The Georgia School Where Students Went Maskless Is Closed Again Due To COVID-19 Outbreak

 North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia made headlines last week when it became one of the first schools in the nation to reopen. Much of the coverage revolved around photos posted online that showed crowded hallways with few masks in sight. Now, the school is closing for at least two days amid an outbreak with nine positive cases of Coronavirus.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that six students and three staffers tested positive for Coronavirus. In a letter to parents dated August 9, the district superintendent said that the school would be closed on Monday and Tuesday of this week for cleaning and disinfecting. There is no mention of a general quarantine or isolation or the possibility that even more students an faculty may be presymptomatic or asymptomatic but untested.

“Tuesday evening parents and students will be notified of whether Digital Learning will continue, or if in-person instruction may resume,” the letter said, leaving open the possibility that the school may remain closed for longer than the initial two days.

“I apologize for any inconvenience this schedule change may cause, but hopefully we all can agree that the health and safety of our students and staff takes precedence over any other considerations at this time,” the superintendent said in the letter.

The photos of the packed hallway went viral after they were posted by Hannah Waters, a 15-year-old sophomore. The school suspended Waters for posting the pictures but later rescinded the suspension.

The Georgia Department of Public Health statistics for Paulding County, a rural bedroom community on the northwest side of Atlanta, show that COVID-19 was at its peak when schools reopened. Transmission was at very low levels until the beginning of July when it surged to more than 30 new cases per day. By the time schools reopened in early August, the seven-day moving average was above 30 cases per day. Now, a fourth of the county’s 1,678 total cases were reported within the past two weeks.

The US seems to be the only nation attempting to reopen schools with virus transmission still at high levels. Denmark reopened its schools in April using a “bubble” model in which students stayed in separate groups of 12, Time reports. South Korean schools reopened in May but many closed again after another surge in virus cases. Likewise, Israel reopened its schools in May using the “bubble” tactic. This mitigation strategy was dropped in June and was followed by a new outbreak. Data showed that schools were one of the second largest sources of new infections.

Here in the US, the Trump Administration has been pushing for schools to reopen for in-person classes despite the CDC’s warning that “full-sized, in-person classes, activities and events” represent the highest risk. The CDC advises that “groups of students stay together and with the same teacher throughout/across school days and groups do not mix,” and that “students remain at least 6 feet apart and do not share objects.” Many school districts seem unwilling or unable to follow the recommendations.

Schools that follow CDC guidelines and that are in areas with lower rates of community spread might have better luck with reopening than Paulding County, but the Georgia district’s abortive attempt at reopening underscores the fact that there is not a one-size-fits-all prescription for handling a pandemic. A nation of more than 300 million people and with widely varying rates of viral spread will need to tailor strategies to the local situation.

I don’t think that the fact of the pandemic is hurting Donald Trump’s approval rating as much his poor handling of the COVID-19 threat. Trump’s advice on the outbreak has been almost uniformly bad and that includes his push to reopen all schools and threat to cut funding for those who balk. The decision to reopen should be made based on local conditions and not for fear of losing federal dollars.

Mr. Trump obviously prefers to get the nation back to normal before the election but pretending the pandemic is not happening won’t make it or the associated economic crisis go away. If the president’s push to get the country and schools back to business-as-usual goes poorly, he is likely to be hurt worse at the polls than if he had squarely faced the crisis and told the American people the truth about the need to slow the spread of the virus. Americans can see the danger and the need for mitigations even if the president cannot.

Originally published on The Resurgent

To Return To School Or Not To Return To School, That Is The Question

It’s July. Usually, this is the time of year that a parent’s fancy turns to thoughts of the kids going back to school. This year, with Coronavirus running rampant around the country, a great many parents are hesitant about the prospect of sending their kids back to classrooms that are potentially infested with COVID-19.

The president, vice president, and many governors are urging school boards to get kids back into class, but in many areas of the country active Coronavirus cases are at much higher levels now than they were when schools were closed back in March. This raises legitimate questions about whether it is safe for both students and teachers to assemble in close proximity to each other in brick-and-mortar classrooms with recirculated air systems. Whether schools will be able to enforce social distancing and mask requirements is also an open question as one Illinois nurse humorously illustrated on Facebook.

On one side of the argument are people who claim, quite rightly, that life must go on. A vaccine may still be years away (although if the truth be known, many of the people who take this position would refuse a vaccine even if it was available) and the country cannot simply shelter-in-place until either a vaccine or treatment is ready.

The send-them-to-school proponents also argue that there is evidence that children are not profligate spreaders of COVID-19. Statistically, children are the lowest risk demographic for Coronavirus.

A new study released on July 10 found that “children infrequently transmit Covid-19 to each other or to adults and that many schools, provided they follow appropriate social distancing guidelines and take into account rates of transmission in their community, can and should reopen in the fall” [emphasis mine]. One obvious problem is that the children who are most likely to be sent back to school are probably those whose parents are most likely to completely disregard social distancing and mask guidelines. Many of these children will be the sons and daughters of the Karens who flip out when asked to wear a mask in the grocery store. (I don’t have anything against Karens per se. I’ve known several and they don’t usually fit the stereotype.)

A second issue is that low-risk is not the same as no-risk. Young children can and do contract and die from Coronavirus. There is also a condition, Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome Temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS), that affects some children exposed to COVID-19. PIMS-TS is thought to be rare but can be fatal and may leave long term coronary damage in survivors. The uncertainty about PIMS-TS underscores that there is still a lot that is not known or understood about COVID-19 in general.

While children are generally less susceptible to COVID, even the age of the child makes a difference. Statistics of US Coronavirus deaths show that older children, such as those in their late teens, are at substantially higher risk than young children under five. This is a far smaller risk than for senior adults but it is substantially greater than for other diseases such as the flu. If social distancing breaks down and students do contract COVID-19, an even bigger risk may be that they take it home with them and infect parents and grandparents who at higher risk. These adults may spread the virus throughout their workplaces and community.

There is also a substantial risk to teachers and other school employees. Many teachers are in high-risk age categories and may have other aggravating factors as well. As one teacher posted to her Facebook page, “Let me say this loud for those in the back—Teachers are not responsible for the recovery of the economy, babysitting children, or ‘getting us back to normal.’ Stop trying to guilt us into risking our lives for the government’s failure to act.”

That’s a fair point. Not much seems to have been done in the past four months to limit the spread of Coronavirus or prepare for new surges of cases. In fact, the opposite seems true. In July, the US is still experiencing a PPE shortage despite the lead time of the past four months.

Add to that the possibility that the virus is more easily spread in enclosed places with central air conditioning systems. Several studies have indicated that the virus may be thriving in the Southern summer because the heat is driving people into air-conditioned buildings which may be able to spread aerosol droplets containing the virus over greater distances.

In April and May, we flattened the curve and then we fattened it in June. Now many states are reporting that their hospital systems are threatened to be overwhelmed by the onslaught of 60,000 new cases every day. When schools closed in mid-March, the US was reporting about 1,000 new cases every day. Some of the increase can be explained by more testing, which was woefully inadequate in March, but rising positivity rates in many states confirm that Coronavirus has again gone viral (pun intended).

Essential workers have been going to work since the onset of the pandemic in March, but many of these essential workers have more personal protective equipment than teachers would have. Many essential workers also are better able to social distance and don’t have to be as close to others for as long as a teacher in a classroom full of children.

If a teacher is exposed to or contracts Coronavirus, we can expect that they will have to self-quarantine for two weeks. That will mean that the class will be under the control of a substitute teacher, who may or may not be qualified to lead the class. Even if the teacher is asymptomatic and can teach from home via Zoom, an adult will still have to be present to control the class. (My hat is off to subs. I subbed for a few days while I was laid off several years ago. It remains the hardest work I’ve ever done.)

Another factor is that parents of many young children have few options for childcare as they go back to work. This is especially true since many workers will be working fewer hours and/or taking pay cuts due to the economic impacts of Coronavirus. Daycare is expensive, especially for low-income single-parents. Many rely on schools to keep their young children during the day and at after-school programs so that they can earn a paycheck. Whether schools open or not will directly impact the finances of countless American families.

Muddying the waters further is that many of these families will have an incentive to send their children to school, even if they are sick. Parents lose income or use sick days to stay home with sick children. If a child gets exposed to COVID-19 at school, the entire family will most likely be expected to self-quarantine. That will come at the cost of more economic hardship.

The reason for mulling over the pros and cons of going back to school is that it is not a hypothetical question for my family. Here in Georgia, the new school year starts in August and the local school system in which my two children are enrolled announced its plan for the 2020-2021 school year a few days ago. Under the plan, students will have three options on how to go back to school.

The first option is to have children attend traditional “in-person” classes in schools. Under this option, the school system says that children who are sick will not be penalized for missing classes and should be kept home. They also note that face coverings would be required on buses and temperatures would be checked at the beginning of each school day. There was no mention of a requirement for masks or social distancing in classrooms.

The second option is virtual or digital school. The school system offers two online options for students, which require an 18-week commitment for upper-level grades and nine weeks for K-6 students. A local teacher would be assigned to monitor progress and “help with any questions.”

The third option is for parents to homeschool their children. Unlike the first two options, this would require withdrawing students from the county school system.

Public opinion on going back to school is mixed, even in my heavily Republican county. An informal poll on a Facebook group dedicated to the county issues so far shows that most people are opposed to reopening schools and think that they will be forced to close again by more than a two-to-one margin over those in favor of sending the kids back.

I don’t believe that closing schools was an error in March. As any parent or teacher can tell you, schools are hotbeds of infection even when there is no pandemic. School closures were one of the mitigation strategies that helped to contain the spread of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Of course, Coronavirus is not the flu, as I’ve said many times. It is much worse in most respects but children are at lower risk.

At this point, we haven’t made a decision on whether to send our kids back to school. We take the safety of our family and the threat of Coronavirus seriously, but we also have not been holed up at home since March. Going out is a calculated risk and all factors must be weighed.

I do appreciate the fact that our school system is giving parents the option to decide what is best for their family. That won’t be true for everyone around the country.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Ted Cruz Says Media Ignores Santa Fe Aftermath Due To Bias

Have you heard much about the Santa Fe school shooting lately? The furor over the May 18 attack seems to have abated quickly and Texas Senator Ted Cruz says it is because the victims and their families don’t support the media’s gun control agenda.

In an interview with the Daily Signal, Cruz called the murders “horrific” and said, “There have been too dang many of these.”

“Something’s wrong,” Cruz continued. “When we were kids, this wasn’t a part of going to school. You might worry about getting a black eye at school or something, but you didn’t worry about someone, some lunatic coming in and shooting and murdering as many people as they could. That was not part of school.”

When asked what strategies could be followed to stop school shootings, Cruz said that he and Texas Gov. Abbott asked the victims and their families for opinions. “It was really striking,” Cruz said. “Out of a dozen students who just hours earlier had been in this shooting, every one of them said the answer is not gun control. They said, don’t take our guns. They said if you take our guns, it won’t make us safer, it will just mean the killers and murderers have guns.”

Cruz added that many of the students supported metal detectors and armed police guards in schools, two ideas that have been attacked by Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg. The Santa Fe shooting survivors also supported another idea lambasted by Hogg, arming teachers.

The senator told of a student who “said his teacher was a former Marine, who was trained to handle a firearm.” According to Cruz, the student “said he wished his teacher had been armed; he might have been able to stop the killer before he killed so many people.”

Cruz drew a contrast between the Parkland survivors and the Santa Fe students, saying, “It’s fairly striking that, you look at the mainstream media, CNN, after the Parkland shooting, it was round-the-clock coverage of the students calling for aggressive gun control because that happens to be the political agenda of most of the media. In this case, where the students aren’t calling for that, suddenly … the media isn’t interested in covering it.”

Media bias almost certainly plays a role in the lack of continuing coverage of the Santa Fe teens. After Parkland, media outlets made rock stars of Parkland survivors such as David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Emma Gonzalez while all but ignoring pro-Second Amendment survivor Kyle Kashuv.

Nevertheless, there may be additional reasons that the story was downplayed as well. The Santa Fe shooting had fewer victims than the Parkland shooting as well as the fact that the Parkland shooting had the shock value of being the first in a series. The news was also overshadowed by President Trump’s claims that the FBI spied on his campaign as well as events in Korea.

Cruz is absolutely correct that the Texans from Santa Fe reacted differently from the Parkland victims, however. The Texas Tribune detailed a meeting between Santa Fe students and teachers with Gov. Abbott. Most agreed that more school counselors, armed teachers and school police officers were needed. There was also support for random checks of student bags.

The idea of metal detectors seemed to draw more resistance than arming teachers. Sophomore Tyler Morrison questioned whether the policy would be “treating kids like prisoners” while senior Grace Johnson asked, “Do we push back our education because we need to get 1,500 kids through a metal detector?”

What was absent from the list was support for gun control. In fact, a full-page ad placed by gun control group Everytown in the Houston Chronicle last week was signed by 40 students from around Texas. Although a number of the signatories were from the Houston area, there were apparently none from Santa Fe.

The Texan response can perhaps be summed up best by Jay Horn, the parent of a student hospitalized as a result of the shooting. “This is not a gun thing,” said Horn. “Evil's going to happen with anything.” The comment got a round of applause. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Broward Deputies Prevented Paramedics From Entering School

The Broward County Sheriff’s Department has taken a massive amount of criticism for its actions both before and during the massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fl. and the hits just keep on coming. New information suggests that Broward County deputies may have actively stopped paramedics from entering the school in the minutes after the shooting.

Fox News cites three Florida law enforcement sources who say that EMS teams requested permission to enter the school. The Broward County Sheriff’s office, which had control of the crime scene, denied permission to the first responders.

“What’s going to come out is, in the communications on several circumstances, there was the request to enter... the request was denied from Broward County,” an unnamed Florida official said.

“When you have a police agency saying we don’t want you going in, that’s a problem,” another Florida official said. “The training since Columbine has been [that] first responders, police go in immediately with paramedics.”

Broward County responded to Fox’s queries with an email that said the entire incident was under investigation and “investigators will not be rushed or asked to jump to conclusions.”

Fox also cites “high-ranking sources” who say they police officers and deputies brought victims out to be treated by EMS workers rather than EMS workers attending to them inside the school. Standard procedure for treating the injured includes not moving seriously injured victims. EMS workers are trained to follow the initial wave of police. In the Parkland shooting, deputies are reported to have waited outside rather than entering the school to engage the shooter.

“If they’re not going in then we’re not going in. We’re trained to go in with them,” a fire official said.

Brian Entin, a reporter for the Miami Fox News affiliate, reported that a first responder claims, “everything I was trained on mass casualty events says they did the wrong thing.” The responder said that one shooting victim did not get out to an ambulance for 45 minutes.

The delay in admitting EMS to the scene was reportedly due to law enforcement’s uncertainty about the status of the shooter. Police were uncertain whether the shooter was dead, had left the scene or was still present.

“I would hypothesize that I could have saved lives,” the first responder said. “I can’t say for sure.”

Mike Moser, the Division Chief of Fire Administration for Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department, said, “Decisions cannot be made in a vacuum. All of the variables must be taken into consideration before a rescue task force can be enabled.”

“It is possible that those that are upset about not being allowed inside, simply do not have all of the information that our law-enforcement partners had in making their decision,” he added.

The anonymous first responder disagrees. “I would have risked my life to go in,” he says. “I was eager to. I was frustrated the entire time I was there.”

More details about the Broward County Sheriff Department’s response to the shooting are likely to emerge as the investigation continues.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Four Deputies Waited Outside During Parkland Massacre

A new report indicates that as many as four Broward County deputies may have arrived at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School last week while the shooting was still taking place. The report from CNN indicates that the officers arrived on the scene but did not enter the school to confront the active shooter.

Per the report, when officers of the Coral Springs Police Department arrived on the scene, they found four deputies with guns drawn standing behind their cars. None had reportedly entered the school. The report states that the deputies directed the Coral Springs officers toward the school, but apparently did not accompany them when they entered.

The actions of the deputies reportedly has caused friction between the two departments with some Coral Springs officers considering the failure to enter the school immediately “dereliction of duty.” It is not known whether the killer was still in the school while the deputies waited outside, but it is possible that a quicker entry might have saved the lives of some students who had been shot.

The school resource officer assigned to the school resigned earlier this week after it was revealed that he had waited outside the school for four minutes after the shooting started. Scot Petersen was originally suspended without pay and then decided to resign.

In the midst of the heated debate over gun control that erupted after the shooting, the inaction of the deputies underscores the need of citizens to be able to protect their own lives. For anti-gun activists who would like to make guns more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain, the fact that armed police waited outside rather than intervene in the massacre raises difficult questions about whether citizens can depend on police to charge in and take down an active shooter.

The delayed entry by the Broward County deputies is not unique and may be more common than many realize. For instance, at Columbine officers were on the scene within five minutes according to CBS News. The officer assigned to the school exchanged gunfire with one of the shooters, who retreated into the school. Six officers then waited outside while the killers stalked the school. It took almost two hours for a SWAT team to storm the school. By then, both shooters and 13 innocent people were dead.

The motto of the police is “to protect and serve,” but if officers believe that they are outnumbered and outgunned, they won’t necessarily charge into an unknown threat. There is no legal duty for them to do so. In fact, Supreme Court precedent holds that government police protection is a “benefit,” not an “entitlement.”

The fundamental lesson to learn is that police will protect citizens if it is feasible for them to do so. If officers fear for their own safety, protecting innocent civilians may well become a secondary consideration to protecting themselves and containing the shooter.

Keeping that in mind, law-abiding citizens should seriously consider how to protect themselves until the police arrive and form into a force that is deemed safe to go after the criminals. For many, that may mean getting a gun of their own and a permit to carry it. Even at school.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Atlanta school shooter had record of mental illness, criminal record

The 20-year-old man who walked into a Decatur elementary school yesterday had a history of mental illness and a criminal record according to his brother. Michael Brandon Hill was arrested after he fired several shots at police and briefly held several employees hostage at the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Center.

Timothy Hill, brother of the alleged shooter, told WSB TV (view parts one and two of the interview) that Michael Hill had a long history of mental illness. According to his brother, Hill was placed on Adderall, a drug commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), at the age of six. He had a history of behavioral problems in school starting at age 13.

Timothy Hill said that he was estranged from his brother, who had threatened to kill him in December 2012. The brothers had not been in contact since a court placed a restraining order on Michael Hill. Hill was charged with making terroristic threats in connection with the incident. The mug shot of Michael Hill was from March 2013 in connection with the death threat.

Hill said that his brother had also had several run-ins with Henry Co. police for a series of burglaries. In one case when Michael Hill was 16, Timothy said that he set fire to a house with eight people sleeping inside. According to Timothy Hill, Michael was never charged with any of these crimes by Henry Co. authorities.

Hill’s brother said that Michael Hill had a “long history of medical disorders including bipolar,” but that he was never given help. At one point, Michael Hill was on so many medications that it was “like a drugstore.”

Mental illness has been a common thread in many recent spree shootings. As Examiner reported last January, Adam Lanza, the Newtown school shooter had been diagnosed with autism and Asperger’s syndrome. James Holmes, Colorado’s “Dark Knight” killer had seen three mental health professionals and reportedly mailed a package to his psychiatrist before his shooting spree in a Denver theater. Jared Lee Loughner, who shot Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, also had a long history of mental illness, marijuana use, stalking, and had been involuntarily committed. Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech killer, had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were posthumously diagnosed with a variety of mental illnesses ranging from psychopathic tendencies to depression, paranoia and delusions.

After the Sandy Hook massacre, Dr. Harold Koplewicz wrote in the Huffington Post that 75 percent of psychiatric disorders appear by age 24 and that early intervention greatly improves the prognosis. Dr. Bill Knaus of the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy network points out that many mentally ill people are not aware of their illness and therefore will not voluntarily seek help. A particularly dangerous time seems to be when people stop taking their medication, especially if they do so abruptly and without supervision.

In spite of the fact that most shooting sprees occur in states with strict gun control laws, the legislative response after the Newtown murders primarily involved attempts to ban so-called “assault weapons.” President Obama issued series of Executive Orders aimed at increasing gun control and asked Congress to pass a new “assault weapons” ban. New York passed a strict new gun control law in January 2013. Illinois expanded background check requirements to include transactions between private citizens on August 18.

It is not currently known how Michael Brandon Hill obtained the guns that he used in his attack on the school. WSB reported that Hill was armed with “multiple guns, including an AK-47.”

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Blue state laws enshrine gender confusion

A new trend in blue states seems to be the notion that gender is less a biological reality than a choice that can be made by each individual. The most recent example of this came on Tuesday when California governor Jerry Brown announced that he had signed a law which will allow transgender students to choose which bathroom and locker room to use based on their self-perception and regardless of their biological gender. According to the Casa Grande Dispatch, the new law will even give transgender students the right to participate in either boys or girls sports and other “sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities.” Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, noted that the law does not require any proof of a gender-identity issue. Instead school administrator must rely on the student’s opinion of their gender identity.

California is only the most recent state to enact laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Employment law firm Jackson Lewis notes that New Jersey added “gender identity and expression” as a protected category to its employment and housing discrimination law in 2006. National Law Review pointed out that Connecticut has prohibited employers of three or more people from discriminating based on “a person’s gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or assigned sex at birth” since 2011.

Georgia does not have a gender identity discrimination law, but some Georgia cities do. The GA Voice reported that a number of cities and counties in Georgia have enacted laws that prohibit discrimination against the gender confused. These include Atlanta, Athens, and Savannah.

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education issued guidelines to schools after the legislature a gender identity law in 2011. According to Masslive.com, the guidelines state that transgender students can choose to use restrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities for gender that they currently identify themselves with. “While some transgender students will want that arrangement, others will not be comfortable with it,” the guidelines note and then continue, “Transgender students who are uncomfortable using a sex-segregated restroom should be provided with a safe and adequate alternative such as a single, unisex restroom or the nurse’s restroom.”

There are many potential problems with laws that seek to allow men to choose to live as women and vice versa. The privacy issue of mixing transgender boys and girls with the opposite sex in restrooms and locker rooms is only the most obvious. For example, some teenage boys might pretend to be transgendered in order to get into the girls’ locker room and watch girls change clothes. Mediocre male athletes might be tempted to identify as women to get more playing time and be stars on female teams.

Gender identity laws are already causing problems for children as young as six. In June 2013, CNN reported that a Colorado court decided that a first grade boy who identifies as a girl will be allowed to use the girl’s restroom at his school. This is in spite of the fact that the boy is still anatomically a male.

The next month, the U.S. Department of Education forced a California school district to allow a middle school girl to use the boy’s restroom. The complaint also noted that the school district refused to allow the girl to stay in a cabin with boys on an overnight trip according to the Daily Caller. The Education Department lawyers apparently had no problem with the mixed biological genders spending the night together as long as the girl considered herself a boy.

In yet another case, Olympia, Washington’s KOMO reported last year on Colleen Francis, a 45-year-old man who identifies himself as a woman. Francis is a student at Evergreen College in Washington State. Francis was accused of exposing himself in the girl’s locker room at the school’s pool and in the sauna. The locker room is shared by college students with members of a children’s swim academy and a high school swim club. Police were called when a 17-year-old girl told her mother that Francis was naked and “displaying male genitalia” in the locker room. Another report by a visiting swim coach said that Francis was seen with his legs spread and genitalia showing in the sauna with girls between the ages of six and 18 in view.

In spite of the fact that a man who did not claim to be a woman would be arrested for such behavior, Jason Wettstein, a spokesman for Evergreen, said, “The college cannot discriminate based on the basis of gender identity. Gender identity is one of the protected things in discrimination law in this state.” In 2006, Washington added gender identity to its nondiscrimination law according to the Washington State Human Rights Commission.

Gabrielle Ludwig, a 51-year-old man who identifies as a woman, decided to play basketball at California’s Mission College. The six-foot six-inch, 220 pound transsexual became the star of the Mission College girls’ basketball team according to the N.Y. Daily News. A 51-year-old playing college basketball is unusual, but a 51-year-old man playing on a girls’ basketball team is unique… at least so far.

Critics of gender identity laws point to many problems for the straight majority. Children are susceptible to possible abuse and may be exposed to the genitalia of strangers of the opposite sex. It is unreasonable to assume that sexual predators would not exploit gender identity laws. Parents have no recourse or right to complain about the violations of their children’s right to privacy. Employers may be forced to hire or be unable to fire obvious cross-dressers who hurt their business. Religious believers are forced to accept and even subsidize behavior that they find morally objectionable.

It is too early to tell whether the trend of gender identity as a protected class will continue, but, with the recent success of the same-sex marriage movement, more pushes toward normalization of sexual subcultures is likely. As with same-sex marriage, such movements are more likely to find acceptance in states that are predominantly Democratic.

Gender identity antidiscrimination laws essentially force the public to participate in a lie. As in the fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” forcing public acceptance does not alter reality. Choosing to identify as a different gender does not change the biological and anatomical facts of a person’s body. (Even sex-change recipients require continuous use of hormones to simulate the body chemistry of the opposite sex.) Forcing the public at large to humor people in their delusion can only do harm to both society and the gender confused.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Armed pilots provide roadmap for securing schools

When, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre called for armed security guards in schools, he faced widespread criticism from liberals who believe that fewer guns, not more, are the answer to the problem of mass killings. On the other side of the political spectrum, some conservatives argued that the cost of placing police officers in every school across the nation was too costly for a federal government that is already running trillion dollar deficits each year.

The concept of armed guards at schools was proven on Jan. 31, 2013 when an armed officer stopped a shooting at Price Middle School in Atlanta. A student had smuggled a gun past metal detectors and opened fire in the courtyard of the school, wounding a 14-year-old student in the neck before the officer was able to get the gun away from him according to CBS News.

Even though armed guards are effective, they are also prohibitively expensive for many school districts. According to Craig Steckler, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the average salary of a police officer is $55,000. There are 98,817 public schools in the United States. According to the Department of Education, about 25 percent of these already have armed security officers on campus at least once per week. The cost for providing officers for the remaining 74,113 schools would be more than $4 trillion. In spite of the recent high profile school shootings, fewer than two percent of all youth homicides occur at or on the way to school.

The school protection dilemma is analogous to the problem of protecting airline flights in the wake of the September 11 attacks. One proposal was to put Federal Air Marshals on all flights, but with tens of thousands of airline flights each day the plan was prohibitively expensive. Training enough air marshals to guard these flights would also have taken years.

An alternative solution was to create the Federal Flight Deck Officer program. This program took volunteer airline pilots and deputized them as federal agents to protect their airplanes. The volunteers were issued pistols and then trained to use them effectively. The volunteers received no federal salary or extra pay from their airlines. Instead they use vacation time to travel at their own expense to the federal training center where FFDO training is conducted. They even paid for the training themselves.

The number of FFDOs is secret, but since the program’s inception in 2003, there have been only two public incidents involving FFDOs who caused safety issues with their guns. In 2011, NBC News reported that a passenger mistakenly picked up a bag containing a JetBlue pilot’s gun. More seriously, in 2008, a US Airways pilot accidentally fired his gun in flight according to Reuters. The aircraft landed safely and no one was injured.

The FFDO program has been spectacularly successful in terms of safety, cost and fulfilling the mission of protecting airline flights. Federal Air Marshals, full time agents, are used as well, but are deployed on flights deemed to be at high risk for attack.

A similar approach could be used in schools to allow volunteer teachers and school employees to become “Federal Classroom Officers.” As with FFDOs, the teachers would be federal officers and would be exempt from local gun ordinances that prohibit gun ownership. As with other law enforcement officers, they would also be allowed to carry their guns in the “gun free” school zones.

Teachers would not be forced to carry a weapon. The program would be for volunteers only. Teachers who do not like guns would be free to choose to remain defenseless. Those who prefer to be able to defend themselves and their students would be issued a weapon and trained to use it safely. They would be required to demonstrate competency with their gun at regular intervals to maintain proficiency.

Teachers who choose not to take part in the program would still benefit from it. First, they would be the direct recipient of protection from the Federal Classroom Officers in the event of a school shooting or terrorist attack. Second, the mere presence of Federal Classroom Officers might well deter many prospective murderers from attacking the school. In the past, many mass murders have taken in place in areas that were deemed to be “gun free.”

There is no doubt that many will oppose the idea of bringing guns into schools. Many of the same arguments that will arise were presented against the idea of arming pilots 10 years ago and have been refuted by the success of the FFDO program.

In reality, guns are already present in our schools. Thousands of schools are already patrolled by armed officers. Federal Classroom Officers would have the same training in firearms that these school security officers receive. All too often others, people like Adam Lanza, bring other guns to school when police officers are not present. In the end, that is why teachers should be given the option to arm themselves. There is no foolproof way to keep bad guys with guns out schools, but we can give our teachers and students a fighting chance.

 

Originally published on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/experience-with-armed-pilots-can-help-secure-schools

The anti-choice Democrats

As Americans in Georgia and across the country begin to go to the polls (in Georgia early voting starts October 15) they should consider the freedom of choice and which party and candidate will really support their right to choose. Although the Democrats have traditionally assumed the mantle of “pro-choice” on the issue of abortion, there are many other issues on which the right of Americans to make choices for themselves is at stake.

One of the most obvious areas of concern this year is the right for Americans to make their own choices about health insurance. Even though President Obama has repeatedly (and as late as the first debate on October 3) said that Americans could keep their own health insurance if they liked their current plan, in reality Obamacare takes away the right to choose to self-insure or purchase a no-frills, high deductible policy. Under the president’s health care law, the federal government has the right to dictate the terms of health insurance policies that all Americans are now required to purchase. The law also provides a powerful incentive for companies to drop their group health plans and leave employees to purchase their own insurance on Obamacare’s exchanges.

Freedom of choice in Medicare is also at stake this November. President Obama and the Democrats oppose allowing seniors to choose private insurance policies subsidized by government price supports, which Obama derided in the debate as vouchers. Instead, the Democrats support the current system in which all seniors are forced into the government-run Medicare program in spite of the fact that fewer and fewer doctors accept the government insurance because its reimbursement rates are so far below the market prices for care. The problem will undoubtedly get worse as Obamacare forces an additional $700 billion in cuts on the Medicare program.

Yet another issue of health care choice is the Obama Administration’s mandate that all insurance policies cover contraceptive and abortifacient drugs. Regardless of whether a person wants or needs such coverage, all insurance policies must now include these drugs at no out-of-pocket cost. The effect is that the cost of these services is now included in the policy premium, contributing to the rising cost of health insurance. The choice to opt out of these coverages for religious reasons or personal preference is forbidden.

The mandate also applies regardless of whether the policy holder or insurance company believes that abortion and contraception is moral. There was a narrow exemption for churches, but not other religious organizations or individual religious believers. President Obama offered a further compromise that religious organizations would have to accept the coverages, but at no cost. The cost would be passed along to other insureds, again causing policy premiums to rise.

The freedom to choose your child’s school is also at issue. Most Democrats do not support school vouchers or school choice, largely due to the fact that the party is beholden to teacher’s unions. The recent Chicago teacher strike was not only about money; it was also about keeping bad teachers from being held accountable. Under the status quo, children are assigned to schools based on their residence, regardless of whether that school is failing or meets their needs. In several cases, parents have been arrested for sending their children to better schools outside their district.

In areas where parent trigger laws allow parents to fire school administrators and turn failing schools into charter schools, Democrat-supported unions wage wars of harassment on parents rather than surrender control of schools, even though some Democratic politicians and a large majority of voters support the trigger laws. Harassment of parents and endless legal wrangling effectively negate parental choice.

An old issue of choice is the choice to own a gun. Even though the Supreme Court has upheld the individual right to keep and bear arms, with every high profile shooting or terrorist attack Democratic operatives reiterate calls for gun control. Democrats and gun opponents have called to eliminate the freedom of choice to purchase handguns, semi-automatic weapons, assault weapons, guns that look like military weapons, magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, and ammunition.

The Democratic anti-choice tendencies extend even to mundane household items. In 2007, the Democratic congress banned incandescent light bulbs. The infamous light bulb ban prompted the closure of several U.S. factories that produced incandescent bulbs and forced Americans to purchase expensive and potentially hazardous compact fluorescent bulbs.

The lists of products that liberal Democrats oppose or want to force Americans to buy are long. In either case, it conflicts with the basic freedom of choice. Liberals have opposed the freedom to buy gas guzzling SUVs, soft drinks, chocolate milk, and coal-based electricity among other things. Conversely, they have favored forcing people to purchase health insurance, ethanol-based fuels, trigger locks, hybrid cars and to ride trains instead of driving. They also support government monopolies on health care, Social Security, college loans, and who knows what else.

On social issues, the Democrats also oppose choice that conflicts with liberal orthodoxy. It is now taboo and bigoted to be a supporter of traditional marriage as Chick-fil-a CEO Dan Cathy discovered. Likewise, Democrats and liberals have little tolerance for those who revere life over abortion. Democrats even favor disclosure of the names of petition signers and donors to opposition groups so they can be singled out for partisan attacks and intimidation.

Perhaps the most telling difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats oppose giving Americans the choice of how to spend their own money. This is true on two levels. As given in the above examples, Democrats are more than happy to mandate that all Americans spend money on products that Democrats believe they should buy.

On another level, Democrats want to spend Americans’ money through higher taxes. After four years, President Obama’s only real plan to heal the economy and close the deficit is by raising taxes. If taxes go up it is axiomatic that there will be less money left in their paycheck to take home. The increased taxes will go directly to support federal spending at the cost of the spending power of individual Americans.

It isn’t even a question of whether President Obama will raise taxes on just the rich or the middle class as well. He already has raised taxes on the middle class numerous times. Obamacare is a bundle of tax increases masquerading as a health care law. Americans for Tax Reform has compiled a list of 21 new or higher taxes that President Obama has signed into law. Many of these taxes fall directly on the middle class. Many are part of Obamacare.

In the end, the anti-choice positions of liberals and Democrats underscore the fundamental difference between the parties. Conservative Republicans believe that people should be free to make their own decisions about what is best for their life as long as it does not hurt others. This position accepts that sometimes people will make mistakes and bad decisions. If people aren’t free to fail, then they aren’t really free.

To the contrary, leftists believe that, left to the own devices, people will not make the best decision. They believe that, because people cannot be trusted to do what is best for themselves, that government experts must tell them what to do and force them to do it. They also believe that, if necessary, people who do not comply should be punished… for their own good.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-anti-choice-democratic-party-1?cid=db_articles

The Party of Choice

Since the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade in 1973, “choice” has become a code word for abortion rights. Politicians and pro-abortion interest groups speak of “a woman’s right to choose” in lieu of naming abortion explicitly. Democrats are the primary supporter of the abortion choice and are quick to label pro-life politicians as “anti-choice.” But when the right to choose is expanded to other issues the Democrats do not necessarily champion the freedom of choice.

A fundamental choice that Americans can make is the choice of how to spend the money that they earn. On this issue, the issue of how much the government takes in taxes, the Democrats are solidly anti-choice. Democratic politicians have repeatedly favored heavier taxes in a variety of forms, including income taxes, gas taxes, as well as taxes on dividends, capital gains, and the estates of deceased people, who, in turn, have paid taxes all of their lives. Democrats almost uniformly reject President Bush’s across-the-board tax cuts as “a tax cut for the rich” and plan to let them expire. By supporting higher taxes, Democrats take the freedom of choice in spending away from ordinary Americans.

A second choice that Americans make is the choice to decide what to do their own property. Private property rights face an assault on two fronts: eminent domain and environmental legislation. Eminent domain means that the government can take private property for public use if the property owner is compensated. This was traditionally held to mean that the government could seize private property to build roads, schools, and other projects that benefit the public at large. This changed in 2005 with the Kelo v. New London decision, which held that public benefit could mean nothing more than increased tax revenues. This means that virtually no private property in the United States is safe from an alliance of developers and tax-hungry local governments. The liberal (activist) wing of the Court voted for the decision, while the conservative (constructionist) dissented.

The second assault on private property is through environmental laws, which allow the government to render private property unusable without compensation. This is commonly accomplished by declaring areas as protected wetlands. In many cases, a small drainage ditch or wet weather stream is designated a wetland. In other cases, protected species, such as the snail darter, are found on private property. In either case, restrictions are placed on the use of the property. Often the property owner can neither use the land nor sell it due to the government restrictions. Of course, the government does not compensate the property owner. The Democratic Party is beholden to the radical environmental groups that support these laws.

Education is another area where choice is limited as a result of Democratic activism. As public schools in many areas decline, many parents would appreciate the opportunity to send their children to private schools where they can receive a better education. In most areas, schools are supported by property taxes. Parents must continue to pay property taxes and support public schools, even if their children attend private schools. In effect, parents must pay twice for their child’s education. This puts private schools out of reach for many families. An answer to this problem is by providing school vouchers that would allow parents credit for tuition at the school of their choice. Unfortunately, teacher’s unions that support the Democratic Party oppose school vouchers.

Additionally, parents have little control over the curriculum that their children are taught in public schools. Many schools teach things that many parents find offensive. These lessons often teach a view of issues such as sexuality, religion, or even American history that is contrary to the beliefs of the family. Parents often find it difficult to know what their children are being taught. If they find that their children are being taught something contrary to their beliefs, it can be even more difficult to prevent their child from being exposed to these lessons.

Gun ownership is another choice that Democrats would take away from Americans. The most restrictive gun laws in the United States are found in Democratic strongholds such as the District of Columbia, Illinois, New York, and California. In 2008, the Supreme Court overturned the gun ban in the District of Columbia. This ban, the most restrictive in the country, was deemed constitutional and sensible by Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. Contrary to the Court’s opinion, many Democrats believe that the second amendment applies to government militias and not individuals.

A telling example of the Democratic Party’s anti-choice attitudes is the belief that the US government should force all Americans to purchase health insurance from the government. Government mandates for coverage have made affordable basic health insurance hard to find in many states. Popular Democratic plans would mandate that all Americans obtain coverage through single-payer government plans. This is regardless of whether an individual believes that they need, want, or can afford health coverage. Under current law, people who cannot afford health insurance do not have to purchase it, but can still receive medical treatment from hospital emergency rooms. Under a single-payer system, mandatory taxes would pay for a national health care system, eliminating the freedom to choose to self-insure.

A final example of Democratic anti-choice is their proposed energy policy. Current high oil prices have convinced a majority of Americans that domestic drilling should be expanded to bring additional supplies of oil into the marketplace. Democratic leaders, however, support an extension of the bans on drilling in ANWR and on the continental shelf. Keeping the bans in place means that states are not allowed to choose to exploit a valuable natural resource.

Instead, the Democrats pursue solutions that remove choice from the marketplace. One example is the Renewable Fuels Standard passed in 2007, which sharply increased the amount of ethanol required in US gasoline. Not only did this legislation do nothing to lower gas prices, by creating an artificial demand for corn, it also caused higher food prices and shortages around the world.

Other Democratic energy proposals are similarly focused on top-down mandates. Ideas include restrictions on investing in commodities futures, requirements for investing in alternative fuels, mandates for increased auto fuel economy, and a complex system of taxes on carbon use. One proposal by the California Energy Commission would even require Californians to place a radio-controlled thermostat in new buildings that would enable the government to remotely control the temperature to save energy!

Democrats may claim to be pro-choice, but on most issues their policies would take choice away from Americans and place it in the hands of the government. Allowing individuals to choose how to spend their money and time means that some people will make poor choices, but most will make the choice that best suits their own life.