Just another reason not to trust the state. There’s no telling who all they rounded up, some of these people very well may have been horrible people (though I doubt it). Most were probably small time criminals, people who hadn’t shown up in court for their traffic tickets and the like.
The scary thing though is that they used the lure of Federal money to bring people out of the woodwork. I can’t put a finger on it, but something about that just seems wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that it seems like they’re taking advantage of peoples need to feed their families, pay their bills, and just survive.
I bet you all 8.2p that a Moslem girl, home educated, would not be forced into a “State” “school”. The GramscoStalinist Fabian free sex buggers would never think of even daring to ask. Now I do know that most Libertarians are either atheist or anti-religious, but this is an issue of individual freedom. I have already said today on a comment that we can’t go round killing all the members of the Enemy Class upon the event of our victory on day one, since that will degrade us to their level: we will have, sadly, to continue to allow them the means to prosecute their perverted science on purpose, upon others. So the war will continue, until one side or other gets serious about a result…..
David Davis
Here.
Court orders Christian child into government education
10-year-old’s ‘vigorous’ defense of her faith condemned by judge
A 10-year-old homeschool girl described as “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level” has been told by a New Hampshire court official to attend a government school because she was too “vigorous” in defense of her Christian faith.
The decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”
The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was “a step too far” for any court.
The ADF confirmed today it has filed motions with the court seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H.
(Story continues below)
The dispute arose as part of a modification of a parenting plan for the girl. The parents divorced in 1999 when she was a newborn, and the mother has homeschooled her daughter since first grade with texts that meet all state standards.
In addition to homeschooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities, the ADF reported.
But during the process of negotiating the terms of the plan, a guardian ad litem appointed to participate concluded the girl “appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith” and that the girl’s interests “would be best served by exposure to a public school setting” and “different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief … in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.”
According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, “If I want her in public school, she’ll be in public school.”
The marital master hearing the case proposed the Christian girl be ordered into public school after considering “the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others.”
“Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. In this case specifically, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working,” said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons of Hampton.
“The court is essentially saying that the evidence shows that, socially and academically, this girl is doing great, but her religious beliefs are a bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews. This is a step too far for any court to take.”
“The New Hampshire Supreme Court itself has specifically declared, ‘Home education is an enduring American tradition and right,’” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. “There is clearly and without question no legitimate legal basis for the court’s decision, and we trust it will reconsider its conclusions.”
The case, handled in the Family Division of the Judicial Court for Belknap County in Laconia, involves Martin Kurowski and Brenda Kurowski (Voydatch), and their daughter.
The ADF also argued that the issue already was raised in 2006 and rejected by the court.
“Most urgent … is the issue of Amanda’s schooling as the school year has begun and Amanda is being impacted by the court’s decision daily,” the court filing requesting a stay said. “Serious state statutory and federal constitutional concerns are implicated by the court’s ruling and which need to be remedied without delay.
“It is not the proper role of the court to insist that Amanda be ‘exposed to different points of view’ if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda’s best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine Amanda’s faith, schooling, social development, etc. The court is not permitted to demonstrate hostility toward religion, and particularly the faith of Amanda and Mother, by removing Amanda from the home and thrusting her into an environment that the custodial parent deems detrimental to Amanda.”
“The order assumes that because Amanda has sincerely held Christian beliefs, there must be a problem that needs solving. It is a parent’s constitutionally protected right to train up their children in the religious beliefs that they hold. It is not up to the court to suggest that a 10-year-old should be ‘exposed’ to other religious views contrary to the faith traditions of her parents. Could it not be that this sharp 10-year-old ‘vigorously’ believes what she does because she knows it to be true? The court’s narrative suggests that 10-year-olds are too young to form opinions and that they are not yet allowed to have sincerely held Christian beliefs,” the ADF said.
“Absent any other clear and convincing evidence justifying the court’s decision, it would appear that the court has indeed taken sides with regard to the issue of religion and has preferred one religious view over another (or the absence of religion). This is impermissible,” the documents said.
The guardian ad litem had an anti-Christian bias, the documents said, telling the mother at one point she wouldn’t even look at homeschool curriculum.
“I don’t want to hear it. It’s all Christian based,” she said.
Krauthammer: “Trial Lawyers Own The Democrat Party”
Howard Dean Admits the Democrats Oppose Tort Reform out of their Fear of Trial Lawyers.
MICHAEL SAVAGE on TORT REFORM HEALTH CARE VERMINOUS LAWYERS
Obama doesn’t support tort reform — AMA boos
Why is Tort Reform so Vital to HC Reform? Where is it in the Obamacare plan?
Texans for Lawsuit Reform
Will you stand up? (Health Care)
President Obama’s Health Insurance Reform initiative is a very bad joke.
One of the major drivers of rising health insurance premiums is the cost of defensive medicine and malpractice insurance resulting from trail laywers filing frivilous lawyers suits and the lack of damages limits or ceilings in many states.
The Democratic Party will not mention or address this issue for the simple reason that one of their biggest campaign contributors are the trail lawyers in United States.
Doctors are fleeing states they have not enacted tort reform laws and going to states that have reformed their tort reform such as Texas.
As long as the Democrats control Congress and the Senate you will not see national tort reform which is badly needed to eliminate or at least diminish one of the major causes of out of control medical and health insurance costs.
The silence on the majority of the Democratic Party on this issue speaks for itself.
Give me a break Mr. President–you are bought and paid for by the trail lawyers.
Background Articles and Videos
John Stossel is Young America’s Foundation”s 2008 Milton Friedman Lecturer. Given on wednesday May 28, 2008
John Stossel 1 of 5 Freedom and its Enemies .wmv
Obama Signs Anti-smoking Bill Into Law
Obama Smoking in the WhiteHouse
Healthcare Reform or Tort Reform?
Related Post On Pronk Palisades
Public Option = Government Option = Pathway to Single Payer = Single Payer = Socialized Medicine = Blue Pill = Poison Pill
Obama: First We Kill The Babies, Then We Kill The Elderly, Then We Kill The Veterans–Your Life, Your Choices–Your Time Is Up!
This Joker Is A Lost Cause: Keeping President Obama Honest on Health Care–Let’s But A Smile On That Face–Staying Alive
Fact 1. Federal Government Health Insurance Is Compulsory–Kill The Bill–H.R. 3200
Patient Empowerment: Health Savings Accounts–High Deductible Catastrophic Health Insurance–Affordable, Portable, Fair, Individual Health Care Plan–Consumer Driven Health Care Reform!
The Dangers Of A Single Payer Health Care System: Ronald Reagan On Socialized Medicine and Friedrich A. Hayek On State Monopoly
The American People Believe The Government Public Option Plan Is The Path To The Single Payer Government Plan–Socialized Medicine–Obama Caught Lying To The American People!
The American People Confront Obama’s Red Shirts (ACORN) and Purple Shirts (SEIU)–Bullhorns and Beatings Over Obama Care!
The Obama Depression Has Arrived: 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 Unemployed Americans–Stimulus Package and Bailouts A Failure–400,000 Leave Labor Force In July!
Obama’s Marching Orders For His Red Shirts (ACORN), Purple Shirts (SEIU) and Black Shirts (New Panther Party)–Progressive Radical Socialists
Health Care Resources
Republican Health Care Reform: The Patients’ Choice Act
Medical Doctor and Senator Tom Coburn On Health Care–Videos
The Senate Doctors Show–Videos
Obama’s Waterloo– Government Compulsory Single Payer Socialized Medicine!–Videos
President Obama’s Plan of Massive Deficit Spending Is Destroying The US Economy–The American People Say Stop Socialism BS Now!
The Bum’s Rush of The American People: The Totally Irresponsible Democratic Party Health Care Bill and Obama’s Big Lie Exposed
Chairman Obama’s Progressive Radical Socialist Health Care Bill Kills Individual Private Health Care Insurance–Join The Second American Revolution!
The Obama Big Lie and Inconvenient Truth About Health Care–The Public Option Trojan Horse–Leads To A Single Payor Goverment Monopoly of Health Care and The Bankruptcy of USA!
The Obama Public Option Poison Pill For A Government Health Care Monopoly–Single Payer System–Betting Your Life and Paying Though The Nose
Government Bureaucracy: Organizational Chart of The House Democrats’ Health Plan
Dr. Robert W. Christensen–Videos
John Stossel–Sick In America–Videos
Fox News has just posted RAW DATA: Transcript of Cheney on ‘FOX News Sunday’. I’m not a lawyer and I’m certainly no expert on national security. I try to keep to economics because I have training and expertise there. Some times, because I’ve been given front page privileges, I bring things up that I’ve read because they just shake me to my core. I really believe from the bottom of what I feel is right and wrong that the policies pushed on this country by Dick Cheney were beyond pale and the U.S Constitution. I’d like to compare Cheney’s thoughts to some other Americans who have known the privilege of serving the American public and taken oaths to uphold our Constitution. I consider these Americans to be the experts that I am not on matters of the U.S. Constitution and Liberty.
Here is a quote from a great American justice that encapsulates what I feel right now as I share the contents of that interview.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal — well-meaning but without understanding.
Louis D. Brandeis
Then, there are these thoughts from two great Presidents and Statesmen.
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson
The history of liberty is the history of the limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.
Woodrow Wilson
Then, there is the granddaddy of all liberty quotes.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Here are some quotes from the Cheney interview:
I’m very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the last eight years successfully. And, you know, it won’t take a prosecutor to find out what I think. I’ve already expressed those views rather forthrightly.
…
I knew about the waterboarding. Not specifically in any one particular case, but as a general policy that we had approved.
…
Chris, my sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States, and giving us the intelligence we needed to go find Al Qaeda, to find their camps, to find out how they were being financed. Those interrogations were involved in the arrest of nearly all the Al Qaeda members that we were able to bring to justice. I think they were directly responsible for the fact that for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States.It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.
…
I think that if they were faced with the kind of situation we were faced with in the aftermath of 9/11, suddenly capturing people that may have knowledge about imminent attacks, and they’re going to have to have meetings and decide who gets to ask what question and who’s going to Mirandize the witness, I think it’s silly. It makes no sense. It doesn’t appear to be a serious move in terms of being able to deal with the nation’s security.
…
The thing I keep coming back to time and time again, Chris, is the fact that we’ve gone for eight years without another attack. Now, how do you explain that?
The critics don’t have any solution for that. They can criticize our policies, our way of doing business, but the results speak for themselves. And, as well as the efforts that we went to with the Justice Department and so forth to make certain what we were doing was legal, was consistent with our international treaty obligations.
Oh, one more quote for you from some one around way before the U.S. Constitution was ever written.
A prince, then, who would be powerful should have no care or thought but for war, lest he lose his dominions. If he be ignorant of military affairs he can neither be respected by the soldiers nor trust them. Therefore, he must both practise and study this art. For the practice, the chase in many respects provides an excellent training both in knowledge of the country and in vigour of the body. As to study, a prince should read histories, note the actions of great men and examine the causes of their victories and defeats, imitating those who have been renowned.
Anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything must be ruined among so many who are not good. It is essential therefore for a prince to have learnt how to be other than good and to use, or not to use, his goodness as necessity requires.
This Machiavelli quote from the Prince and the section entitled “Of Maintaining a Princedom” is usually thought to be the source of the old saying “The ends justify the means”. I don’t know about you, but this is essentially what I was taught about Machiavelli when I had to read The Prince in junior high school.
Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian statesman and writer and is considered one of the most significant political thinkers of the Renaissance. His best-known work, The Prince, describes cunning and unscrupulous methods for rulers to gain and keep power.
Which of our past leaders should we look to for inspiration concerning liberty and the existence of our constitutional Republic?
Digg!!! Share!!! Tweet!!! Read the U.S. Constitution Weekly!!!!
It’s a slick propaganda tool aimed at the kids — “The Great Flu,” an online game sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, the folks who have started testing their pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine on hapless and dim-witted human guinea pigs.
It will be lucrative windfall, so propaganda is essential. “British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is set to reap billions as fear of the swine flu pandemic grows. The world’s second-largest drug company has secured orders from 16 countries for 195 million doses of the vaccine it is developing against the H1N1 virus, which has killed more than 740 people worldwide,” reports BusinessWeek.
GlaxoSmithKline and Solvay Biologicals present a slick propaganda device to get the kids ready for the contrived panemic.
“The U. S. government has paid pharmaceutical companies $7.9 billion since 2004 to develop the capacity to mass vaccine the entire U.S. population by 2011,” writes Herb Werborg. “Under the perceived threat of H1N1, these plans have been accelerated to include the use of a non FDA approved chemical adjuvant suspected of causing Gulf War Syndrome, circumventing the FDA approval process for this potentially life threatening chemical.”
In Britain, the Health Protection Agency has warned that the profitable vaccine may increase Guillain-Barré syndrome. The UK’s medicines watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, is already monitoring reported side effects from Tamiflu and Relenza and it is set to extend that surveillance to the vaccine, according to the Telegraph.
Ranji Serious Games — and the toxic and deadly H1N1 vaccine certainly is serious — and GlaxoSmithKline may want to send this “game” (propaganda device) back to the developers to work the rest of the story into the equation.
Don’t forget the Christian Libertarian Blog Carnival is fast approaching. We’re looking for a recent post of yours that presents your thoughts from a Christian, libertarian perspective. To get an idea of how this works you can review the original introductory post at The Holy Cause and take a look at the past carnivals here, here and here. You can send your submissions by email to me here, use the submissions form at BlogCarnival.com or the submission widget found on the right sidebar at The Holy Cause. Deadline for submission is August 31. The targeted publishing date is September 7.
We’re also looking for a new host. Please let me know if you’d like to volunteer to host the next carnival. I’ll provide the dates when I publish the upcoming carnival.
Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America’s Slide into Socialism by Jim DeMint (Nashville: Fidelis Books, 2009) is the only book I know of with its own Twitter account.
I was excited when I learned about the book because I’ve been impressed with the work Senator DeMint has been doing to hold back the flood of socialism in Washington. I enjoyed the first few chapters, though I did get a little tired of the stories he started them with and his experiences.
However, I was disappointed when I read Chapter Thirteen, “The Plan to Save Freedom: Change Begins with Us.” Senator DeMint’s A-PLUS Act and most parts of Representative Ryan’s “Road Map for American’s Future” are unacceptable if not socialist because they involve the federal government in areas like education, retirement plans (Social Security), and health care, which are not among the areas over which the Constitution gives it power. The only conservative plan in these areas should be to get the federal government out of them completely and as quickly as possible.
Is Jim DeMint just another big-government Republican like George W. Bush? I hope not, but I’m not sure any more.
When the first American revolution began to assemble, there were no army’s in place to protect the colonist as they were under British rule. They lived a meek existence dependent upon a King that had little regard for their needs as they attempted to set up and create new beginnings in a new land. It started out being only a few angry people that were rapidly becoming tired of the taxation without representation. Their message slowing began to resonate across the land and Liberty and justice for all soon rang out as a sign of victory and one of independence.
History has a odd way of often repeating itself, and once again some 233 years later we find ourselves in similar situations. We have taxation without representation, a government fueled not for the people by the people as it was set forth in our constitution but one of greed, a hunger for power and a desire of reform.
Their idea of reform is to make us dependent on a government that has been proven to be unable to manage the programs of their own making and yet they expect us to sit idly by and remain silent as they did over 200 years ago. Like our brethren from those days, we have those who are willing to stand up against the tyranny, the arrogant, the condescension. The time has come to join them and to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and renounce this oppression.
We have a choice, my fellow Americans… do we sit back and let this government with it’s many czars continue to change the face of our great nation? Do we let the government dictate how our physicians are able to treat us? Do we sit back and remain quiet as they quadruple our deficit, leaving a debt for generations to come? Will they be able to recover? Do we once again let this government lead us into a depression, one without creating jobs as was promised and banishing any hope we have of a recovery?
This administration has misled the American public, promising to cross the aisle and jointly attempt to resolve the conflicts of the day. But we have seen the real change that is being brought forth, he isn’t reaching across the aisle….they are merely surrounding themselves with more people like Ayers, Soros, Farrahkhan,Wright…People who want to bring about change and disruption into our lives, their purpose is to change our fundamental beliefs and bestow upon us their ideologies of socialism, fascism and communism…
Are you willing to sit idly by and let these people cast darkness and shadow the very spirit of the “Patriot” that lives within or will are you williing to make a stand and renounce this once and for all….We must remember the battle hymn of the republic and may it play in the hearts of many as we march onward to take our country back. Do you have the spirit, the calling…for mine eyes have seen the glory and I am making a stand……..
This was also posted on Logical Choice Action GroupJoin Now!
“For the Statist, liberty is not a blessing but the enemy. It is not possible to achieve Utopia if individuals are free to go their own way. The individual must be dehumanized and his nature delegitimized. Through persuasion, deception, and coercion, the individual must be subordinated to the state. He must abandon his own ambitions for the ambitions of the state. He must become reliant on and fearful of the state. His first duty must be to the state–not family, community, and faith, all of which have the potential of threatening the state. Once despirited, the individual can be molded by the state.
“The Statist’s Utopia can take many forms, and has throughout human history, including monarchism, feudalism, militarism, fascism, communism, national socialism, and economic socialism. They are all of the same species—tyranny. The primary principle around which the Statist organizes can be summed up in a single word—equality.
“Equality, as understood by the Founders, is the natural right of every individual to live freely under self-government, to acquire and retain the property he creates through his own labor, and to be treated impartially before a just law. Moreover, equality should not be confused with perfection, for man is also imperfect, making his application of equality, even in the most just society, imperfect. Otherwise, inequality is the natural state of man in the sense that each individual is born unique in all his human characteristics. Therefore, equality and inequality, properly comprehended, are both engines of liberty.
“The Statist, however, misuses equality to pursue uniform economic and social outcomes. He must continuously enhance his power at the expense of self-government and violate the individual’s property rights at the expense of individual liberty, for he believes that through persuasion, deception, and coercion he can tame man’s natural state and man’s perfection can, therefore, be achieved in Utopia. The Statist must claim the power to make that which is unequal equal and that which is imperfect perfect. This is the hope the Statist offers, if only the individual surrenders himself to the all-powerful state. Only then can the impossible be made possible.” (251)
Glenn Beck on Obama’s New ‘Fairness Doctrine’, FCC Diversity Czar [Chief Diversity Officer]
Glenn Beck on Barack Obama’s Controversial Regulation Czar Choice Cass Sunstein [FOX News]
First they ignore you.
Second they ridicule you.
Third they lie about you.
Fourth they try to silence you.
This pattern is followed daily by the far left in attacks on both internet bloggers and talk radio.
Who are they? The far left consisting of Marxist, Communists, Progressives, Radicals Socialist of the far left Democratic Party.
The two new point men for Obama’s attempt to silence his critics is Mark Lloyd, FCC Diversity Czar or Commissar and Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar.
Trying to silence talk radio is a dangerous game for anyone for the simple reason they forget that millions are listening.
Glenn Beck on Obama’s New ‘Fairness Doctrine’, FCC Diversity Czar [Chief Diversity Officer]
Background Articles and Videos
FCC’s Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd’s Effort To Silence Free Speech
“…It appears as though Mark Lloyd, Obama’s new Diversity Czar, has been given his marching orders. He is charged with a back door effort to bring back the fairness doctrine.
Lloyd is a Senior Fellow from the far left Center for American Progress, which is an organization that already has their finger prints on much of Obama’s agenda.
Lloyd wrote in his book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America..
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,”
“Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” Lloyd wrote. “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. Sponsorship should be prohibited at all public broadcasters.”
Along with this money, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities. link
It’s plainly clear that Lloyd wants government control over all radio content, thus silencing free speech, specifically ideas with a conservative or libertarian viewpoint. Believe me, if radio was dominated by a progressive point of view from the extreme left, there would be no push to regulate free expression on the airwaves. This is just an attempt to back door the fairness doctrine and shut down dissenting views.
It is Sunstein’s “Global Chilling” position on the First Amendment about which Kyle Smith writes:
Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a “chilling effect” on speech that might hurt someone’s feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them.
Advance copies of Sunstein’s new book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, have gone out to reviewers ahead of its September publication date, but considering the prominence with which Sunstein is about to be endowed, his worrying views are fair game now. Sunstein is President Obama’s choice to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It’s the bland titles that should scare you the most.
“Although obscure,” reported the Wall Street Journal, “the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Smith assumes Sunstein got his gig due his earlier book, Nudge, “which suggests that government ought to gently force people to be better human beings.”
Although that could be the reason, the fact that Sunstein is a long-time Obama fan — and married to Samantha Power, another Obama cheerleader — most likely weighed heavily in POTUS’s choice.
Bloggers beware. Smith informs:
Sunstein also believes that – whether you’re a blogger, The New York Times or a Web hosting service – you should be held responsible even for what your commenters say.
[...]
“As we have seen,” Sunstein writes, having shown us no such thing, “falsehoods can undermine democracy itself.” What Sunstein means by that sentence is pretty clear: He doesn’t like so-called false rumors about his longtime University of Chicago friend and colleague, Barack Obama.
RBO agrees with Smith, this sounds like a lot of stuff and nonsense: …”
…that the “National Curriculum” totally outdoes even the Daily Mirror in the department of uttermost boring triviality, and unfitness to be termed a “knowledge-delivery-system”. It is a self-amplifying socialist outdoor-relief-system for increasing education bureaucracy and spending.
David Davis
If you remove all semblence of interesting knowledge – along with anything that helps one’s ability to marshall facts and opinions, let alone distinguish one from the other – from what schools teach, then you will get pupils deciding it’s less depressing for them if they just don’t turn up any more. Frankly, I don’t blame most of the poor little buggers. With of course 50 years of hindsight, I’d be turned off dead by most of what they have to “learn” today. It’s all dressed up as “child-centred” and “relevant” and “interactive”. But to pass the exams, you have to use the words in the Vulgate and tick the right boxes.
Sean Gabb had something to say about truancy a few momths ago, here.
The internet has probably got past the stage where it is a collection of dumb machinery. From now on, I think that it starts to behave as a thinking organism. If attacked, it will interpret slicing and chopping as a threat, and will heal ways around that.
There is not a thing that I, or these other guys who had a dinner, can do about any of that, any more. I have only one word to say: China.
I use stereotypes because they're funny... "Hey, welcome to West Campus! Here's your red cup! Wanna talk about who's dad owns the biggest dealership!? Rad."
My earliest experience with competition occurred in school. In second grade, I remember all the kids racing to the farthest line of trees that surrounded the grounds of Sutton Elementary. I remember coming in fourth one day. I know that’s hard to believe… I thought that was pretty bad ass, but I felt like I could do better. I never did.
My parents always pushed me academically. Wait, let me correct that. My parents always threatened me to do well acedemically. I was always afraid something awful would happen if I didn’t get good grades. An ass-whoopin’ is a really great motivational tool. I’ll never be convinced otherwise.
The elementary school I first went to tried to force me into the bilingual class because I spoke Spanish at home. Little did they know, my English was just as good as my Spanish. Amazed by this English-speaking Mexican (I’m Salvadorian), they put me, the noble savage, in the Gifted and Talented class. My parents never let me forget this. They kind of felt insulted by the school’s stubborn attitude toward putting me in a G&T classroom. It took a lot of convincing. So, for years, my parents would always ask me two questions concerning school:
“How are you doing in school?” AND “How are you doing in school compared to the white kids?”
Funnily enough, they never bothered asking about the Asian kids because they recognized I had no chance. I always thought it was odd that my parents asked me how I did in school compared to white kids. My parents were well aware of my class’s demographic composition. From what I can remember, I was the only power-beaner in there, and there was only one black kid too. I guess they wanted to make sure I was alright with my situation. This being the case, my classes from Pre-K-12 were nearly entirely white. Anyone who went to school with me can attest to that.
I’ve never hated white people. I just needed to be better or just as good as them to appease my parents in a strange, confusing and roundabout way and therefore, make myself feel at ease.
I know to anyone who isn’t a minority, this sounds crazy, but it’s a problem most ethnic-minorities face, regardless of what society we’re talking about. When you’re the only one of your “kind” around, you feel like you’re under a microscope. Even if that isn’t always the case, you can’t help but feel marginalized. Some people can’t handle that sort of pressure, and it affects them adversely through life. I punch that sort of pressure in the fucking face.
My entire scholarly career was a competition against an invisible foe. There were no villains. There were no Shooter McGavins. There was only me, and this impossible obstacle I had to overcome, and that was my race.
In high school, it stopped being about race and my need to be the best just included everyone. I was the worst. I always tried to one-up and have the last word. It affected me socially because I couldn’t just shut the fuck up and listen to anyone.
In college, I quickly found out that no one cared. College is an exceptionally self-centered time. Except for a majority of prep school kids, nothing you did really mattered to people as long as you got your shit done and you weren’t a douche. That sort of freedom finally allowed me to relax, and take my identity into consideration more that I had ever done. And now, I don’t feel like there’s some force I’m fighting against anymore. I don’t feel like there’s an opposition, but merely circumstances and obstacles that we communally face. That’s pretty rad.
However, there is always something that brings back that interpersonal competitive fire. Someone says or does something that makes you say, “Alright, fuck face. If you want to make this happen, we can make this happen, but I can’t promise that your feelings won’t get hurt, and you ass won’t be sore.” Examples of competition-inducing actions are:
Stepping on my sneakers
Writing some shit about me in The Albany Register usually gets you jacked up
Playing air-guitar like this… Damn I want those sweaters.
Doing this to my team. I cringe every time I watch that. It’s painful.
Rosen-coptering
This effing song and movie
Competition is healthy. I’m still very competitive, but only with myself and the goals that I have set for my life. I feel that so many of us live in this world where everyone is trying to be the hippest, strongest, holiest or smartest for the wrong reasons. We’ll never be happy unless we understand that we shouldn’t do these things because of what people will think about us. We should do things because we care enough about ourselves to do meaningful shit with our lives.
South Austin seems to be crawling with these sort of people. It’s hard to not fall into a, and I quote, “dick-measuring contest” with people. I’m trying to be strong because I know, no matter who wins a little spat over who’s cooler, both parties are still assholes.
I’m just stating the obvious,
Dago
PS: Britt and I started a soccer blog. It’s about the EPL. So, all you guys who think that La Liga or heaven forbid, Serie A is better, just ignore the link below or in the Blog Roll. http://straightredtalk.wordpress.com/
In the light of Kenny MacAskill’s (the Scottish Justice Secretary) decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie Bomber, there have been calls in America to boycott Scotland and Britain. A website entitled ‘Boycott Scotland‘ argues…
The actions of the Scottish government are inexcusable. A man who is responsible for the mass murder of 270 innocent civilians must be held accountable for such a cold blooded and ruthless act. Freeing a terrorist in order to further ties with the tyrannical Libyan regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi and to further the commercial interests of British Petroleum in that region is repulsive and sickening.
Unless the Scottish government rescinds this decision to release al-Megrahi, and if the British Parliament continues to avoid intervening in the matter, we urge all Americans to protest this action by boycotting the United Kingdom and Scotland in full. Don’t travel to Scotland or do business there (or in the United Kingdom in general) and don’t buy any British or Scottish products.
It is, of course, blatantly obvious that this whole affair was conducted with politics in mind. Nobody should be surprised that any modern government would act in it’s own self-interest regardless of the needs or wants of it’s people; Democracy has been replaced by a global Corporatic regime and America’s own gung-ho foreign policy has caused far more than it’s fair share of civilian deaths – or are the lives of non-Americans somehow less worthy of consideration? Would it be right for us to blame the American people for the atrocities committed in their name by their governments and corporations? If so then they, like Britain, would have an awful lot to make amends for.
In his speech Mr MacAskill alluded to America’s supposed Christianity by suggesting that Mr Al Megrahi’s fate was now in the hands of a ‘higher power’. The Boycott Scotland site retaliates to this suggestion with…
To those who wish to bring Christianity into this, to use religion as an excuse for the contemptible behavior and actions of the Scottish and British governments, perhaps you are forgetting something about our great country that makes it inherently different from your form of government, where you do not have separation of Church and State.
America is a secular nation.
But surely a secular nation would be governed by ‘Reason’. Edward Abbey – in his essay ‘Science With A Human Face’, from ‘Abbey’s Road‘ – said of reason…
“[Sic] I wish to stand apart, alone if need be, and hold up the ragged flag of reason. Reason with a capital R – Sweet Reason, the newest and rarest thing in human life, the most delicate child of human history. [Sic] By “reason” I mean intelligence informed by sympathy, knowledge in the arms of love. (For knowledge without conscience is the ruin of the soul, sayeth the Proverb – and the oldest wisdom is usually the most reliable.)”
And talking of ‘oldest wisdom’ Marcus Aurelius said…
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
The only way to truly defeat an enemy is not to become as they are. We prove that we are governed by secular ‘reason’ rather than religious ‘vengence’ when we show compassion where none was shown to us. The moments when ‘liberty’ – which is the personification of reason – is threatened are the moments when we need liberty the most. The only way to protect the secular ideals of democracy, liberty and human rights – from governments as well as terrorists – is to exercise them. By placing blame at the doors of citizens of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland the ‘Boycott Scotland’ movement has forfeit any claims it may have to upholding secular ideals. Why not simply Boycott BP?
For our own feelings on the matter we’ll return to Edward Abbey…
“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”
In a republic the citizens are engaged in public controversies. They rely on their mass media for the information and arguments necessary to deliberation and discussion. If the media fall short, the republic is ill served.
Glib references to “the politicians” is, as Michael D. Higgins argues in the Irish Times of 22nd August 2009, evasive but it is also poor journalism which does nothing to provoke or nourish public debate in the republic.
It is long past time that some prominent journalist, editor or media manager in the state-owned or private sector media initiated an editorial guideline which would serve to limit the use of the term “the politicians” to the odd occasion on which it might have relevance. On all other occasions the citizen would be better served by language which seeks to categorise and divide politics and politicians.
I noticed that a lot of you were getting to my blog and searching for ‘floral print’, ‘ditzy floral print’, ‘flower print’ etc etc so I thought I’d share my favourite ditzy floral print – enter the ALLSAINTS Ditzy Floral Print.
This print has already been instores and online for a while now…but it is my favourite and probably the best I’ve seen, BARRING LIBERTY PRINTS ofcourse ;o The print itself is very tiny ditzy flowers with a vintage laundered overwash that was inspired by a Japanese Vintage print; signature itself to AllSaints.
Fashion icon, Sienna Miller, was seen wearing the AllSaints Ditzy Ezra Dress to a BFI event which catapulted the print into the public sphere.
AllSaints Ditzy Ezra Dress, £95 – buy online at www.allsaints.com
AllSaints Ditzy Ezra Skirt, £75 – buy online at www.allsaints.com
Ditzy Camilsole, Ditzy Evianna Dress and the Juno Ditzy Scarf are also available instores and online.
Team your pretty ditzy print dress/top/scarf with an Amos Leather Jacket and Military Boots for casual day wear and edgy eveningwear – or just to this summers festivals!
I have mentioned the year 1914. I am making these loose jottings on the 4th August, 80 years to the day since our declaration of war on Germany. I know that looking at the plain statistics, we can dethrone the Great War from the place that it occupies in most liberal imaginations. Other wars have lasted longer. Others have had higher death rates, both absolutely and proportionately. On the same basis, others have consumed more wealth. I cannot say that our statist ascendency is wholly a product of the War: its roots can be traced far back into the 19th century – even into the age of high liberalism.
Yet for all this, I cannot but regard that war as the greatest of all known calamities. The only real civilisation that has existed on this planet came close to blowing itself apart: and no one but a fool can say that a full recovery has yet taken place, or be sure that one will take place.
I began this jotting with the intention of saying something smart and clever about today’s anniversary. But there is nothing smart and clever to be said. When I contemplate the events that unrolled between the 28th June and the 4th August 1914, I become a child again, in the audience of a pantomime. I want to cry out to the person on stage – "Look behind you!" "Don’t go there!", "He’s coming for you!". But there is nobody out there to listen.
And that, perhaps, is why we are so busy commemorating the events of 1944, but have chosen very largely to overlook the still greater and more unimaginable events of 30 years’ earlier.
