America is being torn apart from within by bad politics, leftist policies

Watching America collapse or, more accurately, be torn apart from within, is very disturbing. The country has had challenges before. Some of us remember the turbulence of the sixties. The Vietnam War, the hippies and the Civil Rights Movement all had things stirred up. But the country settled down after a while.

Today, the large number of “Americans” who do not know why our system of government is superior to the others, because they were not taught about it, did not learn about it when they were taught, or who just don’t accept it, is truly troublesome.

Barack Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” if elected should have started a revolution against that concept. Instead, due to the large number who disagree with and/or don’t understand our nation’s founding principles, it fired up a lot of people who agreed with that idea. Today we are seeing where that mindset has led us.

Our country is divided more than it has been since the Civil War. One political faction wants to change many things, frequently because “times have changed.” Things like doing away with the Electoral College that protects minority interests and getting rid of the Senate filibuster that helps discourage the introduction of highly partisan legislation, and makes it easier to pass one-sided legislation. 

It has also discussed packing the Supreme Court with liberal activists to make laws rather than to correctly interpret laws. This will strengthen and maintain leftist power in Washington for a long time.

And even though Joe Biden won the 2020 election with 81.3 million votes — the most ever — and with the highest voter turnout percentage since 1900, it wants to change election laws to “increase voter turnout.”

The other side, however, wants to protect and defend the brilliant concepts of the Founders that made America superior to every other governmental form yet conceived.

This conservative faction understands that the principles of the U.S. Constitution do not change with the winds of time, or the preferences of political parties. And it understands why they should not change. 

The “conservative” justices on the Supreme Court and other courts work to maintain founding principles, and to save the republic from the suicidal tendencies of the socialist/communist radical left.

Laws that protect people must be followed and protected. And people that cannot or will not live and act in compliance with those laws must be punished. The safety of the populace is of utmost importance in the workings of a good government.

Fortunately, the disastrous results of defund the police, no bail/low bail, and not punishing some crimes are being seen for the irrational blunders they are. Yet millions among us still want to change direction from that which brought us a strong nation, and they are having negative effects on our country.

Education, which has been made far less effective because of the fear surrounding the Covid virus, now is home to a movement, mostly in secret, to improperly change the history curriculum. Some of this occurs at the school board level, some at the school level, and some at the instructor level. And it has spread into other subject areas.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been sneaked into classrooms, and rather than teach children that each of them is a valuable individual, it classifies them as either an oppressed person, or an oppressor. The distinction depends not on individual character, but on skin color. 

Instead of encouraging kids to understand and get along with each other, CRT pits groups of kids against each other, further intensifying the discord we see.

Some school boards deny parents their right to express concerns at meetings, and deny them requested materials. Some board members tell parents “I don’t work for you.” Teachers unions resist the importance of getting back into the classroom, and restoring the learning environment.

Reactions to the Covid variants have had devastating effects on the country, and much of the world. Combined with the other issues, things are truly upside-down.

Advice from the scientists has been all over the board. Some of that is a normal part of learning to deal with a new disease. But two years in, there is beginning to be resistance to the control mechanisms put into effect to protect us. 

Governments and businesses mandate vaccinations. Vaccines are designed to keep people from getting a disease. Vaccines in the past have done that. The Polio, Tetanus and Measles vaccines, for example, prevent contracting those diseases. 

Some people use those vaccines to justify forcing Covid vaccinations. But there is a big difference. Covid vaccines do not prevent catching or transmitting Covid. They reportedly reduce the effects of the virus, but do not prevent catching or transmitting it.

And then there is the selective censorship by social media platforms that impede the free exchange of important ideas. It is aimed primarily at conservative politics, and the “approved” Covid messages.

Comments contrary to the approved message were taken down, labeled as “false information” by the self-appointed media judges. Much of that information, however, proved to be correct.

Free speech is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Without the free expression of ideas — good and bad ideas — we are doomed.

Three topics illustrating the troubled times in which we now live

** Lincoln under attack. Again.

In the string of events of erasing history, Abraham Lincoln’s name will be removed from a high school in San Francisco, California, after a committee recommended the action. 

And just what did Lincoln do, or not do, to earn this slap in the face? He did not demonstrate that black lives mattered to him.

“Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building,” said Jeremiah Jeffries, chairman of the renaming committee, and also teaches 1st grade in the school district.

This seems a little weird, even for California, where very little that happens surprises us these days. Lincoln, America’s 16th president who abolished slavery, became known as the Great Emancipator, and was an inspiration to his successors. Those included President Barack Obama, who used the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration in 2009.

“Lincoln conducted a war, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and got shot in the head for black lives, but this wasn’t enough to keep him from being unceremoniously ditched by modern social justice warriors,” wrote Jarrett Stepman in The Daily Signal.

Another area of discontent followed a Sioux uprising in Minnesota, where 303 tribesmen were sentenced to death. Lincoln reviewed their cases and removed the death sentence for 265 of them. The other 38 were hanged.

But some saw that saving only the great majority of the Sioux warriors as a Lincoln failure.

This criticism of Lincoln earned a comment from Sherry Black, who worked for more than 40 years in Native American economic and community development: “Considering the time period, it’s so difficult to understand how things were at the time. How do you make these decisions?”

That is a question that the cancel folk apparently cannot answer, and is likely a subject that has never entered into their narrow minds.

So, what are they going to name the school? Perhaps “Saul Alinsky High School.”

** Governors and mayors doing crazy stuff

As the lockdowns and other heavy restrictions continue, millions are out of a job, thousands of employers have had to permanently close their businesses, and many more may meet that same fate, if things don’t soon change.

While the intentions may be good, the results often are not. The virus can be horrible, even deadly. But, people being out of work and out of money, and other lockdown problems, have also led to much suffering, including suicides. 

And kids need to be in school. Safely, of course. But they need a productive learning environment, and virtual learning falls well short. 

Restrictions often are not sensible. People can protest in large groups, shop in large stores with lots of other people, but may only attend religious services in ridiculously small numbers. Some other restrictions on activities are just as foolish.

And then there are those that make rules, but do not themselves follow those rules. Arrogant “leaders” only compound the problems. 

People are growing tired of these authoritarian actions, that deny their constitutional rights, and render us a bunch of hostages.

** Virtual education issues

 

Like many kids across the country, a 9-year-old 4th grader in the Jefferson Parish Public Schools System in Louisiana has been doing school online from his bedroom. During an online test, his computer showed some of the things in his bedroom. His teacher saw him moving a BB gun out of the floor.

That evening, the police came and searched his house, based on the teacher’s report, and the 9-year-old was facing expulsion by the school system. 

He ended up being suspended for 3 days, as he would have been if he had actually brought a gun to school, and the school board is refusing to remove the suspension from his record.

During a hearing, the school board asked the young boy how his teacher must have felt after seeing the gun on the computer screen. “I know what a BB gun looks like,” said a former teacher and school board member. “And you know what it resembles? A real gun. OK? It resembles a real gun.” 

Perhaps this former teacher and board member does not know that owing BB guns, and other guns, is legal in our country.

An attorney representing the boy’s family, called the imposition of school-ground rules enforced in someone’s actual home as an “injustice”: “This is an injustice. It’s a systemic failure. They’re applying on-campus rules to these children, even though they’re learning virtually in their own homes.”

The state legislature passed a law named after the boy that charged that the school behaved improperly, but the school board still refused to remove the suspension from his permanent record.

The teacher, the school, and the school board have no authority to tell people what they may or may not have in their homes. The reporting of this family to the police is outrageous, and the entire affair should cost the school system a pile of money.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!