the power to undo these destructive and divisive policies … and that they can reverse our societal-rot … by supporting candidates, policies, and organizations that seek to promote patriotism and advance the American Dream.
Candidates & Elected Officials
Whether for federal, state or local office, candidates and elected officials are encouraged to join hundreds of others across America in taking the pledge to protect families, save women’s sports, and restore Title IX … by assuring fairness and due process in schools.
More on Saving Our Kids from RIDE
- Each oversees a falling educational institution that puts woke politics ahead of student achievement
- Each were lauded with the meaningless trope of being the first “person of color” to lead their respective organizations
- Each has failed in their current positions, which they were not professionally qualified for in the first place
- Each is a product of the divisive DEI philosophy, which puts skin color and fealty to the BIPOC agenda ahead of an actual record of accomplishment
- Each has suppressed freedom of expression, by engaging in vindictive and unwarranted administrative punishment of faculty who publicly disagreed with the woke narrative
- Each, under the guise of advancing an “anti-racist” mindset, is openly supportive of the “racial justice” or “social equity” agenda
- Each has promoted racist policies or guidelines that poison the minds of students against their country, their Caucasian brothers and sisters, and/or God
- Each is engaged in corruption scandals that would disqualify any other head of an organization, were they not members of a protected class
- Each is facing public calls for their resignation or replacement
- Each remains in power only because those who appointed them do not have the courage to acknowledge that their faux diversity narrative has failed their institutions
- DEI
- CRT
- ESL
- CSE
- Transgender policies that ask school officials to lie to parents