You Can't Silence Us

Easier to Cancel You

How did I miss this? A Minnesota school board is making it easier to cancel those who they disagree with. Their rules say that, in order to speak to the board at a meeting, a speaker must:

  • The speaker must state their home address before speaking
  • Board members cannot be addressed directly
  • No one may discuss any issue not on the agenda for the meeting
  • If anyone cheers, claps, or speaks out of turn, the public forum will be shut down at once.

Effective tonight, open forum participants are prohibited from calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member. If this occurs, open forum will be closed,. Beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.

Crowd noise, or any sort of grandstanding during open forum, including applause, talking, hollering or any outburst will result in open forum being closed. Further, beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum participation will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.

So much for petitioning your government for a redress of grievances, eh? I wholeheartedly agree with the author of the linked page when he said:

This is exactly the kind of subtle tyranny that’s being implemented across the country, from private employers to the federal government to classrooms and everywhere in between.

Sure, no one is forcing you to take the vaccine, but you’ll lose your job if you don’t. Sure, no one is forcing your child to adopt the ideology of critical race theory, but they’ll be alienated by their peers and told in class they’re a racist if they don’t repent of their whiteness.

Sure, no one is banning you from speaking out against local school board policies, but just go ahead and tell everyone where your kids sleep if you’d like the opportunity to do so.

What’s next? I shudder to imagine.

Please take a few minutes and read the entire article.

People who have read this post: 591
By Divemedic, ago

Merry Sixthmas

It is now Sixthmas eve- the day before the holiest of Democrat holidays. This is the biggest holiday of the year for the left. I was going to write a poem based upon “A Visit from St. Nick, but then I remember that Ashli Babbit was murdered in cold blood and decided against it. Even so, my sense of humor is still messed up, so I leave you with this from the Babylon Bee:

People who have read this post: 524
By Divemedic, ago

I Wonder

The Manhattan DA has said he will not seek prison sentences for any crimes other than homicide or other cases involving the death of a victim, a class B violent felony in which a deadly weapon causes serious physical injury, domestic violence felonies, sex offenses in Article 130 of the Penal Law, public corruption, rackets, or major economic crimes, including any attempt to commit any such offense under Article 110 of the Penal Law, unless required by law.

Does that mean you won’t do time for owning an AR15 and a dozen 30 round magazines?

People who have read this post: 479
By Divemedic, ago

On Freedom

One of the things that I have always been big about is personal freedom. I may or may not want to go on a cruise, but it is my right to decide. I may or may not want to get a vaccine, but it is my right. As long as my behavior isn’t directly causing harm to someone else, I expect others to mind their own business.

I also expect and respect the same of others. If you want to have a sandwich delivered by Doordash, that’s your business. If you want to take a cruise, or if you want to hide in your house from the black helicopters, again that’s your business. If one man wishes to marry another man, I will argue that the government has no business in stopping them. Likewise, if another man refuses to perform the ceremony or to bake the wedding cake, I believe that is also outside of the government’s legitimate authority to force them to do so.

When I see people on the left AND on the right who say, “I don’t care if the government passed this dictate or that restriction because I don’t want to do that, anyhow,” I believe that it diminishes all of us.

I may not agree with your speech, your religion, or your chosen pursuit of happiness, but I will fight for your right to do so, just as I expect you to do for mine. Either we all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately.

People who have read this post: 592
By Divemedic, ago

Projection

This attorney, former history teacher, former Marine, and current liberal claims that the defeat of last January 6’s “attempted coup” was due to the overwhelming force that the Federal government can bring to bear. He goes on to say that local school boards are at risk because they are “soft targets.”

No, the reason that it failed as a coup is that it WASN’T a coup. No one except the police were armed. There is even video on this very website of the police letting them into the building. Contrast that with the violent riots of the summer of 2020, where dozens were killed, and which party represents the greatest threat?

This guy is an asshole. He doesn’t even realize that the home addresses of every Florida voter are posted online. Florida has a very robust public records law, and we like it that way.

In fact, thanks to that law, we can see that this article and this man are both liars. See, the claim is that Mr. Filipkowski was a Republican until January 7th, when he was so disgusted by the actions in the Capitol the previous day, he went down and changed his party affiliation to Democrat. Well, looking up his voter registration tells a different tale:

  • FILIPKOWSKI, RONALD JOSEPH was born 30 October 1968, is male, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 201 S Palm Ave, #401, Sarasota, Florida 34236. Florida voter ID number 100252455. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 30 November 2021.
    Previous information:
  • 30 November 2020 voter list: RONALD J. FILIPKOWSKI, 201 S PALM AVE, #401, SARASOTA, 34236 Florida Democratic Party.
  • 31 July 2020 voter list: RONALD J. FILIPKOWSKI, 3782 KINGSTON BLVD, SARASOTA, 34236 Florida Democratic Party.
  • 31 May 2019 voter list: Ronald J. Filipkowski, 8220 Lakewood Ranch BLVD, APT 402, Lakewood Ranch, 34236 Florida Democratic Party.
  • 31 October 2016 voter list: RONALD J. FILIPKOWSKI, 3810 TORREY PINES BLVD, SARASOTA, 34236 Florida Democratic Party.

He has been a Democrat since before the 2016 election, perhaps longer. I am sure that he was once a Republican, because his 28 year old son is named Ronald Reagan Filipkowski, but the switch to the left occurred before the Trump campaign was a thing, and long before last January.

People who have read this post: 559
By Divemedic, ago

Even Hawaii

Even in leftist Hawaii, families are opting out of the public school system in large numbers. The left doesn’t care how many people they piss off.

This reminds me of my confusion from the weeks leading up to the 2020 election. I couldn’t understand why the Biden campaign wasn’t running the race. It never occurred to me that the race was over because they had taken a shortcut.

The left doesn’t care who they piss off, because they know that they have already won.

People who have read this post: 493
By Divemedic, ago

Death of the V8

Dodge is cancelling the Hemi V8, despite the fact that it is an immensely popular engine. Why? Woke bullshit. Bad decisions like this are why the government shouldn’t bail companies out of financial woes.

There are those who can’t stand that you can get into your privately-owned vehicle at any time of the day or night and drive virtually anywhere you please. These budding authoritarians view that and all other forms of personal freedom as threats to their power. 

People who have read this post: 471
By Divemedic, ago