You Can't Silence Us

New Law

A new law in Florida that applies to teachers. (pdf warning) I approve. It has some key points:

The State Board of Education shall waive initial general knowledge, professional education, and subject area examination fees and certification fees for: (d) A retired first responder, which includes a law enforcement officer as defined in s. 943.10(1), a firefighter as defined in s. 633.102(9), or an emergency medical technician or paramedic as defined in s. 401.23.

It goes on to authorize a sign on bonus to retired first responders and honorably discharged veterans who sign on to be full time teachers for a minimum of two years. In my case, it’s too little, too late, but it may attract some better teachers. I only dread the current leftie woke military members entering education.

It then goes on to authorize teachers to use force in self defense:

(i) Press charges if there is a reason to believe that a crime has been committed on school property, during school sponsored transportation, or during school-sponsored activities.
(j) Use reasonable force, according to standards adopted by the State Board of Education, to protect himself or herself or others from injury.
(2) For purposes of this section, in cases in which a teacher faces litigation or professional practices sanctions for an action taken pursuant to subsection (1), there is a rebuttable presumption that a teacher was taking necessary action to restore or maintain the safety or educational atmosphere of his or her classroom.

That would have been a huge help when I was hung out to dry after being attacked in my classroom. This new law isn’t perfect, but it is obvious that Florida is trying to improve some long standing issues in education.

People who have read this post: 3
By Divemedic, ago

This, 100 times, this

Francis Porretto:

Kings used to lead their own armies. They used to lead the cavalry’s charge. For a king to send an army to war and remain behind to warm his throne was simply not done. Those that tried it lost their thrones, and some lost their heads — to their own people. It was a useful check on political and military rashness. It hasn’t been that way for a long time. Today armies go into the field exclusively at the orders of politicians who remain at home. And politicians are bred to believe that reality is entirely plastic to their wills.

On the strength of this one quote, I bought the book.

People who have read this post: 449
By Divemedic, ago

Economic Warfare

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

Marko Kloos, Why the gun is civilization, 2007

At the national level, it is negotiation (diplomacy) or warfare. Warfare is the method of getting an adversary to take a course of action involuntarily. Using or threatening another nation with warfare isn’t the only way to wage war. It can be done with economic force as well. Countries engaging in economic warfare seek to weaken an adversary’s economy by denying the adversary access to necessary resources or by otherwise inhibiting its ability to benefit from trade, financial, and technological exchanges with other countries.

The US and its politicians have for years wielded economic force (sanctions and the like) for decades without realizing just how much resentment it causes. For some reason, our leaders seem to think that everything that happens in the world is something that the US needs to be involved in.

So they use sanctions like a club. They twist the arms of some nations to support them in boycotts, UN decisions, and the like. Each time the US flexes its muscle, dislike and resentment builds. Why? Because these nations are being held at economic gunpoint and are being forced to take an action that is against what they perceive is their best interests. In other words, they are being attacked by the US in economic warfare. This was caused by the US using its economic might as a club to keep other nations in line, rather than using it as a surgical instrument.

Make no mistake, the US has been engaged in economic warfare for most of the post-WW2 period. Who started it? I will leave that to historians, but make no mistake, the US is using the economic advantage its had by being the only nation whose economic base wasn’t wrecked in WW2, backed by pure military might to enforce its will upon the nations of the world. We have been engaged in economic warfare with one nation or another for decades.

This works until the economically and militarily strong nation begins to weaken. COVID, along with the government’s response to it, the fact that our nation’s President is a dotard, and the runaway inflation being caused by profligate spending did exactly that.

So China and the BRICS nations are responding in kind. China is seeing to it that the economic empire that the US has been engaged in maintaining is coming to an end. As the President of the US, Biden’s responsibility is to see to it that the US and its citizens are taken care of. He is too busy lining his pockets and following the instructions of his Chinese masters.

China is a master at long term planning. They have thoroughly infiltrated the US government. From congressmen sleeping with Chinese intelligence agencies to plain old fashioned bribery, the nation’s key government officials have been completely compromised.

So China is following up on its biological warfare attack by counter attacking the US by destroying the dollar. It’s brilliant- they cause a pandemic that the US helped fund the creation of, help fund the gaming of the US election that followed, using that to put one of its assets in charge, then attack the currency while their asset distracts us with a proxy war that China is assisting in.

China isn’t stupid- they know what the US can and can’t do. They are playing the long game while the US spends its time and resources worrying about an inconsequential war between Ukraine and Russia. The US has sent more than $70 billion to Ukraine in the past 16 months, and just budgeted an additional $45 billion in the latest debt ceiling deal.

Meanwhile, the US dollar is being deliberately and systematically attacked. Where does this go? Do the math and tell me what you think in comments…

People who have read this post: 277
By Divemedic, ago

Ad Hominems

I recently got into a discussion online. I know, but I can’t help myself. Another person said that transgenderism is being pushed in the schools because they are trying to groom kids into following their peers into the tranny fad.

Once a child is coerced into saying “I think I’m trans” in an attempt to fit in with the cool kids and get an eject button out of being a loser, anxiety prone teen, doctors, therapists, and counselors can only offer gender-affirming care. That means immediate hormone replacement therapy and brochures on where to obtain gender reassignment surgery. Lying to children that you can just “try on” genders by tucking your dick or binding your chest is grooming them into a cult. The staggering increase in the rate of desistence and de-transitioning shows us how flawed this ideological movement is.

A leftie responded with “Can we have just one source of any kid saying they want to be cool and trans?”

I responded with:

Kids entering puberty are in the middle of changing from following a parent role model to a peer role model. When you confront them with “all the cool kids are doing it” they will do stupid things. That’s where fads come from. Adolescents learn new social skills and behavioral tendencies by observing peers. They look at their peers’ behaviors and the positive or negative consequences these peers encounter. When certain behavior of peers has positive consequences, the adolescent imitates that behavior.

So the lefty says: “So no source? Just a spew of stupidity and hypotheticals like always?”

He doesn’t know me enough to know that I always have facts.

  • let’s start with “modeling in children” from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:
  • Then we can move on to Busching, R., & Krahé, B. (2020). With a little help from their peers: the impact of classmates on adolescents’ development of prosocial behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
  • Boor-Klip HJ, Segers E, Hendrickx MMHG, Cillessen AHN. Development and psychometric properties of the Classroom Peer Context Questionnaire. Social Development. 2016
  • Dishion TJ, Spracklen KM, Andrews DW, Patterson GR. Deviancy training in male adolescent friendships. Behavior Therapy. 1996
  • Bandura A. Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1978

His reply? “Wish we could get you to do something productive with all your free time”

Then he progressed to “one of your sources is from 1978, that’s like 45 years ago.”

Then on to “It’s about scientific research in psychology. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness at that time. It was also illegal. You know that Nazis burnt books from trans clinic right? That a term is different than research? It’s not a coincidence that your timeline is full of bigots”

Arguing with idiots online is a waste of time, but I can’t help myself. It takes me 15 minutes to support my position, and he gets a pass with a one liner, then calls me a Nazi and a racist. You know you’re over the target when you start getting flak.

People who have read this post: 197
By Divemedic, ago

Gangs

A mass shooting between two groups of people is being reported this evening in Hollywood, FL. Several “teens” are reported to be involved. I read “teens” as gang members.

Avoid crowds. Stay away from cities. Keep your head on a swivel. Know two exits out of every place you go.

EDITED TO ADD:

It looks like this will not make the news cycle. Suspect is a black male with dreadlocks.

People who have read this post: 226
By Divemedic, ago

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is not just a day to remember those military members who were lost in combat. There are many members of our military who are lost in peacetime, and their sacrifice is not diminished by the fact that we are not involved in hostilities. This Memorial Day, I choose to honor a man who was lost in a peacetime training accident when a rogue wave struck the ship that I was serving on, late one night in 1989 off the coast of Florida.

Three men went overboard when a wave struck the lowered aircraft elevator at 0115 in the morning. They were all wearing float coats. One was quickly found by his survival strobe. The second was found when a smoke float being dropped from a helicopter to mark the position of the first man fell on top of him. The third was never found, despite the fact that we searched for him for 24 hours. His body was never recovered. Airman Craig Harris gave his life that dark night in October. I honor his sacrifice, for the life he gave in support of this nation.

People who have read this post: 195
By Divemedic, ago

No Limits

The Republicans this weekend did what they always do. They caved in. They reached a deal for our nation’s debt that allows them to campaign as conservative while actually doing nothing of substance.

The deal allows the government to spend until January 1, 2025 without any limits at all.

It’s what Republicans do best- feather their own nests. That’s why Trump vs. DeSantis is a meaningless debate.

People who have read this post: 326
By Divemedic, ago