I have personally spoken with people, face-to-face, who are so entrenched in whatever political narrative they've adopted as their "gospel-of-me" that they are impervious to verifiable facts that counter their belief system.

This faith is unshakeable, which I guess is what happens when you abandon God and yet remain with that visceral need all humans have to believe in something, anything, even if that something is a wholly inadequate and temporary substitute.

I suppose that explains in part their obsessive and, at times, hysterical defense of their worldview. To take that away from them would be to expose their fragile psyche to the fact that they have placed their faith in a dead end, a belief system that is ultimately devoid of any lasting meaning.

Which brings us to this USA Today opinion piece, written by what has become a trope: The super-outraged white guy desperate to fill the empty God-shaped space left in his soul with secular virtue, the comfort of which only provides a passing finite sense of self-worth before it evaporates with the coming of each dawn leaving him in search of his next fix.

Author Nick Brooke, a data analyst living in Oklahoma, starts with a lengthy recitation about his high-school daughter witnessing an increase in the use of racial slurs among her peers and the refusal of the school to deal with the matter.

I'm going to gently suggest the very real possibility that, as the kids say, "this never happened."

I'm sure it happens, people can be awful, of course, particularly children still navigating the transition to adulthood, and maybe it's just an exaggeration, after all the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but regardless, he then makes the leap of… it would be a disservice to call it logic. Faith, maybe, that this is a direct outcome of Oklahoma's new education law banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory, or CRT, which repackages the Marxist paradigm of oppressor and oppressed economic classes (capitalists vs. labor) as a systemic battle between the races.

Yet, this overtly racist classroom behavior has escalated for weeks without so much as a "racial slurs are bad, m'kay?" over the intercom from the counselor. I grow angrier…

Rage porn. Always with the rage porn with these guys.

…every time my daughter mentions it until the truth finally hits me: In Oklahoma, most of the education described in the previous paragraph violates House Bill 1775, Oklahoma's fascist anti-racial education law.

I have to kind of admire his restraint in not calling it "Hitlerian" given the tizzy he's managed to work himself into.

A lecture about why racist behavior is hurtful to both other students and the school might make a student feel sad about their own race, which is plainly against Oklahoma law.

Not so much, but we'll get to that in a moment. I think it's important to let him vent a little bit more. It's cathartic.

Similarly, any attempt to teach the children to be kinder to their peers could be construed as social-emotional learning: far too "woke" to teach in an Oklahoma public school.

Let's pause for a moment on that one.

First, "social-emotional learning."

Care to take a guess as to what phrase does not appear anywhere in the law (PDF) he himself links to in the piece?

"Social-emotional learning."

Not just the phrase, any of the words with the exception of "social" which appears once in the context of "social studies." No "emotional" and no "learning."

If not the law he is specifically criticizing, then where did he pull this from?

I'm guessing "the book of Nick."

He also links to a piece supporting his argument about the "attempt to teach the children to be kinder to their peers." This is the piece that link takes you to.

Boismier, an English teacher, had covered all of her classroom bookshelves with red butcher paper...

...that read, "books the state doesn't want you to read." She also posted a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library, which gives students online access to banned books.

Banning books?! That's wrong!! Reeeeee!!!!

Boismier didn't stop there, like every good teacher, she also tried to inculcate her students with her own political biases.

The teacher said she told her students HB 1775 is a "bigoted effort to legislate feelings."

She wasn't done yet, embarking on a kind of local media tour the better to luxuriate in her own sense of grievance and moral superiority.

"I can't think of a single example in history where the folks who have been banning the books turn out to be the quote-unquote good guys," Boismier previously told The Oklahoman. "I am wholesale opposed to restricting access to information. If I am forced to do that very thing, then I want to make sure students understand that this is not a conviction that I hold."

"But, me!" she explained.

In the end, it's always about them more than it is about the students.

Want to know what books she claims are being banned?

Ones the teachers themselves haven't read, apparently.

The policy required Norman teachers to verify they had either read every book in their classroom or could provide two professional sources confirming each title's age and content appropriateness.

Why not read them themselves? I'm thinking, "plausible deniability." Why?

Now she's in charge of teen initiatives at the library, and will be part of its Freedom to Read Advocacy Institute with PEN America. The free, online four-week training program will teach high school students to combat book banning in their schools and libraries.

Now free to teach whatever books she wants to to impressionable young children, she revealed her list of "books the state doesn't want you to read" which included that fan favorite of all groomers-in-waiting, "Gender Queer!"

We addressed this textbook/sex instruction manual last August, so I will spare you having to wade through the above any more than necessary and post only this. Trust me, this isn't the worst of it. (Still, content warning. Scroll quickly if you like.)

Let's return to our friend, Nick Brooke, as he's not quite done yet.

Now that the meek acceptance of state-ordered censorship of basic educational ideas is part of the Oklahoma public school teacher's everyday job description, is it any wonder that our best teachers are leaving the state in droves?

I guess in Nick Brooke's world the utility of vibrators is now part of the pantheon of "basic educational ideas" right alongside reading and writing.

Interesting parenting choice.

As for that "fascist" Oklahoma law, this is what it really says:

(a) Purpose. It shall be the policy of the Oklahoma State Board of Education to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race or sex in the form of bias, stereotyping, scapegoating, classification, or the categorical assignment of traits, morals, values, or characteristics based solely on race or sex. Public schools in this state shall be prohibited from engaging in race or sex-based discriminatory acts by utilizing these methods, which result in treating individuals differently on the basis of race or sex or the creation of a hostile environment.

This is straight out of Mein Kampf!

Maybe. He doesn't know, he hasn't read it, and while I have, and don't remember that particular passage, I'm sure it's implied, probably in the original German.

(c) General Prohibition. No teacher, administrator or other school employee shall require or make part of any Course offered in a public school the following discriminatory principles:

(1) One race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,

(2) An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, (

3) An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex,

(4) Members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex,

(5) An individual's moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex,

(6) An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,

(7) Any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex, or

(8) Meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race.

This is what has Brooke worked up? This is what is prohibiting schools from disciplining racist behavior? A law that explicitly prohibits racist behavior?

A few more excerpts, and no, I'm not cherry picking, the entire law is five-and-a-half pages long, largely boilerplate implementation language.

1) Public schools in this state shall be prohibited from providing, contracting to provide, offering or sponsoring any Course(s), as defined in subsection (b)(1)(B), that includes, incorporates, or is based on discriminatory practices identified in section (c).

(2) Public schools in this state shall be prohibited from using any monies, property, or any other assets or resources to engage in race or sex-based discrimination, including discriminatory practices identified in section (c).

(3) Public schools in this state shall be prohibited from adopting programs or utilizing textbooks, instructional materials, curriculum, classroom assignments, orientation, interventions, or counseling that include, incorporate or are based on the discriminatory concepts identified in subsection (c).

This is not pro-discrimination, nor does it endorse discrimination or racism.

It is the exact opposite of that.

No matter, there is a narrative to uphold, and they will uphold it no matter how ridiculous nor untenable their position.

I'll leave you with one final excerpt from Brooke.

The children reveling in their racist behavior know this, too. Were any teacher to challenge their awful behavior, these kids would gleefully report the attempt to their Fox News-addled parents;

"Fox News-addled parents."

Unlike Brooke, who is so non-addled he chose not to be addled by the actual content of a law he just spent 13 breathless paragraphs excoriating as fascist.

There is nothing in this law that prevents the teaching of kindness, the disciplining of racist slurs, nor that is supportive of the banning of books that are otherwise age appropriate and don't teach kids to be racist.

What it does prevent is the teaching of division, suspicion, and Marxist-derived race-hatred.

I have to wonder: Whose agenda does teaching that serve?