Louisiana Voice

Oklahoma Superintendent of Instruction Ryan Walters

He’s Stephen Miller with hair.

So much for Ryan Walters’s good points, his attributes as leader of Oklahoma’s public instruction, so now let’s move on to the negatives.

Miller wannabe Walters has come up with a 50-question certification examination to be given teaching applicants in the Sooner State. But wait. The questionnaire, designed to gauge only whether or not potential teachers’ political views pass muster, is only to be administered to applicants from California and New York.

The test, being called by Walters as the “AMERICA FIRST” (sound familiar?) certification is designed to ensure that teachers from the two largest blue states “are not coming into our classrooms and indoctrinating kids.”

This from a superintendent who has mandated that the Bible shall be taught in every single public-school classroom in the state.

Nothing against the Bible, mind you, but there might well be Jewish kids, Islamic and Hindu children who might take offense at that. Or maybe even a few isolated agnostic and atheist children whose parents might not want them “indoctrinated.”

But that aside, what makes this clown of a superintendent think that he can (a) revive the loyalty oaths of the 1940s, 50s and 60s or that he can (b) arbitrarily single out just two of the 50 states for such scrutiny? What about Minnesota or Massachusetts? Those are pretty blue states, too. Shoot, why not Texas? That state appears to have some pretty cockeyed leaders in the governor’s and attorney general’s offices. And can a governor who shoots a puppy be truly a red-blooded, apple pie-loving American?

But unfortunately, this is the mentality that has been passed down to members of Congress, governors and now even educators by the world’s biggest ass-clown who happens to occupy the Oval Office.

This is Kim Jong-un logic at its very best: if dear leader deems it should be so, then let’s all run out into the streets to enforce his will.

It’s not like it hasn’t been tried already. Remember the Red Scare of the good ol’ McCarthy days? You may not, depending upon your age, but I do. I remember back in high school having to sit through a showing of “Operation Abolition,” the propaganda film of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Churches even proudly showed the film to their congregations.

It’s no coincidence that the only state ranked lower in education than Oklahoma is New Mexico, a reader writes. Nor is it a coincidence that The Christian Nationalism being implemented at warp speed by Walters comes directly from Project 2025. And, it’s no coincidence that teacher burnout is high, teacher retention low, teacher shortage is high.

The really scary part? States like Texas, Louisiana, Idaho, and Florida are in competition to see who can be the runner-up, that same person asserts. It’s hard to argue with him.

It’s not too late to stem the tide of this foolishness, but here’s what’s going to have to occur in order to accomplish that: People are going to have to show some backbone and simply refuse to knuckle under to this authoritarian trend. It was done once and it can be done again – but at a price.

Just crack open a history book or log onto Google and do a little research. You’ll find that such people as Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Burgess Meredith, Lena Horne, Arthur Miller, Pete Seeger, Gypsy Rose Lee, Leonard Bernstein, Dorothy Parker, Burl Ives, Judy Holliday, Artie Shaw, Dashiell Hammett, Lloyd Bridges and the folk singing group The Weavers were all BLACKLISTED. Why? Not because they were subversives but because they simply refused to sign LOYALTY OATHS.

Oh, some of them attended Communist Party meetings and a couple even joined the party, but so what? The biggest friend the Communist Party of Russia has at the moment is the U.S. Republican Party. Deny that if you may, but facts are facts.

Actors and musicians weren’t the only ones affected by blacklisting. Ten left-leaning SCREENWRITERS AND DIRECTORS were actually cited for contempt by HUAC. They were Alvah, Bessie, Herbert, Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmyytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. Only when Trumbo was given full credit for such movies as Exodus, Spartacus and Roman Holiday did the Hollywood blacklist come to a close.

I am a recovering Republican (Ugh!) of some 35-40 years when the party actually stood for something – right up until the Jindal accident. But I’ll be damned if anyone is going to make me sign a loyalty oath. I served my country in the military, something that Cadet Bone Spurs never did – nor did a single member of his family, going back several generations. I don’t need to prove my loyalty to anyone.

And just so you know, loyalty oaths and RED SCARE are synonymous with McCARTHYISM, which carries the same stigmatism as Trumpism.