Tag: Opinion

On Homeschooling

I will be straight and honest with you all, because that is how I do it around here. I was homeschooled for a short period in my life. I also attended Christian Schools for a good deal of my life. I also happen to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I take medication for it. I will be very honest with you; homeschooling is not for everyone. I used the ACE curriculum and I will say emphatically that ACE Schools are not suited for Children with learning disabilities. Furthermore, I have very mixed feelings on Christian Schools; if they are staffed with qualified teachers, they can be a good experience. If not, they can be a nightmare. Believe me; I have seen both sides of that coin.

For those who wonder, the A.D.H.D. affects my ability to excel in math. I can plus and minus with the best of them. However, when it gets any tougher than that, I do the run for the calculator. I am getting better with it, as I get older; my checkbook is always balanced. However, I will not be volunteering anytime soon to be solving any sort of complex scientific problem. In other words, if NASA were relying on me to get to the moon, we would be lucky to leave the drawing room!

However, I happen to notice this article over at Salon.com about how homeschooling your children would be a horrible thing and a slap in the face to the big Government public school system. There are a few things, that stand out in this article and I will touch on a few of them. When a parent takes his child out of the public school system and decides to homeschool them, that parent is saying that the school system that he is enrolling in is a failure and that child is unable to learn in it. Which is ironic, because when my Mother withdrew me out of the Christian School that I attended to homeschool me, which was done at my request; I was saying the same very thing about the school that I was attending at the time.

Another thing that stands out in this article is the nuanced dog whistle assertion that if your child is homeschool that he will grow up to be some “right wing extremist militia” type. My friends let me be clear; that assertion is absolute hogwash. It just so happens that I only spent like 2 years in public schools. The rest of educational years were spent in various Christian Schools, and I when I turned 18 years of age and registered to vote; I voted Democratic Party up until the year 2008. Yes, I did eventually did change my political views. However, the changing of my political stance had absolutely nothing to do with my Christian Schooling or my Home Schooling; my change in political philosophy was warranted by the idiocy of what was happening in the Democratic Party in the 2007 primary. Furthermore, my departure from the status as a Democratic Party voter was the utter hapless treatment of our United States Military and its service members that served in it. There are many more reasons, but for the sake of brevity, I will just list these.

Therefore, to my fellow Conservatives, libertarians and tea party friends: do not be bothered by this article. It is simply a progressive buffoon attempting to keep the Government union-backed public sector employees employed. Perhaps it is a sign, that the progressive left is feeling the heat and fears losing the overall battle of the political discourse in this Country. This in this writer’s humble opinion would be a good thing. As the far progressive left, as far as this writer is concerned has driven this Country into a state of ruin, and on top of that, lied their way into controlling that car. It is time for change and for a new discussion — an erasing and washing of the blackboard, if you will. The progressive way of thinking and operating this Country has failed and it is time for a massive redo. The progressive left knows this and this is why articles like this one are being written.

Do not be dismayed by this, we on the right in this Country; on the righteous side of the political discussion are armed with the truth, the left only has lies and propaganda. We shall prevail and we shall be victorious. Homeschooled youth usually have higher IQ’s; excel in most subjects and go on to do many great and important things. I was not the rule; I was the exception to that rule. Just because I suffer from a learning disability, which was diagnosed long before I ever started schooling; does not mean the entire idea of a homeschooled child should be thrown out. To do this would be to take away a parents right of individual choice and that, in a Constitutional Republic is very unacceptable.

Others: American Power, Vox Popoli and The PJ Tatler

This is the way that politics used to be

I think that this is a great story.

Via NYT:

LAKE JACKSON, Tex. — Once there was a challenge of a softball game from the Ron Paul clan to the Mitt Romney clan. “They didn’t show up,” Mr. Paul says. “We didn’t schedule it. We really razz them about that, ‘You guys chickened out!’ ”

This is the way that politics should be today!

In a Republican presidential contest known for its angry rivalries, the Romney-Paul relationship stands out for its behind-the-scenes civility. It is a friendship that, by Mr. Paul’s telling, Mr. Romney has worked to cultivate. The question is whether it is also one that could pay dividends for Mr. Romney as he faces yet more setbacks in his struggle to capture the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Ideological similarities among supporters of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich suggest that if Mr. Gingrich dropped out, many of his backers would coalesce behind Mr. Santorum. But as Mr. Paul steadily collects delegates, one thing that remains to be seen is whether his affinity — at least on a personal level — for Mr. Romney could help the former Massachusetts governor as the fight drags on.

Mr. Paul, a 76-year-old congressman from Texas, sees his three Republican rivals as more or less the same politically. He can be tough on Mr. Romney, whom he describes as a flip-flopper with a dubious political core.

“He’s been all over the place on some of this stuff,” Mr. Paul said in a recent interview near his Texas home. But he seems to segregate those views from his personal feelings for Mr. Romney, whom he sees as a steady, dignified personality whose devotion to wife and family reflect his own values.

I would recommend that you head on over and read the rest of that; it is a truly great story of how two men who disagree on much and still are friendly to one another. This is the way that it was back in the days of Ronald Reagan, him and Tip O’Neil would fight like dogs during business hours and then after business hours, Tip and Ron would have a drink at the White House and discuss the days events.

Again, at the risk of sounding like a nostalgic old fogie, this is the way things were done in the olden days. When leaders were statesmen, and not the idiots we have today. We could learn much from these people of old, it is tragic that people like Ron Paul are not more followed in the way they do things. Not that I support all of Ron Paul’s policy positions, but his statesmanship is something to be admired.

By the way, yes, I did give Althouse a little grief on her blog; she is a two-bit phony, in my humble opinion. She gives Ron Paul and Mitt Romney grief for their kindness toward each other. I think Ann Althouse could learn a little about what true Conservatism is from Rep. Paul. Because it is surely not what she pawns off as Conservative; that is for sure. Sorry, but voting for a liberal socialist Democrat is not conservative, not even close.

 

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab appeals his sentence

Remember this guy who got sent up the river?

Well, it appears now that ol’ Sabu here is not too keen on being the pivot man in the prison circle jerk.

The Story:

Detroit— “Underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab appealed his life sentence Friday, one day after a judge issued the maximum penalty for trying to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner carrying 289 people on Christmas Day 2009.

The notice of appeal was filed in federal court in Detroit.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds sentenced Abdulmutallab to four life terms on Thursday, ending the country’s highest-profile terror case since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“This court has no ability to control his motivation, which appears to be unchanged,” Edmunds said Thursday. “I can control his opportunity to act on those intentions.

“I believe he poses a significant ongoing threat to (the) safety of American citizens everywhere.”

Before being sentenced, Abdulmutallab’s legal adviser, Detroit lawyer Anthony Chambers, argued the mandatory life sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment

via ‘Underwear bomber’ Abdulmutallab appeals life sentence | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com.

Like I wrote in my last entry about this idiot; we should have tried this terrorist puke in a military court. This murderous thug is not a uniformed combatant, he is a terrorist thug, who should be executed by firing squad, or better yet, with a damn rope and a tree. Racism? man, please. 🙄 Anyone who does what this little puke did, should not be affording any sort of respect at all. Least of all any respect of his race. 😡

But, now, as I wrote before, we will have to pay for this puke’s legal defense and pay to feed, clothe and shelter this little puke. Which is morally wrong, considering who and what he is, and what he tried to do. Which was not a ordinary criminal act, but an act of war. But your friendly neighborhood Marxists feel that he deserves the protection of the Constitution of the United States.

It is truly pathetic, it really is; here is hoping that we elect a President in 2012, that sees this threat for what it truly is and not a criminal one.

Santorum backer apologies for crude joke

Remember the guy who made the joke? Well, he is now apologizing: (via Weekly Standard)

Last week my joke at the Conservative Political Action Conference generated laughter and media attention. Today on Andrea Mitchell’s show, my aspirin joke bombed as many didn’t recognize it as a joke but thought it was my prescription for today’s birth control practices. In fact, the only positive comments I got were from folks who remembered it from 50 years back. Birth control pills weren’t yet available, so everyone laughed at the silliness on how an aspirin could become a birth control pill.

After listening to the segment tonight, I can understand how I confused people with the way I worded the joke and their taking offense is very understandable. To all those who took my joke as modern day approach I deeply apologize and seek your forgiveness. My wife constantly tells me I need new material—she understood the joke but didn’t like it anyway—so I will keep that old one in the past where it belongs.

via For those who misunderstood my joke today, here’s my quest for forgiveness… « Government « Campfire Blog.

I thought it was funny myself. Maybe I’m odd. (who me? 😯 )

 

UPDATED: Pat Buchanan is right and wrong

I will give him credit, Mr. Buchanan makes a very good point:

Is it now hate speech to restate traditional Catholic beliefs?

Documented in the 488 pages and 1,500 footnotes of “Suicide of a Superpower” is my thesis that America is Balkanizing, breaking down along the lines of religion, race, ethnicity, culture and ideology, and that Western peoples are facing demographic death by century’s end.

Are such subjects taboo? Are they unfit for national debate?

So it would seem. MSNBC President Phil Griffin told reporters, “I don’t think the ideas that (Buchanan) put forth (in his book) are appropriate for the national dialogue, much less on MSNBC.”

In the 10 years I have been at MSNBC, the network has taken heat for what I have written, and faithfully honored our contract.

Yet my four-months’ absence from MSNBC and now my departure represent an undeniable victory for the blacklisters.

The modus operandi of these thought police at Color of Change and ADL is to brand as racists and anti-Semites any writer who dares to venture outside the narrow corral in which they seek to confine debate.

All the while prattling about their love of dissent and devotion to the First Amendment, they seek systematically to silence and censor dissent.

Without a hearing, they smear and stigmatize as racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic any who contradict what George Orwell once called their “smelly little orthodoxies.” They then demand that the heretic recant, grovel, apologize, and pledge to go forth and sin no more.

Defy them, and they will go after the network where you work, the newspapers that carry your column, the conventions that invite you to speak. If all else fails, they go after the advertisers.

I know these blacklisters. They operate behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats and off-the-record meetings. They work in the dark because, as Al Smith said, nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.

via The New Blacklist by Pat Buchanan.

At the risk of sounding like a snarky old coot, I will simply say this; When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, Mr. Buchanan should have seen that the writing was on the wall and left MSNBC.  Actually, the hard swerve to the hard life and its intolerance for Conservative thought, of any sort; started after Tim Russert passed away.  It went into hyper-overdrive, when it was clear that Obama was going to win the election in 2008. The only person to blame for Pat Buchanan’s troubles is Pat Buchanan; the man stayed on much long after the political winds had shifted around him.

For all of the political traits that liberals and Paleoconservatives share, there happen to be some traits that they do not.  Paleoconservatives and liberals share the disdain of war and Wilsonian foreign policy.  Paleoconservatives and Liberals however do not share the same ideas on freedom of speech, or the sharing of ideas outside of what they, the liberals, consider mainstream.  While President George W. Bush was in office, Pat Buchanan’s outside of the Conservative mainstream ideas were perfect for the progressive, anti-Bush tone that the network was taking at the time.

However, as President Bush began to fade from the relevant political discussion and when the Democrats saw that, they had someone that could actually challenge the Republican’s candidate, things changed around MSNBC and not for the good either.  Without getting into rehashing of a good deal of history, I will just simply say that pretty much after 2008, Pat Buchanan began to stick out like a sore thumb and should be seen that and left for better climates; like Tucker Carlson did around the same time.

As for Mr. Buchanan’s assessment of homosexuality and the decline of the white Anglo-Saxon protestant class of people, I have one thing to say — I concur.  The fact that MSNBC fired Mr. Buchanan over his positions on these two subjects is living proof that the far-leftists have overtaken the political discourse in the Democratic Party and in the progressive movement as a whole.  Furthermore, the imbecilic notion that Mr. Buchanan’s assessment of the current state of the Anglo-Saxon protestant class of Americans is somehow an indication of hostility on Mr. Buchanan’s part towards Blacks, Jews or any other class of persons is moronic at best.

As for Mr. Buchanan’s Roman Catholic beliefs, which are Christian in origin, I also concur.  The Holy Bible, which contains the Holy Scriptures given to us by the Almighty God Himself; is clear, in both testaments — old and new —- that the practice of homosexuality is a forbidden thing.  It is the sodomite lifestyle, it is repugnant in the eyes of a Holy and Righteous God, and Christians are forbidden to partake in it, and are commanded by God Himself not to have associations with those who do.  Yes, there is a good deal of Holy Scripture to back those statements up and I will provide them to anyone who doubts what I have written.

Lastly, I feel that as a libertarian-minded Conservative it is important to point out to Mr. Buchanan the following: No privately owned network is obligated to allow you to appear on their network.  Free speech in this case, is not applicable.  MSNBC is a privately owned network, which is backed by advertisements from private companies.  Contract or not contract, MSNBC, does reserve the right to remove someone, if said companies who buy advertisements are not comfortable being associated with said person.  While it might seem a bit rude for MSNBC to just drop Mr. Buchanan and void his contract, MSNBC does have the right to act in its best interests.  Now, if the Government moved to silence him, I would say, sound the alarms.  However, MSNBC is not the Government; they are a private media outlet.  Therefore, the howling of “repression of freedom of speech” is a bit much to be honest.  One thing to remember, the only place that you can be truly free to express your opinions, regardless of the content, is a site that you personally own.  Nobody else is ever obligated to cater to you whims.  Some people forget that, and shout, “Freedom of speech!”  When, in fact, that argument is not even a valid one.

Update: This is now a Memeorandum Thread.

Update #2: Buchanan is defended by Jazz Shaw, Tim Stanley, and Andrew Sullivan?!?!?!

Terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab sentenced to 4 life sentences plus 50 years.

I wish it were the death penalty, but this is good:

DETROIT — The Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner with explosives concealed in his underwear on Christmas Day in 2009 was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison by a federal judge who said his crime and subsequent lack of remorse demanded the maximum possible punishment.

Prosecutors sought a life sentence for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who pled guilty to federal charges in connection with a failed bombing attempt.

The man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who pleaded guilty in October and admitted to working on behalf of Al Qaeda, shouted “Allah Akbar,” or “God is great,” five times during the sentencing hearing. He asserted that Muslims were “proud to kill in the name of God, and that is what God told us to do in the Koran.

via Would-Be Plane Bomber Sentenced to Life – NYTimes.com.

So, great, The United States of America is now going to have to feed, cloth, and shelter this little cretin for the rest of his life. This is why this trial should have been in military court, where he would have been sentenced to death. It would have been cheaper to do; than to do this here.

Here is the money quote:

Mr. Abdulmutallab, who wore a white T-shirt and tan pants, spoke for about three minutes. He claimed that Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders who have been killed “are alive and shall be victorious by God’s grace.” He also said terrorist attacks would continue “until the Jews are driven out of Palestine.”

Frankly, I am shocked that the NYT even bothered to include that quote. But that right there is the crux of why we have Terrorism at all; because of our support of Israel. Someone needs to show Ronnie Paul that quote too. Because his bat-shit insane position on terrorism is the narrative of the left.

Video: Rep. Allen West “Government handouts world’s ‘most insidious form of slavery'”

Here is Rep. Allen West literally throwing read meat out for the Republican messes! …and making Democrats want to scream. 😛

Video:

The Story via Fox News:

Republican Rep. Allen West decried government “handouts” as the worst form of modern “slavery” during an impassioned floor speech Wednesday evening. 

The freshman Florida congressman, who is black, made the remarks in commemoration of Black History Month. He used his floor speech to detail the Republican Party‘s role throughout American history in promoting equal rights and freedom for black Americans. 

He said that commitment did not end after Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. 

“Republicans have been on the frontlines of the fight for equal rights and individual manifest destiny since our party’s founding under Lincoln,” he said. 

In modern times, West said, this has meant fighting to prevent black Americans “from being trapped in a permanent underclass through dependence on government handouts.” He said that fight continues despite the welfare reform of the 1990s. 

He goes on to say a whole bunch of other stuff; very good speech. I recommend you watch it.

Gov. Rick Snyder sells out to the Republican establishment

I voted for the man, I now regret that choice.

In a Detroit News op-ed today, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced his support of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the contest for the GOP presidential nomination.

Romney, who is campaigning in Michigan ahead of the Feb. 28 primary here, faces a tough challenge by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Ahead of a Grand Rapids visit Wednesday, Romney’s campaign announced a list of endorsements from other Michigan Republicans.

via Rick Snyder: ‘Mitt Romney is the man for the job’ | MLive.com.

Good luck in your reelection bid Mr. Governor. You certainly do not represent my views. I will not make that mistake again. Here is hoping that you will be voted out.  Just more living proof that the so-called “Tea Party” was nothing more than an abject failure that really did not change a thing. At least not in the Republican Party.

 

Nice to know we could count on you Mustaine

Now, you can go back to sniffing coke off a hooker’s ass.

Remember my posting on how Dave Mustaine was going to be supporting Rick Santorum the anti-libertarian? Well, so much for that:

“Contrary to how some people have interpreted my words, I have not endorsed any presidential candidate,” the rocker said in a release after earlier reports had him backing Republican Rick Santorum on Wednesday. “What I did say was that I hope to see a Republican in the White House. I’ve seen good qualities in all the candidates but by no means have made my choice yet. I respect the fact that Santorum took time off from his campaign to be with his sick daughter, but I never used the word ‘endorse.'”

via Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Not Ready to ‘Endorse’ Santorum | Billboard.com.

Don’t you just love when celebs cower to the liberal establishment in California and in the entertainment industry?