It’s time to disarm federal bullies

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released a statement threatening to withhold lunch money from any “state and local agencies, program operators and sponsors that receive funds from FNS [Food and Nutrition Service]” unless they “investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” and “update their non-discrimination policies and signage.” 

Annually, Wyoming schools receive about $90 million from the FNS to provide lunches to Wyoming’s poorest children. Like a bully, the USDA is using Wyoming’s poor as leverage to force the Wyoming Department of Education, every school district in Wyoming, and sundry other public and private operators to adopt globalist policies.

These policies are not new. Wyoming’s legislature has debated and rejected them for more than a decade. Every time they come up, globalist stakeholders like the National Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Microsoft, and a cabal of multinational corporations typically threaten to disrupt the economy unless they are adopted. Rank-and-file Wyomingites, on the other hand, view them as Orwellian Newspeak that does not combat discrimination, but creates it.

Spirited discussion on "discrimination policy"
Cheyenne, WY, December, 2018

No matter which side you support, you are a free person. Your freedom consists in hearing the arguments, weighing the facts, and supporting the policy that you believe is best. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and coercing your decision.

But the USDA just changed that. It just pointed a loaded $90 million gun at the Wyoming Department of Education, and every local school board. With a finger on the trigger, it now says, “you must accept the very policies that you have rejected in the past, or else.”

How should free people respond to such a threat? What is the best way to respond to a school lunch bully? Wyoming’s superintendent of education, Brian Schroeder, led the way. In a statement released last Friday, he said: “[it is] both disheartening and astounding that our federal government could become so cynical as to tie the school lunches of little kids to its ever-relentless agenda of social engineering.” “In any other world, this would be sized up for exactly what it is: extortion.”

Extortion is the proper word. Every single Wyomingite should be appalled and outraged. 

Even our friends who support the “non-discrimination policies” of the USDA should stand with one voice against the bullying tactics of the federal government aimed at states and school districts. They should recognize that the USDA’s resorting to extortion undermines their own good-faith arguments. For extortion, by its very nature, is an abandonment of reason and moral authority. It replaces right with might.

We should also take this moment to remember how we got into this situation. How did the USDA come into possession of this $90 million gun that is now aimed at Wyoming’s children? The sad answer is that we armed the federal government by accepting its largess. 

Money is power. Every lawmaker, every school board, every state agency that empowers federal agencies to tax Wyoming citizens, so they can give it back with strings attached, gives potential bullies a gun. This gun can be turned on us in an instant. Now, it has been.

Superintendent Schroeder’s statement was bold and clear. But it lacked any indication of how he could protect our kids from this armed assault. Instead, he appealed directly to Wyoming citizens. “I only hope that ‘We the People’ have the stomach to stand up to it, because it won’t stop until the people say ‘enough.’ If we don’t, we will be guilty of enabling an overbearing and oppressive federal government that is completely out of control.” So, what exactly can we do? 

First, we can say, “No.” School board members in every county, vocally supported by the Wyoming School Board Association, should absolutely refuse to vote on any policy whatsoever in response to the bullying of the USDA. They should send a clear message that the federal government cannot coerce their vote—whether they agree with the policy, or not.

Second, Governor Gordon should protect our children against this bullying by instructing the attorney general to coordinate with other states that are planning to sue the USDA. This will not only support schools, it is also good politics. Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, just won her primary challenge after she promised to hold the USDA accountable to US law.

Third, it is time that every Wyoming citizen implement federal “gun control.” Now that we have seen how federal agencies can turn the powerful gun of money against our children, we need to disarm them by electing representatives who will shut off their supply of money and keep us out of the position of dependence on federal handouts. With primaries only 10 weeks away, now is the time to act.