PK'S NOTE: That's it, I'm leaving; I can't take this stupidity anymore.How are you supposed to learn about diversity if some of it is banned? I mean seriously think about it. Diversity means our culture too.

School Bans the Word ‘Easter’

Boys and girls at an Alabama elementary school will still get to hunt for eggs – but they can’t call them ‘Easter Eggs’ because the principal banished the word for the sake of religious diversity.

“We had in the past a parent to question us about some of the things we do here at school,” said Heritage Elementary School principal Lydia Davenport. “So we’re just trying to make sure we respect and honor everybody’s differences.”

Television station WHNT reported that teachers were informed that no activities related to or centered around any religious holiday would be allowed – in the interest of religious diversity.

“Kids love the bunny and we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter Bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion,” she told the television station. “A bunny is a bunny and a rabbit is a rabbit.”

Teachers had planned to have an Easter egg-themed quiz bowl where boys and girls would ring in with egg buzzers and search for answers hidden in Easter eggs.

“I don’t get upset about too many things, but this upsets me,” one parent wrote to the television station. “Even non-believers enjoy a good egg hunt. Kids need to enjoy being kids.”

Davenport reconsidered the ban after meeting with district leaders – but she still won’t allow teachers to use the word ‘Easter.’

“We compromised by allowing teachers to use other different kinds of shapes besides eggs in the classroom,” she told the television station.

But the good news, according to Madison City School Board member Phil Schmidt, is that students are going to be allowed to have eggs.

“The principal was trying to be extremely cautious about having anything religious in the school – probably more cautious than she needed to be,” he told Fox News. “In this world of schools, it’s probably better to be cautious than reckless. But at the same time you’ve got to use good judgment about it.”

Schmidt said Madison is a very religious community and when it comes to beliefs – they are diverse and tolerant.

At the same time, he said, it’s important to put things in perspective.

“Don’t over think it,” he said. “It’s the Easter Bunny. People have known there are multi-colored eggs that have been a symbol of Easter for a long, long, long, long time. I don’t think you want to over think it. I don’t think our parents want us to over think it.”

And besides, Schmidt pointed out – they even have an Easter Egg Roll at the White House.
“So having Easter eggs at a school doesn’t seem like it would be a huge stretch,” he said.

http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2013/03/26/school-bans-the-word-easter-n1549633

Sebelius Finally Admits Premiums Will Rise as a Result of ObamaCare

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is finally admitting that the Affordable Care Act isn't actually that affordable. Think tanks have been warning for years about the expensive cost of ObamaCare and many have already seen their health insurance premiums rise as a result of its implementation yet, the administration has denied the bill will actually increase costs for consumers until now.

Some people purchasing new insurance policies for themselves this fall could see premiums rise because of requirements in the health-care law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Tuesday.
Ms. Sebelius’s remarks come weeks before insurers are expected to begin releasing rates for plans that start on Jan. 1, 2014, when key provisions of the health law kick in. Premiums have been a sensitive subject for the Obama administration, which is counting on elements in the health law designed to increase competition among insurers to keep rates in check. The administration has pointed to subsidies that will be available for many lower-income Americans to help them with the cost of coverage.
The secretary’s remarks are among the first direct statements from federal officials that people who have skimpy health plans right now could face higher premiums for plans that are more generous. She noted that the law requires plans to provide better benefits and treat all customers equally regardless of their medical claims.
“These folks will be moving into a really fully insured product for the first time, and so there may be a higher cost associated with getting into that market,” she said. “But we feel pretty strongly that with subsidies available to a lot of that population that they are really going to see much better benefit for the money that they’re spending.”

Most people who have "skimpy plans" have them because they either a) don't need a fancy health insurance plan b) can't afford a health insurance plan. Forcing consumers into plans they don't need or can't afford is counter productive. Not to mention, Sebelius argues consumers will see a "much better benefit for the money that they're spending." Better benefits? Does she mean better benefits of having fewer doctors?

Most physicians have a pessimistic outlook on the future of medicine, citing eroding autonomy and falling income, a survey of more than 600 doctors found.
Six in 10 physicians (62 percent) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years, a survey from Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found. That perception is uniform across age, gender, and specialty, it said.
Another 55 percent of surveyed doctors believe others will scale back hours because of the way medicine is changing, but the survey didn't elaborate greatly on how it was changing. Three-quarters think the best and brightest may not consider a career in medicine, although that is an increase from the 2011 survey result of 69 percent.
"Physicians recognize 'the new normal' will necessitate major changes in the profession that require them to practice in different settings as part of a larger organization that uses technologies and team-based models for consumer (patient) care," the survey's findings stated.
About two-thirds of the survey responders said they believe physicians and hospitals will become more integrated in coming years. In the last 2 years, 31 percent moved into a larger practice, results found. Nearly eight in 10 believe midlevel providers will play a larger role in directing primary care.

Or how about the better benefits of fewer life saving medical devices thanks to the innovation and job killing medical device tax in ObamaCare?

Biomedical or medical device engineering firms are already laying off workers who develop crucial medical products due to the "unforeseen" costs, or in other words, the costs of ObamaCare. Not to mention, the more money these companies pay to the government, the less money they have to invest in research and development.

The Obama administration is no longer trying to lie about ObamaCare, instead they're simply trying to justify the lies by making everyone feel better about the so-called benefits ObamaCare will offer at a much higher price.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/03/27/sebilius-finally-admits-premiums-will-rise-as-a-result-of-obamacare-n1550471

PK'S NOTE: Yes, reading about taxes is boring but this article is important:

Refining Our 'Theory' of Taxation

We Americans are taxed at just about every juncture in life that involves money. We are taxed when we earn our money and when we spend our money. We are even taxed when we give our money away, unless our gift recipient is a government-approved entity.

We are taxed when we don't realize we're being taxed, as in the hidden, embedded taxes built into the prices of the goods we buy, which pay for corporate income taxes. (You didn't think that corporations paid taxes, did you?)

In addition to all the taxes Americans are already paying, government continually enacts new types of taxes. For example, ObamaCare is loaded with new taxes. Given the proliferation of new taxes and the continuing cry from progressives to raise tax rates, Americans might consider why we tax what we tax. It's been said that if you want less of something, tax it. If that be so, then we need to be very clear about what it is that we tax, and how we justify taxing what we tax.

A new tax currently being promoted is the financial transaction tax, or FTT. Left-wing writer Katrina vanden Heuvel, who thinks the FTT is a swell idea, reports: "Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), along with Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.), unveiled a bill that would place a light tax on all financial transactions --- three pennies on every $100 traded." Vanden Heuvel thinks the FTT is irresistible: "an idea whose time has come." But Andrew Morriss writes: "Studies by both the International Monetary Fund and a United Kingdom think-tank predict that most of an FTT would be passed on to consumers."

Progressives might stop and consider where the justice is in the FTT. When securities are sold, folks already pay a tax: the capital gains tax. So if members of Congress want to raise revenue from Wall Street transactions, rather than tacking on yet another tax, they could just raise the capital gains tax. Oh, wait; they just did that on January 2 in the Battle at Fiscal Cliff. And not only did Congress raise the tax rate on long-term capital gains, but they raised it by a third.

The FTT is another example of how the government thinks it has a right to regulate and tax every event in our lives. Some in Congress want to enact a value-added tax, or VAT. The VAT would be yet another hidden tax, but one levied at every stage of production and paid for by the end-user.

Recently, there's been a call to enact a national sales tax. Some want to add such a tax on top of all the other taxes, their rationale being to capture revenue lost to the underground economy. But everyone would pay this sales tax, including those who pay taxes already on the books. A better reform would go after the underground economy directly, and not further burden those who operate in the above-ground economy and who are already paying their "fair share."

A type of tax that has been around for ages is the asset tax, aka the wealth tax. One species of asset tax is the property tax, and it's rather strange: one buys something and pays the sales tax on it -- only for the privilege of paying property taxes on it for as long as one owns it, even if that property presents no cost to the government.

With the asset tax, government taxes one for owning things. The government is currently trying to get folks to own more things; it's prodding them to spend more and stimulate the economy. But when they acquire more things, the government then hits them with asset taxes for having done so.

In an early draft of the Declaration, Jefferson wanted the big three unalienable rights to be Life, Liberty, and Property. Despite the substitution of Pursuit of Happiness for Property, the right to property got enshrined in the Constitution, namely in the Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." But if property is a fundamental right (along with life and liberty), how can it be taxed? (Progressives would tax Life and Liberty if they could get away with it.)

Another irksome tax taxes a specific type of property: real estate. But if one's real estate is one's house, then the real estate tax taxes not only a fundamental right (property), but a fundamental need: shelter. I'm happy to report that some tax jurisdictions don't tax food (which some think necessary to Life), but that could all change with the movement to swap state income taxes for sales taxes.

One problem with asset taxes is that they are ad valorem taxes - i.e., levied on assessed market value. So if the value of one's property rises, so can one's property taxes. Also, property taxes can bear little relationship to any cost borne by the taxing government. For instance, one will pay far less in property taxes for an old gas-guzzling clunker than for a new fuel-efficient hybrid that emits far fewer noxious greenhouse gases. Also, a mansion may cost the government less than a modest house. If residents get the same government services, shouldn't their property tax bills be the same?

Death is a "juncture in life" that triggers a particularly irksome ad valorem tax: the inheritance tax, or estate tax. Thankfully, this wretched tax is levied but once for each American, but it's difficult to see the justice in it. After all, nothing has been produced nor consumed, nor has any cost be put upon government. When an estate is transferred to an heir, it's merely a matter of re-titling property. How does Congress justify taking some of that property?

Seems like theft to me. But the government's power to tax has always been held to be quite broad, and the courts have affirmed the sweeping nature of that power.

However, one place where government's power to tax has been curtailed is the poll tax. In striking down the poll tax in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote that "the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned."

What else in America is "too precious, too fundamental" to be taxed? Inasmuch as the Constitution provides for it, what exactly is it that capitation (the head tax) taxes? Does capitation tax one's existence - one's Life? If the Constitution does not allow the taxing of voting, surely it doesn't allow the taxing of Life. Perhaps capitation can be justified as a tax on citizenship. But perhaps "sin taxes," such as the steep taxes on tobacco, must be seen as a tax on "the pursuit of Happiness."

We need to refine our "theory" of taxation, because right now Americans are getting taxed for just about everything. It might be a good exercise for Congress to tell us just what can and can't be taxed. Or maybe we'll have to tell them.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/refining_our_theory_of_taxation.html#ixzz2OlHiF4wy

Thousands of Empty Govt. Buildings Costing Taxpayers up to $8 Billion

The U.S. government could save taxpayers up to $8 billion by selling off the estimated 55,000 to 77,000 vacant properties it owns or leases.

At a time when the White House says it cannot find the $18,000 a week it needs to fund tours, unloading unused properties to save taxpayers billions might seem like a no-brainer.

But the federal government does not even know how many unused properties it controls because no one has kept an inventory of them. Further, attempts to sell such properties are bound in red tape.

This month, for example, the government sold a building for $19.5 million; the process took 10 years, leaving taxpayers paying for maintenance and upkeep for a decade.

"This is a problem that has been identified for years,” said Tom Shatz of Citizens Against Government Waste. “Every time someone in the White House says 'let's sell property,' the red tape is simply too much for this process."

One of the largest hurdles to expediting the sale of vacant federal buildings is a 1987 law that forces properties first to be offered to other federal agencies, then state agencies, and finally offered for use as homeless shelters before they can be sold.

"We spend about 8 billion dollars a year maintaining properties that we have no use for,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). “Now that 8 billion dollars is just thrown down the drain because we can't get past the homeless lobby to get a common-sense way to take care of their problems and also us to unload properties."
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) included a provision in his budget that would have streamlined the sale of federal properties, but the Ryan plan was defeated in the Senate.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/26/Thousands-Of-Empty-Govt-Buildings-Costing-Taxpayers-Up-To-8-Billion

PK'S NOTE: Agenda 21, anyone?

Obama eyes taking millions of acres to save habitat from global warming

A sweeping new Obama administration strategy to protect plants, fish and animals from the hazards of global warming would require the government to set aside millions of acres of land to preserve threatened habitat.

"More than millions of acres across the landscape will be required," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. "The lands will be protected by easement, by land acquisitions, by local, by land trusts, by state agencies, by federal agencies," he told reporters in releasing a 120-page National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy, in the works for four years.

"We're doing it for wildlife preservation and we're thinking about climate," he added.

Under Obama, 4.5 million acres in 10 national wildlife refuges have already been set aside in part to ease the pressure of global warming on plants, fish and animals, said Ashe. A large purchase in Florida's Everglades, for example, is aimed in part at preserving grasses that can help prevent rising water from flooding the area and destroying animal habitat.

The new strategy, produced by several federal and state agencies and tribal groups, would expand that program to protect habitat under global warming pressure and used by everything from butterflies and robins to foxes and even coral. For example, more habitat for grizzly bears would be set aside so they can move north as their habitat warms.

The report provides goals and strategies but doesn't demand land purchases. It is meant to "inspire and enable natural resource managers, elected officials, and other decision makers to take action over the next five to 10 years to help our living resources adapt to climate change."

Among the potential horrific results of global warming highlighted in the report is the possibility that birch trees will become extinct, robbing two Indian tribes of the tree paperbark that "has been indispensable for canoes, sacred fires, and as a substrate to grow fungi for medicines."

Another: Warming temperatures on the Great Plains threaten the lesser prairie chicken. "Climate change models project that temperatures in the lesser prairie-chicken's range will climb by about five degrees and that precipitation will decrease by more than one inch per year by 2060. Such changes would likely harm the lesser prairie-chicken's chances of survival," said the report.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-eyes-taking-millions-of-acres-to-save-habitat-from-global-warming/article/2525447?custom_click=rss

The Manufactured Authority of the Nanny State

Lately, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been the chief spokesman touting the merits and necessity of a Utopian nanny state. In a moment of honesty, he said while making a recent appearance on NBC, "I do think there certain times when we should infringe on your freedom." [Emphasis added]

"We," of course, means the government. It is impossible to miss the separation he envisions between "you" and the government which he represents, and it's clear which of these two he imagines to be in charge. He was specifically speaking about his recent proposal to ban the sale of sugary drinks containing more than sixteen ounces, which was wrongfully blocked by a judge, he claims. But we can assume that this general opinion would apply equally well to his other social initiatives to infringe upon American freedoms, such as the freedom to own firearms, or the freedom to feed your child formula rather than breast milk. The implication is that government knows best, and in regard to whatever social reforms the government thinks might be best for the collective, coerced social conformity is of the highest priority, and individual liberty is a secondary concern.

This notion certainly doesn't derive from the Constitution, and it should be considered as nothing short of revolutionary to American sensibilities, as nothing could be more antithetical to the rugged individualism we Americans have historically treasured. Where we once viewed the American individual as Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick, whose personal ambition and dedication can enable him to rise from nothing, make wise decisions, overcome obstacles, and achieve a successful outcome, it would seem that the nanny state would prefer us to view the American individual as Dickens' Oliver Twist, who is relegated to meekly asking of his benefactor, "Please, sir, I want some more."

There can no longer be any legitimate question as to whether or not leftist social engineers view America this way, because they've never been so brazen in suggesting that we are helpless without government as they have recently. Remember Obama's "you didn't build that" comment last year? The phrase and its context clearly suggest that success and its fruits belong to the government which provides the means to them. A DNC video went even farther than that, suggesting that we Americans all "belong" to the government. The government is our benefactor, and we, the people, are its dependent charges.

It is under these pretenses that the nanny state invents its fabricated authority. Because the government would have you believe that it provides your liberty and property, representatives like Nanny Bloomberg suggest that government has the implied authority to dictate the confines and extent of your liberty in order to establish social conformity for a greater good, even beyond the boundaries of law, and in some cases, in direct defiance of it -- as is the case with gun control advocacy. The Second Amendment states plainly that the "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed," so ambition the likes of Bloomberg's in this arena not only ignores established law, but blatantly subverts it.

But even if we were to concede that a government benefactor might have the right to infringe upon our freedom, there's still a gaping hole in the logic. The government's not really anyone's benefactor, is it? Think about it this way. Is a single mother living in perpetual welfare truly a benefactor to her children? This mother probably tells her children that she is providing for them, and may even convince herself that she is providing for them, but she is not -- her welfare checks do that, and unless you count breathing, she didn't do anything to earn them. This means the value underlying the welfare check was provided by someone else's labor.

Similarly, the government tells the masses that it provides for these poor souls, and many among the masses may even believe that -- but government merely issues their checks, it does not give the checks their underlying value. No, the true benefactor to both is the successful American individual whom the welfare queen hates and the social engineer demonizes for being too damn stingy with his own money.

Yet according to a social engineer's perversion of logic, the successful American individual is somehow indebted to the government and to the indigent, despite perpetually providing for the existence of both. And if you are this successful individual, you should understand that forking over more of your wealth and property is penance for your fortunate circumstances. But since you refuse to offer self-atonement and cling to a notion that your property belongs to you, it is to be taken from you by a mob that demands it for personal use, in a coerced transaction facilitated by the government.

Tyranny is an apt description for this. Whether or not you might immediately admit that this is tyranny, you cannot deny that the government does not create this wealth that is redistributed -- it merely forces a transaction that would not take place except by coercion, seizing property from one party and bestowing it upon another with no mutual exchange of value. And if, knowing this, you would still deny that it is tyranny, I would suggest that your inverse comprehension of dictionary definitions rivals Bloomberg's inverse comprehension of Constitutional Amendments.

Since the government is clearly not our benefactor as it would have us believe, but it is rather the beneficiary of the fruits of the American taxpayer's labor and success, what authority should it have to infringe upon a law-abiding taxpayer's liberty against his will, as Bloomberg says it should?

The truth is that social engineers in government and the collectivist drones that support them are either subversive toward or unbearably ignorant of the entire foundational concept of American government. The government does not exist to infringe upon individual liberty in efforts to chase a Utopian fantasy where people don't smoke, or drink sugary drinks, or gives their babies formula, or eat unhealthy amounts of salt, or own firearms. No, our government exists to ensure that that a law-abiding individual's right to liberty -- that inalienable right immortalized in the Declaration -- is never infringed in such ways.

The modern notion of individual liberty, including property rights and limited government, was born in Western culture. The procurement and protection of such liberty in this country, particularly, has been no easy task. Rather, it has been the product of blood, sacrifice, and providential circumstances. So it is a travesty that this very basic, core American concept has become so corrupted by politicians and ignored by so many of the public. And it is tragically ironic that, though American liberty was seized from tyrants with a passionate roar, it is being continually surrendered today with hardly a whimper -- the only audible noise being amplified by the media is the enthusiastic applause of the dehumanized flock, eager to sacrifice their liberty at the altar of government dependence.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/the_manufactured_authority_of_the_nanny_state.html#ixzz2OlJdQGDi

Millions spent on AWOL, ‘standby’ workers while others brace for furloughs

While the federal government prepares to furlough workers in critical agencies starting next month, it's spending millions of dollars on employees who are "absent without leave" or simply showing up to work on "standby."

In other words, complains one senator, workers "being paid to do nothing."

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is now urging the government to crack down on this alleged waste, saying targeting these workers could yield billions of dollars in savings -- and even avert some furloughs.

"It makes little sense to furlough air traffic controllers and border patrol agents while retaining employees who are AWOL, on standby, not performing official duties, or sitting idle awaiting security clearances," Coburn wrote in a letter Wednesday to John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management.

His complaints about workers being paid for "nothing" fall into several categories.

In one are employees paid to work on "standby" -- those told to stay at their station during "longer than ordinary periods of duty" whether or not they're actually working.

Coburn says a Congressional Research Service memo prepared for his office found at least 999 employees got "standby pay" in 2010, as did 906 in 2011 -- at a two-year cost of $13.1 million.

Then there's the issue of AWOL workers. Coburn pointed to a 2008 report released by his office

that found between 2001 and 2007, nearly 20 million AWOL hours were logged across 18 departments and agencies. This covers time when employees were late or otherwise absent without permission.

In addition, Coburn said many workers are being paid for time spent performing unofficial duties -- like union-related activities. Plus the senator wrote that government contractors are occasionally "being paid to do nothing." He cited the example of contractors "sitting idle" while they await a security clearance.

Coburn, in his letter, asked for details on the amount of money spent in these areas in more recent years.

"As a starting point, agencies can avoid furloughing or laying off those performing the key functions of the agency by first eliminating to the greatest extent possible those who are not showing up for work, who are not performing official work, or are simply not working at all," Coburn wrote.

An OPM official said the agency is currently reviewing the letter and "will respond as appropriate."

The agency has not said whether these areas are being examined for further cost savings.

Meanwhile, federal furloughs are poised to go into effect starting next month, while some agencies are still trying to delay or find ways around them.

The Defense Department last week decided to delay issuing furlough notices to potentially hundreds of thousands of civilian workers, while it examines the issue.

The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to furlough many of its 47,000 workers due to the sequester.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/27/millions-spent-on-awol-standby-workers-while-others-brace-for-furloughs/#ixzz2OlqGCzYL

Has a Century of Progressive Education Turned Us into Obedient Sheep?

Something vile and horrific happened in a courtroom in Ohio last week, and as I’ve reflected upon the event, I’ve been disturbed by the thought that we have become a nation of compliant sheep that no longer produces citizens capable of standing up to injustice.

At a sentencing hearing for school shooter T.J. Lane, who gunned down six high school students, killing three and paralyzing one from the chest down, Judge David Fuhry gave Lane three life sentences in prison, to be served consecutively.

In what should have been a day of closure and justice for the families of the victims and the community of Chardon that suffered so much in the wake of the school shooting last year, a courtroom full of people stood by and allowed T.J. Lane to victimize the families in a base, contemptible way that likely added exponentially to the heavy burden the families already bear.

The courtroom for Lane’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday was packed with families of the victims, students, teachers, and members of the media. As the hearing began, Lane slipped off the button-down shirt he was wearing, revealing a t-shirt onto which he had written “KILLER” with a marker. A collective gasp filled the courtroom. As the families of the victims gave their statements, Lane smiled and leered at the families, almost seeming to enjoy the moment.

After the sentence was read, Lane had the opportunity to make a statement. At that point, he said something so horrific that I’m not even going to write it here, simply to spare you if you haven’t already heard it. (You can read it and watch the video here.) Trust me, you will have to bleach your soul once you hear it. It should be added to The Book of Things That Shall Never Be Repeated. Then Lane flipped the families the middle finger as a parting shot and said, “F*** all of you!” As a mother, I had a visceral — almost physical — reaction. I almost vomited, thinking about the pain his contemptible words caused the families and how they’ll never be able to scrub them from their minds.

People called talk-radio programs that day to vent their anger. Along with vicious prison-retribution wishes, caller after caller said they would have been arrested had they been in the courtroom. They wouldn’t have stood by while Lane visually and verbally tortured the parents.

WTAM host Bob Frantz said: “I would have been shot dead today. I would have leapt tables to get to that kid.”

And yet.

Everyone stood by and let it happen.

WTAM host Mike Trivisonno interviewed several of the main characters in the courtroom drama. Asked what would have happened if he had told Lane to put his shirt back on, Sheriff Dan McClelland said, “I don’t know that.” He continued: “It is the judge’s courtroom.”

After the hearing, the judge issued a statement saying he had not seen the t-shirt.

Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz said he assumed the judge had seen it. At the end of the hearing, Flaiz asked the court to enter into the record the fact that Lane was wearing the shirt and that he had gestured toward the family with his middle finger (for the sake of the court transcript).

Flaiz later said:

I probably, in retrospect, should have done a better job of pointing it out. Again, when he pulled that stunt, what’s going through my mind is he’s just digging himself in deeper here. And I know that he’s going to have appellate counsel that are going to want to challenge his life sentences.

Defense attorney Ian Friedman said:

May no one ever have to sit in a courtroom again and experience what we experienced today. There’s only so much any of us could do in the courtroom. No one in their right mind would want that to happen. And if there’s anything any of us could have done — and I know the sheriff’s a decent guy — Sheriff McClellandd and his entire group, if they could have done something, they would. If there’s something we could have done we would have. But this young man acted on his own.

And yet, he danced around the question when Trivisonno asked if he told his client to put his shirt back on.

Veteran reporter Paul Orlousky from 19 Action News, who was in the press room during the hearing, said:

Somebody should have slipped a note to the the bailiff or something. Something needed to happen. This shouldn’t have been allowed to continue. … I’ve seen people kicked out of the courtroom for shorts, for wearing a hat, for inappropriate t-shirt — come back when you’re dressed appropriately. Much like Sheriff McClellan said, the judge is in his kingdom, or her kingdom, when they’re on that bench and you can do what you want.

(In fact, wearing a t-shirt is a violation of Geauga County courtroom rules.)

I am perhaps willing to cut the lawyers some slack for being lawyerly and not wanting to give this guy any infinitesimal chance at an appeal. But what about everyone else in the courtroom? There are certain moments in time where decent people need to stand up. I am just stunned that there was not one person in that courtroom who was willing to speak up and say: “This. Must. Stop!”

Images of the packed courtroom show how many people were in close proximity to Lane. They all merely stood by, allowing the attack on the families to continue. That hearing screamed for a Rep. Joe Wilson “You lie!” moment.

I’d like to suggest that 100 years ago someone (or several someones) would have “leapt the table” to defend the honor of those families and those slain teenagers. They’d have at least risked being removed from the courtroom to make sure those families and everyone in the room knew exactly how offensive the “KILLER” shirt was. But I fear a century of progressive policy — in particular, progressive education – has turned us into a nation of obedient zombies, unable to question authority and unwilling to stand up in the face of injustice.

John Taylor Gatto, a “radical” education reformer who spent 26 years as a public school teacher in Manhattan — three times as the New York City “Teacher of the Year” — wrote:

[S]lowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.

…

[T]he structure of schooling is held together by a Byzantine tapestry of reward and threat, of carrots and sticks. Working for official favor, grades, or other trinkets of subordination; these have no connection with education — they are the paraphernalia of servitude, not freedom.

Consider the control exerted upon students by school authority figures. Students are told when they must arrive and when they may leave according to state compulsory attendance laws. They’re told when they may sit, stand, move about, use the restroom, eat (and even what they may eat), speak, and socialize. Worse, many modern schools have the feel of prisons, complete with metal detectors, drug-sniffing dogs, and guards roaming the hallways. Is it any wonder that when students graduate after spending 13 years in this environment, they have little desire, let alone any skills, for questioning authority?

Ayn Rand, who also had some “radical” views on education, wrote a book called The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, with a chapter titled “The Comprachicos.” She began with an excerpt of Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs, describing “Comprachicos” — a Spanish word meaning “child-buyer.” The Comprachicos were 17th century nomads who bought and sold children and turned them into freaks used to amuse the public. They placed young children in oddly shaped pots and as the children grew, they formed to the shapes of the pots. Rand uses the practice of the Comprachicos to describe compulsory education:

The students’ development is arrested, their minds are set to respond to slogans, as animals respond to to a trainer’s whistle, their brains are embalmed in the syrup of altruism as an automatic substitute for self-esteem. … They would obey anyone, they need a master, they need to be told what to do. They are ready now to be used as cannon fodder — to attack, to bomb, to burn, to murder, to fight in the streets and die in the gutters. They are a trained pack of miserably impotent freaks, ready to be unleashed against anyone.

While we’re not quite at the point of potted Bonsai children, we see paraded across the news nearly every day reports of American adults who grew up in the stifling, obedience-demanding factory-model schools.

Otherwise intelligent, successful Americans bow to the most outrageous demands of government officials and school personnel. A school disciplines a child for wielding an assault Pop-Tart in school and parents cheer protective school officials. The state of Massachusetts mandates that boys who identify as girls must be allowed to use the girls’ locker rooms and restrooms. Parents who disagree are told it is imperative in order to “foster understanding of gender identity,” and parents silently comply, subjecting children as young as five to a confusing social experiment. A nanny governor tells adult citizens (in the most illiberal liberal city in the country) how much salt, fat, and soda they may purchase, and there are no marches in the streets. The government forces religious employers to violate their beliefs by making them pay for contraceptives, and half the country yawns.

A twisted murderer strips off his shirt in court to flaunt his “KILLER” t-shirt, and though everyone gasps and everyone understands at that moment the cruelty being inflicted upon the families, not one person simply speaks up and says: “Put your shirt back on, young man.” Was everyone waiting for someone else to step up and do something — waiting for the adult in the room? Was it fear of the judge? Respect for the court? Yes, they would have broken the rules of court decorum and yes, there may have been consequences, but if ever there was a moment for a small act of civil disobedience for the sake of justice, this was it.

The vast majority of Americans were educated in the progressive school model, and it’s worth some introspection to consider how that experience now influences our response to the world around us. Those of us who have encountered the schools through our children and don’t think twice about calling much younger teachers “Miss” or Mr.” and have felt intimidated at parent-teacher conferences may begin to understand the extent of the authoritarian influence our school experience exerts on our adult psyches.

I’m no card-carrying libertarian. I support reasonable restraints on behavior in civil society and appreciate and respect the rule of law. We have raised and “radically” educated two sons who respect authority and are polite, law-abiding citizens. But we have also raised them with a Reaganesque “trust but verify” attitude toward authority. And I hope that means they understand that at times it is appropriate to stand up for the defenseless when the authorities won’t — to do what they know is right even in the face of ridicule, scorn, or legal action.

Would you have the courage to stand up in a courtroom and say, “Put your shirt on, young man,” or would you be counted among the obedient?

If you’re not sure what you (or your children) would do, it might be time to question the near-universally accepted education paradigms and consider a radical makeover.

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/03/25/has-a-century-of-progressive-education-turned-us-into-obedient-sheep/?singlepage=true