Category Archives: rights

More Fear of Competition

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..in the arena for ideas, again by Progressives.  This time as they attack children in New York for having a different idea.

A 13-year-old at Orange-Ulster BOCES in New York was suspended for two days last week for the heinous crime of telling her classmates and friends that they did not have to sit for Common Core examinations.  Never mind that she was telling the truth—the exams are entirely voluntary.  Never mind that the word had to come from her because the school administration, in their transparency, had withheld this information from parents.

These Progressives are so terrified of opposing speech that the school’s principle hadn’t even found the courage to talk with the girl’s parents at the time this story broke.

What is it with Progressives that they’re so terrified of contesting their ideas against those of others?  Again, I ask: might it be because they know their own principles are so inadequate?

Sounds Like A Reason

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…to continue shedding light on this man, and on Progressivism and the Democratic Party generally.

Nevada’s Democrat Secretary of State [Ross Miller] says he’ll do all in his power to crush a conservative organization that ran ads against him in his campaign to become the state’s attorney general.

As Secretary of State, he’s also the one who oversees elections—including the one in which he’s running.

And he’s doing his “Stifle, Edith” act because he doesn’t like a political ad being run by the State Government Leadership Foundation.  If you’re curious, the ad is here, but the content isn’t particularly important.

What’s important is that this man is so terrified of a contest of ideas in the town square that he’ll do everything he can to evict from that arena any speaker saying things of which he personally disapproves.  What’s important is that this man is so terrified of a contest of ideas in the town square that he’ll do everything he can to make sure that folks in that arena can hear only the speech he deems fit for their tender ears—he won’t allow them to decide for themselves what they’ll listen to.

And this is typical of Progressives/Democrats.  See Brendan Eich and Mozilla, see Condoleezza Rice and Dropbox, see the Obama administration’s IRS.  The list is endless.

It makes me think that Progressives/Democrats know only too well that their ideas can’t survive the disinfecting sunlight of open competition.

Democrats Against Education

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Those of the great state of Illinois have become brazenly overt in their assault.  They’ve introduced 10 or more bills that target charter schools, seeking to restrict them severely or to shut them down altogether.

One of these bills would, effectively, cancel a law that lets charter schools to operate unhindered by state or union rules.  Imagine that.  It must be bad local control that allows a school to function without…benefit…of union oversight or absent the wisdom of the State.

Another bill would ban online classes, supported by these evil charters, that offer high schoolers things like Advanced Placement classes.  Can’t have students able to learn on their own schedules, now can we?

Yet another bill seeks to ban advertising by charters and presumes to dictate to these entities in their capacity of businesses (highly successful ones, too, from the quality of their student performances) what they’ll be allowed to pay their senior employees.  Non-union schools mustn’t be allowed to attract either customers or quality leadership.

Still another bill seeks to prevent new charters from opening in the same, or neighboring, ZIP code of a public school that closed in the last 10 years.  So much for the children of the South Side.  Where’s Eric Holder and his disparate impact?  Go figure.

The list goes on.

Will Governor Pat Quinn sign these bills?  Well, he does want to get reelected in this Blue state.

Restricting Voters?

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Ex-President Bill Clinton and the AP are at it again, this time from the venue of the Civil Rights Summit at the Lyndon B Johnson Presidential Library in Austin.

Former President Bill Clinton is using the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act to criticize efforts in several states to create new restrictions for voters, saying they threaten to roll back a half-century of progress.

Clinton and the AP, on the occasion of this auspicious anniversary, are beefing about the Supreme Court’s ruling releasing a number of states that had a history of discriminatory voting laws, now that they have accumulated a substantial and substantive history of non-discrimination, from the Federal bondage of having to plead “Mother, may I?” from the Feds before they could update any of their election procedures.  The two also are beefing about the increasing number of voter ID laws.

Of course, this is just Progressive nonsense.  The efforts “in several states” are to increase restrictions on ineligible voters, for the protection of voters.  The only “roll back” that’s going on is of the progress made in the last 50 years enabling the dead to vote, enabling non-citizens to vote, enabling “voters” to vote multiple times and in multiple districts during the same election.

Another Blow

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…in the Progressives’ war on diversity, this one struck against the concept of free speech.

Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it had withdrawn the planned awarding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women….

Their “rationale?”

She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world.  That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.

Apparently those core values don’t include the sanctity, or a recognition of the necessity to a free society, of freedom to express an opinion different from that of an authority figure, nor do they seem to include a respect for diversity of opinion.

Ali’s offensive speech?

Once [Islam]’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful.  It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now.  They’re not interested in peace.  I think that we are at war with Islam.  And there’s no middle ground in wars.

Even truth is offensive at Brandeis, because, according to Joseph Lumbard, Chairman of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis

This makes Muslim students feel very uneasy.  They feel unwelcome here.

Well.  There it is.  Discomfort is a crime at this place.  When it concerns the appropriate groups.