How To Remove a School Levy: Taking tax money back from the schools

The Cincinnati Enquirer recently announced that Lakota Schools had lost nearly half of all their school principals due to the financial struggles of three failed school levies. These Lakota principals have jumped off the ship citing upon their exit that they are uncertain about their financial futures and are either retiring or seeking employment elsewhere. That information is of course contrary to what they say in school levy campaigns, which is that everything they do is for the children. The mass exodus of these administrators to school districts they believe will continue their premium salaries and benefits should be an insult to the surrounding schools, and reveals what the true feelings are from these school employees. Administrators are essentially saying that they would rather leave behind the children who count on them because the district is attempting to solve their financial difficulties in favor of districts that are still throwing money at their public employees like there is no tomorrow.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/06/21/lakota-losing-principals-at-high-rate/

One of the downsides to the Lakota School District deciding not to put a levy on the ballot in 2012 is that I will not get to attempt what the taxpayers in the Westerville School District are doing. For many years, those of us who have fought against tax increases have felt like victims of an organized political plot arranged between local politicians on school boards, and the radical teachers unions who have created for themselves gold plated benefits and wages at the expense of the tax payer. I have often complained that the average wage for the Lakota employee is $63K per year, but in Westerville, in Central Ohio, their average wage is $65K per year and trending towards $80,000 by the 2014/2015 school years. The spending was not stopped at Westerville as it was at Lakota because voters there approved by a narrow margin a 51% to 49% passage of a 6.71 mil tax.

See video of the repeal move against this levy at this link: http://vp.mgnetwork.net/viewer.swf?u=9ad6b34aea08102f8fb5001ec92a4a0d&z=OHV&embed_player=1

Usually, the story ends there, as it did recently in Southern Ohio in districts like Fairfield, Lebanon, and Little Miami who barely passed their tax levies with the help of huge apartment dweller votes, and serious organized labor rhetoric. Many voters once they approve for levy passage and see how the schools spent the money on teacher raises and other employee costs often regret their decision. And that’s what’s happening in Westerville.

With the help of the 1851 Center as their legal representation tax fighters have began to collect signatures to place on the ballot a roll back of that recently approved levy which is a tremendous act. Westerville is doing what all school districts who fight higher taxes are doing, and that is utilize the philosophy of the “best defense is a great offense.” Don’t wait for the radical union elements to push for further tax increases. Go after the tax increases already wrestled and manipulated by the educrats in organized labor, and rob it back to give to the tax payers who had it stolen to begin with. Such a move means that no longer on Election Day can organized labor put levy after levy on a ballot till it passes, then roll their naked bodies in the piles of money once they’ve legally stolen it without recourse. The 1851 Center led by Maurice Thompson has revealed a little known section of Ohio Revised Code that makes what Westerville is doing possible for every school district in Ohio who has suffered a similar fate. Read more about Westerville here:

http://www.ohioconstitution.org/2012/05/07/westerville-taxpayers-move-to-repeal-march-tax-increase/

I had a chance recently to speak with Maurice Thomson for a bit and he let me know that a few Southern Ohio tax fighters had contacted him but did not follow through, and he was still waiting to hear from them. I was surprised because I know the people involved and it seemed like the kind of thing that they would pounce on. Thompson is the Executive Director at the 1851 Center and directed the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions. Previously Thompson served as an attorney for the Sam Adams Foundation in Chicago and practiced privately in Ohio and Illinois. His legal fees on these education matters are free. He has successfully litigated cases in the Supreme Court of Ohio as well as intermediate courts of appeal and courts of common pleas throughout Ohio on issues such as property rights, regulation taxation, corporate welfare, search and seizures and smoking bans. He’s also the author of Presuming Liberty: Using Ohio’s Constitution to Limit Government, Defending Liberty in Ohio: A Roadmap for Protecting Freedom and Limiting Government with the State Constitution, and he wrote the forward for the current pocket copy of Ohio’s Constitution. You can contact Thompson at the following website:

http://www.ohioconstitution.org/

Maurice Thompson has actually written a citizens guide to reducing school district tax burden that can be found at the 1851 Center site. Basically, what Thompson is advocating is that there is a very little utilized R.C. 5705 and R.C. 5748 that allows tax payers to reduce or eliminate most types of school district property and income taxes enacted through local levy elections. Specifically it is R.C. 5705.261 that permits Ohioans to use local initiatives to win the reduction or repeal of qualifying tax levies. Some of the rules for reduce or repeal of a tax is the voters must have approved the levy. The levy must not expire, and there can only be one attempt every five years. Read it for yourself here:

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/5705.261

So for those who want to attempt this, be sure to take a page out of the union playbook and collect the ballot signatures during the summer while all the school employees are on their Caribbean cruises and vacationing at Disney World so that they can’t match your signatures with an attempt of their own to reduce their own levies with a ballot attempt of .000001 mil just to keep residents from being able to strike back at them, since another attempt would have to wait 5 years before trying again.

The sum of these matters is this—tax payers do not have to be passive victims always waiting for a school district to attack them with never ending tax increases. There are measures right now in place to strike back at the labor union methods of placing levy after levy, after levy on a ballot until it passes—then attempting to put it on in the summer like they did in Pickerington to stack the votes in favor of the school employees since school was off everyone’s mind. That district finally passed their levy after several attempts. Lawyers at the 1851 Center like Maurice Thompson are licking their chops for an opportunity to help right the wrongs that are going on in Ohio Schools at the expense of children for the gain of extremely self centered public employees who are out-of-touch and just plain greedy. But people have to call them, and let them help. Tax fighters have to be willing to collect signatures, but most of the people I know who fight these things have done all this activity before, so it isn’t difficult. I plan to call Maurice if Lakota ever manages to sneak one by in my district. But for those who have had them sneak by, like Lebanon, like Fairfield, like Forest Hills, like Little Miami, I recommend you call Maurice today and begin the process of removing those levies and showing the school boards that the tax payers of your districts are not going to take it.

We do not have to sit around waiting for school districts to keep pushing and pushing and pushing a tax until they get it passed, forcing taxpayers to just endure the higher tax grudgingly for the next 4 to 5 years until they try to raise taxes again in order to pay for the extraordinary salaries of their public employees. Now taxpayers can strike back, and do so in a huge way. And the way is being paved in Westerville with the help of Maurice Thompson at the 1851 Center. The wave of the future is not in tax increases initiated by bloated school districts but in the removal of them by the citizens who refuse to take the initiatives lying down. Such vigilance is the best way to bring fiscal responsibility to school districts by forcing changes that the schools will not enact upon themselves because of the radicalism of the unions that infect them.

As for Lakota, they will learn that they can succeed quite well without those middle manager principals, and that all along many of those administrators were just useless positions that could easily have been picked up by the assistant principals or a promoted teacher. The urgency at Lakota is only because the residents have taken the effort to manage our costs by saying no to tax increases. But for the other districts around Ohio who have been unfortunate in having taxes raised behind their backs after intense struggles—such as Little Miami who put their levy on the ballot 9 times—there is now a tool that tax payers can use to shut down those levy increases so that there will soon be no place for the bandits to escape to, forcing them as public employees to deal with the facts of reality.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Jerry Sandusky Trial: The pain of doing the right thing

Over the years I have gotten into a lot of trouble righting wrongs that in my view were pure evil. Sometimes in these conflicts the other side does not survive the worst case scenarios and sometimes the decimation of the wrong doer’s public persona is worse than death to them, because they care so much what others think. Sometimes the wrong doers are single advocates of terror, and sometimes the terrorist is a large organization. But as I reflect back on my life at this moment I can honestly say that even with all the pain it’s caused, with all the conflict, with all the broken hearts that follow—I am proud to have never turned away from a situation like Mike McQueary did when he walked in on Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in a shower. McQueary did what the law says you should do, and that is report the incident to a higher authority. The trouble is, when our world is laced with massive amounts of self-serving corruption, and weaklings of spirit, such authority cannot be trusted. No, in reality by the rules of the human race, McQueary had an obligation to that little boy to save him from the domination of a much older man—but he didn’t. He took the weak way out and left the responsibility of justice to the mob of collective campus politics where it was swept under the rug at Penn State.

Of all the adults I know, most talk tough one on one over lunch, or at the local pub, but when it comes to action, they are often afraid to act on their knowledge of justice just as McQueary did. Only Darryl Parks at 700 WLW seems to have as much conviction over the Jerry Sandusky trial as I do. I believe what Darryl says in this broadcast seen below from his Saturday show because Darryl has taken a similar stand on school levies, which exploit children to pad the pockets of public employees, and he often goes on bold crusades against wrong doers calling them out by name on the 50,000 watt flamethrower known all over the Eastern United States as the Big One. He does those things because often it’s the right thing to do, and these days very few people feel secure enough with themselves to take a stand of any kind. And this has led to the kind of evil that occurred at Penn State for a very long time where hundreds, probably thousands turned away from justice in blind servitude to the might of Penn State as an institution. Listen to what Darryl has to say on the matter.

Right now, there are children who are desperately looking for adults to emulate, to show them that becoming a man or a woman is not a cheap suit of depravity. When a child is being abused and it is well known, yet good people turn away from the situation then evil is allowed to rule and goodness has lost. It does not matter if it is a beloved sports franchise, a business, a neighbor, a boss, even a parent. If evil is allowed to rule without being challenged, then the word “good” has no meaning.

Darryl is right. Mike McQueary should have beaten the living shit out of Sandusky on the spot when the rape was occurring. McQueary should have turned Sandusky into a bag of broken bones, which he could have done. Without question McQueary probably would have lost his job, he would have been sued; he would have been castigated in the sports community and may not have found another coaching job. But he would have saved that little boy and perhaps many others over the years. He had a moral obligation to that child, and he turned away from it trusting “the system” to do the right thing for him—which of course did not happen. Everyone in “the system” chose purposely to do the wrong thing to save themselves and their careers. In the sporting world, every person that knew about Jerry Sandusky’s rape of children is guilty. And many did know, because as Darryl pointed out, nobody offered Jerry Sandusky a job after he left Penn State, because they didn’t want the baggage. Nobody will ever admit it in the light of day, but they knew which was revealed in their silence.

I’m sure Mike McQueary like many people in his position wish they could go back and do it all again. I’m sure he’s played it out in his mind thousands of times what he “should have” done, but didn’t. When people ask me why I’ve taken the positions I have, or said the things I have, or done the things I’ve done to people who have done wrong and accuse me of being extreme, and over-the-top, I would point to issues like this situation at Penn State. I will not have on my conscience the kind of torture Mike McQueary has experienced. Lucky for me, I’ve had court judges who think of these matters similar as I do, and could have put me in jail many times over, but didn’t because they recognized the situations for what they were. But that doesn’t always happen, and some of those old judges from my past are long retired and have been replaced by lifetime ambulance chasing lawyers just looking for steady work, and have very little ethics. So it is possible they might throw the book at a freedom fighter just because they can, so they don’t have to feel the guilt of their own decrepit lives by equal measure.

Right now, many reading this know of some little tyranny in their own lives that they are doing nothing about, and they are letting down the innocent with their inaction. They eat, they watch too much television, they rent too many movies in a hope to push those thoughts from their minds, but it doesn’t work—does it? No amount of alcohol or any other drug can fully push it from the mind once the imprint of a coward makes its mark. And that makes them diminished human beings incapable of running their own lives, raising children, running businesses or serving as politicians. In fact, my hatred of most politicians is over this very issue. Most of them are cowards who are seeking to redeem some little Mike McQueary moment in their lives by serving on a school board, or becoming a township trustee. But what they bring with them to the table is more of their cowardly behavior and they seek to make deals with other cowards because like minds think the same, and soon they have made victims of thousands instead of just a few leaving behind destruction and psychological mayhem in their wake. No amount of tax money stolen from the tax payers can purchase their ticket into heaven making up for the sins of their past. There isn’t enough money in all of human potential that can erase the sins of inaction once they’ve happened.

I won’t lie to you dear reader, life is much easier if you just turn away from the tortured children of the world, or avoid the punks, the losers, the dirty politicians who at every turn seek to make a new victim at the hands of their aggression. But in the act of turning away, your mind records it, and you will never forget the pieces of you that are lost by each transgression. It is not just depleted cellular growth that makes people old; it’s the pieces that fall away as we must remember all the times we’ve turned away from evil to save our own skins leaving another to perish at the hands of a monster. So personally speaking, there is much less damage in kicking the shit out the monster right then and there and letting the chips fall wherever, because the inaction will cost you more in the long run.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The West Chester Township Trustees Play the Shell Game: Meet the pinball of Beckett Ridge

Step right up—gather around—the West Chester Township Trustees of Ohio under the presidential leadership of Catherine Stoker and initiated by Lee Wong are giving away $4,690.00 to anyone who can claim they have been hit by a car at intersections like the one at the corner of Eagleridge Drive and Eaglet in the community of Beckett Ridge. If an example of why government fails time and time again at all levels requires proof, the new crosswalk which now crosses Eagleridge Drive is the perfect example. It shows how good intentions end up consuming tax payer resources because the parties involved are functioning from a failed philosophy of collectivism as opposed to individualism. In the case described below it would appear that Trustee Lee Wong colluded with a Mr. Cho to arrange before a West Chester Trustee meeting to have a crosswalk built at tax payer expense and Trustee Stoker was in agreement. The two trustees used the West Chester Township meeting simply as a formality to play out their intentions and within 19 business days the concrete was poured and the lines painted for yet another cross walk in the community of West Chester. The Township paid Jackson Construction, Inc., $4,690.00 for the job.

The problem with projects like this crosswalk is that no matter how it’s looked at from any angle, whether it is from the politicians, the residents, the taxpayers, or to eyes from outside the community the situation appears to be well justified. During the meeting where Mr. Cho made his case to the trustees, he stood before them claiming to be blind from diabetes, desiring to live a full life by being allowed to walk around his community but couldn’t because he is was getting hit by cars all the time. He claimed he could not walk on the grass to arrive at the sidewalk on the west side of Eagleridge for some unknown peril, and that even if he did attempt such a thing the cars driving up and down the road would mow him down without concern. So he asked for speed bumps or some other measure to ensure his “safety.” The suspicion of the entire speech manifested when Mr. Cho showed up late for the public comment portion of the meeting and Trustee Wong personally identified Mr. Cho. Trustee Wong and Stoker then put Trustee Lang on the spot to ask for an exception that Mr. Cho be allowed to speak, which no fair-minded person could turn down. But after Mr. Cho spoke a woman who came with him also took to the podium which according to Trustee Stoker was very unprecedented, yet she encouraged it happily as though she already knew the content of the speech—which of course she did. The woman’s name was Ms. Bentley and she has children who attend Freedom Elementary at the top of Eagleridge which is one of the Lakota Schools in the area that has suffered from the busing cuts made by that school district to cover their extraordinary salaries leaving many children walking to and from school. Ms. Bentley stated that she was worried for the safety of her children—and who can argue that?

After listening to all the comments made by Mr. Cho, Ms. Bentley and Trustee Wong it painted a picture in my mind that Mr. Cho was simply a pinball in the dangerous pinball machine of Beckett Ridge, West Chester. Every time he stepped into the street he was being run down by vigilante motorists. Trustee Wong even stated that at times Mr. Cho had been hit by cars so hard that he ended up on the hoods of the cars that ran him over. As the proceedings went on during that first meeting occurring on April 24th of 2012 it became obvious to me that Trustee Stoker knew all the facts before the meeting even started and simply used the trustee meeting to build official consensus for a project she planned to use later as a bullet point to her work as a trustee. Building a crosswalk is simply too tempting for a politician who can spend $5000 of tax payer money on a blind man like Mr. Cho. Politicians after all must appear to have compassion for members of the community, which I believe Wong and Stoker do, but for all the wrong reasons. The problem here is not the compassion; it’s the obvious attempt by Trustee Wong to use his influence as a trustee to help his friend Mr. Cho with a personal problem that is the responsibility of the private citizen.

There are many options available to Mr. Cho. The street he lives on is a quiet boulevard. He should be able to walk down it with no problem. And when it comes to crossing the perilous Eagleridge Drive I sat at that intersection on my motorcycle during rush hour and counted 7 cars in a 15 minute period. Mr. Cho volunteered to paint the lines on the road himself so he can see well enough to paint; he should be able to cross Eagleridge Drive without any trouble. But then on the other side there would be a problem for Mr. Cho. Eagleridge has a tremendous curb that rises about 4 inches and would require Mr. Cho to step up and over onto the treacherous grass extending a few feet to the sidewalk beyond. God forbid he be forced to walk in the grass, for he might slip and fall, and get a boo-boo upon his elbow. Then he might sue the township for not providing adequate safety for him every time he leaves his home.

When I drive from my home to the Tri County area which is a ten-mile stretch of road I pass no fewer than 10 traffic lights on my way. Most of those traffic lights are the result of situations just like this crosswalk issue where a minority of public speakers came forward and spoke about how dangerous a particular intersection was, then over dramatized the situation for theatrics on behalf of the politicians involved. The politicians looking for easy political points and a pile of tax payer money at their fingertips often can’t resist the temptation to capitalize on such requests and over time, these parasitic politicians have given our society an overly regulated world with stop lights, stop signs, and cross walks at virtually every turn. The situation in Butler County is so extreme that it is now impossible to travel from west to east or east to west intersecting the very long road of By-pass 4 since the engineers of that redeveloped thoroughfare have taken a page from the progressive California playbook in trying to eliminate left turns completely—to save driver side impacts from crashes. The situation is insane on By-pass 4 as a result of pandering politicians and the safety addicts who speak at these public meetings. Little by little, these timid creatures of suburbia destroy the world around them with their requests to be insulated from all danger, which the pandering politicians are more than happy to oblige so they can pat themselves on the back with money they consumed from the public treasury to paint some lines on a road, and pour a little concrete so people like Mr. Cho don’t have to walk in the grass.

The crime here is in the politicians themselves looking to use township money to show off for their neighborhood friends exploiting handicaps so that they can be heroes at the expense of the unfortunate. The deal with Mr. Cho had already been worked out by Mr. Wong and Stoker before the trustee meeting even took place. The speech at the meeting was just the formality of building public consensus. The same behavior goes on in school board meetings where the decisions are already made by the board before the meetings ever take place. The public meetings are only designed to give the illusion of public transparency. That’s what is called in Washington politics a “back room deal.” And nobody ever questions it because it would be political suicide to draw attention to a blind man who simply wants the “freedom” to walk about his community and is just asking the local politicians to help him. But that’s not what is going on. Not only was the political process compromised in the creation of the crosswalk at the corner of Eagleridge and Eaglet by pandering to the few at the expense of the many, but the message to the community itself is wrong. Yet again a few, weak and feeble individuals have been allowed to dictate the shape and pace of our community, using compassion to disguise narcissism. Politicians use the weak and feeble to advance their social status with tax money to do the deed. In government, nothing happens as fast as this crosswalk did. The speed is the indicator that it was Trustee Wong and Trustee Stoker who desired to exploit Mr. Cho so that they could score political points not just with the community at large, but with themselves. Building the crosswalk to them is just the form of social justice that may open the gates of heaven using $5000 of tax payer money to purchase the ticket—and that is why the newest crosswalk in the community of Becket Ridge is one more example of tyranny migrating like a blob across the individual lives of West Chester citizens everywhere who surrendered a subtle freedom they didn’t even know they had till it has been erased forever.

Oh—and for those reading this who think this is like the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing, let me direct your attention to one final fact that reveals the strings of manipulation and who pulls them–the request by Mr. Wong for the crosswalk at Eagleridge and Eaglet in front of the West Chester Trustees took place on April 24th as stated. Yet six weeks prior there was communication with Greg Wilkens of the Butler Country Engineer’s office which said:

Greg, Thank you for the returned call re: crosswalk at Eaglet and Eagleridge, I understand the situation.

I asked Tim Franck to contact Matt and see what a crosswalk would look like with all its approach requirements and about how much it would cost. I know your staff is so busy so I hope you don’t mind me asking. If Matt can’t, no problem, please just let me know.

I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but we took a long weekend and we are down in Clearwater, FL.

That communication was written by Judi Boyko West Chester Township Administrator. Here is the actual email, just so it cannot be said that what has been stated is a fiction.

Now, with what you have seen here, go back and watch the collection of videos above so you can listen to the West Chester Trustees for yourself. Notice how Trustee Wong uses the standard progressive mode of class warfare when he can’t answer Trustee Lang’s questions. Anyone who lives outside of West Chester would find it absolutely laughable that Wong would even attempt to describe Beckett Ridge as a community of less economic statues. But, these are the standard progressive arguments no matter what the situation, and the facts speak for themselves.

Mr. Cho in the end got his crosswalk. The cement was dry before the final meeting was concluded. It is my opinion that all the trustees were extremely nice about the entire ordeal, especially Trustee Lang. I can’t say I would have been so sympathetic. My suggestion to Mr. Cho, the self-professed pinball of the treacherous Beckett Ridge pinball machine would have been to wrap him in bubble wrap for his own protection so he could bounce off all those cars without causing injury to himself, or the cars.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

What Mitt Romney Should Do in Cincinnati: Visit the “Grand Ole Pub”

Members of Mitt Romney’s team were out ahead of the his visit to Cincinnati looking for spots to present his platform to Southern Ohio voters. They wisely stopped by the Grand Ole Pub in West Chester, Ohio checking that wonderful establishment as a possible stop on the Romney campaign trail. I heard this while dining with friends for lunch at the Grand Ole Pub and admired that it showed some real understanding of West Chester politics from the Romeny team. For those who don’t know about the Grand Ole Pub, here is their website.

http://www.grandolepub.com/

So a note to team Romney, if your schedule doesn’t allow for a trip to the Grand Ole Pub on this most recent June trip, you will want to make a visit there on an upcoming stop in Ohio. It is well known throughout the entire country that the south eastern corner of Butler County is one of the most conservative and constitutionally hungry voting districts in the entire nation and the Grand Ole Pub is one of the favorite dining establishments of the two major Cincinnati Tea Party groups that are only seperated by 5 miles.

If Mitt Romney wants to touch the pulse of Southern Ohio politics, he must stop by the Grand Ole Pub. His potential voters love the Grand Ole Pub and he will too!

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Teacher’s Threaten to Strike in Chicago: The big labor union show with a puppet mayor

Does anyone remember when President Obama told America right after his election in 2008 that The United States had a lot to learn from Europe, and that we should strive to be more like them as a nation? Now, as Spain is begging for a financial bailout, Greece is locked in a civil war in the it’s streets between the communists and Nazi parties, France is collapsing under it’s newly elected socialist president and Italy is failing especially in their economy and is not far behind Spain. When President Obama pointed at Europe and stated that The United States should be more like them, he was saying that it was socialism that America needed to emulate, and within four years of open socialism from the start of Obama’s presidency to the end of it, Europe is collapsing under economic failures directly created by the small little book called The Communist Manifesto. Those who followed the economic policies of Karl Marx have led their nations to financial ruin.

In America, thankfully not quite too late, some are beginning to see the socialist tendencies being taught in our schools and openly advocated by our government. Some in the Tea Party movements and other liberty groups are beginning to fight back in an attempt to save the capitalism that built America from the encroachment of communism. Most notably, the recall election in Wisconsin to remove Scott Walker as governor was the grand attempt by socialist labor unions to maintain their grip on economic power and dedication to expand socialism to every corner of the world.

Yet in the city of Chicago, President Obama’s favorite city, it is socialism that rules still as the teachers union for the Chicago Public School system voted by a margin of more than 75% of it’s members to impose a potential strike in mid-August 2012 if the CPS management cannot come to contract terms with the Chicago Teacher’s Union which expires on June 30th 2012. You can read the announcement of this strike at the website of Progress Illinois seen below, which is Illinois version of Progress Ohio. (Special note, all such “progress” groups are essentially socialist/communist advocates. They use the name “progress” to hide their real intentions, which is to follow the path of Europe. So beware of them all. They are anti-capitalist—and therefore anti-American.)

http://progressillinois.com/posts/content/2012/06/11/whats-next-after-ctu-strike-authorization-vote

It is clear in this proposed Chicago teachers strike why the unions are against voucher schools and privately run schools, because under capitalism, if free enterprise were involved in education, the government schools would not be able to maintain a monopoly and tactics like these massive teacher strikes would not work, because parents would have options in case their children’s school teachers did strike.

The issues that the CTU wish to strike over are of course wages. Currently, the average wage rate for CTU teachers is $69,000 and under the new contract the CTU wants a 29% increase over that amount. Another stipulation is the teachers of the CTU are upset that the teacher work day will increase by ten percent from 420 minutes to 460 minutes a day. At 460 minutes of contracted work, that comes out to a work day of 7.6 hours. The audacity of such expectations is that those CTU employees are so incredibly out of touch from what the average American is experiencing that they don’t see that such an expectation is ridiculously foolish. The CTU employees are suffering from the same inflated viewpoint that citizens in Europe expect which is bankrupting the entire Euro zone.

The first thing any rational person would ask when listening to the CTU demands is how on earth could they expect in this day and age to succeed with this insane, and unprecedented strike attempt. Well, the answer is in whom the mayor of Chicago is, the former White House Obama heel licker Rahm Emanuel, who at his heart is a big time progressive, pro union advocate. The union leaders of the CTU would like the public to believe they are locked in a mortal battle with the Mayor Emanuel, but I will declare this—that the whole thing is a political stunt and the Mayor is in on the act.

Emanuel and the labor leaders of the CTU plan to allow the threat of a strike to percolate and gain media attention during the summer of 2012, and at the last-minute, Emanuel and the union leaders will strike a deal, and both parties will declare victory over the charade imposed upon the tax payers of Chicago. Their combined hopes, along with the White House are that unions all over America will use Chicago as an example of strength and follow with the same type of strike attempts in every city in the nation. The unions desire a victory after the paralyzing loss in Wisconsin so they are staging one in Chicago with the progressive Mayor Emanuel to prove that the extortion attempts of old still work, before the unions lose all their members due to ineffectiveness.

The goal for all involved is not to bring relief to the tax payers of Chicago or even to help one single child, but to spread the socialism which is crushing Europe all over America. The unions realize that they must move fast, or they will be completely out of power within a few years, so they need to radicalize their base with a victory in Chicago, which Rahm Emanuel is poised to give them.

The fight in Chicago is nothing more than a WWF wrestling match. The victors are already determined, and are simply staging a fight on behalf of the American people. The staged fight is designed to breathe life into unions bent over with defeat as tax payers everywhere are beginning to fight back. Progressive know that if they don’t rally their troops now, it will be over for them in America very soon, because Europe is failing miserably under socialism/communism and the dream of a communist worldwide utopia so fantasized by the political left for so many years is quickly evaporating like a puddle of water on a sidewalk in Columbia, South America. It is communism that these progressives on both sides of the Chicago labor dispute desire, only they won’t tell the taxpayers that. What they show is a mayor who must come to the negotiating table with the CTU, forced there by the threat of a strike, to negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement and preserve the union way of life into the future. Their attempt is as futile as the fools of Europe marching in the streets and setting police officers on fire to protest free government support for their lazy, unproductive lives. And such a description is the antithesis of your local school teacher who complains that $69,000 a year is not enough money for only working 7.8 hours a day.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

No Lakota Tax Levy in 2012: The Channel 19 Interview

Cory Stark from Channel 19 came to see me for what will most likely be my last interview over the Lakota school system for quite some time. Lakota has agreed not to put a levy on the ballot in 2012 so I gave Cory my final thoughts on the matter. Click to see the article and video interview.

http://www.fox19.com/story/18770790/no-levy-on-the-november-ballot-for-lakota

Now I am free to help other districts defeat their school levies.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

No Levy for Lakota in 2012: Rich Hoffman agrees with the Lakota School Board?

For the first time in over a year, I agree with the Lakota School Board. They should not put a levy on the ballot this November for the 2012 election. At this time, the current board president Ben Dibble is giving indications that they will not pursue a levy request on the fall ballot. This is a good thing in that it respects the wishes of the voters in the last three elections, and recognizes the economic conditions of the community. To put the community through another dog fight in a year when weary home buyers might not wish to purchase a home in the Lakota district because our campaign fight has been on the radio and in the papers both locally and nationally each week would not be wise.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/06/07/enquirer-exclusive-report-lakota-levy-is-very-unlikely/

It was nearly a year ago when I attended a school board meeting and everyone was getting along for the first time in a long time. I spoke openly with several members of the board, and key administrators prior to their last levy attempt. Lakota seemed to be on the mend, and a new superintendent was coming to help balance the budget.

When Superintendent Mantia came from Pickerington, she sat down with me and the members of No Lakota Levy and attempted to tell us what we wanted to hear, which kept the peace for a few weeks. But behind the scenes, there was scheming going on, which of course got back to me. Another election came and the proposed tax increase was defeated by over 18,000 votes. Some of the credit for that loss could certainly be given to those of us who brought information to the public about how ridiculous much of the current Lakota spending was. But much of the loss can be attributed to the declining housing market. Residents used to be generous with levy increases because the values of their homes were well outpacing the taxes. Now that taxes are high, and prices are falling, people don’t have the extra money to throw away at a public school, and many businesses are barely hanging on by a thread. A tax increase just might do many of them in, with an economic climate that by all indications in hindsight will be called a great depression.

After that November 2011 defeat a small band of pro levy supporters decided they were going to get me back for “hurting” their children’s lives by denying more tax money to the school. The belief was that if No Lakota Levy could be talked out of working with me, the tax opposition would be removed. What these agents of seduction did not know was that it was the members of No Lakota Levy who approached me after I did my own independent work in fighting the levy in the spring of 2010 to join forces and help them. My behavior was the same as it had always been, I brought my supporters with me and expanded their efforts. When Superintendent Mantia and other board members attempted to befriend members of No Lakota Levy who they assumed were the leaders, they left me out of those conversation because they rationalized that I was just the radical “hired” lobbyist that could be fired if the leaders of No Lakota Levy could be convinced.

While this politicking was going on behind closed doors, and through emails and phone calls, several of the radical pro levy supporters still upset at me due to the November 2011 election began a smear campaign against me, some of them going to the Kroger Store on Cincinnati-Dayton road during Saturdays in February and conducting a survey against my name, attempting to slander me publicly in the doorway as people went into the store. Some of my anti-levy friends were giving me word that this was going on publicly and within the school itself and that Mantia was stoking the fires personally. Politically I could see why she would do such a thing. After all, she was paid a quarter of a million dollars a year to come to Lakota from Pickerington to pass a school levy and I was her primary opposition. So she figured that by removing my credibility through constant attacks, and trying to divide and conquer my friends in the No Lakota Levy, that she could remove the tax opposition since she knew that many of the property owners in No Lakota Levy were very concerned about another public battle over a levy.

Seeing all this going on, and hearing the kinds of things that were being said infuriated me and I went on my now famous rant which I fully intended to weed out the instigators who were causing me so much trouble. I had my suspicions, but I had to know for sure who was responsible for what in the smear campaign against me and how they all connected. Sure enough, after I put up a tempting post here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom it was Julie Schafer the Vice President of the Lakota School Board and my political rival over the tax increases who posted my comments on her Facebook page to enrage the fires, as predicted. Behind the scenes the superintendent solicited community support from big time liberals like West Chester Trustee Cathy Stoker in an attempt to bring down the wrath of the community on me. But in essence it was only about 70 to 80 hard core levy supporters and they had come out by name in their online comments in the Enquirer and Facebook pages giving me the information I needed to use in the next levy fight.

Predictably, my friends in the No Lakota Levy wanted political distance from me, because for years they had been victims of threatened boycotts from those same 70-80 hard core levy supporters who profess to speak for over 100,000 Lakota school district residents. The backlash in the media was considerable and conventional politics would have dictated that I was finished. If I had a conventional life, I might have lost my job, my family, even my nerve with the offensive that the pro levy group at Lakota attempted. But I do not have a conventional life, and my reputation is so well known and respected that my core supporters never wavered from me for a second. The desired hope was that by removing me from No Lakota Levy the websites I ran would all be shut down, and I would drift off into obscurity. What the levy supporters did not know was that my support base had only increased as a result of their actions, not decreased. In the chess game of politics, you might call that a “checkmate.” I’ve played a lot of chess, so most of these moves were planned way back in August of 2011, anticipating the move of the opposition, even baiting them to make the moves desired. Sometimes it’s one thing to consider the strategic options, it’s another to actually see them do it, and once they did, it did infuriate me into a rage that I still feel.

It is sad that the whole ordeal must be looked upon as a game of winning and losing. Sadly, the losers of this game have managed to punish the parents of the district with extremely high fees for extracurricular activities and busing costs which should all be included with the high taxes we already pay. Ben is right that the budget from the state is not yet set, so there are unknowns. And it’s difficult to tell how much more homes in the Lakota district will lose in further value as a result of the economic conditions. Finally, some Lakota administrators are starting to learn that they can save tremendous amounts of money by combining jobs. This summer there are two assistant superintendents who are retiring, and Lakota is only planning to replace one, which will save a six figure salary, which is significant. If they did that 10 more times to 10 other positions they would save a million dollars. If they did it 20 times, they would save 2 million dollars, then Lakota could afford to have busing, free sports and many other things just by asking the employees to do more, which is quite appropriate under the conditions.

But ultimately, not putting a levy on the ballot in 2012 prevents me from unleashing the mountain of bad PR I am holding to unleash during the next levy attempt. I have not done it yet because I don’t want to scare away potential home buyers. But I also don’t want to see a levy increase ruin community businesses and push people out of their homes. For those in the Lakota district who brag about their $5,500 property tax bill each year and their ability to pay it, they do not understand that $20 or $30 extra in monthly taxes will end many property owners mortgages, because many don’t have the extra money to pay higher taxes due to many economic factors.

The people who have written to me, and campaigned against me who do brag about their ability to pay $5,500 tax bills are typically young. They typically have young children and have been fortunate enough to have good jobs that pay salaries which enable them to have a lifestyle that disregards such a high tax. Since they are young parents they are chemically induced to give “everything” to their children without question, so their decision making skills are greatly lacking and they have a lot of growing up to do. For the rest of us in Lakota, the “old timers” the people who have raised children and understand the costs, and appreciate the value of things, we know that a higher tax will destroy our community, so we are opposed. We also know that circumstances do change in the course of a long life, and many of those $5,500 property tax payers will lose their jobs within the decade and will find they are not so well positioned in the future to pay such a high tax. The radicals of further taxation do not have a blank check to attack those of us with logic. They cannot dish out such aggressive advances without expecting to be attacked back. That is simply not how the game is played. Most of the people I know who have been around for a while think such well paid young parents are fools because they are tossing their money away cheaply, without consideration, and we know there will come a time within the next couple of decades that they will pay dearly for their lack of vision. Such people will not be allowed to destroy our community with their short-sightedness.

But I am personally glad that at least Ben sees the logic of the situation, and it is my hope that the school board will finally begin to manage the money we give them, and not put the community through another bloody levy battle, because there are homes that need to be sold, and leases that need to be signed. Lakota just graduated a lot of students, and there are not more students coming in behind those, so Lakota is looking at a whole decade of declining enrollment and the layoff of hundreds of future employees. A new tax will not be needed for many, many years. Hopefully, the school board will now listen to the 18,000 who voted against the last levy attempt and not the 80 crazy radicals who make a lot of noise, but not much sense. Because the fate of our community will be determined by what happens in 2012 and 2013, and a tax increase would send our district into the category of Princeton, and Evandale, instead of Indian Hill. The choice is always structured around tax rates, because that is the blood of an economy. And it takes leadership to see that blood flow, and be willing to do the hard things to preserve the future with the least restriction to the economy as possible.

There is of course more to the story, which will be revealed soon. But for now, there may be a small period of peace before Lakota seeks again to ask for higher taxes in the form of a levy. If Lakota does good things, I’m happy to report those here as well as the bad things. But Lakota has to give me good things to report, like turning two six figure salary positions into one, to help balance the budget as they did with the assistant superintendent positions. So we’ll see what the future holds, but it’s a good start to hear Lakota talking about managing the money they already have instead of trying to solve their management problems with higher taxes.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Mt. Healthy’s Class of 2012: Punishing parents for loving their children

When a Mt. Healthy star football player recently graduated his family cheered extensively, according to the Mt. Healthy superintendent. The young man’s family cheered so much that the ceremony was held up by the superintendent untill the cheering stopped. You can see in the clip below how the superintendent purposely stopped the next name from being read off till the arena was once again silent as she had instructed prior to the graduation ceremony. The Mt. Healthy superintendent was working from a political agenda that is spreading across the country in 2012 and the threat of keeping the student’s graduation certification for not following the school rules is not an isolated case in Mt Healthy, Ohio. The superintendent could have allowed the next name to be read, and everyone would have heard, but she purposely stopped the ceremony so she could enforce the nationwide agenda circulating around Department of Education under the leadership of Emperor Obama.

The school for that small display of fanfare from the graduating student’s family felt it had the community authority to enforce twenty hours of community service for not following the school rules. The superintendent of Mt. Healthy and her staff are of course insane in their beliefs, and way out of line. The school even if they did have students sign a document before the ceremony taking responsibility for any outlandish behavior do not have the right to enforce such a measure. The school of Mt. Healthy has forgotten that they are but employees of the parents and students, not a governmental ENFORCER of bureaucratic policies! The effort of the Mt. Healthy superintendent is further proof that public schools are progressive institutions intent on destroying individuality with subtle messages of communism. The Mt. Healthy school district has no authority to force the young graduate or his family to perform any community service as reported by Channel 9 News, yet they did anyway and audaciously proclaimed themselves judge, jury, and executioner.

This behavior exhibits how far reaching public schools see their roles in the modern family, and the intention is to prevent exhibitions of this kind that highlight the efforts of individuals. All the students as mandated by the Obama Department of Education are to be treated equally whether they are black or white, boys or girls, tall or short, skinny or fat, straight or gay, fast or slow, all sounds wonderful taken at face value. But the real intention is not “equality” and “fairness,” but rather selling collectivism by stamping out individuals by discouraging solitary endeavors. This is the same policy that allows progressive politicians to use the so-called “civil rights” movement or “war on woman” to manipulate mass groups of voting blocs to achieve communist aims that are revealed behind the proclamations if looked upon closely. Individual praise is frowned upon in these crusades. It is only sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the collective that they highlight for the good of the masses.

The message sent to the Class of 2012 at Mt. Healthy is not fairness for the next student to be called after all the cheering, but to let every member of the arena know that individual Excepetionalism will not be tolerated. I listened to the Mt. Healthy superintendent give a few interviews defending her position, and the reporters of course pandered to her crimes, but attempting to sell the far-reaching authority of the Mt. Healthy school district on behalf of fairness and maintaining order for future graduations is rather pathetic. This action by the school district of Mt. Healthy is simply a disguise for the real intention, destruction of individual endeavor. At the Mt. Healthy graduation ceremony cheers for the collective Class of 2012 was acceptable. Cheers for individuals as regulated by the Gestapo superintendent of Mt. Healthy are not.

This trend in public education advocated by the teachers and administrators, many of whom function under socialist leaning philosophy to begin with, is to show that individualism is to be scorned, and collectivism embraced. The message that no one child is special is the common mantra of our day–it is the essence of public education. Educators are less concerned about math scores and knowledge of history. Their primary concern is to make sure that students do not believe they are special in any way unless they play a sport that unites the pride of the school in the community. Individuals are not embraced unless they serve the collective institution. Public education through their government monopoly status and big labor unions are pursuing progressive policies at the cost of the local tax payers. In Mt. Healthy the superintendent there attempted to obtain a tax increase the day after a recent failure by sending a message to the community that they will continue to see tax increases bi-annually forever unless they break down and approve the tax hike. School districts like Mt. Healthy behave like this because they do not view individual families as sacred, but simply as part of the collective blob that makes up their district. So they see no reason why everyone should not support their efforts with tax increases as it is the school district that sets the law in communities. That’s why the Mt. Healthy superintendent thinks she has a right to enforce “community service” on the parents of a graduate if the student doesn’t wish to do it.

Tax payers were always told that if they loved their child, they’d vote for a school levy, because public education is essential to creating a well rounded adult. But what we we’re learning is that public education is truly a process of destroying individual identities so that adults will cast away any notions they may have of growing up uniquely. For the proof and a very audacious example of this public education strategy listen to this administrator tell his class of 2012 that the students in the ceremony are “not special” but are in fact much the same. If you take the time to watch through the first couple of minutes you’ll hear this educrat profess that there is a reason all the student’s caps and gowns make them all uniform—because the intent is for them all to be seen collectively, not individually.

The push for collectivism comes from governments desire to live. So long as society is made up of a collective whole, and not a bunch of free thinking individuals, school teachers, tax auditors, and Washington educrats will have jobs serving the collective blob of people lacking individual identity. Individuals who can do for themselves may find they have no use for government, or the silly socialist schools of public education. Government workers at all levels find themselves promoting collectivism instead of the American principles of individualism because that’s the only way they can keep their very lucrative jobs under the monopoly of government schools, is by keeping people from asking any questions and blindly following orders no matter how ridiculous.

The situation in Mt. Healthy is not the only one of its kind, but it deserves special notice, as the parents of the popular student have refused to do the “community service” demanded by the school. The school revealed too much of their real intentions at the graduation ceremony for the Mt. Healthy Class of 2012. And thank goodness they did, so tax payers can really see what they are paying for. Public schools no matter what the community are teaching open socialism with tax payer dollars, and they will continue to do so until communities demand to put a stop to it. These teaching methods come from the Federal Department of Education, so are not alone the work of the Mt Healthy superintendent. But the responsibility to refuse unjust mandates does fall on the individual families who find themselves attacked by these government schools as they attempt to hold the diploma hostage from students in order to force social change upon the community. This tactic by the superintendent at Mt. Healthy is no different than creating pay-for-play sports to push for levy increases, or cutting busing to punish parents for failing a school levy. Or teachers who march on their school boards with threats of strikes to drive up their wage costs. This time, it is the superintendent who seeks to carry out the Obama platform of progressive education which if given the proper name would be called red communism in full bloom. Communism is all about destroying the individual in favor of the collective, and this is what is going on at graduations all over The United States in 2012. And it will continue until communities stop taking it, and decide to push back, like the parents of the student in Mt. Healthy have done. It is parents like those that make America the greatest country on earth. The rest of the world would take the punishment without question, but not in America. And not in Mt. Healthy. As long as parents like that produce children like that star football player, America will be just fine—and the socialism that the schools intend will perish, one school at a time by simply saying “NO” to the authority of the school, “NO” to the mandates from the DOE, and “NO” to more tax increases which promise to bring more of this behavior with more socialist teachers and their ideologies of individual destruction.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota Mismanages Taxpayer Money: The reason behind pay-for-play sports

Listen to this teacher from Wisconsin in the clip below right before the recall election of Governor Scott Walker. It is these kinds of public employees that have driven up the cost of education at every school in the United States and is what they more often than not seek to teach our youth.

It is those kinds of employees who have created a situation in my home school district of Lakota that are devastating for the parents sending their children to the school. At Lakota over $160 million dollars of tax payer money is already allocated toward educating the students of the community, however, according to the teachers union, that’s not enough. The average wage per employee at Lakota is $63K per year and makes up approximately 80% of the total budget. Yet the Lakota School Board along with superintendent Mantia has said that they don’t have enough money, so they seek to twist the arm of the tax payers in a hope to pass a school levy. They do so at Lakota by cutting busing for students, and have been charging to participate in sports programs. This has enraged many in the community who expect participation in sports to be part of the public education experience. The fees at Lakota during the school year of 2012 will be the highest in the State of Ohio at $550 per student per sport with no cap for families. You can read in more detail the article from the Cincinnati Enquirer about this issue in case you missed it.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/06/01/the-price-of-pay-to-play-lakota-to-have-highest-fees-in-region-next-school-year/

I have spoke with many parents in Lakota, many of them upset that the cost of passing a school levy for them individually is far less than paying $550 per sport for their child. If the parents have 2 children in school and each of them play two sports, that particular family is out over $2000 a year, so they have said to me that they will vote in favor of a school levy so they can save money, even though they don’t agree with the politics.

I have told these parents that the system is rigged this way by the OSBA to push school boards like the one at Lakota to place the financial pain back on the parents so that union contracts can be satisfied without interruption. I told them that if they allow themselves to vote yes for a school levy because they want to save the $2000 in fees, then they are simply tools of organized labor.

The cause of the school fees is not lack of money; it is mismanagement of the money given to the districts by the tax payers. Cutting sports is proportional to the cuts of busing in that sports costs are somewhere between 1% and 2% of the total budget. When a school board cuts their support of funding sports, they do so in order to cover the expense of heavily padded labor contracts, and they hope the imposition on parents will force tax increases on the community to cover the labor demands.

In Southwest Ohio 82 percent of the 49 school districts are charging pay-to-play fees for high school sports yet just across the river in Kentucky such fees are rare. The strategy is designed by the Ohio School Board Association to extort money through financial hardship to force tax increases. In Kentucky union membership is not required, but in Ohio it is. Public schools in Ohio are a closed shop, and this forces labor costs up through collective bargaining who seeks to gobble up all the tax dollars for their union interests. This leaves no money left for sports, leaving children struggling to pay for their fees. It’s a dirty trick organized by teacher unions to manipulate taxpayers, and it’s rather disgusting.

The public sector unions at their heart are socialist organizations intent on open communism. That is why so many of the radical teachers who advocate leftist policies are drawn to big labor public sector jobs, because it keeps them out of competitive work environments which is the only place that communism works– in theory—in the minds of the extreme liberal, in their utmost fantasies. Communism in real life does not work, and it never works—and that is what the cause of the sports fees are. Parents are forced to accept small bits of communism from radical teachers because they don’t want to pay the extraordinary fees to play sports. The extortion tactic forces upon the family trying to give their children the best of everything, higher taxes that go on forever, so to avoid the school fees they must accept the taxes. It’s a dishonest practice that should be viewed with the same anger that the theft by a common criminal is viewed, because the intentions are the same—theft, extortion, and coercion through financial torture. What else is it?

Personally, I do not want to pay for teachers who think the way that educators shown in the video above think. I would seek to terminate their employment from my district because they are just creating trouble for our nation to solve later with incorrectly educated students. Many political looters speak of the need for education, but they always leave out the most important part of education, and that is getting a “quality” education. A district that does not manage the extraordinary taxes that the Lakota district already pays is yielding to the radicals of the unions at the expense of parents and children. School boards are not in pursuit of quality, but simply a lottery ticket of hope that if the district pays for a teacher that they are going to get the desired results. Most often, they do not. All too often the money buys a left-winged radical intent on bringing communism to the minds of our children and teaching them failed economic policies, and that is not acceptable.

The proper reaction to the extortion measure of school fees is to force the district to pay the money where the district desires it. If the voters wish for their money to be spent on busing, then the school board should do that. If the desire of voters is to have their money spent on sports, then the school board has an obligation to do so. But what has happened at Lakota, and 82% of all schools in Southern Ohio is they take direction from the OSBA to protect the labor contracts of teachers with gold plated benefits that the tax payers do not enjoy themselves, and that is why the children and their families are made to suffer. There is no other reason, and the public reaction to these extortion methods are the task of our day to define for generations to come. Appeasement today only leads to tyranny tomorrow, and for the parents who would rather pay the tax than the fee, that is exactly what they are choosing, which their children are watching—and learning.

The solution is not to yield and allow the mismanagement to occur, because it does not solve the problem. Letting it go, only delays the problem for some future time for a future family, which is how we arrived at this situation in the first place.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Cliffhanger Ranch and the Wonders of Capitalism: McDonalds in the Appalachian Mountains

The American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day in Coeburn, Virginia is an annual event that takes place in the heart of Wise County. It’s in this location that a good friend of mine is building the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost on the front door of the Jefferson National Forest heavily used by equestrians all over the eastern United States. The designated weekend set for this celebration of outdoor endeavors was June 1st through the 3rd 2012 and I was invited to come and perform several bullwhip shows for the groups of horse riders, mountain bikers, hikers, kayakers and many others who found their way to the ranch as an oasis of adventure.

It was a pleasure to attend this event. While doing shows in remote places like the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost there is always a real opportunity to witness life the way America was always intended. The people who participate in events like The American Hiking Society National Trails Day are typically those who appreciate the kind of adventure the outdoors brings, and it’s refreshing to speak with such people. For my wife and I the trip to the Ranch was a wonderful experience as it took us through the heart of America in the land of Appalachia.

From Cincinnati the best way to get to the remote portion of Virginia that houses the Cliffhanger Ranch is the Mountain Parkway through Eastern Kentucky. My wife and I stopped at a McDonalds on the journey through Stanton, the gateway town to the Daniel Boone National Forest. The next area just to the south is the Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge locations. Everything south of that is a no man’s land for many in America. The locals know well about the majestic magic of the town Jackson nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains about 25 miles south of the Red River Gorge area on Rt. 15. Then of course further south near the Kentucky/Virginia border is the historic town of Hazard.

It had been several years since I had been south of Red River Gorge so I warned my wife that she should enjoy this particular McDonalds, since I wasn’t sure if Jackson, or Hazard would have such places to eat. Those towns are about as remote as anywhere on earth with only towns in Alaska and the upper states of America comparing. In small towns like Stanton the philosophy of America is alive and well. Washington politics seems like a remote concern. Three firefighters ate next to us at McDonalds and I noticed their t-shirts did not have the typical AFL-CIO emblem on them. In towns like Stanton, Jackson, and Hazard the meaning of volunteerism is alive and well. These towns in the south do not like unions and the corrosive, mob like behavior of big city outsiders and their big government ideas connected to labor unions. The inhabitants along the Mountain Parkway are ruggedly independent and damn proud of it. Yet, they are also friendly to one another. When I hear labor unions in the north claim that the world would fall apart if not for their labor union membership, those advocates have not traveled in the south, which is home to most of the country’s right-to-work states.

On the way through Jackson there was a pretty serious accident. A pick-up truck had flipped over on its side in the middle of an intersection, the driver was seriously injured. On the scene were a couple of police cars, and the fire department, only the firefighters were obviously volunteers. Some of the firefighters directing traffic around the accident were dressed in the cloths of their professions, and had shown up because they were on call. The driver was being cut out of the car as we drove by and I noticed that all the emergency personal at the scene seemed to be very competent and were very composed functioning without panic. I saw a similar scene further south where there was another accident on Rt. 15 which is great road, but very dangerous if drivers aren’t paying attention as it winds through the Appalachian Mountains. Again there were many plain clothes emergency personal on the scene, a lack of union identification, and a genuine lack of panic. If the same accident had occurred in the northern states, the police and firefighters would make a much more audacious show of their emergency care. Compared to the same type of personnel in the mountains of Kentucky the public workers in the north are much more neurotic, and panic driven, since they tend to dramatize their heroics to drive home their “social” importance in order to pass tax levies.

As my wife and I pulled into the town of Coeburn, Virginia I was impressed to have passed at least three Wal-Mart’s from Stanton to the Cliffhanger Ranch and at least four McDonalds, which really surprised me. I tried to imagine executives at McDonalds planning to build restaurants in remote towns like Jefferson and Hazard, Kentucky far away from highway access. The miracles of capitalism become apparent in such places. I have often marveled at how many McDonalds restaurants exist along highway I-75 from Detroit to Miami, Florida and that by itself is a magnificent achievement on behalf of capitalism. Only capitalism allows such a convenience. An overabundance of McDonald’s restaurants will not be seen anywhere in China or in Siberia, Russia. Only in America can such things happen, because it is capitalism that made it so.

As my wife and I paused a couple of times to enjoy a sausage and egg McMuffin and enjoy the mountain air at several of these restaurants just for the pleasure of stopping, I suddenly felt a bit silly for being concerned that Stanton would be the last sign of such convenience for over 150 miles. When I was a kid and visited the site near Hazard, Kentucky where my grandma and grandpa grew up deep in the heart of moonshine country, gas and food was hard to get unless you killed it yourself. Now, there was a lot of new construction along Rt. 15 south of Mountain Parkway and there was no shortage of McDonalds restaurants. Since 1961 McDonalds has more than 12,804 locations and they open a new store every four hours. It is because of capitalism that remote places like Jackson and Hazard have the smell of coffee and hash browns waltzing with the misty aroma of mountain air early on a weekend morning as old men sit with their friends and read the paper, and traveling families relish the menu of their home towns with a familiarity that is refreshing and more than satisfying to their minds than the hunger of their stomachs. It is McDonalds that joins everyone under the umbrella of capitalism.

The will of capitalism and of mankind in general can be seen in full glory in that wonderful drive from Stanton to the Cliffhanger Ranch. Where human beings wished to build a Wal-Mart, if a mountain was in the way, they simply blasted through the mountainside. If mankind wished to put a road through a mountain, they simply removed the mountain. In Southern Kentucky, mankind had decided that it was not subservient to the power of earthquakes which made the mountains in the first place along the fault lines of geologic plates. Man had proclaimed itself as powerful as any force on earth by moving and shaping mountains in a more organized fashion than the chaos of Mother Nature and her temperamental neurosis.

And this is the beauty of places like the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost. My friend is offering a permanent facility that preserves the ruggedness of nature and individual adventurers the ability to enjoy it. That is the responsibility of capitalism, to capture and preserve such places so they will not disappear. But it is also the responsibility of capitalism to build McDonalds in every corner of the globe if possible so the quality of life can be improved for all. Families instead of spending half the morning preparing for a large breakfast can now do more with their time since McDonalds has made it easy to get quick food while on the run, or just providing a wonderful gathering place for locals to stay in touch with each other. And when outdoorsman wish to get away and listen to the locusts singing their summer songs in the heat of an afternoon, it is the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost that is there for the weary adventurer looking to enjoy the cold water of a river from their kayak, or the mastery over a majestic animal while horseback riding through the Jefferson National Forest. At the end of the day at the Cliffhanger Ranch high atop a hill looking down into the National Forest as a raging bon fire threw its heat to the night sky it was capitalism that made it all possible. Because these days, as opposed to only 30 years ago, such remote places are accessible to be enjoyed without giving up the benefits of productive human life.

Just a few miles from the location of that raging bon fire was a Pizza Hut, a Long John Silver’s, many gas stations, and the Lonesome Pine Raceway hosting races on Saturday night. In town the cars could be seen on their trailers heading to the track and it was capitalism that made it all possible, the cars, the restaurants, and the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost. Those combinations are wonderful reminders of what America the beautiful really means. It’s not just the mountains, the forests, or the horses carrying their riders on glorious weekend adventures that make America the subject of song and jealous hatred the world over. It is capitalism that makes it all possible, and is why the rest of the world cannot enjoy these combinations, as it is in capitalism that the adventures of mankind’s mind can thrive and preserve the world not as mother nature handed it to the human being in her random, manic depressed state, but that the human being can carve the world into the image of their wildest imaginations.

The Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost is the most recent endeavor in that far-flung part of the world to capture the great outdoors while still embracing the wonders of capitalism so that youth and families all over the Eastern United States will not forget the pioneering spirit that began to carve Virginia into the land of adventure that it is today. It is not intended to hang on to the past by stopping the future as most environmentalists attempt to do, but to serve as a reminder of who we are, and how we got here, as McDonalds and the miracles of capitalism continue to expand the human imagination into uncharted territory of a future that is coming at mankind with treasures not yet discovered.

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

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