Imagine a stranger comes to town with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Everywhere he goes — restaurants, church, nice walks in the park — he has this briefcase with him. The stranger is lovely. Everyone likes him. He’s found a house to rent, and he’s making himself a member of the community. But he hasn’t ever opened that briefcase. Finally, someone asks him what’s in it. He smiles and says, “Oh, nothing.” And then he moves the conversation along to other things.
Later, someone asks him again, “What’s in the briefcase?” The stranger again says “Nothing.” The person who raised the question asks, “No really, what’s in the briefcase?” The stranger seems a little annoyed now, “I’m not going to show you.”
The police chief says, “I will pay you $5 to show me what’s in the briefcase.”
The stranger says, “Oh no, I would never take the money of a public servant.”
A Metro councilmember says, “Maybe I could pay you $100 out of a fund no one pays much attention to.”
The stranger says, “I don’t know — I just don’t feel right taking government money.”
The mayor offers $1,000, right out of city funds. The stranger just shakes his head. “It’s not that I don’t like you all. You’ve been so wonderful. It’s just the principal of it. I don’t take government money. I have a whole thing about it.”
Then the governor appears on a pile of almost 23,000 corpses that everyone pretends not to see, and he says, “I’m going to pool together money from all the taxpayers in the state, and we will give you millions of dollars for the briefcase.”
“I said I don’t take government money.”
“Millions of dollars,” reiterates the governor.
“Fine,” says the stranger. He and the governor make a deal for the exchange. The next morning, the state deposits millions of dollars in the stranger’s bank account. But there’s no sign of the stranger at the exchange. The governor immediately sends someone to the stranger’s house, but it’s empty. Abandoned. Except for the briefcase sitting in the middle of the floor, with a key on top.
Pop quiz:
- What’s in the briefcase?
- Like the stranger said, nothing.
- I don’t know, but something worth millions of dollars, or why would we pay that much for it?
- A tool for “cultivating students into a certain kind of human being … such that they become men and women who love the right things and are characterized by virtue and wisdom.”
- Did the stranger come to town looking to scam people out of their money?
- Yes
- Yes, but with “Come on! He hangs out with Andy Ngo! Of course he’s a grifter.”
- At what point in the story did it become apparent the stranger was a con artist?
- When he made sure everyone saw him with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist but refused to answer questions about it.
- When everyone was rushing to give him money even though it really didn’t make any sense.
- When he bragged repeatedly about not taking government funds before turning around and taking government funds.
Y’all, our governor would flunk this quiz. He has less common sense than an armadillo that sees a vehicle coming and leaps up into the grill to avoid being run over instead of just not wandering around in the road. My sweet old dead dog Rufus once spent 10 minutes with a piece of pork chop stuck to his forehead because he thought when things disappeared from his sight, they disappeared from existence. I suspect Rufus has more critical-thinking skills than Gov. Bill Lee. (I was going to fix that to say “Rufus had more critical thinking skills than Bill Lee,” but then I glanced up and saw Rufus' box of ashes, and ... I stand by the sentence as is.)
At the State of the State address last week, Lee — a man who wore a Confederate uniform in college — complained about colleges being anti-American. (Are we allowed to explain to the governor that celebrating people who literally tried to destroy the United States and were a bunch of traitors is anti-American, or does that bit of knowledge about the Confederacy fall under the dreaded umbrella of critical race theory?) Also in his address, Lee announced that the state will partner with Hillsdale College to open a bunch of charter schools that will teach kids Hillsdale’s pro-America classical education curriculum.
How does he not see that this is a scam? I’m actually at the point with Lee where I pray he does know this is a scam, but a scam somebody he likes supports so he’s going along with it. But this is the same man who handed out face masks with holes big enough that you could see through them. And the same man who let a bunch of bills he thought had real problems pass into law, even though his job is literally to veto legislation he doesn’t think is ready to be a law. This is not a man who knows what he’s doing.
I don’t like Bill Lee, but I’m literally cringing with second-hand embarrassment about this situation, so I’m going to try to explain it as simply as I can, hoping maybe someone will print this out and slip it under the governor’s door.
Hillsdale College says it does not take money from the government. I’m literally quoting their website here: “Hillsdale College is a small, Christian, classical liberal arts college in southern Michigan that operates independently of government funding.” Gov. Lee, you are a governor who is the head of our state's government. Same root word, so you should be being constantly reminded of what your role is and in what kind of institution. If Hillsdale College will take money from the Tennessee government, then they are literally lying about who they say they are and what they understand their mission to be.
That should be the first and most enormous red flag that all is not well with this situation.
If you read a little more about their charter schools, you start to get the sense that they recognize some folks might have problems with people who don’t take money from the government taking money from the government, so they explain: “Hillsdale College assists schools and school founding groups who demonstrate fidelity to our mission and program, have a strong plan for a successful launch, and are selected through our competitive application process. Notably, Hillsdale College does not own, govern, or manage its affiliated schools.” So see, they’re not taking money from the government, since they don’t own, govern or manage these schools. They’re just aiding school-founding groups who will take money from the government. This is the Three-Card Monte of arguments. It’s just their name, and they select schools, and the schools have to be faithful to Hillsdale’s mission, but they don’t govern or manage these schools? Please. What is this selection process and the mechanism by which they make sure a school is faithful to Hillsdale’s mission if not management?
Not to mention the other big red flag. If it’s so important to Hillsdale’s identity that it not take government money, how could any of the charter schools they set up take government money and still be faithful to Hillsdale’s mission and program? That’s a troubling but self-apparent contradiction built right into the foundation of this endeavor.
And they’ll surely benefit from the state-funded publicity they’re getting for this. This setup is like money laundering. Hillsdale sets up the schools. The schools take the government money. Hillsdale benefits from these schools existing with their name associated with them and their curriculum being taught in the classrooms, so they benefit from the state money. But since the money from the state doesn’t directly go to the college, they still are technically not taking government money.
This is the “soaking” of funding mechanisms. They’re technically not taking the money, but they’ll lay really, really close to the money and benefit from being in the money, and if Gov. Lee bounces them in such a way that they are thrust into some money in a fun way, well, they’re still kind of keeping pure, right?
Of course not. It’s silly when college kids think that about sex, and it’s silly when colleges think that about money. And it’s embarrassing when the governor cannot see this silliness for what it is.
