The High Court is not so Divisive
In 2023, the US Supreme Court heard 47 cases using the full Court (62 in total, but we are sticking with en banc for the purposes of this discussion).
The rulings had these counts:
9-0 : 15 decisions
8-1 : 1 decision
7-2 : 2 decisions
6-3 : 21 decisions
5-4 : 8 decisions
Of the 6-3 decisions only 11 were along partisan lines (and by reading the text, not along strict ideological lines). Whoever is telling people the Court is broken and everyone on it is a partisan hack is gaslighting the public. The data do not support any such claim. The High Court ruling along partisan lines is in the strong minority. Can we stop with the divisive nonsense?
Texas Sex Ed is Opt-Out (Continued)
In a previous post, I explained that opt-in for sex ed gives parents more control over what their children are exposed to. I also attached a letter I sent to my school district. Herein, I go through the response from the school district and what I have learned from my due diligence.
I was contacted by the Waxahachie ISD Director of Educational Support & Counseling Services. She called me and after a few days’ long game of phone tag, we connected. She explained to me that opt-in was indeed expired; however, that did not mean a school district could expose children to sex education without a parent’s knowledge. She stayed on the line with me long enough to go into detail regarding what my family could expect from her, from the school district, and from Texas Education Authority.
I did ask directly if she knew what a boy was and what a girl was. She responded well, and she assured me that they teach that males are boys who grow up to be men and females are girls who grow up to be women.
Opt-Out Does not mean Anything Goes
When I heard that sex ed was no longer opt in, I immediately believed some unelected government officials would be tinkering in the background trying to indoctrinate my children into things I did not want. To my relief, I found that there is a more complex legal framework working to ensure parental controls even without opt in sex ed. Apparently, as things stand now in Texas, there are still strict parental notice requirements to which a school district must adhere before engaging in sex ed with any child.
A district must provide a parent with notice of sex ed and that notice must describe what is required under state law and what instruction is provided by the district. This notice must come before the start of a school year. A parent is entitled to a copy of the materials to be furnished by the district and is entitled to withdraw a child from such instruction. Further, the materials must be made available on the district’s webpage wherever such a webpage exists.
Peripherally, if a district provides sex ed beyond what is required by state law, written consent must be obtained from the parent in order to provide instruction to a child regarding prevention of child abuse, family violence, dating violence, and sex trafficking.
In TEA’s own words
The district did, in fact, contact TEA directly to get some answers regarding the legal and administrative landscape. They have provided certain assurances I place before the reader untained: (Citing TEC SS28.004)
Thank you for contacting the Curriculum Standards and Student Support Division at the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Your message has been assigned to me for a response. The Texas Education Code (TEC) §28.004(i-2) establishes that before a student may be provided with human sexuality instruction, a school district must obtain the written consent of the student's parent. A request for written consent under this subsection:
may not be included with any other notification or request for written consent provided to the parent, other than the notice provided under Subsection (i); and
must be provided to the parent not later than the 14th day before the date on which the human sexuality instruction begins.
TEC §28.004(i-3) establishes that the requirement of obtaining written consent (TEC§28.004(i-2)) of the student’s parent before a student can be provided human sexuality instruction expires on August 1, 2024.
Requirements Not Expiring
Please note, the requirement to provide written notice to a parent of each student enrolled in the district of the board of trustee's decision regarding whether the district will provide human sexuality instruction, as established in TEC §28.004(i), is not expiring and will continue beyond August 1, 2024.
Please also note, the requirement to provide written notice (TEC §28.004(q-5)) and obtain written consent (TEC §28.004(q-6)) to provide instruction relating to the prevention of child abuse, family violence, dating violence, and sex trafficking is not expiring and will continue beyond August 1, 2024.
The education code section cited is very long and winds down many convoluted paths. I think what the unelected officials are trying to get across is that districts must notice parents whenever sex ed is near for a child. I think that also they would like us to know that, for certain types of teachings, after notice and affirmative opt in is still required.
In Summation
This is still concerning. Opt in is a 100% failsafe against the wanton changes to instruction our children face when under the education of the state. Since the state has delegated (unconstitutionally) the responsibility of public education to the Texas Education Agency, the rules governing education can change on a bureaucratic whim without the need for our legislators to call session. Opt in stopped sensitive instruction in its tracks and acted as a check on the TEA.
Opt out puts more onus on the parents and gives more control to unelected state bureaucrats. The head of TEA is silent on this, and that, in my estimation, is one of the largest issues parents have to face when placing the care, custody, and control of our children into the hands of the state day after day, year after year. We will remain vigilant, as always.
No one is Afraid to Talk to You
There are groups at the top of the median household income demographic breakdowns.
There are groups whose members - in their sophomore, junior, and senior years - way before degree attainment cold message me on any and all platforms to ask for career advice (and possible recs).
These groups are the same. The game is definitely about whom you know; however, the important thing to remember is that whom you know is mostly about whom you've given yourself a chance to get to know. There has never been a time when access to quality people was as easy as it is now. Learn how to use social media to your advantage, not to Zuckerberg's.
People who are in a position to lift others into a higher tax bracket are usually searching for those others to lift up. You need only present yourself to them and be ready to the the WORK to get a come up. No one is afraid to talk to you; in fact, the fear is not finding someone quickly enough to gain or maintain a competitive edge.
No one can do everything alone. It takes the work of many to do anything worthwhile. Be one of the many who is worthwhile, not one of the many who is useless.
Self Responsibility
An image of a decades-old letter resurfaced on social media recently.
The community was quite upset about this image and began, as always, blaming evil-doers of old for all of our issues. I responded with some less-than-well-taken words:
“The fact that anyone was asking whites for anything back then is the sad story. We had our own thriving communities, we had our own high schools, universities, enterprises, everything.
The plight of the negroe is not the white man; the plight of the negroe is a yearning for acceptance from and admittance by the white man. Keep your head on a swivel, your powder dry, and your reflexes sharp.”
The most important lesson we can learn from history - all of us, not just black Americans - is the lesson that only reliance upon ourselves, our families, and our communities can lift us out of a bad situation in perpetuity. Reliance upon the Government or any particular economic model is folly: especially Government.
Back to the plight of the negroe. Time and time again, President after President, decade after decade, generation after generation; we find ourselves blaming the white man for our struggles. We, simultaneously, find ourselves begging the white man for our deliverance from our struggles. Be they reparations, Medicare, SNAP, minimum wage increases, or any other relief, we ask the same group we purport to be our captors and oppressors for the relief sought. This, to me, makes absolutely no sense.
There are plenty of well-to-do blacks. There are plenty of well-educated blacks. There are plenty of cities run entirely by blacks. Still, the struggle persists. There may be something outside the white man that can cause the struggle to continue. Surely, if the issue were the white man alone, the immigrant blacks who enter this nation would be doing just as poorly as those born here; the data show they are thriving.
Like with the image at the head of this discussion, every piece of information is construed by the FBA (and even more so by the ADOS) to imply white supremacy is their issue. Every piece of information. We see it on social media. We see it in the news. We see it in movies and TV. The FBA largely (not all of us of course) blames people it has never met for its troubles rather than blaming the very people who run their municipalities and cities. People know who wrote this random letter but do not know who is on their school board. It is a disgrace.
We see everywhere black excellence exemplified.
Freedom, Georgia was created and realized when 19 families (a community) came together to create it.
Nicholas Irving is a highly decorated (and record-holding) US sniper, author, and speaker.
Hell, even I have some globally recognized accolades under my belt.
The list goes on, and on, and on, and on. Yet, still, to this very date, there are lazy, unrelenting, cry babies asking to get something for nothing. There is NO EXCUSE for an able-bodied man to fail in this nation. None. The message of “the white man did it” fails to hold water. The new message should be “get up, and get to work.”
Texas Sex Ed is Opt Out
On August 1, 2024, Sex Education went from Opt In to Opt Out. this changes makes the process less transparent and easier for the State to control what your children’s culture might include. Please, communicate with your children’s school districts to find out what their policies are and how to opt out of Sex Ed if their policies do not support your cultural values. Here is my letter to my school district.
See: https://texasscorecard.com/video/8-1-24-a-major-change-to-sex-ed-in-texas/
Trust the Science
"Trust the science" is not an invitation to read 2 studies and pretend like they encompass the entirety of a field's body of work. At the very least (seriously, any less is silliness): find 200 studies, get AI to write 1-paragraph summaries for each of them, and then read those summaries. 200 paragraphs from AI is only like 40-50 pages. If you cannot be bothered to read that much you are not "trusting the science". Anything less than this is faith, not trust.
Too many have faith in our institutions, in the media, in the random stuff their grandmother says, in all sorts of things. Very few people have taken the time to gather enough evidence to establish trust. The internet grifters love this quality of American society. Kamala Crash and Project 2025 are excellent examples of this.
Kamala Crash was 1) not a stock market crash (merely a dip), and 2) has nothing to do with Kamala. If we look at the markets and the concomitant pressures over the past 6 months, the market was clearly running hot; any bubble will eventually burst. The market is already beginning to swing back up and it will likely normalize in the next week or two before going into another period of swelling and then falling. Anyone who was strategically diversified across capital assets barely felt this latest dip. No big deal.
Project 2025 is a set of documents written by private citizens. No one in public office is pushing this document into legislation. The goals written within it are the goals of those private citizens who have written it; they are a sort of wish list from a bunch of wealthy people who are whining about the Constitution, Laws, and Judiciary of these United States. Project 2025 is not Trump’s. trump has Agenda 47; it is completely different from and in many cases contradictory to Project 2025. All of this uproar has done no more but thrust the Heritage Foundation into the spotlight and aggrandize them.
These are examples of people having faith in institutions and media. Institutions and media propped up Project 2025 and Kamala Crash without evidence to support the theories. They are simply click bait. Trust requires knowledge. Faith in institutions requires an empty skull. Your choice.