More Bible Study Silliness

A few months ago, I addressed the cases of Bible Studies under fire, including that of Michael Salman, a pastor in Arizona who was put in jail for, according to him, holding Bible studies.  However, as time went on, we found out that the real reason this convicted felon was jailed was because, like a convicted felon, he flouted the zoning rules and broke laws with wild abandon.  Now we’re finding out that Salman broke more laws and is up for more felony jail time for Medicaid Fraud.

Now comes word that another family, this time in Florida, is being fined for their Bible Study.  This case seems a little different at first glance.  Shane and Marlen Roessiger have been holding a Bible Study on Friday nights at their home with 10 participants, posted a small sign outside their home offering a phone number for prayer, and now have been issued fines of $250 per day for their zoning violations.  Obviously, it’s a case of the eeeeeeevil government again, right?

Well…  hold up, kids.

1.  The “victim” in this case is not a random person.  His name is one Shane W. Roessiger and his wife Marlene (I’ve seen it spelled differently), and he has a history of clashes with the law over religious issues.  That’s not to say that the law is always right, but when you have a history, it gives more credit to those who say you are currently in violation of the law.

2.  The neighborhood he lives in is a crowded, dense neighborhood.  Even adding 5-6 cars for 10-12 people could cause major traffic headaches for people driving on the streets, especially on a regular basis on a busy Friday evening.

3.  Take a look at this picture of his home from Google Street View.  See the big honking cross he has in his front yard?  Yeah, well…   that’s not the problem.  The problem is that he’s posted a small sign in his front yard that advertises a dial-a-prayer phone number.  The problem is that while the city ordinances are OK with real estate and political signs, any and all other signs are verboten.  So you can’t even post a “puppies for sale” sign in your yard, by law.

So…  what’s happened here?  Well here’s what I’m seeing:

• A dedicated, well-meaning, but aggressive young man starts a home-based ministry.  While he has a history of clashes with the law, he doesn’t appear to be of the “convicted felon” mode of Michael Salman.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here.
• Traffic increases on a regular basis, and while the occasional party would be OK, regular traffic problems cause issues for neighbors.  They ask for help, but get none, and so they go to the city.
• The man puts up a small sign in his yard in violation of local ordinance.
• The city works with the Bible study, offering them ways to mitigate the issue, but are met with defiance.
• After repeated attempts to address the issue, the city issues fines.
• The man, still aggressive and defiant, takes his case to the interwebs and the news media.

Again, we get back to the “vacuum of neighborliness” I mentioned in my previous article, where someone could’ve been a better neighbor, but wasn’t, deciding that it was more important to hold your ground on holding Bible studies than to communicate Godly love to those who live next door to you.  It’s not a government conspiracy – it’s simply a matter of people needing to be good neighbors and show Christian love while they’re supposedly teaching Christian theology, and maybe a little bit of a badly written local sign ordinance.  And let’s be honest: if the government really wanted to crack down on religion, it wouldn’t start with a single homeowner and zoning regs.

That’s why, again, I’m going to post my 7 Rules of Not Being a Jerk About Your Bible Study.  Take heed (again), people:

1. Hosting a Bible Study in your home is a good thing.  Our faith is a critical element of who we are as people, and strengthening that faith through study and fellowship is a wonderful part of growth.
2. Not being a jerk about your Bible Study is an equally good thing.  Just because we have a responsibility to share our faith doesn’t mean we have a right to be a jerk about it.
3. If you’re going to host a Bible Study in your home, be a good neighbor to those around you.  Love your neighbor as yourself by being pleasant about your Bible Study.  Just because you think you have the constitutional right to have a Bible Study doesn’t take away your neighbors’ rights to live in peace.
4. Try to keep your Bible Study size appropriate for your neighborhood.  If you’ve got a 3-bed 1,500 sq ft house in the burbs and you’re hosting 50 people…  you may want to break up into smaller groups.  That way, you limit the amount of traffic on the road and keep transportation around your neighborhood moving smoothly.  You also have less risk of someone ticking off your neighbors by blocking them in their driveways, damaging their lawn, or creating too much noise.
5. Keep lines of communication open between yourself and your neighbors.  Let them know what’s going on and when – and keep to the schedule.  If you say it’s going to be from 7-9 pm, don’t hold things over until 9:30.  Make sure your neighbors have your phone number so that they can contact you if there’s a problem.  If they do contact you with a problem: address the problem.  And invite your neighbors (and don’t get offended if they say no).  Don’t ruin a relationship with someone you share a fenceline with because you’re got a bug up your butt.
6. If you’re holding weekly services with chairs, flyers, a pulpit and a website, you’re a church.  Act like one by providing a safe, friendly environment for worshiping God.  If that means that you’re going to have to move your activities to a more public location, then do so.  Trust God to provide through offerings, donations, etc.
7. Finally, and most importantly: don’t be a jerk.  I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating.  If a neighbor calls you to complain that there’s too much traffic and noise, then listen to them and try to work with them.  If the city shows up and says that you need to have clearly marked exit doors, then go down to Lowe’s or Home Depot and pick up some exit signs.  If the city tells you that the structure you’re in is unsafe for the crowd you’re drawing, then by all means, find another structure or split into smaller groups.  If you’re going to represent Jesus to people, then act like He would.

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Southern Fried Ridiculousness Part II: The Stupiding

OK, I’m getting sick of this.  There’s a ton of people passing around the following picture that are about to get a slappin’ by ye olde Annoyed Elephant:

Seriously…   what’s wrong with you people?  Christians are among the most generous people on the planet.  They give and give and give to food banks, homeless shelters, and individuals in need on a near-constant basis, giving billions of dollars every year out of their own pockets to combat poverty and hunger, not only in America, but around the world.  On top of that, Chick-Fil-A mandates that its franchises also give to local charities and people in need.

And yet, socially-minded folks are lining up to point out how evil some Christians were for spending $7 at Chick-Fil-A to support a man who shares their family values.  As if it’s an either-or scenario where we either help the poor or support Chick-Fil-A, and ne’er the twain shall meet.  As if, somehow, because of all the people who ate at Chick-Fil-A on Wednesday to support Truett Cathy’s freedom of conscience regarding his Biblical morals will somehow erase decades of “success” in the war on poverty.

Get off your high horse, people.  Eat your damned chicken sandwich.

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Reeling From the Shock

I’m still in shock at the senseless violence that’s occurred in Aurora, Colorado.  My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those affected and with the family of the shooter, who seem to be in as much shock as the rest of us.

As the events unfold, rest assured that someone will be there to blame conservatives and shamelessly politicize this tragedy.  Heck, if that doesn’t work, they’ll blame the movie for the event.

Here’s the truth: some people do evil things for reasons beyond politics, and those who blame violent entertainment for violence are usually ill-equipped to answer how nice movies didn’t prevent the violence.  Most importantly, beyond all our political fooferall, there are people who desperately need our love and prayer right now.  Maybe we should be focusing on them.

Just sayin’.

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Bible Studies and Jail Time

The Authorities Have Been Contacted

OK, first, read this story about an Arizona Bible Study guy who’s going to jail because of his Bible Study.

Now read this one about a California couple that was fined for their Bible Study.

It’s a war, right?  Surely, it’s a sign that there’s evil afoot and a war on Christianity and it’s time for us all to get to arms to defend the rights of these gentle-hearted, innocent people who just want to read the Bible and learn about Jesus, right?

Not right.

A lot of my friends and colleagues have brought the first case to my attention over the past few days with the wide-eyed expression awaiting the obvious shock and dismay I must feel at this obvious encroachment by the government upon the rights of the church…    that never comes.  See, while I am of the strong opinion that there is a war on my faith being conducted by secularists and other people who want to use the government to evangelize us all into atheism, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the case in either of these cases.

Both of these cases share a few common points:

1. A family decides to hold a home-based Bible Study.
2. Said Bible Study gets really popular and a lot of people (usually between 25-50) start showing up on a regular basis.
3. The authorities show up citing something about zoning and public safety.
4. The family decides eventually to go to the media to fight their war.
5. Fines and/or jail time plus public outrage ensues.

Simple enough, except that there’s a few points missing, most importantly, between #2 and #3.  This is a spot that I like to call “the vacuum of neighborliness”, where neighborliness should have existed, but instead, we get a gigantic hole in the story.  So, let’s fill that hole with the clues we have, namely: the number of people showing up.  25-50 people typically means you’re getting between 10 and 20 additional cars in your neighborhood, creating traffic congestion, noise, and crowding.  In a rural area, this isn’t really a problem, but in an urban area, this causes major issues for other people who live in the neighborhood, not to mention the ability for emergency vehicles to navigate the area. And so, someone called code enforcement.

I’ve known some code enforcement folks in my time and the general gist I’ve gotten from them is that they really, really don’t want to stir up trouble.  Their lives are happier if they don’t have to play the bureaucratic ombudsman for neighbors who aren’t talking to each other anymore, and they would really rather just let things go.  Typically, this means that people get inspected.  Someone usually tries to contact them informally to see if the issue can be resolved.  If it can’t, then they go to  warning letters.  Then repeat letters.  They try to work with the person in question to see if adaptations can be made to the property to allow them to legally continue their venture.  It goes on and on until it’s obvious that someone’s just being a jerk about the whole mess and that’s when fines start going out.  And I’m willing to bet some reasonably good money that this is exactly what happened in California. The end result there was that the homeowners worked it out with the city and all was well.

In Phoenix, not so much.

What we actually have here is the case of a convicted felon – one Michael Salman, who’d served 6 years for shooting up people’s homes and who tried to bribe a state attorney on the matter.  He was sentenced to 6 years in prison back in 1993 for the crimes.  In 1996, according to his website, 3 years into his sentence, he was ordained by the COGIC and began his ministry, and ended up hosting what he called a Bible Study in his home in the early 2000′s.  Said study would have anywhere from 40-80 people, depending on whether or not people were getting baptized or not.  All the problems actually began back in 2007 when Salman applied to the city for a 2,000 expansion to his “game room”.  It was approved, so long as said expansion wasn’t used for any business or church-related activities due to zoning and safety requirements like fire exits, accessible bathrooms, etc.  By the time it was done, said game room didn’t include much in the way of games, but did include chairs, a podium, a pulpit, and a sign with the name of the church.

In other words: he lied to the city to get his expansion approved without having to meet the standards for a public building like a church.

In 2008, after getting am $18,000 fine issued for safety violations, he was granted the right to label his home as a church by inspectors.  This saved him tax money, but now he has to actually meet the standards for a church building, including safety regulations.  If 40-80 people are going to gather, then  you’re going to have to address issues like emergency exits, bathrooms, and parking.  Salman hasn’t done so.  The City has been fighting him for over 5 years and now he’s getting sent back to his home from the early 90′s to think about what he did.

Is it reasonable for a city to do this?  Well, let me ask you this: would you be OK with me building a structure in a crowded urban neighborhood out of dry tinder with a single 1-person entrance and exit, and holding church services during a lightning storm for 125 people?  You shouldn’t be OK with it because it’s an unsafe situation.  If a fire starts, there will be death, and if there’s cars blocking the path for emergency vehicles, it becomes a threat, not only to those gathered inside, but to the neighbors as well, since fire has this tendency to “spread rapidly”.  Although my libertarian friends may disagree, providing for the general welfare and public safety is one of the most basic requirements of local government.  Throw in the deceitful, uncooperative behavior by Mr. Salman and I’ll say it: yes, it’s perfectly reasonable for a city to require that buildings where people gather en masse for whatever purpose are safe for the people inside, the people outside, and any public safety personnel that may have to enter the structure.

And this, kids, leads us to what I like to call my rules of not being a jerk about your Bible Study.  I’ve used these before, expanded on them, elaborated, but they’re pretty definitive and I think you should pay attention, memorize them, and repeat them over and over.

1. Hosting a Bible Study in your home is a good thing.  Our faith is a critical element of who we are as people, and strengthening that faith through study and fellowship is a wonderful part of growth.
2. Not being a jerk about your Bible Study is an equally good thing.  Just because we have a responsibility to share our faith doesn’t mean we have a right to be a jerk about it.
3. If you’re going to host a Bible Study in your home, be a good neighbor to those around you.  Love your neighbor as yourself by being pleasant about your Bible Study.  Just because you think you have the constitutional right to have a Bible Study doesn’t take away your neighbors’ rights to live in peace.
4. Try to keep your Bible Study size appropriate for your neighborhood.  If you’ve got a 3-bed 1,500 sq ft house in the burbs and you’re hosting 50 people…  you may want to break up into smaller groups.  That way, you limit the amount of traffic on the road and keep transportation around your neighborhood moving smoothly.  You also have less risk of someone ticking off your neighbors by blocking them in their driveways, damaging their lawn, or creating too much noise.
5. Keep lines of communication open between yourself and your neighbors.  Let them know what’s going on and when – and keep to the schedule.  If you say it’s going to be from 7-9 pm, don’t hold things over until 9:30.  Make sure your neighbors have your phone number so that they can contact you if there’s a problem.  If they do contact you with a problem: address the problem.  And invite your neighbors (and don’t get offended if they say no).  Don’t ruin a relationship with someone you share a fenceline with because you’re got a bug up your butt.
6. If you’re holding weekly services with chairs, flyers, a pulpit and a website, you’re a church.  Act like one by providing a safe, friendly environment for worshiping God.  If that means that you’re going to have to move your activities to a more public location, then do so.  Trust God to provide through offerings, donations, etc.
7. Finally, and most importantly: don’t be a jerk.  I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating.  If a neighbor calls you to complain that there’s too much traffic and noise, then listen to them and try to work with them.  If the city shows up and says that you need to have clearly marked exit doors, then go down to Lowe’s or Home Depot and pick up some exit signs.  If the city tells you that the structure you’re in is unsafe for the crowd you’re drawing, then by all means, find another structure or split into smaller groups.  If you’re going to represent Jesus to people, then act like He would.

I know all this is a bit of a veer from my usual Obama-bashing, and that may be shocking to some of you, but at the end of the day, conservatives and Christians should be smarter than this.  Don’t give in to conspiracy theories and manipulation by charlatans and criminals.  Be smart.  Listen up.  Learn stuff.

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A Few Thoughts On the Ruling…

1. Obamacare sucks in every possible way.
2. The ruling had a somewhat subtle, but firm slap in the face of Congress, declaring that their use of the Commerce Clause was incorrect and that the authority for the act rested under the Taxation Powers of Congress.
3. In joining with the left, John Roberts may have just handed the November election to the GOP.  Now the GOP has more to run on that “we’re not Obama”.  They’ve got the economy and they’ve got Obamacare.  It won’t be hard for them to point out that the costs of Obamacare will be borne by the taxpayers in the middle of a bad economy – a formula that got them a tremendous victory in the House last November.  The more I think about it, this whole scenario has a very Karl-Rovesque feel to it, with someone playing a much smarter game than anyone’s realizing.
4. The ruling makes Democrats happy today.  I liken it to a team who just got a touchdown in a football game.  They did, however, miss the extra point and now the other team (the GOP) has excellent field position.  The only question is: can our Bringham-Young-graduate QB take it to the paint?

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Who Is Brett Kimberlin?

Convicted Speedway Bomber turned Liberal Activist Brett Kimberlin is bullying conservatives who point out that he’s a convicted bomber who’s receiving a lot of money from liberals.  After bombing a few choice locations in Speedway, Indiana and coming up with a few more bizarre plots, he received over 50 years in prison for a string of bombings, but for some reason was granted parole after 17 years, and is now breathing free air, collecting cash from liberal stalwarts like Barbara Streissand and Teresa Heinz-Kerry, and is thuggishly trying to silence anyone who points out exactly who he is, trying to falsely frame some for crimes, forcing some to leave their homes in fear of their safety, and threatening others with lawsuits that point out things that are part of the public record.  He’s gotten Wikipedia to delete his own article, hiding his crimes from history.

There are 3 questions I have:

1.  Why is this convicted felon who shouldn’t be free until, at minimum, 2028, breathing free air?

2.  Why are big-name liberals giving him big money?

3.  Why is this serial litigator still allowed to sue?

Today is Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day.  Join me and bloggers around the country in exposing this convicted felon and left-wing activist.

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Liberalism as a Dumb, Hypocritical, Sex-Based Religion

Recently, a friend of mine pointed out this chick:

For those of you who’ve been paying attention for a while, you can guess what the liberal response was.  Here’s a few choice quotes:

Hey, you really seem like one stupid c*nt. That being said, I’d still let you wrap yours lips around my c*ck.”

“This b*tch is Psycho!”

“A hate mongering bigot, she probably supports modern day slavery as well.”

“The Palin legacy, people…..*sigh*”

“She’s bats*it crazy!!”

Yep.  That’s liberals at their best for you!  There’s nothing that says “classy” like Internet-published rape fantasies about a 16-year-old girl who has opinions that you don’t agree with.  That puts her square into, at the very least, stage 2 of the stages of conservative female abuse.  She’s in good company.

I know what you’re saying…   “Mr. Elephant,” because that’s my name, “you called liberalism dumb!  And a religion!  You can’t do that!  It’s just a political philosophy that’s different from yours!  Aren’t you giving in to the same hate you’re criticizing those responders in that video for?”

Silly person.  Let me educate you.  And before we get started – no, I’m not giving in to the hate.  While I despise the philosophy of liberalism, I’m not (and I don’t know a single conservative who is) sexualizing and demonizing a 16-year-old girl who disagrees with me…  because I am an adult and choose to act like it.  I also stand by what I say: Liberalism is a dumb religion.

1. Liberalism is a religion.  That’s why whenever anyone starts quoting from the Bible as the basis for their beliefs, they tend to go ballistic.  Simply put: a Biblical worldview stands in direct contrast to a modern American liberal/socialist worldview.  Their belief in the state as the supreme deity stands in contrast to Christ’s claim that HE was the way, the truth, and the life.  Ann Coulter spent an entire, excellent book pointing out exactly how liberalism is, in fact, a secularist state-based religion, and while I disagree with her conclusions regarding Darwinism (don’t get me started on that stupid debate), her conclusions regarding the cult-like devotion to liberalism by liberals is spot-on.
2. 

   A Complete and Utter Retard.

   Liberals are dumb.  I hate to put it that simply, but when you have a group of people who think you can tax a nation into success and that penalizing success is a good idea (instead of recognizing that success breeds more success) and that catering to the lowest common denominator is a bad idea, then you have to conclude that those who believe this are dumb.  Are you asking me if I actually believe that Karl Marx and all of his derivative socioeconomic systems were dumb?  Yes.  Yes, I do.  Every single last aspect of them.

   “But Mr. Elephant,” you cry like an infant, “what about when someone’s poor, out of work, and lying at home in bed because they got hit by a truck full of the Ebola virus?  Doesn’t the fact that the government can step in and help those poor souls prove that you’re wrong?”

   No, it does not.  No reasonable person would disagree that there is a great benefit to a small group of needy people being assisted in a way that allows them to reach for the maximum amount of their contribution to society, say by assisting them when they are out of work, providing for their medical needs when they are in desperate circumstances, providing them with food, shelter, and the basic needs.  However, where we disagree is in both the source of that assistance and in the quantity of that assistance.  A smart person recognizes that whether the assistance comes from the state or private charity, that ultimately, the source of that assistance (besides God) are human beings who pay for that assistance.  Welfare does not allow you to create assistance out of thin air – the money has to come from somewhere.  A smart person also recognizes that if you give a mouse a cookie, they’re going to want a lifetime of comfortable living on the public dole, with steak and lobster dinners, a nice house, digital cable TV, top-notch medical care, 4 cell phones with unlimited texting, and a partridge in a pear tree.

   A dumb person thinks that the money just appears out of the unlimited government coffers and that helping people forever who don’t contribute to society is a sustainable model.  They scream that, sure, while socialism failed in the USSR, the Eastern Bloc, and Africa, and where it hasn’t failed it keeps people in abject poverty, that it’s just because we haven’t tried the perfect system yet.  If we would just try TROOOOOOO Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, Castroism, etc., it would work perfectly!  They’re ignorant of the fact that as long as there are people (who are by nature territorial, greedy, and in need of boundaries), socialism is doomed to failure.

3. Liberals are hypocrites.  Liberals hold others to standards that they are unwilling to hold themselves to.  They scream about the separation of church and state, and then treat Obama like a messianic figure when he goes into or sends others into black churches to raise money for their campaigns.  They whine about how voting against gay marriage is based in hate and ignorance – and then ignorantly spew their hate on 16-year-old girls who can’t vote and whose personal politics offend them.  They cry about how women should be able to have taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, but work to block the executions of admitted, tried, and convicted cop-killers because killing is wrong.
4. 

   The Traditional Family Terrifies Liberals

   Let’s talk about sex.  There is no issue that liberals think is more important in the world than the right to government-funded consequence-free sex, to the point where it’s the cornerstone of their religion.  That’s why they parade idiots like Sandra Fluke (30-year-old activists masquerading as 23-year-old college coeds) around to try to get the government to force Catholic institutions to distribute free birth control against the Catholic faith, because they see their own religion’s cornerstone as being far more important than that of thousands of years of Catholic traditions.  Liberals believe that any and all sex should be free of any kind of government interference, unless it’s interfering with the rights of fathers.  To liberals, moms possess a magical device called a “vagina” that magically tells them when it’s OK to murder their unborn infants.  If dad wants to raise the child, it doesn’t matter, because he lacks the magical vaginal ability to determine if a child should be murdered due to its giving mommy stretch marks.  But if mommy wants to bring the child to term, that’s her business (unless she’s Sarah Palin), and the government will be there to lessen the consequence of that decision by ensuring that dad, who had no say in whether the child should be carried to term or not, is forced to give up half his salary so that mom can live more comfortably, and if that means weekends in jail for dad when he can’t afford his payments, well, he should’ve thought about that!

   The irony of this being that if liberals weren’t so dead-set opposed to the traditional family, there would already be a method in place to ensure that sex between 2 consenting adults is an enjoyable process, that there’d be a mom and a dad available to rear their child, and both parents would actively contribute to the family’s needs.

As I said in the title, Liberalism is a dumb, hypocritical, sex-based religion.  And if you disagree with me, I won’t say you’re worse than Hitler…   you’re just wrong.

Now, am I saying that liberals can’t have an occasional smart moment, or that all conservatives are always smart all the time?  No.  I am not talking about incidents – I am talking about consistent patterns of behavior that demonstrate, conclusively, that liberals are members of a dumb, hypocritical sex cult.  Which is perfect, because whenever I think of liberals, I keep thinking “screw you”.

So it all works out.

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Piñata II: The Spawning

There’s nothing like watching a Union thug beat a Nikki Haley piñata to make you ask a simple question: why is it OK?  Or, to be a bit more direct: would it be OK if someone made a Barack Obama piñata and beat it with a stick?

I’m not saying that the right has been innocent in their treatment of liberals, but…   well, we are.  Seriously.  There’s no comparison.  Between the union thugs assaulting people who disagree with them to the Occupiers who attack cops and destroy private property, the left seems to have trouble containing the most violent of their ranks.

In comparison, the Tea Party events were peaceful, well-organized, and cooperative with law enforcement.  I’ve been able to come across a couple of stories of TPers getting arrested (most notably when a group decided to Occupy the Hart Office Building in Washington DC), but most of the events have been peaceful.  Sure, there’ve been accusations of people spitting on Congressmen and calling them names, and one CNN producer totally heard a Tea Partier use the F-word once, maybe, possibly….    but in comparison to the Occupy Twits?  They’re freakin’ boy scouts.

The point being that equivocation only serves its purpose when there’s something to equivocate, and there’s nothing here to equivocate.  I’ll go ahead and say it: the AFL/CIO idiot who made a Nikki Haley piñata was just as wrong as someone who’d make a Barack Obama piñata.  They’re both idiots and should both be treated accordingly.

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Young Minds Full of Mush: Our Corrupt Education System

Very few things get my ire up more than our educational system here in the United States.  “Oh, but Mr. Elephant”, you say, actually believing my first name is “Annoyed”, “teachers are wooooooonderful….  and don’t you know that I believe the children are our future…?”

Silly person.  Sit down and let Mr. Elephant educate you, and by “educate” in that sentence, I mean something completely different from the “education” your children are getting today.

First, let me get this much out of the way: I think the public education system is unconstitutional.  I believe our students would be better off if we had a system of privately-held schools that had a profit motivation for producing high quantities of high-quality students.  I also think they would do so at a much lower cost than we currently blow on our unbelievably mediocre national school system – over $1.1 Trillion dollars annually on all levels of education from all levels of government – compare that to our Defense Budget of $707 Billion.  And yet, here, I am not going to advocate for the dismantling of the system.  No, I’m just going to point out what’s wrong with our current system and what we could to fix it.

1. 

   Seems legit.

   Pedophiles.  Whenever I say that word, I’ll bet you that you start thinking “priests” or “boy scout leaders” or “creepy guy hiding in a white van labeled ‘free candy’”, right?  I mean, obviously, the problem of child sexual predators is surely restricted only to those weird and creepy people who do stuff like “pray”, “build fires”, and “drive around in a van advertising free candy”.

   OK, I’ll give you the last one.

   An organization called “Bishop Accountability” once estimated that 10% of priests were pedophiles.  The problem is that they used a very loose interpretation of “pedophile” that included priests who were merely accused of sexual abuse.  The real number is probably between 2 and 5 percent.  Still a high number, but it’s pretty much equivalent to the rate of the general population.  Still – 64% of people, when you say “Catholic Priest” wonder exactly how many children they’ve diddled.

   If they’re looking for diddlers, tho, maybe they should look at teachers.  There are no hard facts because, shock of shocks, powerful lobbies like the National Education Association have worked to keep government polls from being done.  Fortunately, private polling has been done.  It is estimated that the percentage of abuser teachers is similar to the general population (between 1 and 5%), but the problem is that while the average abuser is exposed to children for only a brief time, teachers are exposed to children on a daily basis for many hours a day.  The result is that between 10 and 15% of students have reported being sexually harassed or abused by their teachers. When the American Association of University Women Foundation interviewed over 1,600 students between 8th and 11th grade, they found that 25% of girls and 10% of boys had been abused or harassed, and identified their abuser or harasser as a school employee.  The same poll found that between 1991 and 2000, over 250,000 students had been sexually abused or harassed by a school employee.

   The response from the schools?  15% were terminated.  38.7% resigned, changed districts, or retired.  54.3% suffered no ill effects other than a stern talking-to or re-education.  While it’s certainly terrible that sexual abuse happens, it’s even more terrible when over 54% of cases are covered up, ignored, or punished with little more than a slap on the wrist.  In New York City, teachers accused of sexual abuse of students are put through the district’s disciplinary system, aka “the rubber room”.  Basically, they’re sent to a room to twiddle their thumbs, get paid their full salaries with benefits, and wait – often for years – until the district decides what to do with them.

   How bad is it in NYC?  Well, we have the case of this lovely man, one Roland Pierre.  He finally retired last year at the age of 76.  He’d spent every day since 1997 in one of the rubber rooms, twiddling his thumbs and collecting his full salary and benefits.  Why was he in the rubber room, you may ask?  Did he give a rich kid a bad grade?  Did he vote Republican?  Nothing that heinous, apparently.  All he did was call one of his 6th grader ESL students into his classroom, hugged her, kissed her full on the mouth (with tongue), grabbed her boobs, and finally reached under her skirt for a good feel of her downstairs parts.  He was arrested and then the school system parked him in a room and paid him $97,000 a year, with full vacation and benefits from the age of 62 (when he could’ve retired) to the age of 76.

   And then there’s Alan Rosenfield.  This man has a $10 million real estate portfolio and has been deemed a walking danger to children when he perved out, made some lewd comments to 8th graders, and grabbed some girls’ butts.  So the NYC schools pulled him out of the classroom and put him in a rubber room, paying him $100,049 a year with benefits (including a currently-estimated $87k annual pension) for the past decade.  Again, he could’ve retired at 62, but decided he’d rather, in his own words, give a big F-U to the school system for denying him his rights to grab 13-year-olds’ hinnies.

   And then there’s Francisco Olivares.  This genius among men impregnated a 16-year-old back in 1978, but avoided any fooferall by marrying her.  Over the next 14 years, he molested and took porno pictures of at least 3 more 12-year-old girls.  The school system…  overturned his conviction on a technicality and later, in 2002, he found himself in trouble again when he fondled yet another girl.  This time, the schools struck back hard and the arbitrator gave him a warning not to stand close to students.  And then the stuck him in the rubber room and paid him $94,154 a year, plus benefits.

   The NYC Schools response, once these controversies were exposed?  They shut down the rubber rooms, sent the teachers home, and paid them their salaries and benefits anyway.

   It’s like the thin blue line, except with chalk.

2. Performance.  There’s a very helpful infographic that will pretty much sum up my problems here.  Non-collegiate American education spends more money, per student, than any major country on the planet, and yet, our students consistently come in average to below average in comparison to the rest of the planet. Obviously, dollars are not helping matters, as nations who spend less money per student get consistently better performance from those students (Canada, Finland, South Korea, etc.).  And yet, at the state and local level, we consistently hear how our schools need more money, more money, more money.  I’m fully convinced that if you offered them every last dime, there still wouldn’t be enough money to spend on making students more and more mediocre.
3. Indoctrination.  Teacher in Rowan County, NC tells her students that it’s illegal to criticize Barack Obama.  Another NC teacher, Diantha Harris, used her classroom to bully a student who supported John McCain.  And lest we forget: Barack Hussein Obama…  mmm… mmm… mmm…A simple question: would this be allowed for George W. Bush?  How about Mitt Romney?  Ronald Reagan?  I’ll go ahead and tell you: hell, no.  Private organizations, like clubs and churches, may voice support for those men, but never, ever would a public school be allowed to be used for such caterwauling praise of a sitting President.  At least, not a Republican President.  And why is that, do you suppose?
4. Student discipline.  There’s a reason people’ve been complaining for years about how schools aren’t paddling students anymore: paddling works.  There’s nothing that’ll cure a desire to bring an AK-47 to the classroom like the thought that you’re going to get your butt whooped by a principal with a 2×4 and the upper arm strength of a major league home run king.  You don’t need to be abusive, but with classroom behavior downtrending like a flushed turd, a logical person would have to somehow conclude that maybe, just maybe, a limpwristed approach to discipline isn’t an effective means of discipline.  Joe Clark took up a baseball bat and chained the doors to his school and got rid of most of the discipline problems at his school.Of course, there’s more than just political indoctrination.  There’s religious indoctrination, too.  If you’re opposed to teachers pushing the religion of Christianity on students, then certainly pushing Islam, Buddhism, and Atheism is equally wrong, right?  RIGHT?

Those are just 4 areas.  There’s more, but let’s just run with those 4 for right now because my solution, frankly, will solve the other problems, too.  And like I said above, I’m not going to advocate for dismantling the schools, even though I think it would probably solve these problems much, much more quickly.

The Solution

1. End teacher unions.  There is no reason in the modern world for a teacher union to exist except to bully the taxpayers and protect a class of citizens that need no protection.
2. End tenure.  There is no reason in the world to allow bad teachers to have extra protection in their jobs.  Good teachers will keep their jobs by being good teachers.
3. Keep testing students.  Like it or not, standardized testing is good.  It lets us know if your students meet the standards.  Yes, there are issues, but at least we have a number we can use to base whether your students are failing to meet, meeting, or exceeding expectations.
4. Pay teachers accordingly.  If your students are expected to be at level 7 and they’re consistently testing at level 9, you should be paid more.  If, however, they’re testing at level 4, you should be fired.
5. Hold all school staff accountable.  Do regular background checks and drug testing of all school staff, from the janitors to the principals.  Hold them accountable if they step out of line.
6. Ban political activity by teachers and hold them to the ban.  Teachers who push a political agenda should be fired immediately.
7. Revoke licenses regularly.  If a teacher crosses the line often or egregiously enough, revoke their license permanently.
8. Fire limp-wristed disciplinarians.  Children need to learn to act like adults and they can’t learn from adults whose solution to discipline problems is to hide in the corner, smile through their teeth, and hippie-hug people into submission.  If you have a child who’s a problem, they’re keeping other children from learning.  Send the child home with a note that says they’re not to come back until they grow up and if the parent doesn’t like it, they can pay for a private education or homeschool their little angel.
9. Give parents an out.  If the school their kids attend sucks, then parents need to have an out, via school vouchers and charter schools.  At the very least, if those kids end up in charter schools, then you’ll get lower classroom sizes at the schools they leave.
10. Keep school boards accountable.  In North Carolina, I’m in favor of removing school taxes from city and county budgets and placing that taxation authority in the hands of the school system – but only giving them taxation authority over families whose students use the school system.  On one hand, if I have no children, then I am receiving a very limited benefit from the school system.  On the other hand, it means that the people who receive the greatest benefit from a public education will have to hold those elected officials responsible for the expenditure of their local tax dollars.  In other states, I dunno.  Just vote the punks out.

Do you have any ideas to make our schools better?  Comment below, man!

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Attention Conservatives: Stop Being Stupid

As anyone who’s read this blog over the past few years (including the desert years of 2009-2011) knows, I’m more than happy to hold those on the left accountable for their idiocy and to call them to task for being…  well…  illogical and willfully stupid.  And so, some people may think that my laser beam of stupid is aimed only at liberals and that I’m unwilling to hold my own – or myself – accountable.  Those people would be wrong.

Marco Rubio – Apparently, a Liberal

When it comes to politics, I’m a solid right-conservative.  My Political Compass rating (an excellent test for determining your personal beliefs, even if their analysis of public figures is way off – they rank Obama as a right-authoritarian) is a 7.12 economic and 0.15 social, so you know where I’m coming from: a fairly Reaganesque, but not hard-right conservative.  And as conservative as I am, I am well aware of the fact that there are those who do not share my beliefs.  The last 5 Republican Presidential nominees and presumptive nominees (Romney, McCain, Bush II, Dole, and Bush I) have all been much more moderate than my own beliefs.  And yet, though these differences existed, I came to the conclusion that, at the end of the day, my 80% political friend was not my political enemy.

And yet, what I see happening on the right now is to take Reagan’s sage advice to his staff back in 1972 (“The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor”) and flush it down the commode in an attempt to find the mystical “perfect candidate”.  It goes to the point of people misunderstanding what conservatism really is, and calling out anyone who disagrees with us on a single issue.  Example? OK.  I’ve heard more than one conservative call out Marco Rubio as an imperfect RINO in waiting because, according to them, he supports the DREAM Act (or at least, a version of it).

OK, let’s think about this for a minute.  First – let’s talk about his version of the DREAM Act and what it really is.  First – it’s not even on the table yet.  It’s not even been proposed.  However, the word on the street is that the revised DREAM Act being proposed will basically allow children (who cannot be legally responsible) who were brought over the border by their parents (not of their own free will) who work to complete school, register for selective service, and be good citizens (no troublemakers or layabouts allowed) an opportunity to work within the existing immigration system (not creating a pathway to citizenship, thus preserving our existing investment in our legal immigrants) to stay in the country (rather than being thrown back over the border to a country they may not even remember).  In other words: it allows kids who had no choice in becoming illegal immigrants both an impetus to be good people and an opportunity to become law-abiding adults without ignoring their status as an illegal immigrant.  Simply put: this is a good thing.

Let me say it again: providing people who were unwillingly dragged into breaking the law an opportunity to follow the law is a good thing.  Period.

And yet, there are way too many conservatives who are ready to throw Rubio under the bus because he won’t toe the hard-line school of “we don’t care if they haven’t lived in Mexico since they were 2 – throw them back over the border”.  Marco Rubio.  A man whose voting record has earned him a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union, whose record of conservative leadership in Florida has earned him the respect of people around this country. A man whose common-sense responsible conservatism has earned him a potential tap as the Vice Presidential nominee of our country.

And these idiots are calling him a RINO, not because he HAS stepped out of line on an issue…  but because he MAY step out of line on an issue.  Ditto with other conservatives, including some of the most conservative members of Congress out there.

We saw it all primary season long…  Republican candidates who would rise up to challenge Mitt Romney and then get knocked down by the conservative branch because they weren’t the perfect conservative candidate that Ronald Reagan was (the same Reagan who raised taxes, spent money like water – arguably with good reason, and who provided blanket amnesty for a group of illegal immigrants).  Tim Pawlenty (a strong mainstream conservative whose sin was supporting cap and trade), Rick Perry (another mainstream conservative who supported vaccinating girls against cancer and supported the Trans-Texas Corridor), Newt Gingrich (a successful conservative leader with a 90% ACU rating who got in trouble for global warming and for opening his mouth too much).  And the result: we’re left with Mitt Romney…  whose lifetime ACU Rating is 55.

Congrats, conservatives.  Thanks to you throwing good candidates under the bus, we’re left with a middle-ground squish.  Mission Accomplished!  And now, having learned absolutely nothing from the Primaries, you turn your attention to demonizing some of the most conservative people in this country because they’re not good enough on maybe – MAYBE one issue.  They’re like the geniuses who refused to vote for Sarah Palin for Vice President because a woman’s place is, apparently, in the home, ignoring the fact that she was a successful, inspirational administrator with a conservative and anti-corruption record longer than the Alaskan coastline.

So, this is my love letter to my fellow conservatives, and as much as it hurts me to say it: stop being idiots.  You’re acting like a bunch of retards.  As much as I loathe Romney’s moderate politics, you’re going to have to admit that it’s you conservatives who got us into this mess with him as a candidate because you were too focused on nuking your own wounded and not building a consensus candidate that could appeal to the entire party.  You were too busy running the bus over the people who failed the perfect-conservative litmus test and not busy at figuring out how to play a political game that requires more finesse than a Sherman Tank and that doesn’t alienate 30% of your potential voters.

Or, you could at least try to act like adults.  That would be a nice change.

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