And the people shall rush one upon another, and every man against his neighbour: the child shall make it tumult against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
Et irruet populus, vir ad virum, et unusquisque ad proximum suum; tumultuabitur puer contra senem, et ignobilis contra nobilem.
Isaiah 3:5
Hi Ann,
Thank you for the post today on “What the Progressive Socialist Liberals Have in Store for Conservatives.”
I’d like to share a glimpse of what I am experiencing personally in the “benign” arena of youth sports that I think is related. While to many this may seem harmless, I believe it provides a real-world illustration of how people will eventually “just go along with it.”
My son (age 10) participates in a youth travel sports team. He is scheduled to attend an out-of-state tournament in the next few weeks. Due to recent changes in COVID restrictions, the tournament now requires ALL players AND parents to present a negative COVID test result within 72 hours of the tournament start date.
Our team manager asked all families to indicate whether or not they would comply, and to provide their answer within 8 hrs. As a family, we agreed not to subject ourselves to the painful nasal swab, the intrusion of medical privacy, nor the participation in the lunacy of it all! I sent a polite, short response privately to the team manager indicating our preference to not get tested. Her response back: So are you in or out for the tournament? I responded with a straightforward: “Out”.
Throughout the day I learned privately that there were several other families who also did not want to get tested. Over half of the team began to post messages on our team app indicating they did not want to travel out of state, and for various reasons. None of the reasons posted directly addressed the willingness to be tested, of course. (My nanny used to say: don’t pussyfoot around the issue, and this should tell you why.)
Finally, the team manager sent a public message to the team:
“We are scheduled to travel. The question I posed to all of you was not whether you want to go, but whether you are willing to take the COVID test.”
What??
Apparently no one else spoke up when ultimately called to task on it. The coach decided the team would go as only 1 athlete (my son) would not comply.
I can’t believe I’m typing this.
Fortunately, just a little while ago another parent, a father, said his family would not get tested, and that they were OUT! His reasons varied, but one of them was that he wasn’t going to give his medical information out to random people. The team manager instructed him to inform the director of our sports association that he would “not report his son’s positive test result, should it arise.” (What?? Why automatically convict the child as secretly sick and contagious when his dad is merely citing medical privacy rights?) The dad quipped back saying he would report it to the program directors, but not to her, or some random tournament director. I thanked God for his courage to stand his ground and speak up.
It is helpful knowing you are not the ONLY one. This was our primary homeschool lesson today: speak up even if you are the only one as it can give others the courage to also speak up. But be prepared that if you are the first to speak up you will most likely suffer negative consequences.
I hope I’ve been able to articulate the clearly perceived tension and opposing forces in all of this, and that people will stay on guard against the people and organizations who are beginning to see themselves as the righteous “enforcers” of the COVID rules. What I just described pertains to healthy 10 yr-old boys…It’s obvious this is not about health, safety, or the well-being of our children. It’s about whether or not we are going to join the Communist Party of COVID.
Take care and God bless,
H