Good morning!

No prank can match the destructive joke arising from Karl Marx’s bad ideas. I’ll get to that at the end of today’s Texas Minute, Friday, April 1, 2022.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Parental Rights Advocates Frustrated By Abbott

• After winning the Republican primary election a month ago, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is wading into the state legislative runoffs. Two in particular, reports Brandon Waltens, have gained negative attention from parental rights advocates.
      
• Earlier this week, Abbott endorsed Justin Berry and Barron Casteel—candidates running in separate Central Texas House districts—who are both also supported by the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers’ labor union in America.
        
• Berry faces former Austin Councilmember Ellen Troxclair in the runoff election, while Casteel is running against nonprofit director Carrie Isaac. The runoff elections take place May 24. 
      
• Corey DeAngelis, the national director of research at the school choice advocacy organization American Federation for Children, noted that Berry opposes the expansion of public charter schools – despite their popularity and long waiting lists.
     
• Randan Steinhauser, the founder of the Texas School Choice Coalition, also took issue with Abbott’s endorsements, noting that the governor could no longer blame the state legislature for failing to expand school choice if he continued endorsing candidates opposed to the movement.
     
• “Every significant parental rights reform to pass the legislature since 2017 has done so without the support of Governor Abbott. Every parental rights legislative reform that has died has done so without his comment,” said Jeremy Newman, the director of public policy for the Texas Home School Coalition.

• There’s been a lot of education news this week, so on The Headline at 5:30 p.m. today Brandon Waltens will chat with Jacob Asmussen about the issue. I’ll also pop on to talk with Brandon about some of the other news from the week.
      
• If you cannot watch The Headline when it premieres, the video archive and a podcast version will both be immediately available.

Beto In the House?

• In a recent interview with Texas Scorecard, State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R–Royse City) discussed the controversial practice of Republican lawmakers awarding key committee chairmanships to Democrats in the Texas House. Katy Drollinger has the story.
   
• “In Texas, you’re about to see six, seven, eight, nine months of bashing Beto, bashing AOC, the Democrats, and Joe Biden’s failed policies,” said Slaton. “But what they don’t want to tell you is that if Beto was running for Texas House of Representatives, he could be a chairman. Nancy Pelosi could be a chairman. All these Democrats they want to point to could be a chairman in the Texas House of Representatives.”
     
• Watch Slaton’s interview.

Abortionists Threaten Cain With Legal Action

• Last year, Texas passed the Heartbeat Act, which forbids abortions after the child’s heartbeat is detectable. This outraged abortion advocates, since the enforcement mechanism in the Heartbeat Act allows citizens – not government prosecutors – to sue facilities and individuals who assist in killing an unborn child with a detectable heartbeat.
   
• In mid-March, State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R–Deer Park) sent cease-and-desist letters to “every abortion fund in Texas, reminding them that Texas law imposes felony criminal liability on any person who ‘furnishes the means for procuring an abortion knowing the purpose intended.’” Cain based these statements on pre-Roe v. Wade laws that remain on the books in Texas relating to abortion.
     
• Now, reports Sydnie Henry, several abortion groups have responded to Cain with threats of defamation suits. They claim those laws are not relevant since they were enacted before the Supreme Court allowed abortion.
      
• “When a court declares a law unconstitutional, the law remains in place unless and until the body that enacted it repeals it,” responded Cain.  
       
• Although the U.S. Supreme Court decision stopped the enforcement of Texas’ abortion laws against women seeking abortions, Cain explains it did not wipe the law from the books and did not affect portions of the law prohibiting third parties from paying for another person’s abortion.

Friday Reflection: It’s All A Joke

Marxism. Socialism. Communism. Progressivism. They are different names and versions of the same sick joke played on mankind for eons. Each of these systems of thought and government, no matter how nobly they might be portrayed or generous they appear, all exist to let the rich, connected, and powerful thrive at the expense of the serfs.

Each of these systems share a defining attribute: they require enforcement by the state at the point of a sword or down barrel of a gun. Every single nuance of life must be dictated and controlled. There can be no unapproved actions, or even thoughts.

Even when the systems are working perfectly, they not only fail to deliver on their packaged assurances of happiness and equality, but they end up producing sorrow, misery, and despair for all but the exclusive class of self-appointed masters. Consider how the rulers of China, Venezuela, the old Soviet Union, and so many others lived compared to the huddled masses. 

When confronted with the misery found in Marxist countries, the only explanation the proponents can muster is that their ideas simply haven’t been done properly by the “right” people. Just give them one more shot, they declare.

The sad truth is this: it is not that these systems haven’t been tried well enough, it is that they have been tried repeatedly. By their very nature, they are designed to be destructive to the human soul. They arise not from a sincere belief in human dignity and individual liberty, but are rather the sick product of elitist nihilism.

Karl Marx wrote in 1844, “The first requisite of the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.” Marx was a secular humanist, who wanted to replace the God of scripture with the promise of a benevolent state. What he really wanted, of course, was to set up himself and his followers as the unquestionable master lording intellectually over the masses.

For those who believe Marxism or socialism can somehow be compatible with scripture, consider this one point. Marx’s system demanded the abolition of all private ownership. It rested on the economic premise that no one should own anything.

Scripture not only presumes private ownership of goods and property, but in the Ten Commandments given to the people of God, we are told not to steal. In parable after parable in the New Testament, Jesus extols hard work, investment, and private ownership. Yes, we are commanded as believers to help those in need, to share what we have – but to do so voluntarily from joyful hearts, not compulsion by the state.

The modern “-isms” arising from Marx are rooted in the state stealing all property, and distributing goods based on the intellectual whims of those in charge. 

It’s not that the "good ideas" of Marx and his followers have been poorly executed, it is that their ideas are wholly incompatible with human joy at the most fundamental moral level.

Deep in their hearts, the sincere adherents of the “-isms” know they are wrong. It is why they are such a joyless lot. They promote what they know is a lie.

It is why they cannot handle mockery. They hate being questioned, and are enraged when their beliefs are exposed to ridicule; they are thin-skinned and emotionally weak. Their value system is built on a foundation of intellectual, emotional, and personal insecurity. They are schoolyard bullies, who relentlessly torment all who refuse to bow down and comply.

It is time to stop coddling them, to stop treating their ideas as even slightly meritorious. Nearly two centuries of practical application, and a millennia of extended experience, have proven them completely wrong. 

Socialists, progressives, communists, and Marxists are the flat-earthers of political and economic thought. Some of them are con artists, many are stooges, but all of them are victims to their own bad ideas. They are not intellectuals sincerely seeking truth; they are the fall-guys in a long, deadly, sick joke. 

We must continue to fight these pernicious beliefs, expose the greed, and ridicule the outlandish claims. And, yes, even to point and laugh at them.