Liberal Nazis

San Francisco votes passed Proposition I which states that it:

“Shall [] be City policy to oppose military recruiting in public schools and consider funding scholarships for education and training that could provide an alternative to military service.”

So much for the First Amendment. The libs running San Francisco can talk about how they are open and inclusive of all viewpoints, but the fact is they only support opinions they agree with. Liberal Nazis. Not like an opinion? Ban it. Not want someone explaining the possibility of military service to defend the country? Ban it.

Instead of military service San Francisco is going to pony up money for school scholarships and job training? Doesn’t the city have high enough taxes and enough fiscal problems? There is no limit to the amount of other people’s money politicians are willing to spend.

Above all else, let someone else defend the country.

Halloween at Public Schools

Pam Costa, the directory of elementary schools and programs for the San Juan school district in Sacramento on why school parents were sent a letter FORBIDDING any costumes or body decorations or anything related to Halloween:

“How does dressing up in a costume at Halloween have anything to do with a child’s learning reading or math or language arts?”

Great Pam, might as well cancel the music, arts, and physical education programs as well.

Educating young children involves more than just the ‘Three Rs.”

But then Pam Costa says this “The primary focus of the school is to educate kids, and sometimes other activities take away from what we are really supposed to be doing.”

Sorry kids, recess has just been eliminated.

It all depends on how narrowly you define “education”. Apparently, learning about, enjoying, and having fun with a major American holiday and significant part of American culture is not something worth “educating” kids about.

Pam, how well are you doing educating the children entrusted in your care? According to a Winter 2004 press release issued by the San Juan school district students are demonstrating “strong” performance gains in math. Sounds good, but what are the details? More than 50 percent of the students now meet state standards!

Yikes. California state standards are bad enough, and about half of Pam Costa’s young kids fail to meet minimal educational standards in math. What about other areas? The San Juan Unified School District admits that it “is concerned with the declines in specific subject areas such as earth science, world history, and mathematics.” So math is up and down. I guess it depends on which kids you selectively focus on.

OK, things were bad in late 2004, but how about now, a year later? According to a September 21, 2005, story in the Sacramento Bee “Bucking the statewide trend, San Juan Unified saw a drop in its number of program improvement schools – from nine last year to seven this year.” Oops, from bad to worse.

Pam, here’s a tip: make learning fun. Spending a couple hours making pumpkin drawings, showing off costumes, and having fun will not jeopardize any of your kids chances of going to Harvard.

Detroit Deja Vu

GM and Ford are currently facing disaster because of dismal sales with fixed healthcare and retirement obligations. Yet, German and Japanese automakers are looking good with rising sales. The reason? Ford and GM are dependent upon high profit SUV sales, but SUV sales are crashing through the floor due to high gas prices.

Scott Sprinzen, and auto industry analyst for Standard & Poors says GM and Ford “have shown little ability to foresee market trends, such as the demand for crossover utility vehicles and gasoline-electric hybrids.” Ford annouced plans to produce gas-electric hybrids to be available in 2010. 2010? Five years from now?

Where have we heard this before? Since the first oil crisis in the mid-1970s, the American automakers have repeatedly had the same problems and made the same long-term mistakes.

The story about GM and Ford being short-sided, not recognizing long-term trends, sacrificing market share for temporary sales of huge vehicles, could have been written 30 years ago, 20 years ago or 10 years ago. In fact, it was.

The auto industry constitutes a significant part of the economy. But while Toyota trots out its Prius to long waiting lists of customers seeking discounts, Ford does nothing until forced to say it will try to do the same – in 5 years. Check back in 5 years. Ford and GM will be considerably smaller companies.

God Hates Al Qaeda

A few weeks ago Al Queda, Islamic extremists, and their sympathizers were distributing the rubbish that the US hurricanes Katrina and Rita were punishment from God, and they prayed for more. 1000 died in those hurricanes.

Now that a powerful earthquake has hit Pakistan and Afghanistan killing at least 20,000, terrorist logic suggests that God hates someone else at least 20 times more.

The putrid illogic spewing from these vermin is laughable to anyone with half an educated brain. It would be refreshing if as much time, energy, and money was spent on educational and economic reform as is spent on hating and killing people after they have been infused with a twisted view of the world.

Profiling Security

In the wake of the London underground bombings it was announced in New York that they would begin random searches of passengers. But absolutely no profiling will be done.

Why not?

Political correctness.

The issue here is security. Safety. Life and death.

We have a profile of the typical terrorist bomber: young male, Muslim, usually of Arab ancestry. Usually carrying something that could hide explosives.

It makes no sense to randomly select 83-year White great-grandmothers to search. At best, that only gives a false sense of security. “We search 500 people a day.” Of course, searching 500 people a day who obviously are not terrorists is just a waste of money and inconvenience to everyone.

Personally, if the transit authority is going to search someone, I would prefer that they search the guy with the backpack wearing an overcoat in 95 degree weather. Why? Because of a PROFILE.

Remember, the goal is to catch terrorists.

If you are reading this and are a young male, Sunni Muslim, of Arab ancestry – sorry if you are offended – but you match the profile of a potential terrorist. If you match that profile, and are never searched, you should be concerned.

Feudal America

The US Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London has transformed the fundamental property rights upon which America and western civilization has been built into Feudal America. The government can essentially control all property, allowing ordinary persons to have only what it deems appropriate.

In short, the government can condemn, that is, take your property (and pay you for it), and give it to someone else, even if your property is not blighted or a harm to society, if someone else can make a better use of the property thereby generating more taxes, jobs, or some other proposed benefit for society. In Kelo, people’s homes were taken so that Pfizer could build a factory employing the community.

Hello feudalism. The government decides what is the best use for your property. The government will always be able to articulate some benefit it achieves, whether it is more taxes, more jobs, or some ambiguous public benefit.

This is a far-ranging opinion. Only the rich and powerful will be able to pay government officials and make the claim as to some societal benefit to be obtained. Incidental, of course, to the benefits received by the rich and powerful.

In medieval Europe the lord owned the land and controlled the masses. It was not until private ownership of property became accepted that Europe began emerging from the dark ages. The security of private property ownership is one of our most important rights. But that has now been taken away. All private property is at risk of being taken and given to someone else. Let us start with the property owned by 5 Supreme Court justices….

Pinocchio Prison

In Lodi, California, just a half-hour from Sacramento, the feds have arrested several Muslim clerics. These persons are potentially terrorists and helped Al Qaeda – but that is not why they were arrested. They are being held, without bail, for lying to the FBI about their whereabouts and what they were doing.

But first, assuming these are terrorists, do I care what they are being held for? Lock em up and throw away the key. Traffic violation? Send them to prison. Sort of like Al Capone. He never went to prison for being a gangster. They finally stuck a tax evasion charge on him.

More recently, Martha Stewart went to prison. Her crime? Playing Pinocchio. She did not go to jail for insider trading.

What is disturbing here is a theme that is becoming more and more common. Not just these two high profile situations, but in numerous articles about criminal cases. The government is putting people in jail for their lies and not for any underlying crimes. Sure, in the short-term I like finding any excuse to put away a terrorist. But in the long-term, the government power and loss of the freedom to speak is frightening.

Hello Big Brother and Goodbye First Amendment.

It is one thing to speak your mind – like I am doing now. But what if you say something wrong? Is there a right to lie? Is there a right to be wrong? If the risk is going to jail people will shut-up and de Tocqueville’s America will no longer exist.

The First Amendment is supposed to protect speech – including lies. Who decides if there is a lie? Different people witnessing the same incident will have different versions of what happened. The truth to one person is a lie to another.

If questioned by the government, if someone does not answer a question they could run the risk of going to prison for interfering with an investigation. If they assert the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination they are just waving a red flag saying guilty – leading to more investigation. Even if they tell the truth, if the government takes down their statement wrong, or there is a rogue government employee intent on taking someone down, their claim someone lied could put them in jail.

Get the picture? They sure did in the founding of this country, and from that experience our Constitutional and rights of free speech were created – rights that have swept most of the globe, and hopefully someday all of the planet.

True or False: If someone criticizes the government they cannot be jailed because the government says their speech is a lie?

Let’s bring criminals in for real crimes, and not create Pinocchio Prisons.