Free Republic

Rock, meet hard place. The alternatives were unthinkable.

And yet we got the alternatives anyway.

GWB made Barack Obama happen.

A lot of FReepers were banned because of criticism of GW and his policies.

Yes. A lot of us were.

A lot of us did our damndest to warn about GWB and the direction that he was taking America. About the precedents he was setting which WOULD be exploited and abused by his successor. About the irreparable damage that a war with Iraq would inflict on our own country. About "compassionate conservatism" that was just code speak for more socialism. About his cronyism. About things which would take too long to list on a Sunday morning before church.

We WARNED on this forum and others, with all due passion and sincerity and humbleness per the weight of our convictions. And for it we were branded as anti-Christian, anti-American, pro-Democrat, "liberals", and worse. We were consistently told that we "didn't know any better" and that we didn't trust Bush enough and his alleged "genius".

History has proven that we were right and that many of us should have been considered in our words. Because there was all the prescience in the world embedded in those words.

And a lot of people are now owed a damned big apology for how they were treated by the Bush-worshipers.

Some of us were warning about this a long time ago. That Bush was going to be a disaster for America.

Some of us were even banned from this forum for articulating as much.

Today, I do not return to gloat. There is no gloating possible regarding this, the biggest FUBAR of legislation that has happened in living memory, at the behest of George W. Bush.

I can only pray that maybe... maybe... if not our own generation then the one that might yet follow after us, might at last learn from such folly.

Here's the full report of what happened, including photos and links to YouTube clips of the newscast segments covering the story.

The board voted 7-3 (and 2 abstentions) to completely rescind their vote in April to implement the school uniforms. It's now entirely off the table.

In addition to the Jedi costume, one student came dressed in prison stripes and dozens of other parents and students wore black armbands to protest the uniforms.

I agree with what one of the board members who had changed her mind said: this was a tremendous experience for the young people to have gone through, because they learned a LOT about how government works and how they too have a role to play in it.

So, we won. "The Force was with us" :-)

You scare me

Do you want to leave this world a little better place for your children, than how it was when you first found it?

That's not going to happen by staying behind a keyboard. Or by being faithful to the party line.

Something more is required.

"Die before you die. There is no chance after." -- C.S. Lewis

Wait until he finds out that the police have something better and bigger than his light saber.

Nope, won't be bringing the lightsaber.

I will, however, be bringing a Bible.

Guess you could say that I'm going armed with the surest Sword of all.

Got a fair bit of nasty e-mail about this one today. Some people don't appreciate that I refer to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as "shysters" and "hucksters" and "racial con artists" in the video. Go figure...

I wrote this on another forum about it: "It's one thing to look back and reflect on the impact of a historical person. It's quite another to obsess upon him."

In another 20 or 30 years, there will probably not be a federal Martin Luther King holiday. Those who have been exploiting King's memory for their own gain have just about had their run. It's already happened to the "women's liberation" movement and it's starting to happen to those who have been playing the race card way too many times. Neither ideologies have a new generation that is willing to carry on with the same vigor as the old. When enough see what wrong has been done in the name of Martin Luther King by many of his followers, they will begin to demand that this be a holiday at taxpayer expense no more.

I'll probably get jumped-flunky for saying this, but if Martin Luther King had not been assassinated, he would not be held up as the object of veneration that he has become. He would have retired and eventually passed on relatively quietly. Martyrdom changed that, just as it bestowed upon John Kennedy some mystical quality that he otherwise would never have had. One can only imagine what holidays would be on our calendars had Jane Fonda or Gloria Steinem been gunned down back in the day...

A Sith Lord on the school board? That could work.

"I will MAKE it legal."

Sorry, couldn't resist :-P

What's your position on educating illegal alien kids?

Deport them. They shouldn't be in our schools anyway. Not that I would deprive any child of an education but I would be swearing to serve the legal residents of this county. After all, THEY are the ones who are providing the tax money to keep the schools going.

Look at it this way: America is the stewardship of her citizens, just as Mexico is the stewardship of hers. We have to look after our own and we should expect Mexico to look after its own. That's not being "cruel": that's actually being quite Christian. But our system is stretched to the breaking point as it is from our trying to take care of EVERYONE crying for us to spend money on them.

That may not be a popular sentiment and I may lose votes from it, but that's what I believe.

Just this once, I'll break from my abstaining from Free Republic to talk about this.

Our school system could be a model of how too much government from the top is wreaking havoc. Yesterday dozens of teacher's assistants were let go from their positions at several schools because the money that should have been there to provide for them was yanked away... something that can be traced directly back to No Child Left Behind.

The funding a school gets is correlated to how that school performs on end-of-grade testing. The thing is, the government looks at one particular demographic of student in that school to determine if it's meeting expectations or not. So in one school they might be looking at only black students, and in another one they will be looking at physically handicapped, while in another it's Hispanics. They completely refuse to take in consideration the school as a whole, instead relying on a scheme that can only be called levelling class warfare against the families of the community.

One part of my platform is to restore local control - as much as possible - to our school system. The job of education is right here in Rockingham County, not over there in Washington D.C. Fiscal conservatism is another part of it.

And on my website, I make no attempt to hide that a vote for me is going to be a vote for someone from a Judeo-Christian perspective. Heck, I admit that without that, I'm a very flawed human being. I'm still flawed no matter what... but a vote for me is going to be a vote for someone who's at least trying to do what's right. If anyone has a problem with my beliefs in that regard, they deserve to know about it so they can vote for someone else.

I know: being on a school board isn't the most glory-filled way to fight too much intrusive government. But you have to do something, wherever and however it is that God puts the opportunity before you.

Anyway, you can find much more information on my website at knightforboard.org . And if anyone reading this feels led to make a contribution toward my goal of bringing a considerably conservative stance to the Rockingham County Board of Education, I would certainly welcome it. There's details on my website about that too, and we'll soon be making it possible to make contributions through PayPal (after filling in some information that I'm required by law to collect).

I may win. That would be good. It's also very possible that I may lose. If so, I'll be fine with that. Running for office is already one of the best experiences I've ever had in life. It's something I would like for a lot more Americans to at least consider taking a stab at. After all, if not you... then who?

God bless,
Chris Knight
AKA "Darth Sidious"
Candidate for Rockingham County (NC) Board of Education

Please: be courteous right now

I only posted here because there are some things that transcend petty differences, and some times that call for a little solidarity in love, despite the circumstances. At this moment there are no FReepers or LePers, or should even be Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals: we're Americans.

And that's all that I can really say here.

Ronald Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th Century. He personified everything that was good and true and honorable about what it meant to be an American... about how great we were, and how great we could still be again. He was a servant and a statesman, not a politician or a partisan. Above all else, he was a Christian.

There will most likely not be another great man of his caliber in high office, in our lifetimes.

I seem to recall that a NC FReeper started a land rights thing or held a land rights rally.

There was a land-rights rally in Brevard (near Asheville) two years ago, when then-Attorney General Mike wEasley effectively stole a large tract of land from a private developer, to satisfy the enviro-nuts. Their contention was that the land was "unspoiled, pristine, virgin". I saw an aerial photograph of the tract in question: there's a chemical plant not a quarter-mile away and roads criss-crossing all throughout the place.

I covered this rally when I was working at the Tribune out that way. They had tremendous turnout, and I got to meet fellow Freeper snopercod there too :-)

Dear God... this sounds like a worse train wreck than Darren Aronofsky's screenplay for "Batman Year One". That abortion of a script had the Penguin as a drug lord, alcoholic Gordon, and a black "jive-talking" Alfred who, when Bruce asks him how the new Batman suit looks, replies "slammin'!"

Jim has just done a disservice to the word evil, by trivializing it's meaning. And ends up hurting the Conservative movement in the process.

Free Republic is becoming as much an extremist fringe group as is Democratic Underground, courtesy of the Hyper-Republicans on board.

And we're becoming worse than the Clintonistas ever were!! Those idiots worshipped Clinton as if he were God on earth. How the hell can we say we're any different than they when the Bush-bots fawn and swoon at the feet of King Dubya? We poked so much fun at the Clintonites, and less than two years later we've become just like them.

Restore freedom in America: vote out the Republi-Crats!!!

Bowles the best qualified? Surely you jest.

He's the only real North Carolinian between the two major contenders.

Have a problem with that? Blame Bush and the rest of the GOP powermongers.

Well, unfortunately, it's a two party system. Winner takes all.

Disagree: it's a one party system, masquerading as two parties. And this party has a monopoly on the money, the media affluence, etc.

If you're serious about restoring Constitutional rule of law to this country, you can't do so by being part of this monopoly. You've no choice but to compete against it, whether it's in the guise of Democrat or Republican.

At this very instant, voting all Republican is crucial.

Crucial for "Republican control", but I've no reason to believe that's any better than Democratic control. If the reason is to empower Bush, then I can see why more Democrats would be a GOOD thing: Bush is a statist enough as it is.

My vote is going for Erskine Bowles. Between he and Liddy Dole, he's the only one resident enough of North Carolina to represent her in the Senate. Dole is an outsider who was "anointed" by the GOP bigwigs. I owe them no special loyalty, because the GOP has earned as much of my trust as the Democrats have.

That doesn't mean I'm going to like voting for Bowles, but hey if it's strictly a two-party system I'm still gonna vote for the best qualified of the two.

We must re-take the Senate and we must strengthen the majority in the House and we must take as many State Houses as possible.

Who's "we"? And how can you trust that in place of one group of idiots you're not helping to usher in another?

We have a rare opportunity to break the backs of the Democrat Party and we must take advantage of it.

Without the Democrats the Republicans will become just as arrogant.

First congratulations on you recent marriage.

Thanks :-)

Second, Are you gonna vote Republican in the next few years?

I never vote Republican. Or Democrat or Libertarian. My vote's always for the individual, never a party (though technically that's what a primary election is ;-)

Third, May God continue to bless...

God bless you too brother (sister?)

Hate to burst your bubble, but massive success? At what? Big dreaming?

There were once seven people, sitting around a borrowed room with no other assets between them but a "big dream". At the time they were considered a joke by political leaders, hardly worth considering.

Eighty years later, over a billion people now live under communism in China... a "massive success", if it can be called that, of the dreams of those seven young people: the first cell of communism in China.

Say what you will of the Libertarians (and I'm not one, BTW). But insisting that there are only two parties - and that your own is inherently "good" - smacks of stagnancy and short-sightedness. Proprietor of this joint though you are, you can't deny that if both major parties haven't run out of steam already, they're about to. And I ain't calling anyone a fool but they're foolish to keep insisting that voting any single party across the board is the best hope for America. Both major parties are corrupted by power - they exist only for power - and there's no justifying a substitution of one for the other.

"The ONLY evil people in government today are those who circumvent the Constitution."

Well, that includes 100% of the Democrats. Vote them out!

Maybe not "circumventing", but Republicans are equally capable of violating the Constitution. I'll say they're somewhat less inclined (and maybe more inept at the task than their Democratic brethren).

Not 100% of the Democrats are evil and corrupt. Some of them - and there are a few, mostly at the local level - are sincerely following their own principles... and they are more often than not fiscally and philosophically conservative. Why don't they switch to Republican, and why are they Democratic to begin with? Mostly they're Democrat out of tradition, and never saw why a voter affiliation ever mattered.

Those few Democrats are from the 80% of the population that is neither extremist Republican or extremist Democratic. The pro-Republican sentiment echoed here and elsewhere represents perhaps only 10% of the sentiment nationwide, with rabid Democratic sentiments taking another 10% or so. THAT is the reason for voter apathy in this country: most Americans do not identify with either extreme, because they don't think their vote matters... or because they see Republicans and Democrats as two sides of the same coin.

And I'll end this post with a bold prediction: for the same reasons I mentioned above, the Libertarians are going to have MASSIVE success - as both a philosophy and a party - in the next ten to fifteen years. The Republicans are as stagnant as the Democrats... and Americans are starting to realize that now.