No Child Gets Ahead

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

from the Jefferson Memorial, taken on a trip there in 2014

There’s something profound about each human being given rights from the Creator—not from some government or other entity in society. Respect needs to be earned. Trust needs to be earned. Ability needs to be proven. And some opportunities come out of those things where we are different. But, under the law we don’t have one class of people treated differently from another class of people—or as the pigs say in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

We may not have perspective on just how rare this is in human history—and even in our world today—where most societies have been stratified into class designations that simply cannot be crossed. Here we have had the American Dream, where anyone can work their way up as high as they can manage through sheer effort and seizing opportunities.

There’s a cultural shift going on from that concept in our Declaration of Independence to something more akin to leveling downward. Reframed, it is oppressing the masses and advantaging only chosen classes. It is rule by elites. And it is grossly unfair.

There are a couple of stories that hit me personally this month, both school related, and both discriminating against merit—for the sake of “equity.” Not equality.

 

National Merit Commendations

The first story comes out of Virginia. It started out with just one high school, a science and technology magnet school called Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax. (ABC News reported it here; the 11-minute news video embedded in the story is worthwhile.) Then, as the story goes on, the investigation expands further. At last count it seems to be at least seven schools, maybe as many as 16, spread across several school districts in Virginia.

Parents picket about the National Merit controversy in Fairfax, January 14, 2023.
Image found here.

Students in their junior year take a test called the PSAT, or Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. The results get shared in the fall of their senior year. The top 3% of test takers (test takers are generally the college-bound cohort only) get a National Merit Commendation. In and of itself, that is not a big prize. But on a college application it can mean getting into the school of choice, or getting a scholarship worth tens of thousands of dollars.

These schools in Virginia failed to announce the awards in the fall, when college applications and early admissions were underway. Human error, they said, nothing intentional. But the same human error by multiple schools in multiple districts? How does that happen?

It seems connected that Fairfax school district hired an equity consultant, whom they paid $455,000 for about nine months of work, whose final report made the recommendation for “equal outcome for every student without exception,” even if that means being “personally unequal.” In other words, allowing a student an advantage for being smart is “unequitable” to lower IQ students. There’s an investigation to see whether this recommendation played into the problem, because it’s against the Virginia Human Rights Act, mainly because it has affected so many Asian-American students.

I don’t see an explanation for the similar problem in the other school districts. But the unfairness of “equity” doctrine appears to be a likely reason.

Here’s why this personally triggers me. I was a National Merit Commended student. This was decades ago. As I remember it, to be a National Merit Finalist, you had to score in the top 1% of test takers. We had three of those in my high school; I had a lot of really smart friends. To be Commended required being in the top 2%, where I placed. For me, getting that honor made a difference in my future.

I did not come from a wealthy family, nor a family oriented toward education. I grew up being told people like us didn’t go to college. My family was certainly not going to pay for it. I wouldn’t have even seen it as a possibility, except for those really smart friends, all of whom were heading to college and assumed I would too.

They told me there was such a thing as scholarships. I literally thought the scholarship went to the single smartest person in the school only, and that seemed out of my reach. But I tried anyway. In junior high (7^th through 9^th grade) the highest GPA was between me and one other guy; I think we both ended up getting an A- on something for a quarter or two. In high school (10^th through 12^th grade), I was taking difficult courses. AP classes were only available to seniors; I took three. I was putting in typically four hours of homework a night, plus weekend homework. And I was doing a fair amount of extracurricular stuff as well.

my high school, image found here

I worked summer jobs, but once school started, I couldn’t manage to work and still get the schoolwork done. It was intense, and I always had this pressure of, if I’m not good enough, I don’t get any more learning opportunities. It always puzzled me when people would think my ability in school was just a natural gift; it may be, but I didn’t know that. I thought I was a typical B student who just worked hard enough to get As with a huge amount of diligence.

The fall of my senior year I was filling out applications—by myself, because I didn’t have parents who understood how to help or really cared to. And I had an interview for a particular scholarship at the school of my choice, Brigham Young University. The top scholarship, given to one young man and one young woman as incoming freshmen, was named for the current President and Prophet of the Church, which at the time was the Kimball Scholarship. In that interview, the person I was talking with did not guarantee that one, but he did guarantee I would get a scholarship. Until that moment I didn’t know there were other scholarships for the taking. He meant not only was I accepted to the University, but I would have some of it paid for. College became a reality for me after that interview; before that it had only been a hope.

I got what was called a Presidential Scholarship for my freshman year, full tuition. I paid all fees, books, and housing, which I managed to do by working hard all summer—and Christmas holidays—and being very frugal. Keeping that was contingent on keeping my grades high enough; I got an A- in a couple of classes, so the next couple of years I managed to keep a Dean’s scholarship, which paid half tuition. Working two summer jobs plus Christmas holidays I was able to manage, barely.

My senior year I got a special scholarship given to a few top students in my major, paying half tuition. And I worked as a tutor and teacher (unusual circumstance; I team taught freshman basic writing with another undergraduate, under the direction of the writing lab head). I had to take a slightly lighter class load in order to work during school, so it added on an extra semester, during which I paid the painful full tuition.

But I graduated. Without debt. I hadn’t known taking out a loan was possible. Just as well, because English majors then and now don’t make enough to pay back a student loan easily. I did, however, get to work in my field.

I had tried to get a grant at one point. I got $100 my freshman year, which covered part of my books. They considered the family income too high to get more. I don’t know our exact income then, but my dad retired, when I was 25, and was at that time earning $33,000 a year, his highest ever. I did a calculation online once, and that was about $60,000 in 2012 dollars. Not poor enough, apparently. But none of it went to me. My parents did sometimes give me food from their pantry. And a couple of the years they paid my long-distance phone bill so I could call home.

The point is, I was not privileged. My dad was the son of immigrant parents. I was the first—only—in my line to go to college. My kids are the first grandchildren to graduate from college (and beyond, for all of them); the youngest grandchild, my niece, graduated last year, so she is another breakthrough.

There were so many opportunities I didn’t have, because I didn’t even know they were possible—until friends showed me otherwise. I’m so grateful to them. Teachers too, several of them who were so encouraging to me, this girl who would otherwise have just disappeared from the world where learning is life.

These “equity” experts springing up all over are discriminating against people like the person I was—people who are smart because they work hard and do all the schoolwork and take the harder classes to soak in all the learning they can. How unfair to deprive someone like me—because my caramel colored skin is apparently not the right color, indicating the right ethnicity, to be granted privileges. 

 

No Gifted Classes

The second story is out of California. In Culver City they have removed Honors English classes. Because of equity. Because they didn’t get the specified quota of black and Hispanic students in those classes. So all students now take the same level of English classes. The Wall Street Journal first carried the story: “To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes.” I first saw it on The Blaze.  (New York Post reported a New York school cancelling AP classes last year; and the local CBS station reported a similar attempt in San Diego, also last year.) 

empty classroom,
image found here, associated with this story

There’s a not uncommon supposition that the smart students are going to do well enough even if you ignore their education. Why give them special treatment? I found a similar prejudice against gifted students when we moved here to Texas in 1998. Our boys had been in a gifted magnet elementary school and then gifted program in junior high, where we had moved from, and our daughter was ready to be tested for acceptance into the gifted program. We had expectations for what a gifted program meant. It absolutely does not mean giving more meaningless practice—busywork. They need less practice, not more.

Gifted students are a type of special ed. They get bored easily when kept from pursuing what interests them, and that can lead to various forms of problem students. They can get disruptive (mine didn’t). They can get sneaky about doing what they wanted and avoiding what the class was doing (we got a fair amount of that). They need meaningful challenges and natural ways of learning, as opposed to rote and boring typical school with a lot of sitting still.

The teachers we had where we moved from were exemplary. Still, there were challenges to get a certain child to do assigned “projects,” even though he loved the learning and was soaking it in. In Texas, in a district that was highly rated, according to information from the real estate agents, I was told some unhelpful things:

·       “We only take the top 1%, so even though your children were in a program, they probably won’t make it here.” (My children had already proven themselves capable of doing gifted work, for several years, and yes, after jumping through all the hoops, they did get in, partway through the semester.)

·       “We use the best teaching methods for all the students.” (Which means, they don’t even know the best teaching methods, which probably should be used for all students, but are absolutely required for gifted students.)

When I inquired of the high school why my child would have to drop out of foreign language, music, and the highest level of math, because they were considered elective courses—and the single gifted class offered was yet another elective, so he couldn’t take that either—they just told me, “Plenty of our students have gotten into the college of their choice.” OK, but that is irrelevant to my question, and people this dense should not be trying to educate anyone, and certainly not my children.

There had been some good teachers—a middle school orchestra teacher who was stellar. And some teachers who cared and really wanted to try. We tried coming up with creative solutions—like me coming on campus to teach my son writing in the library, at no cost to them. But they didn’t allow such things.

When my daughter got placed as the only gifted child in first grade at her school, they switched sides of the room, putting her in the group that did their math work a little faster. That was the sum total of their gifted program.

After two years of that public school nonsense, we homeschooled. And it was an adventure not to be missed.

When homeschool kids graduate; our daughter is middle of the back row in dark blue.
(this was Deseret Homeschoolers of SE Texas in 2010)

But, as a taxpayer, I am concerned with how much the local school district leans toward “equity.” And even one of my favorite new school board members recently said that the underprivileged poor kids are the ones who really have his heart. Of course they do. But why isn’t there also a heart for gifted students—kids like mine?

 

What Outcome Do We Want?

When you’re looking for a definition of what kind of education to give every child, it should not be producing a common factory unit with no differences. It should be:

Providing each child with the education they need to reach their potential.

The starting point is, find out where they are, and from there help them progress as fast and as far as they are willing and able. The ending point will be as individual as the students are.

“Equity” in the classroom fails everyone: the 70% who feel imprisoned in boredom hell, because they are kept from learning at a faster pace; the 20% who have the learning well-paced for them but are distracted by the bored students around them; and the 10% who can’t keep up. And everyone is leveled down to that slow level, if you don’t allow different outcomes. It’s a purposeful failure to all the students. And that’s evil—even before you add in the SEL, ESG, LGBTQ, and whatever indoctrination some elite power is inculcating into students on a given day.

If the public schools can’t provide each child with the education they need in order to reach their potential, then the least we can do is let the free market do what it does: provide better quality at lower cost. We should let the money follow the child, so at least those with caring parents won’t be trapped in a failing government institution that is designed to keep every child from getting ahead.

Of Course They Want to Control Your Money

The basic economic principle of the Spherical Model is that the one who earns the wealth gets to decide how to spend it.

As a reminder, let’s review what wealth is:

Wealth represents the accumulation of the results of labor.

In a simple economy, it’s whatever is left over beyond the effort to subsist. For example, it is the part of the rice harvest set aside for a future day.

image found here

Money is a representation of that wealth, for convenience in trading one’s surplus labor for whatever of value someone else has. It’s a convenient way to exchange the fruits of our labor—or to exchange our labor for fruits.

Here’s another economic principle:

Problems of the economy as a whole always result from

interference in the exchange of labor.

Governments don’t create wealth. The proper economic role of government is to protect property, or wealth. It can include setting up a standard for exchange—the money—that will maintain even value. Protecting against monopolies or unfair business practices—things that interfere in the exchange of labor—would also be part of that proper role of government. Other than that, governments ought to get out of the way and let the exchange of labor happen freely.

But governments, being power, tend to never be content with their proper role.

What happens when governments interfere, say, by printing more money that is not based on value? The symbolic value of each dollar printed goes down—meaning it will take more dollars to equal the value of labor—the good or service—being exchanged. That’s called inflation. And it has been happening a lot lately. It’s especially painful for those without a great store of wealth, who are eking out a living, producing just enough value to get by—and suddenly everything they need to exchange for requires more of their labor.

So, that’s what money is.

What happens when the money—the symbol used for wealth exchange—changes? In and of itself, a change in what is used for exchange isn’t necessarily bad. People can exchange whatever they are willing. Between nations, people work out an exchange rate and exchange one currency for another all the time, as you do when you travel to a country with a different currency.

A voluntary alternative that has been popping up is digital currency, based on blockchain technology. The challenge comes when a digital currency intersects—gets exchanged—with another type of currency, such as the dollar. As long as people are willing to exchange their digital currency for their products and services, they can set the price based on the value of that currency. But once they turn their digital wealth into “hard currency,” they lose some of its attributes.

The attributes of the most successful digital currencies—Bitcoin is the most well-known—are privacy and decentralization. There is no central Bitcoin bank; it is “mined” from numerous diverse points. This is much like the creation of value itself, being created by individuals wherever they reside and work. Another attribute is the convenience of online exchange, rather than physical exchange.

But governments—you know, the ones who like power and never keep themselves limited to their proper role—see digital currency as the exact opposite of what it has been created to do. And let’s include the global power elites, beyond national governments. These global power elites want to make digital currency centrally created and controlled. So, no decentralization or privacy, only “convenience.” But the convenience—or access at all—will be controlled at their whim. And isn’t that a great power to have over people? “You do as I say, or you don’t get access to your money for food, shelter, or anything else.” Convenience only if you’re willing to submit to their coercion.

image found here

You should probably become familiar with the acronym CBDC; it means Central Bank Digital Currency. Governments are trying them out around the globe. Our country is not an exception. Right now the Federal Reserve is conduction a 12-week trial of a CBDC. What are the odds that they’ll come back and say, “Well, now we know that’s not going to work”? The next step is to replace cash and force people to use their digital currency—so that they can monitor and control our earning, spending, and saving.

Last March, 2022, Biden gave executive order 14067: “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets.”  The stated goal is to protect assets of Americans, because of the inherent risk of digital assets. Right now, left mainly unregulated, the decentralization keeps any cybersecurity threat from taking down the system; so let’s put this all in one nationally controlled pot, because, according to power monger philosophy, that makes sense.

Governments have taken assets from citizens before. In India in 2016 the government did this by removing its 1000 and 500 rupee notes from circulation with only 48 hours notice, creating chaos throughout India and destroying the life savings of millions of their citizens.

In Cyprus the government did this by “bail-ins,” which I think would be better described as bailing out the banks by using the depositors’ funds. Our government could be described as doing this in part in 2009 when it “temporarily” took over several companies, closing down franchises and thus taking the wealth of many family-owned businesses supposedly for the sake of saving the larger corporation.

CDBC would make this confiscation and control of our personal finances much easier. It would even facilitate implementing ESG scoring or other politically motivated socialist ideas.

But they first have to get people to use the digital currency. That is made easiest when they make it the only option.

States, as well as other nations, are coming up with legislation to fight this economic attack. Here in Texas, the legislation meets from January through May in odd-numbered years. So it is underway now. We’ve been waiting for committee assignments to be made, which happened last week, so that bills could be assigned to committees and hearings for bills could get underway.

In the previous sessions, in 2021, a bill to require acceptance of cash and cash substitutes was proposed by then-House Representative Tan Parker (it was HJR 100 that session); he is now a state senator and has committed to proposing the bill again, with State Representative Gio Capriglione filing a companion bill in the House. The intention that session was to add the Right to Use Cash and Cash Substitutes to the Texas Bill of Rights. This would keep the federal government from preventing the use of cash or barter, or other digital currencies that are not government centralized. An argument against this legislation in the past has been that some businesses refuse to accept cash for safety reasons; if there’s no cash to rob, their workers are safer. There could be exceptions granted to certain types of businesses for those reasons. But that shouldn’t be an excuse for putting the rest of us in danger of government control over our ability to buy and sell.

I’m not sure whether I have found those bills; they might be SB 770 by Parker and HB 1666 by Capriglione. Reading them, and not understanding digital currency well enough, it looks to me like this is to protect investors in digital currency from the kind of shenanigans done by the fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. If I understand right, SBF’s digital currency, called FTX, was centralized, not decentralized. And he drew funds and comingled them, in short, loaning to himself using other people’s money, and spending it like crazy until he was caught. A bill to protect against that is probably important. But I don’t see yet how these bills prevent government from forcing the use of its CDBC. Maybe there’s another set of bills to come.

We’re a quarter of the way through the session, still waiting for filed bills to be assigned to committees (some Senate bills started being assigned Wednesday, but no House bills have been assigned yet). And we have a great many other important priorities. Three of the Legislative Priorities that came out of last summer’s state convention are tightly related: Parental Rights, Stop Sexualizing Our Kids, and Ban Gender-Modification of Minors. Those are important. Election Integrity and Border Security are also high priorities. And the opposition can do a great deal of damage between now and 2025.

But this extra issue is also important—unless it doesn’t bother you that some coercive force far away determines everything about your money and how/whether you can use it.

It’s always hard to know where to spend time when, because of the evils we’re facing, everything seems to be a high priority. On this issue, today, what I can do personally seems very small, but I hope I am raising awareness just a bit, and maybe that will have enough effect, with God’s protecting help.

 

Resources:

·      “Right to Use Cash and Cash Substitutes” Tom Glass for Texas Constitutional Enforcement.  

·      “The Great Reset and Real Solutions to Stop It Now!” Economic War Room with Kevin Freeman interviews Glenn Beck, episode 176. 

·      The Great Reset, by Glenn Beck, ©2022. 

·      “Digital Dollar’ Begins in US; G20 Used to Advance Great Reset” Joshua Phillip on Crossroads for EpochTV, November 21, 2022. 

·        “It’s ‘IMPERATIVE’ you understand THIS about ESG and WEF” Glenn Beck, February 6, 2023. 

·      “States Where Cash Must be Accepted: Reviewing Legislation” by Tony Sacks for Count-Money.com, November 12, 2021. 

·      “Sweden: How to live in the world's first cashless society” video by Interesting Engineering, December 26, 2019. 

Trolling—and How Not to Take the Bait

I happened upon a video, about a letter/article that was making the rounds. It was a YouTuber I was unacquainted with. As he read through it, he expressed some doubts about its authenticity. In fact he said he hoped this was satire, because it was so unbelievably obtuse. So, upon hearing it, I wanted to see it in context, to see if it was indeed satire. I think the word trolling applies.

the quick definition that came up in the search engine

the longer definition that came up within Urban Dictionary

The piece was a bit obscure to find. A fact checker claimed it was debunked. The magazine, called The Conversation, that supposedly published it denied doing so. The sources I found, to get screenshots and piece together the entire letter, did not have an author or date. But the fact checking claimed it was dated June 2023, several months hence. And it had an author, who denied writing it, as you’d expect, because his job is to combat vaccine hesitancy.

So, I can’t say who wrote it. Some image editing made it look like it was published by that unlikely magazine.

The funny thing is, we’ve heard so much irrationality from the pro-vaccine crowd that this isn’t all that much of a stretch.

Several of the sources—and most of the commenters—were livid. The hypocrisy, adding insult to injury, was definitely bait to make a person respond emotionally. And they certainly did.

We’ll talk about it some more—after you’ve had a chance to read it. Warning: don’t go trying to think through how to respond; there is no need. Here’s the whole thing:

screenshot found here

They knew: why didn’t the unvaccinated do more to warn us?

The unvaccinated knew what we didn’t. Some of them said too little. Most said nothing at all. A lot of blood is now on their hands.

As the world struggles to come to terms with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, one question that continues to surface is why the unvaccinated didn’t do more to warn us about the potential dangers of being injected.

While well intending citizens lined up, did the right thing, and received their COVID19 vaccinations—now seeming to do more harm than good—their unvaccinated friends stood by and let them do it. Some of them said too little. Some said nothing at all.

Even though they knew what we didn’t.

Our blood is now on their hands.

Those are strong words. But the unvaccinated had access to important information about the potential side effects of vaccines. They knew about the risks of severe allergic reactions, blood clots, and other serious health complications. They knew that vaccines did not immunize us. They knew it wasn’t effective, and that they can cause more harm than good.

They knew all of that, but instead of warning us, the unvaccinated chose to remain silent. They chose to

look the other way and not speak out about the potential dangers of vaccines. They let millions of good folks who did the right thing (at the time) fall to death and disease, and many antivaxxers even gloated online about how their coin flip had been the right bet. The more diabolical even urged folks they disagree with to “get boosted.”

It has become all too clear. The silence of the unvaccinated was a dangerous, sociopathic, and irresponsible decision that has had serious consequences for those of us who received the vaccinations.

And silence is, after all, consent.

It is time for the unvaccinated to take responsibility for their actions and to work with the rest of us to find a solution to that crisis. We cannot afford to let their selfishness and lack of action continue to harm our communities. It is time for the unvaccinated to step up and do the right thing.

The unvaccinated should by any moral measuring stick have done more to warn about the potential risks—to help us make informed decisions about our health And they must now ask us for our forgiveness.

And, hand to heart, we may just give it to them.

Because we are good people. We took those injections because it was the right thing to do—until it wasn’t.

OK, take a deep breath. And consider laughing.

I’m not all that familiar with trolling, as an online sport. But this seems to me a definite example of master trolling, ticking off everybody on every side. And adding in a byline for an author who would never write such a thing—if indeed the originator did that—has to qualify for a few extra bonus points.

But it made me think about the questions I’ve had throughout the last three years:

·        Why don’t people know what I know?

·        How do we know what’s true?

As Ronald Reagan used to say,

“The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.”

image found here

Some of it has to do with who your sources are. Mainstream media, as is becoming more clear every day, is not a reliable source. Sometimes for local stories, or human interest. But even more of that is becoming agenda-driven.

So how do you know you’ve found the truth? Because this would be good to know relative to all facets of life.

I don’t always know. But as I go to a source that seems to ring true, and then that source proves themselves again multiple times, I tend to rely on them more. There’s quite a list of my sharing those sources—because, of course, we in-the-know people weren’t withholding information; we were just speaking, metaphorically, with the mic turned off. (My year-end review includes links to several of my posts about COVID during 2022.)

If a source contradicts itself without explanation for the pivot, that’s a red flag. I didn’t start out distrusting Fauci. But by April 2020 I did. Things didn’t add up. And he’d already pivoted on the mask wearing, claiming he’d lied about them being unreliable at first to avoid a shortage for frontline workers. No. You don’t get a pass for that. You tell the people up front; they come up with solutions, like making their own. Which, we shortly learned, weren’t filtering well enough. But then, neither were the medical grade ones—because the virus was too small. So wearing them was a sign of compliance only. Many of us complied merely to avoid upsetting the fearful.

Meanwhile, actual doctors, doing actual clinical work, were finding ways to treat successfully, and they were shut down, careers and reputations destroyed. Once you see that happen, you tend to turn away from those shutting them down and toward those who were brave enough to speak anyway.

I built a collection of sources, and continued to be open to new ones. And the pattern continued to be against government and mainstream media and social media. Facebook placed (continues to place) those handy warnings about where to turn for accurate information—which meant you might want to take an extra look at the source they’re trying to turn you away from. That led to some good information.

And recommendations from the reliable sources helped. They tended to come to know each other. If I trusted one doctor, I could probably trust someone he trusted.

This trolling letter shows another thing: no point of view is immune to emotional triggers. But that’s also a clue. If something seems designed to push your buttons, you might want to ask why they want your emotional reaction. And then don’t give it to them. Do more rational searching instead.

If you do that most of the time, you might have been among those whose “coin flip had been the right bet” concerning the vaccines.

It’s also possible that you thought you’d reasoned everything out, and getting vaccinated (two doses) seemed reasonable. And while serious side effects happen more frequently than ought to be allowed in the health care market for any product, it’s still highly likely that your “coin flip” will not show up as harm to your body. But I wouldn’t press your luck. And, to avoid the risk of being accused of not warning my neighbor, let me just urge you not to go on getting boosted.

I might never get good at trolling. But I might just be able to appreciate a good troll. Laughing at the absurdity of our world is a relatively sane response.