An illuminating juxtaposition in the virtual pages of the New York Times: In one essay, four coauthors (including my friends David French and Kmele Foster) assert the “danger of anti-Critical Race Theory laws,” while in the article immediately below it, Scott Borchert demands a “New Deal for writers in America” in the form of new federal financial support, particularly for writers who lost income because of the Covid-19 epidemic. Each of these speaks to different aspects of the proverb: He who pays the fiddler calls the tune.
With apologies to French, Foster, et al., there is another relevant proverb here: the one about the horse and the barn doors. The authors concede what every clear-eyed observer already knows about our schools: “At their worst, they resemble indoctrination factories.” This situation is neither new nor limited to union-dominated public-school systems in big, Democrat-run cities: If you had sat through the honors-American-history course in my conservative home town (Lubbock, Texas) in the 1990s, you’d have been under the impression that American history consists of three events: the Trail of Tears, the Triangle Shirtwaist-factory fire, and Watergate.
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