May Editorial Winner

Thank Gov. Stitt for squelching freedom

By Kim Poindexter, Tahlequah Daily Press

Gov. Kevin Stitt occasionally does something right for the state of Oklahoma – something that won’t necessarily benefit him and his cronies but will be good for the common folks who cast ballots at the polls.

Other times, his actions stink. They seem more like a personal power grab than a thoughtful response to activity at the state-house. Two recent vetoes tell the tale.

First, his move to defund the OETA was nothing but a kowtow to the partisan hacks who act as marionettes for so-called “leaders” of major political parties. The hacks, in Stitt’s case, are the fearful and ill-informed “base” who see a gay person hiding behind every corner, attempting to manipulate society. His claim that the PBS station is “indoctrinating young children” with extreme LGBTQ content is a bald-faced lie. That laughable falsehood could be predicated on resentment and rage, but it’s more likely a product of ignorance. Mr. Stitt probably doesn’t watch public television; the material may be too high-brow for him. Surely he’s heard of “Sesame Street,” unless he now deems that beloved children’s feature a back-door effort to turn our kids into communists.

Furthermore, his “opinion” of public broadcasting fare is one he doesn’t share with a number of Republican legislators, who realize their constituents – both liberal and conservative – do find value in the OETA programming. That’s why Oklahoma has continued – until now, it seems – to approve funding in an almost startlingly bipartisan manner. Stitt’s claims that the OETA system is “outdated” are also a product of ignorance. Again, these are spawned either by the base or the murmuring of people around him who have an axe to grind against anything that gets help from taxpayers.

We should amend that. The hacks are perfectly OK with tax-payers continuing to prop up energy companies. They’re just not OK with anything educational. They assume keeping the population ignorant will ensure they remain in power. Despite the term limits, they’re probably right about that.

There’s a chance the Legislature could override Stitt’s ridiculous veto – if they have the courage and the moral strength to do it. We won’t hold our breath.

Meanwhile, the carpetbagger governor – whose ancestors were accused back in the early 1900s of having falsely attained Cherokee Nation membership to get a land allotment and an attempt was made to disenroll them– has pulled another boner that will surely insult every tribe in the state. He has unilaterally decided he won’t allow students to wear tribal regalia to their graduation ceremonies. Again, this was a bipartisan measure that easily sailed through the Legislature, thanks to the fact that a huge swatch of Oklahoma is enrolled with one tribe or another. This could be an attempt to exact revenge over an old quarrel with the Cherokees – or just as likely, to settle the score over more recent disputes.

What the governor has done in this case is to single-handedly stepped all over the religious freedoms of Native students. In most people’s books, that would be unconstitutional. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Stitt, who must see himself as a sort of beloved authoritarian figure for this state. It will be recalled by most Oklahomans that the man had a very sparse record of voting in elections.

Stitt isn’t Donald Trump, even though he and others – most notably, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – seem to believe themselves in that category. They’re wrong. What they are doing is helping disavow the long-standing American concept of “liberty.” With Stitt and others running the show, it’s folly for us to continue viewing ourselves as “free.” We are instead held captive to the whims of those with egos the size of Texas.