The following chart is definitely interesting, but I fear our society has lost appreciation for the fact that parents’ fundamental responsibility is the blue line. If that’s down, they’re failing, no matter what the red line does.
Imagine taking successful schools away from children and their families in the name of a cult-like belief like “equity”:
I know an education student who had the opportunity to be paid much-needed income from a school that would satisfy her final requirement for a degree, but her college told her she couldn’t. Other students aren’t being paid, so it wouldn’t be “equitable” to allow her. Meanwhile, the elementary school in question is having trouble finding teachers and substitutes.
Whether this reflects a progressive social-death cult or the cultish beliefs are cover for corruption in an insider system doesn’t much matter. A civilization that actively prevents people from maximizing their productivity is doomed to fail.
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This has been lingering around my to-do list for a while, but the problem is only getting worse, so for the foreseeable future, it’s an evergreen topic in Rhode Island:
Yes, this is a massive problem permeating all of our society, and there’s only so much a small state like Rhode Island can do about global matters, but everything I can think of that Rhode Island does, or that its current political class would be willing to do, makes things worse for us.
In one bucket, put all of Rhode Island’s impositions. The state has high taxes, of course, which make it less attractive to have a high-earning job in this area. But we also impose all sorts of labor mandates, from a high minimum wage to mandates for paid time off to high insurance mandates that drive up costs. Then there are healthcare and insurance mandates, which add additional costs into healthcare, as well as burdens for providers, including documentation. Naturally, the artificially high price of our “green energy” requirements drive up the cost of living and doing business here.
Now turn to the sort of life young high-earners tend to want to live. Even East Greenwich can’t keep up its school system, and as we’ve just discovered with the Washington Bridge, we’re subject to bad roads and (now) the threat of not being able to get where you need to go elsewhere in the state.
But that’s not all! The growing influence of progressives in our state government and the labor unions that constitute our shadow government mean people who make a lot of money are constantly in the crosshairs… unless they work for the state, of course, or are in another protected insider group. If they’ve invested years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars in education and are working independently, they’re a target, at least for the insinuation that there must be something morally wrong about them.
Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to do a think-tank-style research report on what policies are truly affecting doctors and what reforms might help (Although, anybody interested funding one should contact me!), but you can bet policymakers in our state haven’t a clue and aren’t seriously interested in developing one. Indeed, they probably deep down suspect that too much investigation would turn the spotlight of culpability on them and their allies.
So, as written by Attorney General Neronha (who, by the way, gives no indication that he’d be any different among his government peers), “we’re all going to be in a world of hurt.”
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When a poll came out about a month ago finding 20% of young Americans (18-29) believe the Holocaust to be a made-up incident, with 28% stating that Jews have too much power in the United States, I had the same reaction as many. This is not a far-right phenomenon, but a far-left one. Our education system, from pre-school through grad-school is increasingly radical to its core, with scarcely an opposing view, so extremism is sure to grow, like black mold.
In recent weeks, however, with objectively pro-Hamas protests becoming the latest excuse of radical movement in the West to disrupt everybody else’s life, I’ve been wondering if the truth might not be even worse. One suspects that if this same movement required belief in the Holocaust to be moral demand, the numbers would shift, such that scarcely a young adult would doubt it.
It’s not that they don’t know the truth. It’s that they don’t care. They’ve been fully drawn into the worldview that the truth is whatever you need it be to serve your interests at the moment.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- McKee searches for something to call a success.
- More Heritage Hall of Fame board members show their (low) level of dedication.
- Bostom undermines his cause.
- Sanchez stumps for Hamas.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.
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First, many Democrats truly believe (or at least are happy to claim to believe) there’s a big racist contingency among Republicans that I simply have not seen, at least in several decades.
Second, progressive Democrats will happily take the conflicting position and insist that the Civil War actually had nothing to do with slavery when their purpose is to malign the United States as no different than it was in the antebellum period. In those contexts, they’ll claim the Civil War was exclusively about the economic or political interests of white people, with slavery as little more than an excuse, and I can’t remember ever seeing their fellow Democrats express disapproval.
Third, partisan activists in the mainstream media can still get their constituencies riled up to make minor bumbles from Republicans, which are understandably more common in a live setting, seem like major revelations about their true beliefs.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- The Heritage Hall of Fame finds its bridge too far.
- The state of Rhode Island’s bridges shows neglect.
- Ferry service shows McKee’s lack of consideration.
- The push for a new courthouse represents the Providence Plantation.
- Minimum wage increases harm Rhode Islanders.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop
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As we watch progressive activists disrupt life in America, apparently with impunity, progressive attorneys general are happy to provide contrary examples dependent upon political viewpoint:
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is suing an increasingly active neo-Nazi group and two of its leaders for an escalating pattern of harassing, intimidating, and confrontational conduct at anti-immigration protests and demonstrations against drag queen story-hours around the state.
The Nationalist Social Club, or NSC-131, and its leaders, Christopher Hood, of Newburyport, and Liam McNeil, of Waltham, repeatedly have showed up at public libraries hosting the story hours and hotels providing emergency shelter to new immigrants …
The group is distasteful, to be sure, but their rights are our rights. As we saw with the Harvard and MIT presidents, we’re not merely looking at a situation in which the law is a somewhat shifting the line between speech and action (harassment). The proposition is that the very same action would be speech by a politically favored group and harassment by a disfavored group. The ruling Party protects its own and persecutes those with whom it disagrees. This is not freedom. It’s not democracy. It’s not equality. It’s tyranny, and if we accept it to dispatch with people we don’t like, we’ll soon find ourselves disliked by the authorities and with nobody to stand up for us.
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It may be tempting, if you come across images of protest actions around the country during the Christmas holiday ,to believe the protesters are generally being honest about their motivation. In their minds, a horrific event is happening in Gaza, and they feel compelled to act in opposition in whatever way they can. Personally, I don’t believe them.
Horrific events happen all the time in the world without this sort of reaction, and in any event, the means of disruption — blocking highways to airports, attacking police officers, and protesting community Christmas events — are tuned to disrupt, but not to inspire sympathy and agreement. Moreover, the movement is the same as that to which Democrat State Representative Enrique Sanchez played on Thanksgiving: “I don’t celebrate holidays that are the result of genocide of our indigenous people.”
To progressives, our whole way of life is a genocidal affront. Disrupting our lives and undermining our civilization is the point, and while it’s easy to confuse passion with righteousness, a better world isn’t on the other side of capitulation to their demands. We’re diving into an era of reverse racism and permissible oppression, and it won’t correct anything, only damage more lives.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- McKee seizes the moment to define himself
- Where are all the RI pols?
- This is who runs the state?
- A ferry to nowhere
- Bought in legislative pensioners
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3.
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