I was taught long ago not to question a good decision because one person doesn’t like it.

There are only ever two reasons why we might.

1. We really want everyone to like it. So we think it needs to be better.
2. That person gives a lot of money. And we’re worried they will stop.

Neither reason is very good.

A rash of new bills presented under the guise of “parent rights” seem to do just that. Offering one parent the chance to stop something because they don’t like it.

Whether this is a majority of parents or a single one may not, in the future, make all the difference in the world. But letting one do it now probably does.

The problem should be obvious.

We can’t have individuals circumventing the rules. It isn’t democratic or reasonable.

Many don’t like the thought of term limits influencing the work of judges. Can you imagine giving Karen a bigot veto to the Supreme Court decisions she thinks harm her child?

Where would it end? It is pretty obvious to imagine a growing army breaking all functional systems with a simple argument: “but the children!”

But there is another problem.

A problem exposed by the fact that many, many parents have long expressed reasonable and evidence-based objections to how schools deal with gun violence, abstinence-only education, and the bigoted abuse many children face based on race, gender, or ability. Where is their veto?

That’s right. They don’t get one. Because it is authoritarianism run amok.

My individual objection to our school district’s abstinence-only curriculum doesn’t prevent our school from implementing it. Nor does it hold any teacher or faculty-member criminally liable for offering it against my personal objection.

Our collective work is to prove such curricula are bad for our kids. And we do so by moving the school corporation to change it. And by moving the state to change its laws.

This is the farce of individualistic pseudo-logic.

Many people think this is sensible and reasonable. Who doesn’t want to protect their kids? And it has a kind of individualistic logic. But it utterly crumbles with exposure to the real world and any other argument. No matter how much partisan spin and obsessive desire we paint onto it, this won’t work. It can’t work fairly.

We don’t want our society making decisions this way. And there is no small cadre of anti-bigots trying to ban other people’s books or jail librarians. This is a very one-sided deal. And that “side” wants some people to have a pocket veto in society.

And that’s not how democracies work.