Here is YOUR Federally Approved Schedule for today:

Just how much control do you want in your day-to-day life?  You may have heard of something called "Statism"; what does that mean, exactly?

We all know that some central authority and regulation is required.  In a still-dangerous world, we must have investigative services and quick, formidable defense capability (unless you want our fighting done in Duluth, Santa Monica, Hartford and Orlando neighborhoods). We can't have cars built with no reliability or safety standards at all.  We can't have people driving those cars at reckless speeds or whatever side of the road they choose.  There's got to be some rule against printing your own money or stealing you neighbors' stuff.  Drug dealers can't be allowed to hand out "samples" to our kids to create new "customers".  But just how far does this go?  Exactly how much control should government - especially distant, centralized, unresponsive and un-responsible government - have over every aspect of your life?  When something presents no impact on others, no realistic safety threat and no restriction on their own right to make their own decisions for themselves, should government be stepping in and regulating what you can or can't do, or how you do it?

Let's look at some recent cases in the news; make up your own mind.

Deaf Pre-Schooler in Nebraska told to change his signed name.
By: Nicole Ramage - The Examiner.com

Tuesday morning, Grand Island School District in Nebraska was told the Spanjer family that they would not be requiring Hunter, a deaf preschooler, to change the way that they sign his name. Last week, it was reported that the school district wanted his name changed because they felt it violated their 'no tolerence' policy because his name sign kind of, sort of, maybe just a little bit, looks like a gun.

When deaf preschooler Hunter Spanjer signs his name, he does so by crossing his middle finger over his index finger on both hands and moves them up and down. His father says that this is a registered sign within S.E.E. (Signed Exact English) and he should not be made to change his name. The school board says that they feel his name is too close to the sign for a gun, which many teachers at the grand Island district feel is taking things a step too far as the signs are not similar in any way. One ASL (American Sign Language) instructor says that Hunter's name more closely resembles the sign for 'hurry' than anything. Parents and community members are outraged because they don't feel and have not yet encountered any child associating Hunter's signed name with a gun sign.

When asked, one Portland parent had this to say about this disturbing news;

"That's like asking me to change my son's name because someone finds it offensive. How about we change it to a single middle finger and see how the [Grand Island] school district cares for that."

Grand Island Schoo District says that they decided to drop the case when they started receiving hate mail and even death threats over something that the community is finding 'above and beyond'. One letter sent to the district from an enraged parent had this to say about asking the deaf preschooler to change his name;

"A parent's choice of name for his child is one of the most personal aspects of the parent-child relationship and the district cannot step into the middle of that constitutionally protected relationship."

While the support for the spanjer family has been astronomical, many Portlanders are outraged that this would even be an issue, especially in a nation with a large deaf culture.

[ED: The school feels it is superior in authority to the parent, deeming that the child's name, or the standard signing protocol used to express it, 'might' be offensive to somebody, somewhere, somehow; or that it is dangerous because it might lead to someone mis-using the term for "hunter" or "hurry" and grow up as a homicidal maniac.  In any case, the State as embodied by the School should control what parents can name their kids as well as our society's perception of the eons-old concept of hunting and defense.  Really??]


Professor forces students to sign 'pledge' to vote for Obama
By: Jason Howerton - The Blaze

A college professor at Brevard Community College (BCC) in Cocoa, Fla. has been placed on leave after she allegedly required her class to sign a pledge to vote for President Barack Obama “and Democrats up and down the ticket.
Campus Reform reports that professor Sharon Sweet at BCC allegedly told students to sign a pledge that states: “I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket.”
The pledge came from “GottaVote.org,” a website paid for by the Obama campaign.
The Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform has more:

University administrators said they learned about the incident late Thursday afternoon and launched an investigation, after they received a phone call from a concerned parent.
“Based on the allegations, Associate Professor Sweet has requested, and been granted, a leave of absence without pay effective immediately,” reads a statement put out by John Glisch, Associate Vice President for Communications at BCC.
“The college will continue its investigation into the matter, which will include interviews with all students in her class,” continues the statement.

In addition to being inappropriate action in the classroom, Sweet’s pledge requirement may have also violated Florida election law.
Section 104.31, of Title IX in chapter 104, states that “no officer or employee of the state… shall… use his or her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or nomination of officer or influencing another person’s vote or affecting the result thereof.”

[ED: Liberals, especially educators (and politicians in their offices) are simply much more wise than all the rest of humanity. They must simply tell us everything, as we are totally incapable of learning to deal with things outside the classroom unless it matches the theories inside the classroom*.  Left to themselves, the stupid, un-liberalized masses might simply keep doing what has been wildly successful in America for 300 years (the strong, thriving colonies were Capitalist).  They might not seek the Socialist utopia, which has failed everywhere, every time it has been tried, and collapsed of its own unsustainability at an average of 65 years.
*Look how well John Maynard Keynes' Cambridge blackboard theories have dragged out our miserable, damaging, so-called 'recovery' for over four years (worst recovery in U.S. history)]

Cheering at Graduation leads to Arrest, Diplomas withheld

By: Ben Waldron and Colleen Curry - ABC News

Cheering on your family and friends at graduation has become a risky proposition as schools around the country have cracked down on celebrations, withholding diplomas from students and arresting parents who "misbehave" during commencement.
In Florence, S.C., proud mother Sharon Cooper was handcuffed and escorted out of the arena where daughter Iesha Cooper was graduating from high school last Saturday. According to South Carolina news station WPDE, the school had warned parents earlier that anyone who cheered or yelled during the roll call would be escorted from the building, and that people who were disorderly while being led out would be arrested.
Cooper was taken out of the civic center and placed in handcuffs, according to the report.
"'Are you all serious? Are you all for real?' I mean, that's what I'm thinking in my mind," Cooper told WPDE."I didn't say anything. I was just like OK, I can't fight the law."
Cooper was placed in a police van and taken to a detention center for several hours before posting a $225 bond, according to the station. Cooper, who was charged with disorderly conduct, could not be reached for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Florence school district, Pamela Little-McDaniel, told ABC News that because three high schools were graduating together, it was important to ensure that every parent was able to hear their child's name called. The school sent out multiple notices to all parents requesting their cooperation and warning them that cheering or yelling could get them removed by police from the ceremony.

"The school did try to communicate this information with the parent, so everyone would be able to hear the ceremony and hear their child's name get called," she said.
In Mount Healthy, Ohio, graduating senior Anthony Cornist was docked a diploma because his family and friends cheered too loudly as he walked across the stage during the graduation ceremony.
"I will be holding your diploma in the main office due to the excessive cheering your guests displayed during the Roll Call," read a letter from the school principal, according to ABC News affiliate WCPO. The letter also demanded Cornist or his family members complete 20 hours of community service in order to receive his diploma.
"It's crazy how someone can do that to you," said Cornist. "I didn't do nothing wrong, but walk across the stage."
Cornist's upset mother said that teachers, other students as well as other families were cheering for her son. "I don't understand how he is being punished for something he has no control over. He's definitely not doing the community service."
Administrators from Mount Healthy high school and the school district did not return calls for comment. Cornist was not able to be reached for comment.
In Tennessee, diplomas were withheld from at least 10 members of a graduating high school class not for cheering loudly, but for sitting quietly, albeit with loudly-decorated graduation caps.
"We're going to decorate our caps anyway because we paid for them," senior Brianna Carroll told news station WRCB in reaction to her high school's ban on cap decorations.
Administrators from McMinn County High School warned students that caps were not to be decorated, and students would be punished if the broke the rule.
"He goes, 'remember I have your diploma, I have the trump card'," Carroll told WRCB about her school superintendent, David Pierce.
Carroll and other students were punished with 20 hours of community service in order to receive their diplomas.
John Burroughs, principal of the school, told ABC News that the ban came from the superintendent.
"It ended up being about 10 individuals out of a class of over 325, and we did offer all of these students alternatives prior to the ceremony," he said.
Pierce, the district superintendent, did not return calls for comment.

[ED:  Everyone has seen (and heard) the obnoxious group at a graduation.  Parents should be encouraged to keep their celebratory outbursts brief.  ARREST?!?  DENIAL of an earned diploma?  Community Service (court assigned civil penalty) for others' behavior? Once again, these Learned, Liberal Loons think that their spartan schedule ("1.7 seconds per student name") is more important than the achievement being memorialized.  Their authority must be the primary focus; even after the requirements have been met and the young adults are no longer under their tutelage.
Every educator and administrator should be able to vamp (with a smile) for a moment and then pronounce the next name on the list; if they don't have the ability or the patience, how can they teach anyone anything?  Parents and friends want to celebrate a seminal moment in their loved one's life.  Those that obnoxiously waste more than 5 seconds might be made to wait until all other certificates are handed out, at the office, after the ceremony.]


Father-Daughter dances Deemed Discriminatory
By: Bob Kellog - One News Now

A Rhode Island school district has taken parents by surprise by suddenly announcing it is banning "father-daughter" dances at the request of the ACLU.
The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Cranston public school officials citing the federal Title IX anti-discrimination law when a single mother complained that her daughter was excluded from the "father-daughter" activities.
Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council finds it unfortunate that one girl is denying many other girls a special event with their fathers because she feels excluded.
"A girl without a father is going to suffer some disadvantages as a result of not having a father, not just as a result of supposed discrimination, and no ACLU lawsuit can change that fact," he asserts.
Sprigg asserts that a father treating his daughter as a young woman should be treated -- with dignity and respect -- offers a valuable lesson in life.
"It's not just a matter of a social event where some people are being excluded; this is an important or can be an important rite of passage," he contends.
School officials pointed out that while Title IX legislation banning gender discrimination gives an exemption for father-daughter events, Rhode Island law does not. Sean Gately (R), who is running for the state Senate, says he will work to change the law if he is elected.
Mother-son events have also been banned.

[ED: Liberalism no longer has anything to do with Liberty.  It has become the Marxist quest to make sure everything is equal; and since the entire Socialist* method of increasing the poorest's lot has always been an abysmal failure, that means it must become the more realistic (but cruel) mantra of reducing the society's lot to the most miserable, deprived, failed existence of the least fortunate.  "Everyone equal (at the bottom, but equal)."
Don't allow those with a good family life to enjoy the benefits thereof.  Don't simply allow "or other, significant, male patrons" to also go to the first grown-up dance with their advancing young women.  Nope.  Cancel the dance for all, because some might enjoy it, while a pitiful few don't have a "father".  BTW, it is the Liberals, the Community Organizers who push 'easy' abortion and the undermining of the Mother/Father/Kids family, that are responsible for the large numbers of these unfortunate girls having a broken family in the first place.]

So, here we see the fruits of Statism - the power of the State to simply make all decisions, instead of the People being individually protected and empowered, and the State being regulated and controlled.  The difference between polite but businesslike Police Officers acting on the urgent stuff, and cold, robotic Storm Troopers regulating your every move.

What does it mean, when... [updated]

The Obama administration continues to blame America for the attacks and murders by violent Libyan and Egyptian extremists - and continuing to spread! Obama's "popular, successful foreign policy" now sees not only North African mobs calling for our blood, but growing throngs (thankfully still not majorities) in over 30 countries.  It can't possibly be the eerily familiar failure of this Administration to show strength, to even try to influence or encourage a moderate, civilized replacement for the tyrannical strongmen that were deposed - - while actual grass roots rebellions against more dangerous dictators in Iran and Syria continue to be ignored and abandoned (and shelled and machine-gunned) under Obama's policies. 

Like Carter, Obama's policy (exercised by Clinton's State Dept) was to ignore honest quests for freedom; no money, no arms, no encouragement, no endorsement.  In fact, the only Administration praise, taxpayer $Billions and actual U.S. "boots on the ground" (or planes in the air) were engaged in the insurrections being obviously co-opted by the Muslim Brotherhood or the even less rational and peaceful Salafists.  We were told by the White House and State Dept that they were: always peace-loving, faithful reformers, or they were reformed themselves and no longer homicidal, or they were somehow restrained from gaining power.

In a back-door attack on the First Amendment (and by extension, the entire Constitution) Obama's Progressive Socialist regime is once again blaming an otherwise unknown film [actually just a 12 minute video on YouTube that has been there for 4 months - waiting for the Jihadist leaders to call it out on September 11th] and all but excusing the murderous rioters. When Ambassador Susan Rice (who should [in a stance that the Left would actually approve of] be compelled to change her name to avoid impugning the intelligent, credible and honorable Condoleezza Rice) claims that a fully practiced, heavily armed platoon-strength attack in two-pronged waves, with indirect fire support, it is a "spontaneous" event. She even asserts that, despite a forest of burning U.S. flags and calls for "Death to America", that it is "NOT Anti-American".  She advances the Socialist/Jihadist agenda against the Constitution by exhorting us to believe that when anyone publishes a story that hurts someone's feelings, THAT person is dangerous and unlawful. That person creates violence that would not otherwise exist.  In other words, our Bill of rights is evil; OUR Constitution needs to be re-written, to avoid 'pissing off' foreign zealots.

Many of the attackers, in Cairo and elsewhere, chanted, "We are all Osama bin Laden".  And, lest there be any mistake, Obama's claims that his "Arab Spring" [like the dangerous, terrorist, #Occupy Anarchists that Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the rest embraced] is a glorious upwelling of freedom and democracy, the Muslim world does NOT esteem "the corruption of democracy and freedom":

[thanks to FOX via YouTube]


It was over a year ago that Imam Choudary threatened to force Shari'Ah upon America.  Yet, Obama claims (in typical, Leftist, all-or-nothing argument) that ANY Democracy is better than the brutal but peace-keeping dictators that were replaced by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist Jihadists.  Was there no non-Jihadist faction to back or encourage?  We have now been told that 'Obama made a call to foreign leaders and it's all taken care of'.  That's great - except for the part where it has grown and spread to dozens countries! What was NOT released (by our side), was that Egyptian President Morsi told Obama that the irrelevant film-maker 'should go to prison FOR BLASPHEMY'!!  Just imagine how strong the "Arab Spring Democracies" must be if one unknown, low-talent, video nerd can trash it all so easily.

Obama, of course, told Morsi that he cannot do that here. It is unclear whether he mentioned that "After my election, I have more flexibility". But in an AMAZING coincidence, the otherwise anonymous film-maker that supposedly enraged the entire Muslim world (despite a lack of views and a small percentage of YouTube devotees among the no-electricity, poor, undeucated mobs) was "voluntarily" detained and transported at midnight by a reinforced squad of Deputies*, with "voluntary" control techniques and a scarf over his face [http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/150781/ ]. For old (misdemeanor) probation 'questions', of course - just another 9-11 coincidence.  That man, creep or bigot or not, has now gone into hiding along with his entire, equally guilty family.  An American citizen family fingered by the U.S. Government for the benefit of vengeful, foreign, anti-American Jihadists.  For exercising his First Amendment rights is a way that was inconvenient for the PotUS and his policies.

Of course, Obama's assertions and Ambassador Rice's ridiculous lies have now been totally dis-proven, in a very rare piece of actual Journalism by otherwise biased CBS.  Not only did Libya's own President Mohamed Magariaf (already possessing more credibility than Peace-Prize winning Obama) acknowledge that the Benghazi attack was organized, militant and coordinated to fall on 9-11, but he revealed how his government had warned the U.S. days before the attacks.

Good news, though!  Even though Obama is "too smart" to attend his own, Presidential Daily Briefings [briefings are compiled by all major agencies, outlined and then delivered by experts with great depth of knowledge on surrounding facts], and too busy to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in the face of nuclear Iran's threats, and too important to stay near the White House situation room as 30 countries host attacks on our country (there are 'Vegas fundraisers to attend and stars to hob-nob with), Obama did manage to clear enough time to meet with a distinguished representative of the critical "International Talk Like a Pirate Day", for photos to post on his campaign page.  SophosArchaeus could NOT make this kind of mindless crap up - never got into drugs.

Sen Joe Lieberman (I), (who caucuses with Democrats) and the Homeland Security committee have taken notice of all the evidence ignored by the Administration and covered up by Obamedia.  It is now known that the attack was led by Libyan Al Qaida militant Sufyan Ben Qumu (actually a member of AQ affiliate Libyan Islamic Fighting Group).  Qumu, now in Libyan custody, was safely locked up in the Guantanamo detention facility, classified as a  'moderate to major risk'.  But in 2007 (yes, actually "blame Bush" for this one), under massive ACLU and Democrat (DNC controlled Congress since 2006, including Senator Obama) pressure, Qumu promised to go home and play nice and was released along with dozens of others.  Many of these have since killed or tried to kill Americans.

If all this happens over a four month old, high-school quality, 'trailer' on YouTube (which almost no-one in the Middle East ever saw and most never even heard of until now), one wonders what will happen when the full-production, theatrical 'Kill bin Laden movie, FULLY SUPPORTED WITH CLASSIFIED INFO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE hits the theaters [http://tinyurl.com/DailyMail-ObamasMovie]

[*PLEASE NOTE that the deputies involved were almost certainly told (by policy-making superiors) that this guy was simply wanted for probation violations and that the weird arrangements were 'necessary'. In the opinion of Sophos Archaeus, most or all of them had little or no clue of the politics or Constitutional issues.]