From The Clinton Herald, November 20, 2021
Who do you trust? Parents or politicians?
This question cuts right to the heart of many of the major policy issues we see playing out in Illinois and across the country. Both in Virginia and in Illinois, the answer to this question gets to the chase for voters beleaguered by politicos’ worn-out talking points and confusion about using public safety to infringe on civil liberties.
In the past few months, the Democrat supermajority controlling Illinois’ state government has passed gerrymandered maps opposed by nearly all advocate organizations with a history of protecting voting rights of minority populations, they have repealed the state’s Parental Notification of Abortion law, changed the Healthcare Right of Conscience Act to promote enforcement of mask and vaccine mandates and work double-time to hide their efforts to enact curriculum changes that sound an awful lot like Critical Race Theory, at least to us common folks.
Key Illinois service groups, headed by the Fraternal Order of Police, joined Republicans to push back against the changes to the Healthcare Right of Conscience law. They joined in pledges to fight to reaffirm conscience rights in Illinois. Yet, the Democrat supermajority charged forward despite the opposition from this public employee union. The second time they have publicly punished the police in 2021.
2022 is approaching. While Governor JB Pritzker, Senate President Don Harmon and Speaker Chris Welch joined President Biden in a victory lap in London last week, many Illinoisans struggled with the new reality between continuing in the professions they love or pushing back against edicts which many believe violate their civil liberties and religious beliefs.
When it comes to personal liberties, the politicians seem to be the “haves” and the parents seem to be cast as the “have nots” in this sick game of division playing out across the country. I ask you again, who do you trust? Parents or the politicians?
Lawmakers have seized from parents what is not theirs to take. It is past time to let parents be parents and push the politicians out of our homes and classrooms. Politicians have been abysmal failures at managing the parts of our lives we entrust to them and do not warrant any trust to take away more of our rights.
Illinois will have elections next year which will determine who serves in statewide Executive offices, in the Illinois House, in the Illinois Senate, in county government positions, on county boards and many other places. Get educated on the positions of those running and ask them, “will you side with parents or politicians” in this critically important fight for our future.
Illinois State Rep. Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, represents the 71st District in the Illinois House of Representatives.