Tag Archives: morality

Union…Hubris

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Neal Erickson, was convicted last spring of the repeated rape of a young boy from 2006-2009.  He was, at the time of his crime, a teacher at Rose City Middle School in Rose City, MI.

Erickson’s fellow teachers and his/their union, the Michigan Education Association, think that’s no big deal: they argued for leniency at the time of last spring’s sentencing, and now they’re looking for severance pay–$10,000—for Erickson.  Fellow teacher Sally Campbell wrote a letter to the presiding judge:

Neal made a mistake.  He allowed a mutual friendship to develop into much more.

Much more.  Yeah.  For three years, Neal made his “mistake.”  Hey-ho, nothing serious though, nothing to see here, says the union.  Even the district’s school board condones Erickson’s behavior; that body has refused to take any action against the teachers who rallied to Erickson’s excusal—not even public condemnation of their behavior.

When it became clear that the other teachers in the school were actively supporting Erickson, downplaying his rape behavior, and that the school board was refusing to do anything on its own, parents started taking their children out of the school.  Enrollment is down some 87%.

West Branch-Rose City School Superintendent Daniel Cwayna is all wide-eyed innocence:

I can’t speculate as to why the students have left, but there were certainly parents who vocalized that they were pulling their children out of school because of the teacher’s support[.]

Here’s a thought: maybe it’s because a teacher crew, a union, and a school board that condone child molestation can’t be trusted with children.

Poor Judgment, Generally

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We’ve seen a few examples of poor judgment in our education system vis-à-vis toy guns.  It doesn’t stop there.

The Canon City, CO, school system suspended a 6-year-old boy and charged him as a sex offender for the dastardly crime of kissing his 6-year-old girl friend’s hand (The Superintendent later retracted the sex harassment charge, but only after a public hue and cry).

A 9-year-old in Gastonia, NC was suspended for sexual harassment because he told a classmate he thought his teacher was cute.

An Air Force Base Commander in South Carolina ordered a Christmas nativity scene taken down because it “offended” someone, without regard to whether ordering it removed…might offend…someone.

A 66-year-old portrait of Jesus hanging in a school entrance was ordered removed because it might “offend” someone, without regard to whether ordering it removed…might offend…someone.

The Pentagon said it would court martial Christian pastors who ministered to their congregation members during the just completed government shutdown.

It’s like we’ve all taken leave of our senses.

Poor Judgment

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…makes these unfit to serve as educators, and it’s symptomatic of our broken education system.

A Pennsylvania middle school has chosen to suspend a 10-year-old boy for pretending to shoot a fellow classmate with a bow and arrow while his classmate pretended to shoot him with a folder-cum-machine gun.

A 12-year-old Rhode Island student was suspended for having a gun the size of a quarter on his keychain.

A Maryland 7-year-old was suspended for chewing a pop tart into the “shape of a gun” (he’d bitten off a corner of the square pastry).

These are boys and girls acting like boys and girls.  The teachers, principals, school system superintendents or board members whose judgment that says this should be criminalized or otherwise punished in our schools understand neither children nor education.  They’re wholly unfit to be in our education system in any capacity.

The Progressive View of the Law

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We’re well familiar with President Barack Obama’s view of the law: it’s just a political guideline, which he’ll enforce—or not—at convenience.  See Obamacare and its Employer Mandate and Cancelled Insurance Policies, for instance.

Here’s another example.  Covered California, California’s state-run ObamaMart, has given out personal contact data—names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses—on tens of thousands of Californians who went to the CC site just to check out coverage possibilities.  None of these browsers had given permission to release these personal data in any way, shape, or form.  Nevertheless, these data were given to insurance brokers, among others, so those brokers could cold call this additional list of sales pitch spam victims.

For what purpose this egregious invasion of privacy?  Covered California Executive Director, Peter Lee, insisted with a straight face that “insurance” buyers needed help making the 23 December deadline for coverage that begins 1 January, and that he knew better how to do that—no need to obey privacy laws in the face of his higher purpose (although Lee insists that no privacy laws were harmed in the making of this move).

Lee did this while also saying

I can imagine some people may be upset[.]

Well, NSS.  But never mind about that.  Lee and his Progressive-controlled State Government employer know better (he is, after all, still on the payroll after this; that state’s government plainly agrees with his move); privacy laws are just guidelines.

As to CC’s claims that no other data were released, one victim of a spam email from one of those brokers wonders “what other details on his application were shared with the agent.”  Indeed.  What else still is being covered up?

So much for rule of law in Progressive administrations.

The Next Democratic Party Government Shutdown

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…is shaping up.  Never mind that a budget deal might actually otherwise be beginning to come together; many in the Democratic Party leadership are perfectly willing to shut down the government if they don’t get their way.  Again.

And in so many words.  House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D, MD) opposes even a continuing resolution to keep government funded if it doesn’t address the existing sequestration cut schedule.  But he won’t offer spending cuts elsewhere to offset them—just increase the damned spending.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) has said she’ll oppose any sort of budget deal that doesn’t include an extension to unemployment benefits to pay folks for not working (which also is her tacit admission that President Barack Obama’s economic policies have been a dismal failure these past five years).

The House Democratic Party leadership’s colleagues in the Senate, where any deal can be blown up and the government shut down by the Democrat majority, are being cagily silent.  Here it comes.