Litter Boxes In Schools- An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Part Six
"If we don't push back on the craziness, it's not going to end."
Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.
Anatole France
With Election Day tomorrow, I promise that this will be my absolute LAST word on this subject. I suppose I keep coming back to it because I can’t begin to fathom why decent, lucid human beings would continue to traffic in the ridiculous notion that schools are allowing students who identify as cats to use litter boxes.
Perhaps my mistake lies in presuming that the people spreading this frequently debunked urban myth are decent, lucid bipeds.
Every time I come across another iteration of this story, I ask myself, “When will the stupid end??” Clearly, the answer is that as long as there are Republicans stupid enough to think they can get mileage (and votes) out of it, this silliness will continue to rear its ugly head somewhere.
This time, it’s Oklahoma, where Republican Ryan Walters, candidate for state school superintendent (and who really should know better) is spreading this yet-to-be-proven-true-anywhere story.
Republican Ryan Walters’ comments appeared in a video posted by The Lost Ogle, an Oklahoma blog. The site said Walters was “talking to a group of fellow right-wing voters earlier this month at a meeting in Stillwater.”
“I got a call over the weekend from a former colleague and he said, ‘Ryan, I’m telling you right now...’” Walters said, before his voice trailed off a bit.
”Have you heard about the litter boxes stuff?” he then asked the audience.
Oh, yeah. Here we go. Sit back and feel the stupid wash over you.
And he’s going to play it like it’s been verified by the FBI, isn’t he? Yes, he is.
“This was a legitimate faculty meeting where the counselors and administrators were talking to the staff ― are you ready? ― about whether they should allow litter boxes in the bathrooms for kids that identify as cats,” he said. An unseen audience member can be heard among the audible reactions saying, “Oh my God.”
“And my buddy said, ‘Hey, I’m just going to tell you, I’m not teaching anymore if that happens. Like, I love teaching, it’s my passion, but I’m out of here. Like that is such a sense of, like, nonsense, I can’t pretend that that’s right. I’m out of here,’” Walters said.
So let me lay down a marker here, just in case anyone may be confused. No, there are no schools offering litter boxes to students identifying as cats. Period. End of story. It’s not happening. Not in Oklahoma. Not in New Hampshire. Not in Colorado. Not in Wakanda. Not ANYWHERE.
And yet….
Ryan Walters is not a stupid person, but he’s evidently not a principled or honest person. He was a finalist for Oklahoma Teacher of the Year in 2016. At McAlester High School in Oklahoma, “he taught Advanced Placement classes in world history, U.S. history[,] and U.S. government.” So Walters is someone with a not unreasonably high IQ. Why, then, is he pushing an urban myth that has been debunked repeatedly from coast to coast?
Is he so desperate to win that he’s willing to lie and spread cheap, easily disprovable propaganda?
As if that question is anything but rhetorical. Of course, he’s that desperate to win. He’s a Republican- remember, the unofficial GOP motto is “By whatever means necessary.”
The idea that school children are identifying as cats and demanding to be allowed to use cat litter instead of toilets has been debunked repeatedly as essentially an urban legend. Nonetheless, it has been repeated by several Republican candidates for office at various levels. Even podcaster Joe Rogan said he had heard the same thing, before recently taking it back.
An analysis by NBC News looked at 20 of those reports, and the districts named either told the outlet or stated publicly that no such incidents had occurred. Reuters, The Associated Press and USA Today have also debunked the idea.
While it was not clear if Walters was saying someone he knew had seen or attended such a meeting or that he had, the candidate presented it as a real thing to the audience in the video.
Emails to a Walters campaign website and to his official email at his secretary of education post ― an appointed position as part of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s cabinet ― were not answered.
Republicans claim to be the only party capable of leading America forward, but you can’t lead a country if you can’t even be honest about what the real problems facing it are.
Ryan Walters has to know that he’s lying, and if he doesn’t, then Oklahoma has some pretty low standards for Teacher of the Year finalists. Perhaps Walters knows that he’s appealing to the lowest common denominator, but that doesn’t mean he has to BE one.
Being a Republican doesn’t have to mean winning by any means necessary. It doesn’t have to mean lying and trafficking in ridiculous urban myths that have no basis in reality and that any rational person would know to be false.
It shouldn’t be about winning for winning’s sake. If Walters wants to emerge victorious tomorrow, what is he going to do to set him apart from his opponent? What will he do to make Oklahoma’s schools better?
Or is it really all just about winning, and so he’ll do whatever it takes and say whatever he needs to say, however untrue, to win?
Have you no decency, Mr. Walters? Remember, you were the one who said, "If we don't push back on the craziness, it's not going to end."
Whatever happened to that, I wonder?
I love the quotes! I'm afraid pushing back on the craziness won't be enough. Stupidity seems to be winning out.