Tuesday, January 24, 2017



Why do liberals need days off of school and safe spaces with coloring books and puppies when they lose elections while conservatives manage without them?

Chris Bast gives a big part of the explanation below

A conservative writer (whose name I don't recall) once made an observation about the left that I think explains this phenomenon. He said (rough quote) “Progressives have rejected religion as the basis of their morality and replaced it with politics.”

Now of course this is a generalization. There are (probably) some progressives out there who are sincerely religious, but that's not the point. The point is that the left has elevated politics to an emotional level far above where it ought to be. They now regard politics with the kind of fervor and devotion that normal men reserve only for deeply held religious beliefs.

This explains so much about the left's antics in recent years. This certainly isn't the first time that progressives have suffered emotional breakdowns after losing an election. When George W Bush was reelected I distinctly remember seeing news reports of Democrats who ran straight to their therapists' couches to help them cope with the abject horror of John Kerry not being President.

It all makes sense when you realize that the left has turned politics into their new religion. When politics is that important to you, suddenly a lost election is a major crisis of faith. Suddenly your opponents aren't just fellow Americans who disagree with you, they are a horde of Godless Heathens led by an Anti-Christ. And your own candidate is no longer merely a public servant that you trust to enact your will, but a Savior sent by Heaven to lead the faithful to the Promised Land.

This is why we saw Hillary supporters literally crying when the election results came in last November. They weren't just watching their cadidate lose, they were watching Satan overcome their Divine Goddess. No wonder they broke down into weeping hysterics.

Any rational person should be able to see why this is such a dangerous trend. No politician should ever command such devotion. No movement should so dehumanize their opponents. This is the sort of scary shit you see in places like North Korea, Soviet Russia or, dare I say it, Nazi Germany.

SOURCE 






How Left-wing and Racist Radicals Are Infiltrating Our Children’s Minds

Once upon a time in America, parents could send their children off to school—even to public schools—and presume accurately their little ones were being taught simply “the three Rs.” No longer. In modern America, it’s more likely one of the three Rs students will be taught is “racism,” perhaps even more likely than adequate reading, “riting,” and “rithmetic.”

A radical progressive political agenda has replaced the pursuit of truth and objectivity in our nation’s classrooms, and it’s time parents and responsible citizens put an end to it.

At New Trier High School, a public school in Winnetka, Illinois, students will be subjected in February to an “All-School Seminar Day” aimed at “understanding today’s struggles for racial civil rights.” The entire day is chock-full of race-baiting discussion topics, left-wing speakers, and one-sided, indoctrinating ideologies.

One of the workshops scheduled is the “21st Century Voter Suppression” workshop (no, that’s not a typo; “suppression” is misspelled multiple times on the school’s agenda). On “Vote Suppression” day, students will discuss “the methods and regulations used in the U.S. to deny or limit the voting rights of various minority groups.”

Another workshop is the “Advancing Civil Rights or Reverse Discrimination?: Affirmative Action in Elite College Admissions,” during which students will learn how affirmative action policies “often unnecessarily incite racial tensions and anxiety.”

Don’t forget about the “Appropriate Alliances: Working in White Spaces” workshops. On “White Spaces” day, students will talk about “how white students can help break down stereotypes and other types of structural racism in white spaces” and “address why white guilt is an ineffective form of acknowledging racism.”

There isn’t enough space here to mention all the absurd, bigoted material that will be forced on Winnetka students come February 28. “Race” and “racism” are mentioned in the 25-page program 82 times (not counting the misspelled versions my word-find tool failed to pick up); “black” is mentioned 37 times; and “white” 26 times—this from the same set of people who claim to be “color blind.”

What place does the discussion of “identifying biases and challenging stereotypes” or “trans-people of color navigating the U.S.” have in our public schools? It isn’t as though students and teachers are simply acknowledging current events and the various mindsets associated with them.

I would argue it’s not even possible to talk about such inherently subjective topics without infusing the discussion with some form of bias, regardless of one’s personal or political beliefs—and when it comes to government entities, if they don’t have something neutral to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all.

What is happening at New Trier is an obvious, systematic brainwashing, going so far as to goad students who don’t observe racism in their daily lives into believing they do, as the Seminar Day agenda reads: “Most systemic racism is invisible … often to both ‘sides’… until you know it’s there.

Once you know it’s there, you can’t stop seeing it. In this workshop, you’ll participate in an activity that will help you see the unseen, and possibly recognize some systematic biases that you see every day without realizing they are there.”

Despite claiming to be open to “diversity,” these molders of young minds are the same people who fight tooth and nail to prevent school choice programs from flourishing, apparently because parents might choose to send their children somewhere other than to the local failing school.

They might even, God forbid, send them to religious schools. They are the same folks who rally against prayer in school and any mention of the Bible while they inject one-sided, liberal-fueled propaganda about how to think and feel on moral issues into every facet of our children’s public educations. I guess it’s ok to indoctrinate kids about “right” and “wrong” so long as God isn’t involved.

The progressive left is proud of its infiltration into the school system and truly believes it has a right and duty to force its “superior” viewpoints on everyone else. Breitbart reported on New Trier’s similar stunt in 2016, in which the school forced students to attend a “Racial Identity” day.

The Huffington Post took Breitbart to task for reporting New Trier parents feared the curriculum contained a “political agenda.” Huffington Post writer Celia Buckman mocked Breitbart and defended New Trier, because, according to Buckman, “Our learning environment never was neutral. … New Trier is overwhelmingly white and affluent—over 80 percent of students are caucasian, and just 3 percent of the student body is low-income … New Trier students live in a bubble that needs to be popped.”

How’s that for racist?

 New Trier is an extreme example, of course, but this type of shameless indoctrination is happening in government schools all across the country.

Teaching “just the facts” goes against the nature of government schools and their employees, because it is in their best interests to produce wards of the state who love big government as much as they do.

In theory, the products of public schools will perpetuate government’s growth and influence so those in its employ gain the power and prosperity they so salaciously desire.

Though I’m curious to see what happens when students “examine the lyrics of several contemporary rap songs,” explore their “deeper meanings, historical context, cultural impact, and their intersections with race,” and “analyze a song of their choosing,” I know the exercise will be more than just a waste of time.

Government employees can’t be trusted to leave their political ideologies at home, and so they, and teachers especially, should never venture from them.

SOURCE 






Why Betsy DeVos’ Support for School Choice Will Help America’s Schoolchildren

According to her opponents during Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of education, is guilty of wanting to privatize the public schools.

To be sure, the nominee’s critics are entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

Here are the facts: DeVos believes that all children are entitled to the same educational opportunities regardless of income or ZIP code.

If you want a more accurate picture of DeVos, some journalists in her home state are more likely to paint it for you.

A Detroit News op-ed praised her record of compassionate interest in the individual welfare of children, calling her “a woman devoted to helping kids succeed regardless of their socio-economic background.”

And for this, certain members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee attempted to paint her as an enemy of public schools.

DeVos’ crime is that she, along with a majority of Americans, favors school choice. But solid research demonstrates why DeVos’ views are not only consistent with those of most parents, but also upheld by facts, evidence, and common sense.

Consider:

School choice programs put power back into the hands of parents, who are best equipped to decide what type of education their children receive. Impersonal bureaucratic agencies cannot do this adequately.

School choice levels the socio-economic playing field by giving low-income families the same educational opportunities that high-income families have. A Harvard study of a New York City initiative found that minority students who received a school scholarship  “to attend private elementary schools in 1997 were, as of 2013, 10 percent more likely to enroll in college and 35 percent more likely than their peers in public school to obtain a bachelor’s degree.”

Similarly, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which awards need-based annual scholarships for private schools to D.C. schoolchildren, has empowered thousands of low-income and minority students to escape underperforming, failing, or unsafe schools. A study commissioned by the Department of Education found that participants saw a 21 percentage point increase in graduation rates.

A nationally representative survey by Education Next of parents in charter, district, and private schools found that private and charter parents are more satisfied with their children’s schooling than parents whose children attend district schools.

A study conducted by John Merrifield of the University of Texas at San Antonio on school choice scholarships in San Antonio’s Edgewood School District found an approximately 17 percent increase in public school graduation rates that could be attributable to the scholarship program. The improvement appeared to be one of the responses to increased competition in the education sphere.

It’s clear that school choice does not undermine the public school system economically or rob resources from it. In fact, it has proven to be more cost-effective.

School choice empowers economically underprivileged kids and encourages racial diversity. And it simply does a better job of equipping parents to put their children in the best school environment suited to their children’s unique needs—whether traditional public, charter, or private school.

Isn’t that what this discussion is all about?

It is immoral for us as a people to lock children into a life of poverty because we lock them into severely underperforming schools.

Nevertheless, we are likely to see a heated battle take place next week when it comes to DeVos’ confirmation vote.

Here’s something to keep in mind, though: More than half of the Senate Democrats on the education committee considering her nomination either attended private or parochial schools themselves, or have children or grandchildren who do.

Why the opposition?

High school seniors’ reading achievement scores have not improved for at least two decades and have even dropped five points compared to 1992. Likewise, seniors’ math performance has also stagnated for at least a decade and has dropped since 2013.

In discussing the state of public education in America, U.S. News & World Report offered a bleak and candid assessment. “In urban school districts across the country,” an education reporter wrote in 2015, “student performance is flat, poor, and minority students are experiencing staggering inequalities, and the picture is especially troubling for black students.”

And this is the status quo we’re trying to protect?

It’s been pointed out that in the 1960s, there were low moments in education policy where individuals once stood in front of the schoolhouse door trying to keep minority children out. Now, there are some who would stand in front of the doors of failing schools to keep minority and other children in.

It’s time for a new way of thinking, and DeVos represents that. She has been a successful champion of school choice in Michigan and has helped bring similar opportunities to Florida, Louisiana, and other states.

She has what it takes to guide our nation’s education policy.

It’s time to stop playing politics with our nation’s children. Let’s work together for the reform that’s needed to do something big and bold to help our nation’s greatest treasure—the next generation.

SOURCE 



No comments: