Sex Ed In Schools: Good or Bad

Matt Margolis38 Comments

It seems like everyday I find new reasons to want to send my own kids (when I have them) to private school one day. In a time when teachers aren’t adequately teaching kids the stuff they should learn (reading, writing, math, history, etc.) it’s hard to imagine why any parent would want their kid to go through sex ed in school.

But to me, there’s a bigger problem. Sexual education is no longer about the basics for sake of having the knowledge… there’s actual incidents where there’s a clear violation of parents’ rights and the sexualization and indoctrination of young kids.

IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?

That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.

Observers can quarrel about the extent to which what is being mandated is an effect, or a contributing cause, of the sexualization of children in our society at younger ages. But no one can plausibly claim that teaching middle-schoolers about mutual masturbation is “neutral” between competing views of morality; the idea of “value free” sex education was exploded as a myth long ago. The effect of such lessons is as much to promote a certain sexual ideology among the young as it is to protect their health.

So, what do the parents in our readership think? What do you about things like this. Is sex ed good or bad? Is it the job of the school (read: the government) to determine what your kids should and shouldn’t know about the facts of life?

We Have Bigger Issues Than Bullying To Deal With

Matt Margolis120 Comments

Actually, enough with any anti-bullying laws.

You know how bullying was handled when I was in school? It wasn’t by an act of Congress. You either stood up for yourself, or you didn’t. Your choice.

I’m not saying bullying should be tolerated, but it’s not a Washington issue. It’s a parent issue. Parents have to either teach their kids to stand up for themselves, or take up the issue with the school.

But, what’s really bugging me these days is how a single incident can cause a national movement (so to speak) to curb anti-gay bullying in schools.

A history teacher amends his lessons on the civil rights movement to include the push for gay equality. A high school removes Internet filters blocking gay advocacy websites. Six gay students sue their district, saying officials failed to protect them from bullies.

After anti-gay bullying led to a spate of teen suicides last year, school districts across the country are stepping up efforts to prevent such incidents, while more students are coming forward to report bullies.

“It’s an issue that has taken over the public consciousness since last fall,” said Jill Marcellus, spokeswoman for the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. “People realize it doesn’t have to be this way. We can make it better.”

Awareness of anti-gay bullying is increasing as acceptance of gay people has grown in society. Gay marriage is legal in several states, gays are now permitted to serve openly in the military and, in California, schools will soon have to teach gay-rights history.

Kids, even as young as middle school age, feel more emboldened to openly express their sexual or gender orientation, but many are not prepared for a possible backlash, gay-rights advocates say.

As much as I hate all this attention being given to curb bullying, it really bugs me that there are apparently enough people who seem to think anti-gay bullying is the only bullying that is worth addressing. You know what, school sucks for a lot of people. Kids get picked on for all sorts of reasons, but you don’t see such specific attention being given to bullying based on social or economic factors, fashion, or weight, etc. etc. etc.

When did we get so soft that the immediate response to an act of bullying is community action, and inevitably government action?

I’m not a parent yet, but when I am, if my kid gets bullying, my response would be to teach him to stand up for himself. Bullies prey on the weak because they feel they can manipulate them. If we teach kids that they don’t have to handle their own problem, that the government will come in and solve it all for them, then things are just going to get a lot worse. It’s bad enough so many rely on the government for monetary handouts… do we really need the government fighting our schoolyard battles too?

“Arab Spring”? Or Jihadi Stench?

Leo Pusateri68 Comments

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, freeze dried, or doing hard time for the past few hours, you know that Colonel Khaddafy Qaddafffy Kadafy Gaddhaffi err…the guy in Libya who perpetually dressed like the bellhop at the Ritz has assumed room temperature. The lamestream media are in the middle of falling all over themselves as if Barack Obama himself pulled the trigger.  Aside from that, it is these two paragraphs in the story that leaves me more than a bit wary (emphases mine):

“It is a historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Gaddafi has met his fate,” Abdel Hafez Ghoga, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council (NTC), said. Celebratory gunfire and cries of “Allah-o-Akbar” rang out [does that phrase sound familiar to you?–ed] across Tripoli as the news of Gaddafi’s death spread.

Gun-totting rebel fighters went around the streets firing into the sky. Cars out on the roads honked horns and people hugged and kissed each other and sang national anthem. Gaddafi’s body was taken to a mosque in Misrata, a report said quoting an NTC official.

So what’s next?

It is (or should be) a well-known axiom by now that the road to hell is paved with the ‘good intentions’ of liberals, who excel at pie-in-the-sky thinking but have no cognitive connection nor grounding as to how the real world works.  Thus it is with the Obama administration, whose incoherent, unworkable domestic and foreign policies have been proverbial Forrest Gump boxes of chocolates.

The so-called, so-touted, Barack Hussein Obama-approved and supported “Arab Spring” has turned a relatively stabilized Arab world with whom the West could at least dialogue into contumacious, anarchical, “Lord of the Flies” hell holes, in which Sharia-loving, Jihadi-friendly Islamists could not only get a foothold in terms of power, but in the process get their flea-bitten fingers on some pretty sophisticated military technology, including biological weaponry.

At least former Egyptian president Mubarek had the sensibility to turn down the offer of nukes from a rogue state..could anyone be certain that the current regime (if one could call it that) would do the same?  Now in Egypt, instead of a regime that was relatively tolerant of other faiths,  relatively stable, and on co-existing terms with Israel, we now have an Islamo-fascist mob mentality that persecutes and murders Christians, and whose relationship with Israel is on what seems to be an irretrievably downward spiral.  Gaddafi, though a despot, via the school of hard knocks knew his place, and therefore knew not to push the envelope past the point where unmanageable retaliation would have taken place.

In Iraq, great care was taken by President George W. Bush to attempt to ensure that what replaced Saddam Hussein was a western-friendly government that would be an Arabic counter-balance to Iran, Syria and other un-friendly forces in the region; and, to a great extent, that was accomplished (Afghanistan is a different story, but for different reasons).   But to encourage and foment revolution in already western-tolerant Arab countries and hoping that the pieces fall in your favor is not a foreign policy.

It is, in fact, a suicide pact.

Reflecting on the GOP Primary So Far

Matt Margolis31 Comments

So, we have some time before the next GOP debate, so I thought it be a good time discuss the debates in general. For one thing, have you changed your mind on who you are currently supporting based on the debates, whether in on a substantive issue, or just on performance.

Myself, I’ve been so disappointed in Rick Perry’s performance, that I just feel uneasy about him debating Obama. Granted, Obama without a teleprompter is like a third grader in a school play, I have higher expectations for whomever the GOP nominee will be.

I have consistently been impressed by Newt Gingrich’s debate performances, and his strategy of keeping the eye on the ball: Obama.

Herman Cain has banked his entire campaign on this 9-9-9 plan, yet fails to adequately explain his plan, which is a problem. His lack of foreign policy knowledge also leaves him in the “Potential Vice-Presidential Nominee” column.

There is a good chance that at least three candidates will dropout before the next debate. Santorum, Johnson, and Huntsman have to go. I like Santorum. I’ve met him. But his campaign isn’t going anywhere.

Bachmann and Paul also have to go, but I don’t see either of those two dropping out before the primaries.

I see the real contenders as being Perry, Romney, Cain and Gingrich. I hope between now and the next debate the candidates without a chance stop wasting our time and we are allowed to focus on the candidates who have a chance to win the nomination and the presidency. While polls have shown Newt to not do as well against Obama as other candidates, I think that will change when more people see him in action.

I used to lean towards Perry, but now I’m officially undecided again. But Newt looks better to me all the time, even the polling says he’ll have the hardest time winning in November 2012.

CNN GOP Debate

Matt Margolis104 Comments

Are you watching? What do you think?

UPDATE: I got home late and missed a big chunk of the debate, but from what I saw, I found Rick Perry to be a mediocre debater. Mitt Romney was polished, but isn’t as smart or well spoken as Newt Gingrich was. Herman Cain’s foreign policy weakness’s came through a bit as well.

In the end, I was impressed the most by Newt Gingrich, he’s smart, and he doesn’t allow himself to throw mud. He’s substance, style, and class. Mitt and Perry going at each other bothers me. Republicans shouldn’t attack each other like they are fighting a Democrat.

Rasmussen: Cain Beats Obama

Matt Margolis25 Comments

I still don’t see Cain topping a GOP ticket, but I think he has a great chance of being the VP nominee.

Whether Herman Cain’s surge in the polls is temporary or has staying power, he’s enjoying a big enough bounce to take a very slight lead over President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 matchup. At the moment, the Georgia businessman is the only Republican with a lead of any kind over Obama, although former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has held a similar advantage several times and is currently trailing the president by just two points.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows Cain attracting 43% support, while Obama earns 41%. Given such a matchup, eight percent (8%) prefer some other candidate, and another eight percent (8%) are undecided.

Soulmates?

Leo Pusateri68 Comments

The #Occupy (insert name here) crowd have enmassed quite a few fellow travelers to their cause. But perhaps, though not surprisingly the most noteworthy group to join their cause has been none other than the American Nazi Party:

What is really MISSING – is the “MOVEMENT” from these popular protests – its time to pull WN heads out of their collective ass’s, and JOIN IN the attack on Judeo-Capitalism.  What do you suggest? That WN Working Class White people DEFEND the Judeo-Capitalists?  IF the “movement” wasn’t so PATHETIC it would be OUT THERE – LEADING these protests!  The fact that its these “lefties” as you call them, who are picking up the ball and running with it – only shows how much more in tune THEY are with the fed up masses of White Workers, than the fossilized, reactionary “right-wing”.  WHO holds the WEALTH and POWER in this country – the JUDEO-CAPITALISTS. WHO is therefore the #1 ENEMY who makes all this filth happen – the JUDEO-CAPITALISTS. WHO therefore do WN need to FIGHT?  My heart is right there with these people, perhaps someday the “movement” will SHOW the same COURAGE and DEDICATION that these people OUT THERE FIGHTING are SHOWING!
Sincerely,  ROCKY SUHAYDA  Hail Victory!  88!  www.ANP14.com

While anything having to do with even the word “Nazis” has inherent shock value (including the the fact that there even continue to be hate groups such as this), what isn’t necessarily surprising is that they are in solidarity with the #Occupy movement.

Now before you go all Godwin on me in this case (actually, you can’t– it is the Nazis’ chosen solidarity with the #Occupy movement that makes the movement itself de facto Reducto ad Hitlerum), let me state my case.

First of all, the #Occupy demands (official or not) are incompatible with a free society. #OWS protesters do NOT want a free society. They do not want capitalism.  I’m going to come right out and say it:  they in fact, want communism.  Communism, as history has shown time and time again, has invariably led to lives of misery and untold oppression, not to mention the murder of literally tens of millions of people.

Second, despite what they may tell you, #OWS protestors are not just a bunch of peaceful, warm & fuzzy (albeit pungent) hippies.  As there is no way their demands can be met within the legislative process, other than by throwing away the United States Constitution,  in order for their utopian society to be realized, an overthrow of the Constitution must be undertaken, and with it, an unavoidably violent revolution.  They (at least the politically astute among them) know this. Karl Marx knew this. Lenin knew this. Mao Tse Tung knew this. Castro knew this. Adolph Hitler knew this.  And the American Nazi Party knows this.

Third, there is a viral antisemitic theme threading throughout the global and domestic #Occupy movement.  There must always be a scapegoat around which one can rally their useful idiots.  The #Occupy folks have rallied their troops around minority Jewish bankers…capitalists..that happen to be rich.  A veritable trifecta of a target!

And lastly, it should be noted that many democrats of note, including our President, have also sided with the #Occupy crowd.

Envy, oppression, violence, murder, misery.

When it comes down to it, my friends, communists, Nazis, and the Occupy Wall Street crowd are nothing more than different feathers on the same bird.