Virginia Libertarian

Mark Steyn on Virginia Tech on National Review Online

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry - whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus - the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.

I’d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

Why are we raising a bunch of pacifists? When I was going to school, the creed wasn’t “don’t fight at all“, but “don’t start fights”. My parents thought it was ok to finish them (though I never had to, I had implicit permission to kick the crap out of someone who started a fight with me). I didn’t fight if I didn’t have to, but I didn’t let people bully me either. These days it seems that you get in as much trouble for fighting back as you do if you start the fight, which is just wrong. We are teaching our kids to allow people to take their things away, or to hurt them physically without fighting back. Do you think when they grow up they will be willing to fight for our ideals? Do you think they will be willing to fight when someone tells them “You can’t say that because it will hurt someone’s feelings” when we’ve taught them not to fight when someone else is hitting them?

FOXNews.com - Ohio Principal in Trouble for Kissing Feet of Teen Boys Over Volleyball Bet

A former principal who kissed the feet of three male students to settle a bet on a volleyball game entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor sex charge.

Robert Holloway resigned from St. Anthony of Padua School in this town west of Cleveland after the 14-year-old students and their parents reported the foot-kissing to police in February 2006.

Holloway told authorities he paid each student $15 and kissed their bare feet 50 times each in the school’s library and gym to pay off the bet on a student-teacher volleyball game.

“They didn’t think he would literally do it,” police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said.

Holloway pleaded no contest Tuesday to sexual imposition and unauthorized use of public property, also a misdemeanor. He faces up to 15 months behind bars when sentenced in June.

“It’s not behind me yet,” Holloway said as he left court.

Carpentiere said 400 photos depicting adult foot fetish behavior were found on two school computers seized from Holloway’s office. The photos depicted the scenarios that he had engaged in with the boys, Carpentiere said.

“This appears to be a legitimate sexual fetish that adults are into, which is fine,” he said. “The problem here is he was engaging in this activity with juveniles.”

Ok, I’m somewhat ambivalent on this.  Reading the beginning of the article, this seemed to be a bit ridiculous, I mean, prosecuting someone for kissing feet to repay a bet?  This all seems to rest on circumstances that weren’t mentioned or given enough detail in the article.  Did he force the kids to allow him to kiss their feet?  What exactly was in the photos, would most people consider them pornographic, or were they just pictures of feet?  What do they mean by “depicting adult foot fetish behavior”?  The sentence also implies that it was just pictures of him kissing the feet of the boys.   Going just by what is in the article, I’d say this was an overreaction, but I’m guessing that because they are going ahead with this, that there is more to the story, but I can find no additional information online.

Townhall.com::Murder at VPI::By Walter E. Williams

Last February, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s legislature unanimously passed a law, the first of its kind in the country, that bans universities from expelling suicidal students. Such a law suggests that the Commonwealth’s legislature is more concerned about the welfare of a suicidal potential murderer than the lives of his innocent victims. As such, those legislators might consider themselves in part culpable for VPI’s 32 murder victims.

There’s also federal law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). As VPI’s registrar reports, “Third Party Disclosures are prohibited by FERPA without the written consent of the student. Any persons other than the student are defined as Third Party, including parents, spouses, and employers.” College officials are required to secure written permission from the student prior to the release of any academic record information.

That means a mother, father or spouse who might have intimate historical knowledge of a student’s mental, physical or academic problems, who might be in a position to render assistance in a crisis, is prohibited from being notified of new information.

There is a partial parental remedy for governmental and university usurpation of parental rights through the power of the purse. Prior to writing out a check for a child’s college tuition, have a legal document drawn up where the child gives his parents full and complete access to any mental, physical and academic records developed during the child’s college career. While such a strategy might not be necessary for every parent, it should at least be considered by parents whose child has an unstable mental or physical history.

I think the people who proposed and voted for these stupid laws need to be held directly accountable for their part in this tragedy.  Someone needs to take them to civil court and hold them accountable for their actions.  Maybe if someone of them were found to be culpable in what occurred at VT last week, then politicians would think twice before passing these kinds of stupid laws.

VPI, Class of ‘92

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Aftermath of the 1960s?

Since murder is illegal everywhere, why would someone who is unwilling to obey the law against murder be willing to obey a law against getting a gun — which is easy to get illegally?

This is the question I want desperately answered.  I don’t understand what “logic” drives someone to proclaim that restricting guns will prevent murders by people using guns.   Ok, if guns had never been invented we wouldn’t have people getting killed by them, but would we then put restrictions on who could own knives, or baseball bats, or ropes?

One of the many hard facts that get overlooked by those impressed by visions and rhetoric is that mass shootings almost invariably occur in gun-free zones like schools, workplaces, or houses of worship.

When has a mass killer opened fire on a meeting of the National Rifle Association or fired on a group of hunters?

Instead of banning guns, maybe we should rethink 1960s dogmas.

This is what you see over, and over.  Someone gets shot/killed with a gun, but the media neglects to report that this was supposedly a “gun free” zone.  What happened to their zone?  Well, the shooter walked right through it didn’t they.  Nobody stopped them.   Are we going to put walls and metal detectors, and search everybody that wants to enter one of these “gun free” zones?  Would the public stand for that?  (That was a serious question, because I honestly don’t know if they would.)

What your taxes go for

Washington will spend $24,106 per household in 2007 the highest total since World War II, and an inflation-adjusted $4,000 more than in 2001. The federal government will collect $21,992 per household in taxes. The remaining $2,114 represents this years budget deficit per household, which, along with all prior government debt, will be dumped in the laps of our children.

Washington will spend this $24,106 per household as follows:

Social Security/Medicare: $8,301. The 15.3 percent payroll tax, split evenly between the employer and employee, covers most of these costs. This system can remain sustainable only if there are enough workers to support all retirees, which is why it risks collapsing under the weight of 77 million retiring Baby Boomers. If nothing is done, taxes eventually will need to rise by $11,651 per household adjusted for both inflation and rising incomes to pay all promised benefits.

Ok, does it concern anyone in Washington that we are now spending more on social “security” than on any other program, and the baby boomers haven’t even retired yet?