To many time we confuse motion with progress.
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(IPI). State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia is the chief sponsor of a bill that would prohibit “any and all marketing and advertising to the public for charter school enrollment and recruitment made by a charter school or school district.”
She is also the sponsor of bills that would eliminate the charter school commission and extend the virtual charter school moratorium.
State Rep. Ron Sandack recently asked Chapa LaVia, when they were debating the bill in the House to end the state charter commission, what the logic was behind crafting the bill.
Chapa LaVia responded: “There is none.”
This is not hard to figure out. She's motivated by her crony union political support; the unions don't want any competition and don't want to give up a penny of confiscated tax revenues from families whose kids go to private school.
I'm just going to put it out there. And to be honest I didn't and I don't read this stuff nor do I truly know where I stand. But I do know this. If your children misbehaved the way they do in public schools at a private school their butt would be kicked out. Quit blaming the system and take some responsibility as a parent please
This is crony unionist nonsense! One would think that that public school monopolists are stuck with a flood of unruly children. It is little more than excuses; corrupt administrators do have zero tolerance for some things: boys pretending their index fingers are the barrels of guns, a little boy's kiss on a girl's cheek becomes "sexual harassment", suspending a 5-year-old over her discussing use of a Hello Kitty bubble gun, etc. No, we need to get rid of tenured mediocre teachers, an end to corrupt collective bargaining like layoff policies that discriminate against younger, more talented teachers, an end to corrupt subjective teacher evaluations---and more competition, instead of holding parents' education taxes hostage. We need nationwide reforms like parent trigger laws, which can empower a majority of parents to enact substantive reforms like turning a failing school into a public charter school under private management.
(Reason). Question for libertarians (and other thoughtful people): Do you think a CEO's political donations, a business's personnel decisions, or a company's social causes should ever be a factor in deciding whether to patronize a firm or boycott it?
I think that most libertarians are palpably hypocritical on this issue. Marriage has been a social/religious construct, not a political one, and the idea that some libertarians want to use the perverse monopoly force of the State to intervene, on behalf of political correctness, on social norms or religious institutions in the private sector, is unacceptable. To see marriage and family, institutions that have evolved to promote social stability and preservation over thousands of years across cultures and religions, in arbitrary, presentist terms is patently absurd.
Does an employer have a right to promote or terminate for arbitrary reasons (assuming no contractual terms otherwise)? Do consumers have individual or collective rights to purchase or boycott over trivial reasons? Yes. However, the libertarian stance should on principle be against majoritarian infringements on the negative liberties of people. A more moral position is to argue against any use of force or abuse that tends to have a chilling effect on unalienable rights, including political opinions. All of us have opinions which may alienate some special-interest group. I personally think that Warren Buffett serves as a useful idiot for one of the worst Presidents in American history, an embarrassment to the memory of his late father, a member of the Old Right. But I would not boycott his companies' goods and services, just because I think he has sinned against the interests of the free markets and free trade. He has but one opinion among over those of 310 million people. Mozilla showed bad judgment by throwing Eich under the bus over past expressions of opinion. I have been a long-time user of Mozilla products, but I may look at my alternatives now to register my protest against the fascists.
(Bastiat Institute). An assistant philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology wants to send people who disagree with him about global warming to jail.
There aren't many jobs for professional philosophers outside of academia, which is why I stopped with a minor to my first Master's. There's a difference between skepticism and denial, e.g., agnosticism vs. atheism. We should not be surprised at this: I think the scientific community has been corrupted by intervening in politics, by journal censorship of opposing points of view, by the violations of Climategate. But given the groupthink of Progressivism on university campuses, why does it not surprise me that a politically-oriented philosophy professor would resort to not only censorship, but prosecution of different stances? He can't be satisfied by debating others; he wants to implement a Progressive version of the Inquisition. Never mind the ideals of academic freedom; never mind our tradition of free expression. Socrates is turning over in his grave.
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| Courtesy of Henry Payne and Townhall |
Harry Chapin, "Cat's In the Cradle". I work with some great guys whom love their kids. One guy proudly shows a picture of his preteen daughter with her first deer kill. Another dad, with in-demand IT skills, could work almost anywhere but took his present job to be near his Little League-age son; I've volunteered to relieve him on a couple of Saturday's so he could attend his son's games. I've done some late afternoon shift coverage for another proud dad, whom got to see his middle-school daughter open her softball season with a double and whose son pitches for his high school team.
It's so important to be there for your children. I remember one of my brothers-in-law whom swore that if and when he had kids, he would be a different kind of dad to his kids. (I don't know what his issues with his father were.) But I remember visiting my sister a few years later and saw him come home from work late afternoon and head straight for "cave (alone) time" with his home computer for a couple of hours which ended roughly about the same time my sister was getting the kids ready for bed. It was none of my business, of course; I know his job was stressful and he was a wonderful provider for my sister and their kids. But you don't get those years back. I remember my best friend in San Antonio whom I would visit every Christmas break from Houston; his first priority after work was a solid hour of playing with his young son...
