The post that must be made

If you're part of the homeschool community you have probably heard by now of the hatchet job Good Morning America did on unschooling. If you haven't seen it, you aren't missing much. It was of  the low quality that we have come to expect from the mainstream media. Of course unschoolers have, as you would expect, reacted with all kinds of posts about, and defenses of, unschooling.

I have heard that GMA did a bit of a backpedal show the next day, but I have no desire to see it, so I won't address it here. And since I just wrote four posts last month more-or-less about unschooling, I am not going back over all of that ground.

There is one thing, though, that I keep seeing in attack after attack that I felt the need to address. I quote from the Sun-Times piece:
                      "In contrast "unschooling" means no textbooks, no curriculum, no tests, no grades."
Um. No. Not even close.

Maybe, in some families, but certainly not in all. In many, like ours,especially as our children get closer to adulthood, they choose to use textbooks. Our sons have chosen to use some curriculum. They have chosen to take some classes in which they are tested and graded. This has all been their choice in pursuit of their goals and interests. My two oldest took the SAT. Last time I checked that "T" stands for "test."

The knee-jerk negativity to the outside-the-boxness that is unschooling is not surprising. But you'd think that if people are going to criticize they would at least get their facts straight.

Fed up

I wrote back in the fall about my frustration with the lies liberals tell about those with whom they disagree about health care. It is true in other areas, but seems magnified in that discussion.

It hasn't gotten any better. As the Democrats continue to try to push through their monstrosity of a bill, against the will of the American people, their defenders get more angry. They continue to call conservatives selfish, greedy, and stupid. They continue to make it sound like this bill is the only chance to make changes in our health care system. But they refuse to engage in a logical, reasonable discussion about the facts of our health care system and the ways that the proposed legislation does or does not address them.

In response to facts about the current system, they respond with anecdotal sad stories. "People are dying!" But the fact is, people die under every health care system, and will continue to die, whatever reforms may come. That's part of life this side of Heaven. Stories aren't facts. As part of this same tactic, they assume that those who disagree with them have never experienced poverty, an illness without insurance, having to go without treatment, or other elements of the stories they tell. They are wrong.

In response to arguments about the specific problems with this plan we get cries of "Selfish!" or "Talking points!" Of course, if they would READ the bill they would see that some talking points are true. If they would be open to the reality that some of the "facts" that whirl around in the media echo chamber are, in fact, false and would look beyond the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, MSNBC, and NY Times for their "news," they might learn that all is not as they have believed.

Because that's what we're dealing with, in many cases. Belief. A nearly religious belief in the truth of the claims of the sages of the left and the rightness of ramming through THIS legislation no matter the cost to our society. They don't care about the evidence from studies that refute many of the tenets of their faith about who the uninsured are, how their health is impacted, and what the many factors in the high cost of health care are. They don't care about the facts behind the numbers in the widely touted World Health Organization rankings. They don't care about the many economists and experts who agree that this plan leaves many fundamental issues untouched and creates new problems. They refuse to acknowledge the problems endemic to many government run health systems.

They're like children sticking their fingers in their ears while yelling: "Selfish!!" "Partisan!" "Stupid!" "Insurance companies!" "Teabagger!" and always when they can't come up with anything else, "Well, BUSH...."

I've nearly given up on trying. The frustration of trying to discuss with people who refuse to even address facts is almost too much. And yet, this is too important to give up. If even one person who is wavering actually looks at the facts, then it won't have been in vain.

Postscript: This doesn't mean that I don't believe that there are liberals with well-thought out ideas and arguments for them. I'm just not seeing any of them.

Evil and dangerous words

This piece highlights what I think is one of the most maddening and potentially dangerous things that the Obama administration and left-wing media are doing.

Much of what goes on in Washington right now stuns and saddens me, but I think that the attempt to paint anyone who disagrees with Obama--or who is against this particular plan for health care reform--as a racist is the worst. This suggestion that ideas differing from Obama's necessarily spring from the most odious of sources has the potential to create new wounds and create new divisions where none previously existed.

Jonah Goldberg writes about this playing of the race card:

Sure, racists don’t like Obama. (In less shocking news, bears continue to use our national forests as toilets.) But that doesn’t mean everyone who dislikes Obama is therefore a racist.

This would seem so obvious as to not require stating. Unfortunately, it seems that it does.

In my title I used the word evil. I do believe that this is evil. Those who wish to marginalize conservatives and who have shown a willingness to shut down expression that does not match their agenda are using one of the most heinous accusations--requiring no proof on their part, because we long ago learned that the accusation of racism is tantamount to conviction in the media--to accomplish their goals. Racism is a tremendous evil and ought not be tolerated, but I fear that injudicious playing of the race card with ever-increasing frequency may only empower it and add racists--on both sides--to the fold.

A lesson learned

Bethany was briefly interviewed by a reporter. You'll have to read about her experience.

I have been interviewed by reporters four times. Every single one of them has taken my words and twisted them to fit her agenda. Even when I was careful to be very, very clear.

Seventeen and counting

I was challenged by a drive-by commenter on a post in which I called President Obama a hypocrite. I stand by that. He is a hypocrite.

Did anyone besides me see his big no-lobbyists-in-this-administration speech? It was all show. He has already exempted 17 lobbyists from the rule. And as this story notes, you won't hear that in the American media. It was left to the Times of India to cover what is really happening in our government.

We can add a second tax cheat to his cabinet when Tom Daschle is confirmed. (Oh, yeah, by the way Daschle is a lobbyist and so is his wife.)

Man of the Year

I'm not surprised Barack Obama was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year. It would have been far more surprising if he hadn't been.

I am surprised that they used the Soviet propaganda poster style picture for the cover. Or maybe not. He seems to be engaging in plenty of newspeak.

On the campaign trail

This is very interesting reading.

Apparently traveling with McCain is more pleassant than traveling with Obama.

More on politics

While I sit here watching Cavuto, I wonder why we can't have more in the media like him.

Cheryl just posted exactly what I was going to post. I loved hearing the clips of Dingy Harry Reid and Barney Frank giving conflicting accounts of what happened at the White House yesterday. Can anyone say disingenuous? So why didn't any of the supposedly brilliant folks in the big media notice?

Here's another look at how the dems are trying to spin it.

And Michelle Malkin has a new look at an old story.

Then there's ACORN, to which BO has ties.

Media hyperventilation

Does anyone besides me think that the media is being unrealistic with their treatment of the shooting at Virginia Tech? Their suggestions that police should have shut down the campus after the first shooting seem very much like disingenuous Monday-morning quarterbacking.

We are talking about a 2,600 acre campus with 30,000 students. That would be the equivalent of shutting down a small city. The first shooting was believed to have been a personal thing. They're describing it as a "domestic dispute," which doesn't strike me as an entirely accurate characterization, but does convey an idea of the situation. Do they really think that school officials should have--or could have--warned thousands of people not to go to class because a guy shot his girlfriend?

So now everytime there is a domestic shooting in a US city the mayor should warn everyone not to leave his home because there has been a shooting?

They keep calling this a "school shooting." A large university campus is a far cry from your local high school. During a press conference yesterday there was incredulity that campus buildings, except for dorms, are open, not locked. Huh?! Have any of these people actually been to college? Of the four colleges that I attended only one could even manage to keep the dorms locked. And no security of that sort would have mattered anyway, because the shooter was a student.

Addendum: Polly addresses the another important aspect of this incident.