U.S Rep. Madison Cawthorn recently dropped in at the North Carolina Buncombe County school board meeting to share his opinions on the district’s COVID-19 mask mandate, which passed in a 4-2 vote. He talked about how forcing kids to wear masks is “nothing short of psychological child abuse” and said that their social, emotional, and psychological skills are stunted from it. Of the 33 speakers at the board meeting, only one person spoke up in favor of the mandate, which would only apply to unvaccinated individuals.
Cawthorn criticized these as “swampy backdoor tactics” and said they are trying to muzzle children and their voices. The survival rate is extremely high and eventually, everyone will have exposure to the virus or a variant.
Parents are demanding less government intrusion and more freedom, with Cawthorn adding that the board should know these mandates would never withstand the scrutiny of the public when they didn’t involve the input of parents. He said what they have done here today puts everything to shame and that the greatest threat comes from ‘woke’ government officials, not schoolchildren.
“This school board has no right to rip personal responsibility away from the hands of its citizens. The family should always come before the government. You do not know better than the parents in my district (North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District). You do not have a right to slam down mandates upon children of Buncombe County that fly in the face of scientific reasoning,” Cawthorn said.
The rep went on to say that the recently passed mandate flies in the face of scientific reasoning and does more harm than good. Even Arizona is dealing with its own set of issues with schools that are considering mask mandates. C.J Karamargin, a spokesperson for Gov. Doug Ducey, said the school board should spend less time on virtue signaling and more time encouraging those who are eligible to get the vaccine.
A teacher at Phoenix Union High School is also challenging the adopted policies in their district that require students, vaccinated or not, to wear a mask while indoors. A judge still has to set a time for the hearing in order to evaluate evidence.
First vice-chair of the Arizona Republican Party Pam Kirby said school boards are “skirting the law” with their mask mandates in the name of COVID-19 panic.
But the most vocal against school mask mandates has been Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made it clear that some counties, such as Alachua, cannot require students to wear masks in the sunshine state.
“It’s parents’ choice in Florida. And government can’t override the parents. And so we believe the parents are the ones that have the choice. And we obviously have an executive order to that effect. It’s the parent’s choice. Alachua County can’t override the parents,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis notes that the Executive Order is in the Parents’ Bill of Rights and protects their rights to raise their children, their health, and their well-being. He said that needs to be respected by “all levels of government” in the state and flows directly from that bill.
Not to mention the fact that most kids have recovered from COVID-19 and there’s no scientific justification to keep the mask mandates in place. This is more about the masks – this is about the relationship between the public school establishments and the parents of children themselves. Right smack in the middle is power-hungry politicians.
