Anne Arundel County Schools; A Societal Issue Exposed
Jan 7, 2015 Commentary
Anne Arundel County is a large county in the state of Maryland. Last year when a snow storm was predicted the county chose to keep its schools open even though it was snowing and other counties had delayed opening or closed. After a lot of problems the school board stated that it had made a mistake and would do better.
Yesterday a snow storm was predicted and it started snowing early in the morning. Several school systems delayed opening and some revised their status to “closed”. Anne Arundel did none of the above and remained open. There were a lot of frustrated and upset parents.
The decision to remain open proved unwise when two students on the way to school (in their own vehicle) were involved in an accident requiring them to be transported to Shock Trauma. They are home and recovering. Another student slipped in the snow and was hit by a slow moving vehicle. This student was treated for minor injuries.
The amount of snow was actually not so great with anywhere from 1-4 inches depending on location. This probably sounds trivial to those who live in Buffalo or other northern areas that regularly get a lot of snow and rarely close schools. The problem with this storm, as it often is, was the timing. The storm hit before and extended into the morning commute. If it had come much earlier or later in the morning the problems would not have been so bad.
I heard a radio interview with someone from the county who gave a number of reasons for the decision. It was not snowing when they made the call or it was not predicted to be as bad as it was or whatever. They took a decision based on whatever criteria they use. They will have to live with that.
Here is where I have an issue. During the interview the person stated that they also had to consider that there were a lot of children who, if they stayed home, would be alone or that might not even get a lunch.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is not the concern of the school. If school is closed it is up to PARENTS to make arrangements and to feed their children. The school is not a sitter; it is a place of learning. Parents should have plans for when school is closed and if their children are home it is their responsibility to ensure their children have supervision (if required) and are fed.
The statement from whoever that was (in the interview) is one of the problems of society. Government and its entities think they are responsible for raising our children. They are not. The fact that some families would have to make plans or some kids might not get a lunch should not factor into the decision of delaying the opening or closing the school.
Schools are responsible for educating our children, nothing more.
The issue is far wider though. You see, the reason government thinks it is in charge and should raise your children is because so many parents allow them to by not taking responsibility. I heard a number of interviews with parents who expressed that it was ridiculous that Anne Arundel County would put children’s lives in danger.
Let that sink in a minute.
If it was that dangerous why didn’t the parents keep their children home regardless of what the school decided? The school did not place anyone’s life in danger, the parents did. The school cannot possibly know the conditions all over the county and the school system certainly has much less information about how bad it is in YOUR neighborhood than YOU do. If it is bad outside and you think it is dangerous then keep your kids home.
I don’t know how many interviews I heard or how many social network postings I read where parents expressed how they could not believe the county was forcing their children to go to school.
No, the county just said the schools would be open. Parents decided to send their children despite the terrible conditions. You know who you are and if you felt it was bad and still sent them out then it is on you.
I know there are circumstances where the parents might rely on the school system decision because in their neighborhood it is not snowing or it is very light and then things get hairy on the way or later on. That can certainly happen but the parents I read or heard expressed how bad it was and that they could not believe the schools were open which means it was bad where they were. They had all the information they needed to decide and they left it up to the school.
Government is more than happy to take control of your children and take decisions based on social circumstances because parents so easily give up their control.
The school system has to decide for thousands of children (which is not to say they are blameless). Parents only have to decide for their own.
Learn a lesson from this and take control of your lives. Raise your own children and do what is right.
Government, as demonstrated by Anne Arundel County, is not competent to do it for you.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: anne arundel, responsible, safety, socialism, society
Until You Run Out…
Sep 8, 2014 Political
A quote attributed to Margaret Thatcher is; “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” For some reason the socialists don’t see it this way. It might be because the socialist politicians will not run out of their own money because any policies they enact would not affect them. Bernie Sanders is a socialist and he thinks we should tax the wealthy even more.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, called for a progressive estate tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires during a speech on Saturday. Washington Times
It is not bad enough that the wealthy pay the bulk of the taxes, Sanders would tax their estates (wealth that has already been taxed a number of times) to pay off the bills. Well, that is what he says but it just means more money for government to waste.
The wealthy follow the tax laws written by weathy people in Congress and those laws favor wealth because Congress critters do not like to pay taxes. They like YOU to pay taxes.
The best way to reduce the deficit and pay off our bills is to reduce spending.
It would also do us well to reform the tax code so that ALL wage earners pay a flat tax. Then the wealthy in Congress could not write laws that favor themselves and their friends and then scream about some alleged loophole when they want more money.
Sanders is an idiot who probably needs instructions to breathe.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: bernie sanders, Congress, lies, socialism, taxes, weathy people
More VA Problems Exposed
May 28, 2014 Military, Obamacare
The single payer, government run health care system known as the VA is in a shambles. It has been a boondoggle since its inception but has gotten worse over the years. While Democrats will claim that the problem is the large influx of patients because of the wars they voted for, the reality is the system did not run well when we were not at war.
The problems at the VA predate Obama (and Bush though Democrats think the history of bad starts with him) and as such Obama does not shoulder the blame for the problems there. He shoulders the blame because they are still there and are worse.
Candidate Obama blasted President Bush and the VA system and President elect Obama promised to fix things. He did not fix them. In fact things are much worse now and Obama is responsible for that. He was aware of the problems (despite his claims to the contrary) and he did NOT fix them as he promised.
There is now a news story that the problems at the VA in Phoenix are much worse than originally reported. Forty veterans are reported to have died while on a secret waiting list designed to allow administrators to claim great patient wait times and collect bonuses. Veterans died while waiting for care as administrators received bonuses for the great jobs they were doing. The Phoenix VA, according to an Inspector General’s report, has as many as 1,700 veterans awaiting care but who are not on the official waiting list.
This means that they might never receive care. Additionally, their absence from the list is designed to show the VA in a favorable light.
For more on how the scheme works read this article about the VA in Texas. There are supporting documents to show the top person cancelled and manipulated appointments in order for him and other executives to receive bonuses. Fifty percent of their bonus rating is based upon patient wait times so they manipulated those times to appear as if they were in compliance. They did not care about the veterans, only their own money and careers. These folks should end up in jail.
The Texas run system even received an award despite being investigated for these criminal acts in the past. There is overwhelming evidence that the top person was involved and made the changes but the conflicts were blamed on low level employee error which was than touted as something discovered and fixed (it was not). Looks like these folks follow Obama’s example of leadership; blame others…
There is another report that involves the VA but is about police brutality and not directly related to the scheduling scandal (but part of a corrupt culture nonetheless). An elderly vet was beaten and stomped by VA cops and suffered a stroke that subsequently resulted in his death.
America, is this how we should be treating our veterans?
Ideally, veterans should receive their care in the open market (with the bill paid for by the government) and not be restricted to government run socialized medicine. But if that will not happen then the VA should hire veterans to run its facilities. Veterans who have health care experience should be hired to work in those facilities. And veterans who served as military police should be police officers in the VA. These folks know what their fellow veterans have gone through and what kind of treatment they deserve.
The government should also remove all bonuses. This scheme only encourages people to cook the books.
If I ran any VA hospital I would not accept a bonus and I would not cook the books. I would demand the highest standards of care and fire anyone who did not comply.
If the government can’t run a system that has been in place for decades and only involves a small part of the overall population why does anyone think government run health care for all is a good idea? What makes anyone think that eventually Obamacare will be any different?
Government run care will always end up like this. People become a burden to the system and are abused because of it.
Look out America; you will soon be subject to this.
Let’s pass a law that all members of Congress and the Obama regime MUST receive their health care at a VA facility with no VIP treatment whatsoever.
I bet it would get fixed then… (Big Dog salute to Marcus Luttrell)
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: bonus, Obama, scandal, single payer, socialism, VA, veterans
Barack Obama Is Lazy
May 23, 2014 Political
Notice to the race baiters, I did not say he is shiftless which would indicate that in addition to being lazy he is indolent and lacks ambition. No one gets to be president without ambition particularly those with such a thin resume as Obama. He has a lot of ambition and it is directed toward changing this country into a socialist nation.
Sean Hannity interviewed Sarah Palin (the woman the liberals waged a war on but who was right in all of her predictions about Obama) and he asked her why Obama did not hold people accountable. Palin responded that Obama, by his own admission, was lazy and that it takes a lot of effort to hold people accountable.
Well, a couple of reasons. One is, when you hold someone accountable, it takes some energy and resource and Barack Obama is lazy. In fact, he warned us that he was lazy and attributed that to having been brought up in Hawaii. It’s his words, not mine! And another thing is that Barack Obama still doesn’t see what the main problem is.
The main problem is government. It’s not the solution like Ronald Reagan said. It is the problem. He doesn’t recognize that. So he will continue to do what he’s doing, the status quo is fine with him. He’s not called out as often as he should be, because the media, the referee in this, again ‘game of politics’ isn’t doing its job and holding him accountable. TPNN
I do not disagree with Palin’s assessment that Obama is lazy. He told us he was and she is right, it takes energy to do a tough job.
But, Obama is also a political machine and he knows that if he starts holding people accountable for what they have done the house of cards will begin to fall. The public will see (more clearly) that often the things in question lead back to Obama.
He was directly involved in Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting of conservatives and the decisions that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi among many other things.
As for the problems at the VA (the topic of the Hannity interview), Obama is not responsible for those problems. They were happening long before he took office but he is responsible for the problems continuing. He made it a point to blame George Bush for the VA issues when he was a candidate and he said he would fix them. He was informed of the problems in detail when he was transitioning into the White House and he claimed that veterans were a priority.
He did nothing to stop the problems and now the pot that was simmering is boiling over and it is his fault. He did not address the issues and he did not fix the things like he promised he would.
Perhaps he did not fix them, in part, because he is lazy but it is also true he (like many progressives) does not care for the military.
Obama is busy pushing for health care to every person in this nation whether they are here legally or not and he wants everyone under the thumb of the government. While he is running around saying how much everyone deserves and has a right to health care (we do have a right to access but not to have it paid for) he is neglecting the very people who have a right to it because they earned it with their blood.
The offshoot of this is that the VA scandal is demonstrating what single payer, government provided health care becomes. It starts out big and expensive and morphs into an unaccountable monster that is concerned with costs and bonuses at the expense of those it is supposed to serve.
Right now veterans are dying because the government run health care system is murdering them.
The general public will be next when Obamacare is in full bloom.
Get rid of Obamacare and privatize the VA system so that we will be free and veterans will get the care they not only deserve but that they earned.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: lazy, lies, Obama, obamacare, progressive, single payer, socialism, VA
Obamacare Fails To launch
Oct 1, 2013 Political
Today is the day all socialists have longed for. Their signature legislation is open for public consumption and they could not be happier because they will dig their nails deeper into the skin of the American people and further enslave them to government. Once government is able to put millions of people on the Obamacare plantation they should be able to count of Democrat votes for years to come as the takers vote to take even more.
But like Obama, his roll out is a failure. Obamacare exchange websites are failing all over the place. People are unable to log on and create their accounts. The thing does not work even though they have had three years to get it up and running and yet it does not.
This is par for the course when government is involved. Billions of dollars have been spent and it is not ready for prime time.
Barack Obama said to expect glitches for a few months. Really? Is that the best we can do?
Republicans pushed for a delay and Democrats said no. The left wanted to shut down the government all along as they feel it will strengthen their chances in the 2014 election.
They do not care about anyone and it shows. A delay would have helped get things in order. Then again, if they could not get it right in three years what makes anyone think another year would have made it better?
Keep in mind that Democrats refused to be a part of this. They have been given an exemption from the part of the law that applies to Congress and they are happy.
Harry Reid said being involved was punishment.
The failure of the exchanges is proof he was right.
And folks, if you think that the roll out is full of problems and delays wait until you need to see a doctor.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.