John Ragan Thinks He’s a Philosopher-King. He’s Just a Bigot With a Thesaurus.
The former Tennessee lawmaker wants to lecture us on virtue. But his record is cruelty, his weapon is control, and his legacy is a blueprint for punching down.
John Ragan wrote an op-ed this week, and you can almost see him puffing out his chest as he hit “send.”
He wants you to know he’s read Aristotle. That he reveres James Madison. That he understands the soul of the Republic in ways today’s protestors - those reckless, unruly little people - clearly don’t.
He’s here to tell you that civic virtue is dying. And wouldn’t you know it? He thinks activists killed it.
What he doesn’t say… What he hopes you won’t remember, is that he’s spent his entire career trying to strip civic virtue from anyone who wasn’t straight, white, submissive, and silent.
Let’s get this straight: John Ragan is not a statesman. He’s not a moral authority. He’s not even a particularly clever ideologue.
He is a small man with a loud voice, who used his time in office to bully queer kids, censor history teachers, and punish the poor, all while hiding behind the language of “virtue” like a coward in costume.
And now, from the safety of retirement, he wants to sneer at a generation rising up to fix the mess he helped create?
Nope. Not today.
The Closet Monster of the State Legislature
Ragan is perhaps best known (and rightly condemned) for trying to force Tennessee schools to out LGBTQ students to their parents.
He co-sponsored the Classroom Protection Act in 2013 (HB1332/SB234), which required teachers and counselors to notify parents if a student discussed sexuality or was suspected of being gay or transgender.
He called it a school safety measure. The ACLU, Tennessee Equality Project, and child welfare advocates called it dangerous and traumatizing. Even the conservative group StudentsFirst rescinded an award they had given Ragan over this bill.
Then he came back with HB1151 in 2019 - a bathroom bill cloaked in the language of “indecent exposure.” It expanded the criminal code to charge people using restrooms or locker rooms “designated for the opposite sex” with a misdemeanor.
Ragan defended it by saying:
“I don’t care if they think they’re a woman… they’ve still exposed my granddaughters to something they shouldn’t be exposed to.”
Then in 2022, Ragan sent an official letter to public universities demanding they remove references to LGBTQ people as a protected class under Title IX. He argued that a federal injunction meant schools had no “legal authorization” to mention LGBTQ protections.
Chris Sanders of the Tennessee Equality Project called it what it was: a political stunt and a clear abuse of power.
When Bigotry Hides Behind “Law and Order”
In 2017, Ragan introduced HB222 - a bill requiring driver’s licenses for legal immigrants (like students or workers) to be labeled with the word ALIEN in all caps.
His justification?
“There were only 19 hijackers that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11.”
Yes, he compared international grad students and engineers to terrorists. The business community objected, and the bill quietly died.
In 2020, Ragan voted for HB8005, a law making it a felony to camp on state property during protests which targeted Black Lives Matter demonstrators outside the state capitol.
And in April 2023, Ragan voted to expel Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson (two Black lawmakers) for briefly joining a protest on the House floor to call for gun reform after a school shooting.
No criminal charges. No violence. Just a breach of decorum. Ragan voted to strip away the will of the voters anyway.
The Courage to Lie
Ragan was the author of Tennessee’s anti-CRT law - passed in May 2021 after he slipped a massive “divisive concepts” amendment into a bill in the final hours of session.
It banned teaching that the U.S. is “fundamentally racist,” or that any group bears responsibility for historical wrongs. It also banned saying “the rule of law is a series of power relationships.”
When asked how to objectively teach topics like the Holocaust under his law, Ragan said:
“Remind students that the perpetrators were made in the image and likeness of God.”
His Legacy Is a Warning
Every major LGBTQ rights group in the state - Tennessee Equality Project, ACLU of Tennessee, Southern Poverty Law Center - has named Ragan directly in opposition to his legislation.
Over 100 clergy signed an open letter denouncing his 2019 and 2021 bills as part of a “Slate of Hate.”
His bills have prompted lawsuits from Jewish families, immigrant families, and educators. Every single one of them arguing that John Ragan’s version of “morality” doesn’t make room for basic decency or equal rights under the law.
So No, You Don’t Get to Lecture Anyone
When Ragan says activists are a threat to civic virtue, what he means is: people are finally standing up to the systems he spent a decade enforcing.
His version of morality is narrow, his application of “prudence” is punishment, and his calls for courage ring hollow next to the communities he’s harmed.
This man - who quoted Churchill and Aristotle - used state power to kick down at children.
And now he wants to act like the grown-up in the room?
We remember who you are, John. And no amount of footnotes will make your cruelty look like courage.
Civic virtues are necessary for a free society. Today's activists seem lacking | Opinion by John Ragan originally published on the oakridger.com
In his speech to the Virginia Convention considering ratification of what would become the U.S. Constitution, James Madison remarked: To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [unrealistic] idea.
Among others, Madison was referring to the civic virtues the ancient Greeks had identified hundreds of years earlier. The ancient Greeks held that the four main virtues that a good citizen of a republic should possess were prudence, temperance (self-restraint), fortitude, and justice.
Not surprisingly, Aristotle − and Winston Churchill, centuries later − identified fortitude or courage as the most important civic virtue in the list. Their rationale was simple: Without it, none of the others can long survive.
Characterizing what courage actually means, renowned author and insightful commentator on human nature Mark Twain observed: Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear − not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word.
It is important to note that, when discussing courage, both physical and moral perspectives must be recognized. While these two components frequently coexist in acts of bravery, they can also be present independently.
When rhetoric appeals to emotions, facts can be obscured
This kind of consideration demands another of the cardinal civic virtues be emphasized in conjunction with moral courage: prudence. According those ancient Greeks, prudence is the ability to govern and discipline oneself through the use of reason. In other words, it is prioritizing provable facts and valid logic over half-true generalities, rhetorical obfuscations, and emotional red herrings.
Throughout the ages clever rhetoric has often clouded human reasoning and judgment. More often than not, rhetoric intentionally appeals to emotions, an integral part of the human experience, rather than to reason. Indeed, such is frequently done purposely in an attempt to obscure facts and twist logic. This duplicity drives an uncritical target of such rhetoric to exercise what they think is “moral courage” for actually “immoral” ends.
Consider the following rhetorical abuses of language: “It was mostly peaceful demonstrations” that destroyed multiple millions of dollars in property … An illegal alien who intentionally broke our immigration laws is only an “undocumented migrant,” not a criminal regardless of legal definitions or other offenses … Foreign visitors in our country have a “right” to take over campuses and streets to intimidate and physically attack Jewish college students who are American citizens … Illegal aliens found by judges in formal immigration hearings to have entered our country without permission or overstayed visas were somehow not given “due process” … Penalizing a convicted perpetrator (of a politically correct demographic category) in accordance with the law is “cruelly separating” family members … Throwing rocks and bricks at law enforcement personnel doing their duty is acceptable if it is done in big American cities while waving foreign flags.
The list goes on and on, but these examples are sufficient to establish the point.
As President John Adams famously noted: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
This circumstance is precisely why ancient Greeks strongly emphasized decisions based on sound reasoning over sentiment as a civic virtue. Regrettably, it seems far too many activists and their deluded sycophants lack the will to exercise the civic virtue of prudence.
Activists flout the rule of law, inviting vicious actions
What drives these activists and their followers? Is it their unbridled lust for political power? Is it, perhaps, their inability to ignore illogical passions inflamed by rhetoric? How can they “care” so much for the law-breakers they disingenuously call “victims” that they ignore the real victims hurt (sometimes grievously) by those lawbreakers’ criminal actions?
Whatever the case, the activists flout the rule of law, the cornerstone of our constitutional republic. Such disregard nourishes corruption and invites vicious actions. Consider, for example, vandalizing Tesla automobiles, firebombing businesses, murdering health company executives, and randomly slaughtering innocent bystanders with Molotov cocktails, mass shootings and stabbings.
Founding father and polymath Benjamin Franklin boldly proclaimed: Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. Therefore, let us rigorously exercise civic virtues regardless of the required effort, especially courage informed by prudence. It is the only way to keep ours a government of, by and for the people rather than one of political masters.
John D. Ragan is a resident of Oak Ridge and former state legislator.