Once upon a time in a classroom

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Penny. Penny was a good student who studied hard and made good grades.

One day Penny got a new teacher. The new teacher, Ms. Handout, didn’t like that some of the students in her class were making failing grades. Ms. Handout starting asking these kids, “Why do you get poor grades?” The answers were varied but many of them confessed to not studying.

Ms. Handout considered the answers. She really wanted all students to get good grades. Perhaps the failing students just needed someone to help them study, she thought. She set up study sessions. A few of the students attended these free sessions including Penny and other students who had been studying all along. However, those students who needed the extra help the most didn’t show up or just came to a couple of sessions before deciding not to return.

Ms. Handout was still dismayed. She once again went to those failing students to see why they didn’t take the offer of free help with studying. Student after student offered up such excuses as “studying is hard” or “I wanted to study but my friends wanted me to go to the mall” or “I really don’t like to study” and even “I tried it once but it wasn’t my thing.”

Ms. Handout was a good person with a good heart who didn’t want to see any of her students fail. To that end she did what she felt she had to do. She took some of extra points Penny and the other hard working students had earned by studying and doing extra work and gave them those failing students. Now all the students in Ms. Handout’s class were going to receive mediocre passing grades and everyone was happy.

Well, maybe not everyone. Penny (and the other students who had studied) really didn’t feel very happy about having something she had earned taken away from her and given to someone else. She also was starting to question why she put so much work into studying when she would not personally benefit from that hard work. So Penny decided to take a break from studying because the outcome was going to be the same regardless of her efforts.

And that, my friends, is a simple explanation of Socialism.

~ Patty

Freedom of speech is under attack

And you won’t believe by whom. Or maybe you will. The extreme left in the form of Al Sharpton, a.k.a. Al Charlatan, is demanding that the Federal Communications Communication (FCC) remove Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves.

“We’re not going to stand by and let publicly regulated radio and television just go for marketing and promoting this kind of racism. Rush Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants to say, he does not have the right, though, to do it on publicly regulated airwaves. The FCC has the responsibility to set standards,” said Al Sharpton.

“You can’t say – in the name of free speech, you can’t say anything you want,” Sharpton said on MSNBC. “We’re not talking about stopping free speech. We’re not telling Rush don’t say what you want to say, say it at home, not on public airwaves,” he concluded.

All this from a man who had built a career on using divisive language to stir racial tensions and create an atmosphere of distrust between the races, especially a distrust by the black community of the white community.

Al Sharpton rose to the national spotlight in 1987 when he paraded Tawana Brawley before television cameras, declaring her a victim of rape and hate crimes by a group of white men, including policemen. A grand jury later determined that Brawley had fabricated her story. In the course of the events surrounding the inquiry, Sharpton made accusations of racism against the prosecutor who successfully sued for slander. Sharpton was ordered to pay $345,000 in damages after a jury found Sharpton was liable for making defamatory statements.

Sharpton has had other incidences where he has appeared to be a racist. He has referred to Jews as “diamond merchants.” He gave a speech at Kean College where he said “We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” In 2007 he attacked then presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his religion, Mormonism, with this quote: “As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don’t worry about that; that’s a temporary situation.”

While I don’t agree with every word aired on the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, I do believe he has the right to speak. I also believe Juan Williams had the right to his personal feelings and observations although National Public Radio (NPR) apparently didn’t think so as they fired him for having an opinion that strayed from the liberal leanings of that entity.

If freedom of speech is limited to only those who agree with those in power then all of us, including bloggers, are in danger of losing that freedom.

~ Patty