Matt Clark from WAAM radio interviewed Mike Maharrey from the Tenth Amendment Center (http://tenthamendmentcenter.com) to talk about his group’s work and ensuring the Constitution is followed. Mike talks about states nullifying the NDAA, health care exchanges, drone usage, and more.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
In the April 21st edition of Today’s Pulse Butler County a cheerleading student from my home district of Lakota took issue with my dialogue of resistance against the lecherous tendency of the public school to raise taxes ahead of an upcoming teacher contract in 2014. The school district has attempted every progressive political trick known to mankind over the last two years and is hungry to pay for their lack of contractual management with further impositions on local property owners. Since I have been the most outspoken opponent to tax increases in my home district, I am of course the target of their strategies. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.
I have covered all the who, what, why, when, and where’s of education funding at this site in great detail, and it is now obvious that education is not about teaching children values, intelligence, critical thinking, and life skills centered on self-reliance, so I won’t continue to repeat the same material as the behavior has not changed in lieu of the presented facts. Rather, the commitment is deeper, darker, and much more sinister involving people who believe they are operating on high moral ground when in fact they are committing erroneous evils that are impacting lives across the entire world. Those evils many times begin with letters such as the presumed innocent plea from the below Lakota East cheerleader. Read her words for yourself as they were written:
Lakota Schools: Balancing from the top of the pyramid
After two strenuous, back-breaking years, the Lakota Local School District is slowly dwindling down to former Little Miami state-run status. The residual aftermath of three failed levies is hacking and slashing athletics, academics and employment. However, Lakota is working hard to keep the state’s “top ranking” label.
Yet with the costly sports and disappearing classes, Lakota schools are nothing to cheer about.
In response to Rich Hoffman’s letter to the editor, I find it curious how an adult can describe the school district’s budget issues in the same way he describes cheerleaders on the football sideline.
As a Lakota East cheerleader, I believe it’s not Lakota that is poorly budgeting its resources but rather the lack of support shown by those who fund the team.
Cheerleaders are there to boost the morale of the crowd and cheer our team to victory. Like the tax increase supporters of Lakota, we strive for an excellent victory and domination. Yet, with multiple failed levies it’s becoming harder to cheer on a team that is deteriorating to just a couple of expensive sports fees.
In regard to Mr. Hoffman, jumping on the bandwagon for lower taxes isn’t getting the township any closer to winning that football game. Rather, it’s fueling the blow for the team’s next defeat of 45-0.
What Lakota needs is a healthy dose of TLC in the form of a passed levy. The lingering effects of the rejected tax increases is leaving our students unattended and overspending.
As the state’s largest district rated “Excellent with Distinction” on the Ohio Local report Card, one would think Lakota had the fans willing to allow the team to succeed.
Mr. Hoffman, the levy addicted cheerleaders are cheering in order to pump up the hesitant crowd, not splatter their “mindless drivel” on the already losing football team called Lakota. Maybe it would be more obvious if Lakota didn’t have to balance its budget from atop a pyramid of vetoed levies and income shortfalls.
Ellen Kasik
Now, here is my response as it appeared in the same paper one week later on Sunday, April 28, 2013.
I would like to think Ellen Kasik, the Lakota East Cheerleader who wrote a letter specifically addressed to me in last week’s paper, was motivated to engage in a debate purely by her own regard. If that is the case, I think she makes my claim that kids are not learning anything about finance at Lakota, because she had some alarming opinions. However, if she were to be asked, it would not surprise me to learn that the motivation for putting a letter in this paper was not her own, but actually the work of either Lakota board members, principals, school employees, or “other” political activists seeking to avoid violation of Ohio Revised Code ORC 3315.07 (C) (1) and (C) (2). That particular ORC states that no board of education may permit any of its employees to attend a public meeting during regular working hours for the purpose of presenting information about school finances and activities and board actions, even if the purpose of the meeting is to discuss or debate the passage of a school levy or bond issue.
Cincinnati Public Schools was guilty of this very violation, three times! It would be naive to think that the same thing is not presently going on at Lakota. It has in the past, and the issue has been overlooked out of kindness. However a fourth attempt at levy passage will require updated analysis of which Ellen Kasik will be a starting point, since she’s offered up her name with a similar mode of operation currently performed in other school districts regarding levy strategies.
Now to answer the claims by Laura Sanders who also recently addressed me in a Letter to the Editor the previous week. I can recognize a student at Lakota not understanding that commercial properties pay the same rate of taxes per value as residential properties. But for Sanders to say such a thing against businesses indicates she is drinking from the union talking points and is short on fiscal knowledge. I’d like to thank her; she made my job so much easier.
Rich Hoffman
The probable reality behind Ellen’s letter is that someone either working directly for the school, or working as a favor to their befriended employees at the school as levy cheerleaders put the idea in Ellen’s head to submit the letter to the paper as part of a long taught levy strategy instructed to education professionals to impose tax increases on communities. It happens all the time, in fact CLICK HERE to read about the court cases attorney Chris Finney has successfully advanced against major area schools that provides explicit proof. I sincerely hope that Ellen wrote the Letter to the Editor on her own, but when truth is told under a similar situation as what Finney has revealed in emails, testimony, and other evidence, indicated at the above link we will discover most likely kids like Ellen are “lured” into such political activism by levy radicals for the purpose of concealing their thuggish tyranny with innocent children.
This is why the fight against public education has to be turned up and taken in a new direction. The intent of public schools and their levy addicts in using young people to advance their cause is to bend communities to their whim using emotional leverage and guilt to advance their tax increases. After all, who in their right mind would argue against a sweet little girl from Lakota East who is a cheerleader? Who could possibly rob such a child of their future by not throwing more money at the public schools? Well, I can because I know the real intention behind the tax increases, the labor unions who advocate them, and the intention of the government schools. The crux of the problem is in the reason the public schools have to use such extortive measures in the first place. After all, if one clicks on the hot links of this article, the story of extortion, anti-capitalist education, revisionist history, and deeply scandalous activity is common place in virtually every public school. They are not exactly safe-havens for children’s minds.
The advocates of public schools routinely boycott businesses who do not vote for school levies, they strike against the community with work stoppages, they indoctrinate children with liberal propaganda, and they do not hesitate to put children in harm’s way to extort money from the public with busing cuts, or using children like Ellen as scarecrows against the community. But why? Well, the reason is their product is bad. If Lakota were such a great product, would they have to twist so many arms, and attempt to ruin the personal reputation of people who stand in the way of the “institution?” If Lakota and every other public school were great community products, would they need to strong-arm business leaders, and make ploys at emotional whims through charity organizations? No, they would not. The reason that schools do such things is that they represent the worst of collective mentality. They are simply mobs of thugs who desire to crush individualism in favor of altruism. They ignore reality because they believe that the thoughts of the collective team can bend fate to the appeal of the masses.
They attack the moral base of reason so that thought is undercut in favor of emotional decision-making. It is for that reason that public schools cannot balance their own budgets, and are ruled by corrupt labor unions teaching generations of children to become servants of statism while pretending it’s for their own good. They seek to pass tax increases not on the superiority of their product, but on the guilt that successful people should feel toward a sense of collective unity. They seek to manipulate, cover-up, and lampoon their opposition since they cannot answer any honest inquiry because their product is bad. Their product is an emotional one, teaching children the same, which is why all government schools are failing so miserably. Yet they want more money for the same behavior, and they will do anything, and attempt to destroy any individual to meet the will of that collective desire.
Because of these trends, my focus on education will not be on the legitimate arguments of cost versus performance as they were during campaigns past. No, the times require new strategies, many of which the opposition has never seen before. I do not like to see young people used for institutional gain. I do not like to see individuals mashed into collective causes. And I don’t like to see institutions extremely willing to sacrifice individuals to the gods of altruism, and that is what is prevalent in public education not just at Lakota, but everywhere across America. Public education is built off the innocence of children and funded by the guilt of property owners, and that is a system that should be crushed in its present form. The transactions shown here are just the beginning………………………….
I would be happy to just let the community vote in favor or against a tax increase if the desire to manipulate and extort money through coercion was not the way public schools achieved their means. But as it stands, they cannot win elections based on the goodness of their product. Instead, they rely on emotional leverage and guilt. This makes them not just bad for the education of children, but a tremendous negative for our entire society, which is why they deserve to be exposed as parasites to the human mind and the appropriate title Looters of Lakota.
To see Looters of Lakota Part I, CLICK HERE
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
I love reviews of my recent novel Tail of the Dragon like the one below. It is for readers like that which prompted me to write the book in the first place. In the letter I see that the soul of a person was touched in the way I had hoped, and invoked the thoughts and beliefs of a time before people grew up and began to “compromise.” The letter writer tells a brief history of their life as the exploits of the novel’s fictional character Rick Stevens provoked memories long suppressed. It ended with nostalgia for just one more adventure in life before age robs the body and mind of such yearnings, and every time I hear a story like this, it breaks my heart. It is for those people who I wrote the story, to give people such an adventure without the risk of their own peril. By reading the book, they gain the ability to crawl into the lives of Rick and his daredevil wife from the comfort of their bedrooms and contemplate the possibilities written words can paint on their minds. The villain of many modern lives, especially those over the age of 30, is the long list of compromises that are usually made just to navigate through life. By the time many reach the age of 40 to 50 they are just fragments of their former selves, and this produces a level of sadness as such people look longingly toward their own past in a yearning to recapture it for just one more time. In the novel, Rick Stevens never compromised himself. He at times in his life delayed his efforts as there were obstacles in his way, but he tenaciously held on to his course until such a time that his number for a grand adventure was called, and when it did, he didn’t turn away from it. The Rick Stevens story is one of a man doing anything he can to hold on to his own authenticity, even if the result is death. This is a powerful motif, one that resonates with many people, and it touches me deeply when readers let me know that they found a part of themselves rekindled by the book. Here is the letter as it was written:
Thank you Rich Hoffman. I just finished reading Tail of the Dragon. What a great ride. It brought back some of the adventures of my youth. My first muscle car was a ’66 Ford Fairlane GT with a 390. It was red and fast. My friend and I would take either my car or her ’66 Chevel SS and cruise and street race and laugh. We were underage and cute so we would get guys to buy us beer then we’d go off to race. I sold the Fairlane when I enlisted in the Navy. My parents thought I’d spend my entire Naval career in the brig. I didn’t. Only 1 Captains Mast and a couple of close calls and 6 extra months for a Good Conduct Medal. After watching the original Vanishing Point I bought a Super Blue colored 1973 Challenger with a 383. The first car I ordered from the factory. I wasn’t able to get the Hemi I wanted. A pox on your house Ralph Nader.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Chall…… had that car for a long time. While in the Navy I had airborne adventures too. As I trained pilots, on the weekends I’d go down to the flight line and see where a plane was going that I hadn’t been yet. During Nam there were lots of planes going lots of places. I got to steer a tactical jet. Eventually I bought a Firebird. It was orange with a white Landau top. It was a nice car but the color sucked and it wasn’t a Trans Am.
Those cars and I had some good times. We drove cross-country several times by our selves. The fastest trip was in my ’83 Challenger. D.C. to Yosemite in 2.5 days thru ice, snow and rain storms and stopping at hotels 2 nights. You only stop when the bladder is full and the tank is empty. We had adventures those cars and I. I received professional curtsey from Texas Ranges, RCMP, NHP& CHP or I’d have a lot of points.
My friends all wanted to get married and have 2.5 kids, a dog, a station wagon and I white picket fence. I always said I didn’t want to be put out to pasture as a brood mare before I had a chance to run some races. I ran several and set some records. Young ladies, there is no need to thank me for opportunities you have now. I didn’t do it for you.
I don’t want my adventures to be over yet but it’s hard to find somebody that will come out and play anymore.
I want to thank you Rich for another adventure.
See a shorter version of this letter at the end of this article and at the Amazon review site:
http://www.amazon.com/Tail-Dragon-Rich-Hoffman/dp/1589826949
To that letter writer, you are sincerely welcome. It is hard to find people who are willing to come out and “play” in these ultra safe times of apathy, political correctness, and attorney driven schematics, so I sympathize. I understand. That is why I wanted to give readers Rick Stevens. Rick is willing to come out and play…………………in a BIG WAY.
There are thousands of reasons that people live their lives like a slow death losing pieces of themselves a little bit every day until their days run out. I deal with those reasons at this site extensively. But more than what is ever offered at this site; there is nothing contextually more powerful than when difficult philosophical concepts can be placed within the plot of a story like I was able to do in Tail of the Dragon. In human societies, we have always done such things, which is how mythology is created. It is our myths which form up the values of our social behavior. So to bring to light a problem, the best way I know to tackle that problem is with mythology.
The journey of Rick Stevens in Tail of the Dragon is on the surface a good ol’ car chase. But mythologically speaking the story is much deeper than that, at least the way I intended it—which is most notable in during the “shopping mall” scene. For me, this scene for Rick Stevens is his Jonah in the belly of the whale, or Pinocchio trying to rescue Gappetto from the same type of beast. Rick in the shopping mall is on a psychological level the same type of mythological story telling, the hero going into the belly of the beast to find what society is lacking, which has been consumed by the beast. For the readers, who have been placed into their own bellies of the beast as they have unintentionally found themselves consumed by the monsters of existence, they must escape, which is the point of the novel.
As a writer I loaded Tail of the Dragon with such metaphors, some spelled out literally, and some quite discrete. The purpose was to take readers on a journey of their own “escaping their own personal beasts,” so it gives me great joy to learn of such successes. It is in such journeys that people find redemption even if many years have passed them by and threatened to deliver them to their graves in a suppressed state. People speak about freedom all the time, yet they seldom realize that before they can have freedom in their lives, they must have it right in their mind. It has always been my hope that readers of Tail of the Dragon can re-learn what freedom is and experience it for themselves in Rick Stevens struggle. For the letter writer above, this was the case. So for that person, the thanks go both ways. Yet the adventure doesn’t end there. Hopefully for that person there will be many more times that “someone” will ask them to “come out and play.” It may not be Rick Stevens, but there will be others………………….
By bassplayerFormat:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Tail of the Dragon is a great ride. It brought back some of the adventures of my youth. My first muscle car was a ’66 Ford Fairlane GT with a 390. It was red and fast. My friend and I would take either my car or her ’66 Chevel and cruise and street race and laugh. After watching the original Vanishing Point I bought a Super Blue colored ’73 Challeger with a 383. I couldn’t get the Hemi I wanted because of a Birkenstock wearing crusader. A few years later I got a Firebird. All these cars represented freedom to me. The freedom to live, to breath, to think.That’s what Tail of the Dragon is; a tale of freedom. The freedom to live. The unbridled political ambitions of a Governor backed by the police union set Rick up. He is thrown in jail and abused ending his romantic weekend of motorcycle riding with his wife. Rick is given the opportunity to fight back against the abuse. With his friend Charlie’s help, great craftsmanship, creativity and inventiveness they turn his old Firebird into a bird of prey. Rick and Renee declare war on the vampires sucking the life, soul and freedom from the citizens of Tennessee in the name of public welfare, public safety and the public good. What follows is a tale of the fight for freedom and liberty against all the odds.
Ride with Rick and Renee in that red Firebird as it flies through the Smokey Mountains screaming carpe libertas!
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
Many people outside of the Liberty Movement believe incorrectly that all members of the Tea Party and related libertarian leaning activity are the work of old people and stuffy traditionalists who simply want to rewind America back to the 1950s. That is not the case as a core group of freedom fighters representing a growing demographic gathered for some table pounding and beer slinging at the Hofrauhause in Newport, Kentucky and proved convincingly that America is changing for the better. After the booming success of the Cincinnati Freedom Expo just across the Licking River at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center this group gathered to outline the next steps of freedom advancement. The event was a planned meeting of some of the most dedicated and dynamic individuals in the freedom movement which went on till the small hours past midnight. And of this rather large group, at 45-years-old I was clearly one of the oldest at the table with Doc Thompson sharing with me the fatherly role compared to the youth driving the content. Across from me sat three women who by any standard were very attractive and represent accurately the future of liberty in America. When the revolutionaries of 1773 gathered under The Liberty Tree in Boston to launch the pursuit of freedom that would create the idea of America, the meeting at the Hofrauhause in 2013 was made of the same type of minds. The women pictured above were none other than Libertarian Girl, known famously for her Barbi doll appearance and passionate love of guns that are .50 caliber or larger, Rachael Proctor from the Tea Party Patriots who is nationally known for her protests against public education indoctrination elaborately broadcast on Fox and Friends, and of course my wife, who does more than anyone will ever know in making it possible for me to do the work I do here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. If the liberty movement of 1773 was called The Sons of Liberty the women gathered before me would hold the updated title The Beauties of Liberty.
I enjoyed listening to Libertarian Girl argue with the two guys sitting next to me about the evils of public roads, and the statism of the police who attempted to harass her upon entering the Hofrauhause by going through her bag. After nearly getting arrested she arrived in front of me to argue the merits of freedom over statism, decriminalizing marijuana, attacks against the second amendment, and the many jarring follies of the current President. I thought to debate her over her marijuana beliefs as I stand against all drugs because of the mental “evasion” qualities typical of them, and just enjoyed the banter because it was intelligent. Libertarian Girl represented a new kind of young, attractive woman who is not the prissy fashion model of yesterday who couldn’t name how many states are in The United States, or even know who the vice president was. Libertarian Girl was deeply intelligent, and very passionate, and nobody was going to mess with her. The Hofrauhause was crowded at 1 AM, with people dancing on the tables and making quite a ruckus. Libertarian Girl moved about the room in a high cut skirt displaying the tattoo of a garter on her upper thigh and a low-cut top that hid very little. No human being at the Hofrauhause turned away from her appearance as she strutted confidently about the room warning all not to engage unless they wished to meet with a slaughter. When a few “considered” engaging her in some fashion her response was a standard, “don’t f**K with me.” It was a pleasure to dine with such a woman who let my son-in-law know that her real name was Mary. Young, fearless, deeply intelligent, and willing to engage in fisticuffs of conflict in less than a second, I knew I was meeting the youthful representative of the modern Liberty Movement that will someday populate stories of folklore.
You can see and read more about Libertarian Girl at the following link:
Next to Libertarian Girl was Rachael Proctor who is the Regional Support of the Southeast States for the Tea Party Patriots. Rachael is involved on many liberty fighting fronts, but it was her appearance on Fox & Friends that linked her passions with mine so integrally. When her daughter had been exposed to open indoctrination at her public school Rachael went from being a well spoken and extremely articulate young woman to a vicious protector not only of her child but of American liberty, and capitalism. When her first-grader’s participation in an Earth Day program at school was discovered teaching their class a song with the following lyrics, the gloves came off.
Recycle, bicycle, don’t you drive by yourself
Don’t buy those plastic products on the supermarket shelf.
Boycott, petition, let the big business know
That if we mess it up here
there’s nowhere else we can go.
Rachael and I got along fabulously because of our shared interest in public education reform specifically focused on ending liberal indoctrination of young people using tax money to do it. What impressed me most about Rachael Proctor was her firm grace, sweeping knowledge of national affairs, and an obvious commitment to her family. She and my wife got alone wonderfully as they are both mothers actively involved in a pursuit of liberty. Neither woman was a crazed lunatic or social malcontent. Both women a decade ago would have been socially expected to be runway models for Victoria’s Secret, not slamming mugs of Dunkel at the Hofrauhause in Newport and discussing the evils of quantitative easing. Times have changed for the better.
You can see and read more about Rachael at the article below with video from the Fox and Friends clip where she made her appearance.
http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/20763
Even though the women across my table impressed me, our group was a big one, with a lot of planning going on up and down it that will be revealed in strategic bursts in the months to come. Next to me toward the middle of the group was Doc Thompson and his producer Skip from The Blaze radio network. During our meeting Glenn Beck gave Doc the “green light” for a special show to cover the Boston Marathon Bomber who had just been taken into custody a few hours prior. Across from Doc was my friend Matt Clark, a talk radio host from Ann Arbor, Michigan on WAAM. Next to Doc was Sharon Poe who helps me keep track of all the school levy business in and around Southern Ohio. Next to them were some “illustrious politicians” who will go un-named. And down the table were Ann Becker President of the Cincinnati Tea Party with Chris Littleton and a small army of number crunchers whose political geekness would make the stars of the popular television show Big Bang Theory look like unsophisticated trilobites. There was a lot of yelling with both ends of the table shouting down to the other as the limbs of the modern Liberty Tree bloomed in the drunken halls of Newport’s Hofrauhause. The chance for such a diverse group to meet in the same place at the same time wasn’t neglected.
The participants in the new Liberty Movement are not the grandparents who regret their acceptance of LBJ’s Great Society, or addicts of Social Security who supported FDR because he gave them free stuff and just now have come to their senses regretting youthful voting decisions. These new freedom fighters are attractive—AND—intelligent, which makes for a very dangerous combination. If I had to guess I would bet that the three beautiful women pictured above, these modern Beauties of Liberty have read more books just between them than the entire town populations of most American communities. To make matters worse for those who stand in the way of freedom, the truth is on their side. Libertarian Girl has all the right in the world to wear her mini/mini/mini skirt to the gun range and fire off rounds with a .50 caliber machine gun. The Second Amendment gives her that right and she knows it, and anybody who stands in her way is itching for an intellectual beat down. When Rachael Proctor discovered during her very busy life that her child’s public school was attempting to indoctrinate students against capitalism in favor of socialism (the green movement) she went on Fox News and took the argument to a very high level, forcing changes in education not just in her school, but education institutions across the country. 
These new women of the Freedom Movement are not the stereotypical beauties who might hang out in casinos waiting for a victim to come away from the tables as a winner so they could move the world in their favor based on sexuality. These new Tea Party women have the physical traits fully capable of siren songs rivaling any sailors tale, but have the added threat of intelligence—and truth in their arsenal, which was a welcome realization. In addition to the sign stimuli of the sexes, there is wit to these freedom fighters that makes them a breed onto themselves, and an important part of the new phase of liberty which is spreading not by legislation, speeches, or even logic—but by the youth. Young people like Libertarian Girl, and Rachael Proctor know they have been scammed and have decided they aren’t going to take it anymore, and in so doing, are set to usher in a new age for the human race—one that is centered on freedom, and ends with the evolution of the human being into something better than what it has ever been prior–free people capable of governing themselves by reason, not legislation carefully concealed behind the threat of coercion.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
When it is asked why there are a growing number of people who are fighting back against public education and not treating it as a “benefit” to society, the answer comes from the arrogance and blatant disregard for the law that is often exhibited by the administrations. Anyone who has had to fight against school levies caused by the never-ending push for government schools to continuously raise taxes on property owners knows the evils that are found just surface deep. There are no exceptions that I know of out of several hundred schools just in Ohio where I participate in active correspondence with frustrated taxpayers. There is a very good reason that public schools employ public relations handlers, and those reasons become grotesquely obvious if examined through the lenses of logic. In Ohio, it is the work of attorney Christopher Finney who has used logic through his legal practice to expose the raw arrogance of public education institutions with many courtroom victories. His most recent to date is from Cincinnati Public Schools where Superintendent Mary Ronan along with various CPS board members, principals and employees, as well as a few local political activists, were guilty of encouraging students to write letters to the editors of newspapers to support their tax increases, and other related violations of State Revised Code. CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPECIFIC INFORMATION ON THAT CODE. Finney came to the West Chester Tea Party to speak about his experiences fighting public education legal violations and provide advice to tax payers on how they can stop such activity from occurring in their districts seen in the video below.
The obvious crime committed by CPS was the open tendency to abuse public resources by conscripting children into political indentured servitude as part of the education experience. There is a state law outlawing this behavior; where Finney has dragged them into court (kicking and screaming) – three times! CPS has signed a contract admitting to and agreeing to end the behavior – which they have ignored year after year! Each time CPS stood before a judge in a court of law yammering as to their entitlement mentality where it became more obvious to everyone, that perhaps no cost was too high, no public shaming too great, nothing would get public education personnel at CPS to restrain themselves from committing crimes against their communities. They would not adhere to state law, or a judicial order, not even common sense. This is why Finney has had a very busy legal practice that extends back into the Clinton era fighting the good fight and attempting to enforce constitutional justice with a purity that is rare among attorneys.
Chris Finney is a shareholder in his firm, where he concentrates in commercial and constitutional litigation as well as matters of real estate law and title to real estate.
He won an important victory in 1997 in the First Amendment rights case styled Kruse, et al. v. City of Cincinnati, et al., in which the City of Cincinnati’s campaign spending limits ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. In 1998, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case, preserving victory for Mr. Finney’s clients. It was in part as a result of this victory that Mr. Finney was named one of eight “Ohio Lawyers of the Year” for 1998 by Ohio Lawyer Weekly. In 2010, Mr. Finney also prevailed in the case of Brinkman, et al. v. Budish, et al., a landmark decision striking down Ohio’s “revolving door” statue. Mr. Finney’s other high-profile victories have included the “Votes for Ice Cream” scandal at the Cincinnati Public Schools, and the defeat of Congressman Jean Schmidt in the defamation action styled Schmidt v. Krikorian, et al. His work has been featured in such publications as the New York Times, USA Today, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and on Fox News.
You can contact Finney at the link below:
http://www.fssp-law.com/attorneys/finney/
Read more about Finney’s work with the organization COAST at the link below.
One can only guess at the behavioral tendencies of education professionals, but it has been my observation that the common trait is the sense of entitlement which comes with their professions. Government schools have established themselves as co-parents in the lives of children, and this is by their initial design extending back to the beginning of the progressive era. Parents yielded their authority to educators in the same fashion that they did with the police. Parents taught their children to submit to authority which the teacher represented and over time, this has corrupted the minds of educators by natural default. In addition, educators have also been told by their unions, and the federal Department of Education that public schools have an important indoctrination role to perform in shaping the lives of society into a kind of soft socialism that has been so universally accepted in Europe. The result is a culture of terror to any mind craving freedom and an army of educators funded with looted tax money from virtually every citizen in The United States who owns property. The scam has been launched on the innocent backs of children to fulfill the tyrannical desires of communism destroying the notion of private property through two strategies, direct taxation, and social indoctrination. Public education is a menace to the concept of capitalism.
This is the reason people like Chris Finney are needed. Anyone who has had to fight taxes knows the perils. Over the last couple of years Chris and I have crossed paths speaking at different venues, sometimes together such as in the clip below, as he was on before my presentation. At that speaking engagement Finney covered the context of The Sunshine Laws which are designed to keep government activity in the light of day for the public to witness. Too often, when elected officials such as school boards are involved in activity they know to be bordering legality, they will attempt to conceal it in “executive session” which is against The Sunshine Laws in the State of Ohio.
Violations against the tax payer can be found in nearly every public school. This is the reason there are public records options so that tax payers can view the behavior of their elected officials. But over time, people have become lazy, and have not shown a desire to have such unpleasant confrontations, allowing corruption, cronyism, apathy, and outright evil to rule government schools without resistance and the employees have become accustom to it. This would seem to be the reason that Superintendent Mary Ronan cannot change the behavior at CPS even though Chris Finney has dragged them into court over three times now. They simply don’t know how to do anything but commit detrimental behavior because that’s how they were all trained. Public schools only know how to be leeches off society, they only know to drain the wealth of communities, and teach children political activism because these are the central philosophies of which public schools was designed. To change the behavior would require competitive alternatives and free market solutions. As they stand now, public schools are simply socialist experiments. They produce socialists in a meat grinder of processing that stands against virtually everything America is supposed to stand for.
It is paramount to fight these education institutions if not for ideological merit, but for teaching children the way that justice should appear in their lives. Such fights can easily be conducted in any neighborhood with a public records request. The law is on the side of the tax fighter, and most of the time, crimes will be easy to spot. As a general rule, large school districts with vast budgets hire public relations handlers to produce a facade that is at best a thin veil. Their primary purpose is to keep the public from looking too closely at the affairs of their local government schools so that the desire for public records requests is not provoked. Smaller districts without such public relations budgets are much easier to expose, and many crimes can be revealed quickly with simple document pulls. And when severe crimes are discovered, then it is time to call Chris Finney so that he can take the next step and bring justice to the eyes of the educators. In doing so, children can then learn what justice is supposed to look like; instead of witnessing crimes every day in their school hallways and noticing how nobody does anything about it. In this way, children throw hope out the window and lower their expectations in life to a tragically low bar. This is the ultimate evil of public education, and the trait that Chris Finney has become a specialist at exposing. Finney is one of the very good guys who have found a way to match his professional career with his passion for Constitutional purity and he’s very good at it, much to the detriment of government schools and their philosophy of socialism that is as much a part of their culture as food is to a dinner.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
When many years ago my wife and I pulled our kids out of public school to teach them at home there was a fury among our friends and family members that really never ended. I have never been a fan of public education. I rebelled against it as a youth with every fiber in my body. I’ve always seen public education as dangerous, brainless, and a menace to the human race. But while I was raising my own children, I was willing to give society the benefit of a doubt, so I let my kids attend those indoctrination centers knowing that I had the ability to deprogram them with copious amounts of fatherly advice. But when the obvious intentions of public education made themselves known, my reaction has been either to pull my children from their tyrannical grip, or starve the beast by denying them funding through taxation. And those true intentions have never been more evident than they are now over the issue of Common Core instruction.
I am obviously not a supporter of Common Core in public schools. Common Core is an honest attempt by the political class to bring the standards of all public education establishments up to the same level so everyone attending a government school is getting the same knowledge. The intention as it always is–is a good one. I sincerely believe that the characters involved truly believe they are doing well for humanity and the world’s children. That is because their own educations have taught them to think in such a fashion, and their ignorance as tribal leaders of the human race has misguided their logic. The result of Common Core is and will be that good schools will be pulled down to the level of bad schools making all schools “bad.”
For most adults they want their children to get out of public education the “social” experience of making friends who are their age, have exposure to team sports, and gain the basic abilities to read, write, and do some math. Outside of those basics, they also want out of public education a free baby sitter to watch their children during the daytime hours while the parents pursue “other” activities. This was not my goal upon raising my children. I wanted to raise philosophers and great thinkers, and they were not going to get to such a lofty height of mental acuity listening to some raving lunatic stand at the front of a room preaching to them the merits of liberal philosophy, so my wife and I pulled them out of school. The protests that came from our family and friends were because they had all bought into Lyndon Johnston’s Great Society idea of strong central government and a persistent yielding to the village chiefs of politics. Such yielding assumes that “other” people know better and are smarter, so they are equipped mentally to shape the lives of our youth.
I have always been weary of public education, but I tried to suppress that sentiment when I created No Lakota Levy to stand against my own neighborhood school system’s bottomless pit of tax requests. After successfully defeating three consecutive levies, my group demanded that the administration ask the employees of the teacher’s union to take a 5% cut in pay as the average wage was $63K per year—which was too much. They ignored those demands and revealed that their impact strategy as an institution under the command of modern politics was not in the education of children otherwise they would not have attempted to hurt children with pay-for-play sports, cutting electives, and other hardships. Their impact strategy was to fulfill the desires of socialists, communists, and Fabian Socialists who infected American education through the Department of Education many years ago, changing their names to “progressive,” and “democrats,” then seeking to pull the wool over the eyes of America by conning us all into funding our own destruction eroding away the values of our property for the “good of children.” Once this was understood by facts rather than theory, I was officially done with support of public education of any kind. I am no longer an advocate for reasonable fiscal spending in public schools. Instead, I am an advocate for the complete dismantling of public education to be replaced by competitive replacements. I do not want “the government” to teach the youth of America. They cannot be trusted. The evidence is in and it is everywhere.
The news revealed by the Glenn Beck program and other sources is not new to me. I have been where they are currently for a long, long time. The unintended consequence of Common Core instruction for anybody who is on the fence currently will be 100% the advancement of “statism” to the youth of America, and that is not acceptable. Government does not understand any other concept besides “statism.” It’s not that they can help it……………they can’t. Statism is the result of all government to seek ways to preserve itself as a collective unit. Statism is an old, archaic social idea that has outlived its usefulness. It is a shackle upon the human race, and has no place in the minds of mankind. Common Core in American schools is “statism” instruction, which is why it must be rejected not only as a federal program, but also the premise of their entire education system. It must be scrapped and completely re-thought from the ground up for it’s a menace to children’s minds.
For my needs public education was never sufficient. It wasn’t when I went to school, and it wasn’t certainly for my own children. Public education was so unimportant to my wife that she didn’t even graduate with her class even though she was an honor student. She simply received her graduation certificate in the mail skipping the ceremony completely. And we’ve only been to one class reunion. We went to my fifth and realized that we had grown so far away from all those people that we had nothing in common with them. We’ve never attended another one in over twenty years now, and never regretted it for a single moment. My children did the same. Both of them spent their senior years traveling Europe as their school friends were attending their graduation ceremonies and getting drunk with senseless mental evasion techniques (smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and watching mindless programs on television—all things that I am adamantly against). I remember that my oldest daughter had sent me a text message with pictures from the Terracotta Army on display at the British Museum of Natural History she was attending on the same night that Lakota was graduating their students from her senior class. She wasn’t missing anything by skipping out on the ridiculousness of public education and the Fabian Socialist attempts to dumb down the students so that they all grow up and become willing servants to the kings and queens of politics. She was living real life and studying real history up close and personal.
Common Core is everything and more that Glenn Beck has stated in the above videos. Most everyone reading this will likely have difficulty understanding since they have accepted that public education is some kind of civil right, and that it’s all about friends, school jackets and a sense of belonging to greater concepts than oneself. I call public education collectivist indoctrination. For virtually every modern problem coming from the minds of human beings everywhere from their sexual dysfunction, to their lack of mental capacity in the field of business, to their family issues, to their utmost failures in politics, to the growing acceptance of socialism over capitalism, it is the fault of government-run public schools. Common Core is just the most recent debacle that has good, pure, intentions which in reality turn out to be destructive to the minds of children because the idea came from statists taught their values through the political philosophy of socialism. With that in mind it deserves to be met with resistance, revulsion, skepticism, and tenacious defunding of the program so that it doesn’t spread to another generation of young people and destroy their minds like a rotten apple that has fallen to the ground and been consumed by parasitic insects. We already have more than three generations of rotten apples, and another one will end American culture, which is the Fabian Socialist plan, and has been from the beginning. Common Core is a parasite to the mind of mankind because it is a statist policy that will instruct children to grow up with a statist mindset. And statism leads to perpetual war, perpetual tax increases, perpetual expansion of government, and perpetual regression of the creative mind for all human beings. That is why if you truly love your children, they should be removed from any school that is accepting Common Core as their new standard. And because of the federal money involved, most schools will be accepting Common Core. That leaves American society with a difficult decision to make—one that I understand completely. I’ve been there myself. But I’ve told the story of what I did and why, and I can report that my family is better for it. The question is what will you do dear reader? Will you take the easy path of blind acceptance in government leadership, or will you carve your own path through the wilderness of uncertainty? I’d recommend the later, and your children will be much better for it.
If you are uncertain, I suggest watching all the videos above thoroughly, and do your own research. The evidence is extremely easy to see for eyes willing to see it. And if you disagree, I “DARE” you to argue with me. I’ve been at this a long time, and I know what’s behind the education system. So if you think I’m wrong, make your best argument.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
I remember vividly what the conditions where when I first went on 700 WLW several years ago to discuss the problems of public education funding. I knew what kind of turmoil it would stir up and I knew what the end game would be. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW SOME OF THOSE RADIO BROADCASTS. Since that far away time I have learned that my instincts about public education were 100% correct, that it is a corrosive endeavor concocted from the worst of human reasoning, and should be abolished in its current form. Government should not be permitted to forcibly remove children from their homes and subject children to training and procedures which parents do not approve. Citizens should not have their wealth expropriated to support any school anywhere and to pay for children who are not theirs. After the recent comments by MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry urging society to think of child rearing in a more collective sense, the jury is officially in, and public education is GUILTY of crimes against The United States and every citizen produced within its borders for over a century now, and it must be stopped. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW Melissa’s comments. The position that MSNBC and other progressive organizations have taken in regard to public education brings back the bewildering claims from the opposition made in my first WLW broadcasts, and puts a light on them that I only suspected before, until the facts have been made more clearly as time has evolved. Public education currently in America is a menace to a capitalist society.
But this isn’t a recent development. Public education has been broken from the very start, and for proof I offer as testimony the words of Isabel Paterson from 1943, where the public education system was almost as bad and corrupt as it is today–in order to display that the phenomenon of failure is not new. Her comments below are from her book The God of the Machine, and have resonated with me for some time. When she says that it will take a superhuman task to break the education stranglehold over the lives of Americans she was not kidding. I knew that before I ever did the first WLW interview or set up this site with the name I used. It takes more than human strength to stand against such oppression—she knew it then, and it has only gotten worse. When she wrote her book, it was still 35 years before the creation of The Department of Education which would show it to be openly committed to socialism as a federal institution, and advance all the fears she uttered 70 years ago in a book nearly forgotten from the American tapestry.
“Educational texts are necessarily selective, in subject matter, language, and point of view. Where teaching is conducted by private schools, there will be a conservable variation in different schools; the parent must judge what they want their children taught, by the curriculum offered. Then each must strive for objective truth…Nowhere will there be any inducement to teach the ‘supremacy of the state’ as a compulsory philosophy. But every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later, whether as a divine right of kings, or the ‘will of the people’ in ‘democracy.’ Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property, and mind in its clutches from infancy.
“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends… when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.” (The God of the Machine)
Isabel Paterson (January 22, 1886 – January 10, 1961) was a Canadian-American journalist, novelist, political philosopher, and a leading literary critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, who both acknowledged an intellectual debt to Paterson, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism. Paterson’s best-known work, her 1943 book The God of the Machine, a treatise on political philosophy, economics, and history, reached conclusions and espoused beliefs that many libertarians credit as a foundation of their philosophy. Her biographer Stephen D. Cox (2004) believes Paterson is the “earliest progenitor of libertarianism as we know it today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_of_the_Machine
Education has not improved from her day to the present and was a travesty for many years leading up to 1943. Education must be competitive and function from the same rules that are applied to sports. Nobody will argue that just anybody can be the quarterback of a football team. There are methods of capitalism which determine who is the best athlete to lead a football team through practice, skill assessment, and the kind of toughness that is only developed on the field of play. It is preposterous to assume that education will be good if a means for bringing about the best teachers, the lowest cost of education, and the greatest curriculum is not explored through success and failure. Not everyone can be a quarterback, a running back, a line backer, or a defensive back, and not everyone can be a leading physicists, an engineer, a visionary, or a gardener. Education must be able to bring these elements out in children and the present system does not, instead it seeks to make all children equal out of a misplaced sense of fairness that sounds good on the surface, but is destructive as a social ideology. Public education believes today as it believed over 70 years ago, that the chubby kid who plays defensive tackle on a football team can play quarterback, and the quarterback should be able to be an offensive lineman. Their effort is to give the defensive tackle a chance to be the hero of the game by throwing winning touchdowns so the young man doesn’t feel left out. But they achieve it at the expense of victory, and performance, because the best player is not standing in as quarterback. The marketplace for football doesn’t have much tolerance for a quarterback that can’t throw a ball accurately more than 10 yards so the quality of the game is weakened because of the attempt at fairness. This is what public education in America has been for over a century and it has failed. It needs to be reinvented with competition in mind.
I understand that it will take superhuman strength to change the hearts and minds of the education empire, but it must be done. It will take not just one overman, but overmen and overwomen to pull it off. But make no mistake, failure is not an option. Not addressing the education problem is simply not on the table of discussion, and putting up with it as it has been for so long is not tolerable. Many people use as the crutch when they are compelled to confront a problem that is so difficult to state, “but I’m only human.” Well, such rationalizations are not acceptable any more. If it takes being more than human to solve this complicated problem which is imposed on the human race, then it must be done. This means that the first thing that must go is public education as a government controlled entity. It’s time to privatize and form it in the fashion of our sports franchises. It’s time that our education system focus on discovering what individual children are good at instead of trying to make them into a mash potato meal for government to consume the human race. If superhuman effort is needed, then it is that which we must do. We must do so to remove people like MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry from education in any capacity, and we must do it before they ruin the lives of even more children with the progressive ideologies that have always led to the destruction of humanity time and time again.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
In front of a seafood restaurant in Delaware flies the flag readers of this website will proudly recognize, pictured on the left. At the base of that flag pole are items the owner of the establishment greatly treasure, pictured on the right. These pictures were posted by a fan of my new novel Tail of the Dragon. The rum is a reference to an article I wrote about pirates a few weeks ago. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. She has let me know that these are some of her current favorite things, and her idea of an exquisite evening is drinking some of that rum while reading Tail of the Dragon from her nightstand so that she can crawl into the mind of the novel’s hero Rick Stevens and enjoy his rebellious charisma from the greatest car chase in the history of car chases. 
About halfway through the first draft I realized that I wasn’t just going to tell the action packed story of a modern car chase, but the philosophic underpinnings of a society struggling under the pressure of “statism” and a rebellion against it. This article is Part IV of a Making Of series for my recent novel which explores the path I took to arrive at its unique philosophy of freedom. CLICK HERE to review the previous installments. I had clear in my mind the locations I was writing about, and I understood the rebellious nature of the main protagonist, Rick Stevens, but one thing that still lingered in the back of my mind was the notion of freedom versus collectivism and how those two things are so closely associated sometimes within the same context. For me, there is no greater example of this duality than in motorcycle riders who claim to be free and independent, yet tend to travel in gangs riding their motorcycles in formation whenever they gather. This trait was as I saw it a failure of American philosophy so I wanted to become more acquainted. This was the reason I joined the Suzuki Owner’s Club of North America and quickly became the Vice President of the Ohio Chapter. One of the tasks of such a leadership position was to organize new membership drives, so the President and I organized a small ride to promote the organization. The President was from Cleveland and I was from Cincinnati, so we agreed to meet up at a McDonald’s just south of Cleveland and head across the top of Ohio to the Fremont Suzuki dealer south of Sandusky and set up a booth to recruit new members. It was a planned day trip that seemed like a simple endeavor on paper taking place just a few months after my wife and I traveled to Key West, from Part III. The trip ended up being a 500 mile adventure that took us to many places throughout the day and would prove to be a memorable escapade that was more epic, than simple.
We left our home at 4:00 AM to meet the President and some of the other Suzuki Owner members at 7 AM. It was not difficult to cover the vast distance between Cleveland and Cincinnati by motorcycle in such a short time. With an average speed of 77 MPH, and just a few stops, we arrived at the designated McDonald’s ahead of the other riders. I enjoyed my affiliation with the Club, but in the back of my mind was the nagging sensation that I felt constrained by my involvement. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way, yet the closer to Cleveland we became, the more tense I was. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the President or his riding partners, but it was the feeling that the closer I came to Cleveland the more I lost my individual identity. I was honored that they invited me to become the VP of the Club after only a few short months, but VP was still a subordinate role, and I’m not a very good subordinate. Typically if I’m not the leader of the pack, I’m not interested in any endeavor. I just can’t stand taking a passive role on anything in my life, no matter what it is.
We arrived at the McDonald’s, ate a well deserved breakfast, and met up with the President and his riders outside. After some brief introductions and typical motorcycle talk, we planned our route to the Fremont dealership roughly 70 miles away across very rural farmland. There would not be any highway access, so we’d be traveling relatively slowly across God’s country of the Ohio north 40 to 50 miles south of Lake Erie. Once the route was established on a map spread out across motorcycle fuel tanks we were off. The President in such groups usually takes the point position on such rides which is slightly off-center to the left of the road. Riders behind the leader take up positions of formation staggered behind. I migrated to the back so I could observe the behavior and noticed that the other riders worked very hard to maintain the closest position behind the leader possible.
We traveled across the top of Ohio by many farms and several rain storms before arriving at the dealership right around 9:30 AM. We were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM so we were a little early. Once at the Fremont location the President set up a booth for the Club to promote itself. We spent from 10 AM to 2 PM having lunch, telling biker stories, and talking about various wild adventures. The company was good, but all the while I had a terribly uneasy feeling that was difficult to shake. There were three times in my life prior to this bike ride where I had a similar feeling. The first was in the fifth grade when some girls I knew set me up to “go steady” with the class beauty at the time. She was a pretty girl, but I didn’t want the obligation to have to speak to her every night on the phone like boyfriends and girlfriends were required to do. In the fifth grade I had just won the pull-up contest in the Winter Olympics and many people were projecting me to be a star athlete as I was clearly the fastest kid in the entire school. I could shoot basketball, play hockey, and I was untouchable in dodge ball. But I hated all those group sports, even though I was excessively good at them. This drove my gym teacher nuts as he didn’t understand my reservations. Because I was so good at these sports, this little girl wanted to be my girlfriend so her friends arranged it by nagging me until I said yes. I went steady with the girl for about 2 hours. Once I came home from school and was eating dinner and planning the activities of my evening which involved, reading, drawing pictures, playing war with my brother outside, and building a model car, I did not have time for the little girl when she called and wanted to talk on the phone for an hour. I reluctantly told the girl I wanted to break up. She cried, all her friends were mad at me for years, but I was free—and that made me happy. I was free to read my books, draw my pictures, write my stories, and play outside—and that’s all I wanted out of life. I reasoned that the only reason I wanted to go steady with the girl was because I wanted to see her naked—but that wasn’t a good enough reason to imprison my soul to another person. When I broke up with her I was greatly relieved. The second time was when I allowed myself to be talked into trying out for the Lakota soccer team during my freshman year. I had a reputation as “The Animal,” because I was so vicious when I played the game. I would often head butt other players intentionally to take out their star players. I was good at disguising the effort as going for head balls to avoid the yellow cards, so many of my couches and parents who watched me often talked me into trying out for the school team. The first day of tryouts I was miserable. I thought the coach was an arrogant bastard and I couldn’t stand the body language of the guy. He was clearly looking for butt kissers on his team, and that wasn’t me. He didn’t like my aggressive playing style, or my rebellious attitude. I also didn’t like the girls who seemed attracted to the school soccer players, the girls who hung out around the practice field and were always being passed around by the other players. They were short-legged stubby girls with square faces and potato asses, not the kind of girls I was interested in. So I became more and more belligerent as the tryouts went on for two weeks. During a scrimmage I head butted our goalie who had called off the ball because he made fun of my haircut in the locker room. My mother always cut my hair, but she did it in the classic “bowl cut.” So I sent him home with a bloody nose that day and a loose tooth. The coach made me run laps hoping I’d pass out, but I didn’t. I stubbornly completed his assignment, but our relationship deteriorated. I was relieved to learn that I had not made the team. I knew everyone would finally leave me alone about trying out for all the stupid team sports, and I could go back to my books and stories without the constant nagging from the adults in my life who kept telling me to grow up and do something “productive.” A few years later the high school football coach hinted that I should try out for the football team to direct my “aggression” in a positive direction. But I had a reputation in school as a person who fought way too much, and was utterly unmanageable socially so their urgings quickly ebbed once they saw no light in my eyes over their promises of college football lights and easy girls. I had no problem with girls, and the lights didn’t impress me, so they didn’t have much to offer. The third time was when I was 18 and I had a modeling agent who booked me to do a lingerie show with a stage full of beautiful girls. I had just met my wife and had a choice to go see her for the evening or go to the paying gig that my agent had set up. The money was good, and there was a chance to meet not just a few beautiful women, but several. Not the stubby fingered, potato butt girls, but the kind I liked, with long legs, round lips, eyes just perfectly spaced—the kind of girls who strive to become actresses and fashion models. So I took the job and my future wife cried because she was afraid she’d lose me to the job assignment. I found out prior to leaving my apartment that my task at the show was to “dance” around the girls lip-synching to David Lee Roth’s song, California Girls. I was en route to the event, but instead of taking I-75 south, I took I-275 east and went to my future wife’s house. My agent was furious as she had a stage full of beautiful fashion models but no David Lee Roth impersonator to dance on stage around them. The show tanked, and I never worked as a model again. But I did get married to my wife a year later. She drew a line in the sand and told me that she didn’t care about making money if I had to make money doing stupid things like dancing on a stage to David Lee Roth songs. Once I arrived at her house, I felt free of that social pressure to perform to expectations that the media culture valued, but were at odds with my own beliefs.
Now, that nagging feeling was there again in the motorcycle group at Fremont. I was helping to register new members to a group that I was Vice President of, which I became a part of in much the same fashion as in the stories just told. I was a reluctant participant. My talents were desired for various reasons to serve collective institutions, and I have ALWAYS been reluctant to surrender my sovereignty to anybody ever, no matter how beautiful, how lucrative, or under any amount of pressure. I have always turned obligation away in favor of freedom. I often say yes initially because I like to help people, but when things get too cozy in the collectivism department, I always look for a way out.
I pulled my wife to the side and suggested to her that when the event was over at 2 PM that we not ride back to Cleveland with the Suzuki group but instead go up the road to Cedar Point and ride roller coasters the rest of the day, since we were close. She shook her head knowing what was driving me, as after twenty plus years of marriage she had come to understand my decision-making processes. When it was time to take down the tent, I informed the guys that my wife and I were going to Cedar Point, and not riding back in formation to Cleveland. I got some puzzled looks, but they agreed to go on without us. We spoke in a friendly manner as we parted promising to touch base by email when we all returned home. The minute I was back on my motorcycle going north as they traveled east I felt the shackles coming off me and I enjoyed freedom once again. That was the last time I would ever see those guys, and the email messages never came or went either way again. That was my last day as Vice President of the Ohio Chapter Suzuki Owners Club of North America.
My wife and I had fun on the bike trip, but our day really opened up into a wonderful experience once we arrived at Cedar Point about 45 minute later. It was a relief to not have to ride in formation, to recognize a leader of any kind, to adhere to any kind of pecking order, to go where we wanted when we wanted to go, and to have the freedom to make a decision and to act on that decision. We spent the rest of the day at Cedar Point until the closing time of 10 PM that night. Once they closed the doors on us, we got on our motorcycle and headed for home. We arrived back around 3 AM–23 hours and 500 miles later. It was a cold ride home, so we were fairly frozen. We warmed up in our hot tub and I wrote notes on my laptop from the day while they were fresh in my mind as I hung over the side of the Jacuzzi typing madly. The thoughts of that day made it into my opening chapter which went on for nearly thirty pages. My editor had me cut it down to roughly the first 5 pages of the final Tail of the Dragon draft.
Freedom is a difficult concept to understand, especially for those who aren’t nearly as stingy with it as I am. People find themselves agreeing to things they otherwise wouldn’t do because some collective force applies pressure to them to say “yes,” then once they do, they are stuck in rigid confinement. Most people become used to accepting this gradual loss of freedom, so they don’t see the effects of socialism seeking to subtly impose itself upon their lives. I never developed that problem, so it’s easy for me to see. In Tail of the Dragon I had to create in the characters of Rick and Renee Stevens two characters who valued their freedom to such an extraordinary level that they would not yield to those tiny encroachments, so that their refusal would cause the next Civil War in America in an understandable way. I wanted readers to see what freedom was supposed to look like, how it felt, and how tasted, because most people don’t know what freedom is at all—as they are encumbered with too many obligations. Freedom is the essence of what Tail of the Dragon is all about, freedom from clubs, from socialites, from agents, from coaches, from all the pressures of life which desire to steer a human mind in a direction that is not authentic to the individual. My experiment to investigate a collective entity had proved fruitful if it did only last about 2 months. They were two months well spent, because the result found its way into literature for all time, and many years beyond.
And a special thanks are deserved for Kathy. I appreciate her flying that flag in front of her Delaware seafood restaurant, and I appreciate the effort she put into making my day a little better by displaying Tail of the Dragon so proudly. It was for such people I wrote the novel and I am happy to know that Captain Morgan is going on the adventure with her.
Rich Hoffman
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“If they attack first………..blast em’!” www.tailofthedragonbook.com
“Even with these cuts, Lakota schools are still worth “cheering” for. We are not part of a losing team, but our children and grandchildren could lose out on future opportunities if there isn’t more financial support. So, let’s drown out the Rich Hoffmans of our community by making the next levy a successful one. If that happens, we all win.”
“GO TEAM GO…….HURRAHHHH”
The above statement was written by Lakota Levy cheerleader Laura Sanders, who responded to my Letter to the Editor in the Today’s Pulse April 14th edition. The letter she is responding to I have placed below for ease of review. As to Laura’s fantasy that she will drown out the Rich Hoffmans of the community, I have very bad news for her. I can swim longer than anybody she knows and I can shout louder—far louder than I have so far displayed. So if that is the path she and her levy cheerleaders wish to follow, I am looking forward to it. I have also placed below the letter she put in the paper for analysis. I will answer her assertions following her text.
First the letter I submitted:
The Lakota Levy Cheerleaders
Combined with the Lakota Superintendent’s articles here in the Journal, the “Community Conversations” program, along with a few pro Levy speeches, and I can’t help but feel that I’m watching a football game where the home team is losing 45 to 0 yet the cheerleaders are still on the sideline with their pom poms in hand completely oblivious to the events happening on the field of play still reciting the “cheers” they learned in practice.
Much to their dismay, the “Levy Addicts” who are pounding the drums for another tax increase this year and are attempting to soften the resistance with new strategies, the score up on the board is not in their favor. Lakota as a district is about to see an influx of income from the Liberty Way Development, the Carriage Hill Development, and the continued growth of the Union Center corridor. All the tax revenue coming in from these activities will be more than the previous year. Combine that trend with the 10 year projection of declining student enrollment due to the number of homes in Lakota without children increasing–balancing the budget without a tax increase should be easy.
The old mantra that education is for the “kids” is old and worn out. Nobody believes it any more just like nobody believes the home team is going to win when the score is so lopsided yet the cheerleaders are still on the sideline saying the same mindless drivel that they have the entire game. What the levy supporters want with tax increases is simply a glorified community babysitting service. What I have learned about public education these last couple of years does not lend credence to any kind of education quality even for so-called great schools like Lakota. For the 18,000 people who have turned down these levies over the years for multiple reasons, we have no choice but to support the product now, which is currently too expensive. It is simply unfathomable to ask for more, especially when the score is so lopsided—in spite of the mindless cheers.
Rich Hoffman
Now, Laura Sander’s response:
Lakota Schools Still Worth ‘Cheering’ For
Here we go again:”……levy addict…glorified community baby-sitting service.”
Wasn’t Rich Hoffman already discredited by the media one year ago because of phrases like this and previous comments such as “…crazy PTA moms and their minions of latte drinking despots with diamond rings the size of car tires and assess to match…”
Maybe Mr. Hoffman thinks its clever using metaphors comparing levy supporters to mindless cheerleaders (another attack on women). Unlike his approach, I prefer to use facts.
Mr. Hoffman claims that Lakota will “see an influx” of tax revenue after new developments are built. That sounds great, but it’s not reality. Commercial property contributes very little to school funding and has not kept pace with residential growth. Gov. John Kasich cut $1.8 billion from schools over the last two years and his current budget increases funding for charter schools and proposes additional vouchers on private schools, once again depriving public education of money.
Ohio’s charter schools received $775 million from the state last year. That amount of money could fund numerous public school districts.
Lakota Treasurer Jenni Logan predicts the district will face a $1.8 million dollar budget deficit by 2014. This is after $35 million in cuts over the last three years, which has resulted in minimal bus transportation; larger classes; fewer days for art, music and gym; no reading specialists; a dismantled gifted program, etc.
Even with these cuts, Lakota schools are still worth “cheering” for. We are not part of a losing team, but our children and grandchildren could lose out on future opportunities if there isn’t more financial support. So, let’s drown out the Rich Hoffmans of our community by making the next levy a successful one. If that happens, we all win.
Laura Sanders
Now to address Laura’s points:
(C)(1) Except as otherwise provided in division (C)(2) of this section, no board of education shall use public funds to support or oppose the passage of a school levy or bond issue or to compensate any school district employee for time spent on any activity intended to influence the outcome of a school levy or bond issue election.
(2) A board of education may permit any of its employees to attend a public meeting during his regular working hours for the purpose of presenting information about school finances and activities and board actions, even if the purpose of the meeting is to discuss or debate the passage of a school levy or bond issue.
I. I knew when Karen Mantia arrived in town that she would seek to attack No Lakota Levy diplomatically and split us from the inside. That is after all what she did in Pickerington and the people from up there warned me ahead of time what her mode of operation was. In a personal meeting I had with her I got a wonderful feel for how she was going to play her hand. So I started to set up my operation independent of my partners in No Lakota Levy. If they stayed, great, if they broke, I could still proceed on as planned. They had showed signs of cracking earlier in the year, so I didn’t think they’d stay the course through a fourth attempt. On the third levy, they handled the sign delivery around the community during the last two weeks of the campaign and little else. I took care of all the media work, the blog postings, the debates and anything else that came up. If I lost them politically for the fourth levy attempt, which I felt was Mantia’s strategy—based on our meeting, I would have to maintain my ability to continue. In future levy attempts I would need the more radical members of the No Lakota Levy front to continue the fight. Many of them were frustrated that I didn’t hit the school hard enough often enough. My response was that a day would come when we would be able to hit as hard as they wanted. But for now, in the early stage of these levy fights, we had to save the best tricks for later—which we have. Most of the primary members of No Lakota Levy wanted to form Yes to Lakota Kids which I wasn’t crazy about, because they were tired of being called selfish businessmen—again by the PTA community. The threats of boycotts and other harassing measures were unconscionable in my opinion, and I couldn’t get Michael Clark from The Enquirer to cover those stories either. This left those members to strive for a public image campaign with Yes to Lakota Kids, which I felt was just feeding the monster. The sports fees shouldn’t have been put in place and even though we were raising $10,000, it felt to me like a drop in the bucket. So I wasn’t happy, but I represented their interests out of friendship. In private, on my blog, and elsewhere I voiced my opinion. Laura’s desire to make some of those comments one of sexism is a surrender on the pro levy position. They know they cannot win based on their arguments, so they played the progressive “feminist” card in an attempt to remove me from the debate. But, as predicted, there were a lot of silent handshakes and smirks about my comments from people who had been thinking the same thing. I just gave them a vehicle to vent their frustrations. A lot of the votes that the pro side wins from arm twisting, extortion, and other forms of coercion came back my way due to my controversial comments, which is what I needed to do on my side to prepare for the next try. Voters were just waiting for someone to articulate what they were already feeling.
II. Now as to facts………….I have delivered facts, upon facts, upon facts. Laura’s statement that she is dealing with facts whereas I am not is typical of the pro education debate where they ignore all facts except the ones they wish to see. It’s that cheerleader mentality again. If they look up on the scoreboard they don’t want to see a 45 to 0 score. They simply look at the clock to see what time it is. They ignore the actual score because they have a show to perform, and can’t let the facts ruin their desired reality. So here are the facts as she addressed them.
I spent a good part of this past Friday evening speaking to a reporter about virtually everything that I’ve said here. We are living in a new age; traditional media doesn’t hold the same power that it once did so creativity and innovation favor those on the side of the truth. The only thing that has held back others from jumping on the No Vote bandwagon was fear, because they have truth on their side, which is what I explained in a speech recently to a group I spoke to in Oxford. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. My hope after the third levy attempt was that I could inspire more people to step forward so that it wasn’t always Rich Hoffman doing everything, because that can only go on for so long. To have a healthy resistance, the formations have to constantly change, and new players have to be rotated in and out just like in a military engagement—because that is what we are fighting. Public education is not a nice institution that is protecting children as it’s sold; it’s a government propaganda machine and a babysitting service for parents too busy to care for their own children. I really don’t care if that makes people angry, because it’s true, and there are enough residents at Lakota who have grown children who know that it is. In the next levy attempt it is my hope that there are 20 levy fighters doing what I was doing in the first three at Lakota. I think that will be the case, and if it’s not, then I will pick up the slack……………..gladly. I’m happy to be civil if the pro levy people are, but if they wish to be uncivil—like they usually are, I will respond—as I have. Meanwhile, my advanced position on all public education is that it should be abolished as a tax payer funded entity off property tax. If Laura Sanders wants certain things for her child to learn, then she can pay for it. I’m tired of paying money for people like her to benefit, while they constantly complain that other people should pay more taxes. CLICK TO REVIEW THE KIND OF THINGS KIDS ARE BEING TAUGHT ABOUT EDUCTION FROM THE LAST CAMPAIGN. That kind of thing makes me absolutely sick. And when she states that commercial businesses do not contribute much in property taxes, she’s clearly not up to speed.
So go ahead and test me Lakota people. Go ahead and think that people are going to fall for the same old emotional arguments of the past, the accusations of sexism, selfishness, and compassion, and see where it gets you. I have saved a lot of people hundreds of thousands of dollars around Lakota and I purposely kept the budgets low in the previous three levy attempts so that the coffers would be there when I needed it. So when Laura Sanders says as she did in the opening of her letter………….. “Here we go again” that’s right. If they want to go again, they will see more fireworks than they’ve ever seen before……especially since my next campaign will be using new media, not traditional media. I don’t have to worry about offending people in the next attempt, now that the resistance network is built with fresh faces. For me this is a moral argument now, not just a financial one.
I would say this to Lakota. I am happy to do as I promised at the beginning of the deal in 2012 when it was agreed to not put a levy on the ballot. I am happy to leave Lakota alone in my crusade against public education if Lakota keeps its head down and out of the voting booth. Take the declined enrollment and ride off into the sunset, because if Lakota puts itself on my radar, it will be their own fault. That is a bit of friendly advice. Or, Lakota can listen to the winds of war from the pom poms of Lakota’s Levy Cheerleaders and see who can swim the longest and shout the loudest. And I know where the Vegas odds makers will put their money—and it isn’t on Lakota.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
If you are a member of Socialist International, a labor union supporter, a left leaning school teacher, a government bureaucrat, a worthless administrator, a greenie weenie activist, a vegan, a member of the mainstream press, a member of Communist Party U.S.A, a member of NAMBLA, a supporter of the Cincinnati Streetcar, a Obama supporter, a fan of The Daily Show, think Bill Maher is intelligent, are living off government assistance, want Obamacare, think Hillary Clinton is honest, sleep past 9 AM, vote for school levies, give to charities for fear of social ridicule, are a latte sipping prostitute, think Agenda 21 is good, support The United Nations, support gun restrictions, support the NDAA Act, think $17 trillion in national debt is not bad, are a diabolical liar, a scum bag, an apathetic loser, and believe that money falls from the sky like rain, you might want to skip the fantastic event that is coming to the Northern Kentucky Convention Center at 5:30 PM on Friday April 19th, The Cincinnati Freedom Expo. For everyone else who is normal, Constitution supporting Americans you can sign up to get your tickets at the link below. The tickets are free, but do need to be registered prior to arrival. The floor space is large, but we can’t pack the room infinitely, so tickets will be issued. The event is free because some fantastic sponsors covered the cost and can also be seen at the link.
http://cincinnatifreedomexpo.com/
I wouldn’t miss the event as Ann Becker who is President of the West Chester Tea Party and also President of the Cincinnati Tea Party is one of the key organizers. If Ann is involved, it will be successful. So the event should be a lot of fun. Brian Thomas of 55 KRC is the Master of Ceremonies which will feature a long list of speakers reporting back directly from the trenches of the freedom movement.
K Carl Smith is also a featured speaker this year at the Freedom Expo 2013. He is a leader in the inspirational Fredrick Douglass Republicans. Learn more about this great group here – http://frederickdouglassrepublican.com/
A father and grandfather, K Carl is an unyielding defender of the constitution and liberty. Inspired by the guiding principles of the Founding Fathers and holding fast to the oath taken during his service to our country, he launched The Conservative MESSENGER™ in 2009.
Captivating Messenger- A “grassroots” initiative, The Conservative MESSENGER’s mission has been to: Enlighten, Educate, Empower and Equip its members based on the Frederick Douglass Republican™ Methodology—a unique and powerfully effective strategy to: (1) Re-Ignite America’s Passion for Liberty; (2) Help the Republican Party recapture its political distinction; (3) Save the souls of the politically lost; (4) Promote racial unity; (5) Create an atmosphere for political dialogue without the accusation of racism or Uncle Tomism; (6) Trump the race card.
A Frederick Douglass Republican™- K Carl has taken what began as a mantra or rallying call and has spearheaded a movement that has climbed into the thousands. In 2011, The Conservative MESSENGER evolved into what is now the Frederick Douglass Republican™ Movement.
Political Motivator-K Carl captivates and inspires audiences with infectious energy, compassion and satire. He brings his expertise and provides down-to-earth solutions on how the conservative movement can broaden its base. K Carl leaves audiences ready to take action-action which could change the political landscape of America. Tea Party Groups, GOP organizations, collegiate institutions, and faith-based groups alike secure the services of K Carl for his stimulating and enrapturing LIFE-EMPOWERING message. His presentations serve as a “beacon of hope” for those who hold Liberty in high-esteem. As a result, K Carl recently authored Frederick Douglass Republicans: The Movement to Reignite America’s Passion for Liberty.
Servant/ Leader- K Carl hold to his credit, successful completion of both the Airborne and Air-Assault programs while on active duty in the U. S. Army. He is the former district leader (AL-7) ofAmericans for Fair Taxation. In 2009, he was appointed to the Amistad Commission by former Alabama Governor, Bob Riley. He was reappointed to that commission, where he currently serves. Additionally, he was recently appointed to the Affordable Homeowner’s Insurance Commission (AHIC) by Alabama Governor Robert Bentley.
Political Agitator- K Carl appeared on The 700 Club and FOXNews’ Huckabee Show. He was recently interviewed by Ginni Thomas for The Daily Caller and participated in a soon-to-be released documentary produced by Rev. C.L. Bryant, The Runaway Slave. K Carl has been featured in a myriad of publications to which he has been “greatly humbled”.
The son of Colonel (retired) Earnest C. and Bessie Smith, Sr., KCarl is a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was reared in Huntsville, Alabama. He is graduate of Alabama A&M University and makes his home in Trussville, Alabama. K Carl is the proud father of three children and five grandchildren.
Congressman Thomas Massie from the Fourth District of Kentucky will also be a speaker at Freedom Expo!
U.S. Representative Thomas Massie entered Congress in November 2012 after serving as Lewis County Judge Executive. He represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District which stretches across Northern Kentucky and 280 miles of the Ohio River.
U.S. Representative Massie attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. During school, he invented a technology that enabled people to interact with computers using their sense of touch, and leveraged that technology to found SensAble Technologies, Inc., which raised over $32 million of venture capital, created 70 jobs, and obtained 24 patents. The hardware and software he developed is now used to design automobiles, jewelry, shoes, dental prosthetics, and even reconstructive implants for wounded soldiers.
In Congress, Thomas serves on three committees: the House Committee of Transportation & Infrastructure, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
The House Committee of Transportation & Infrastructure has jurisdiction over roads, bridges, mass transit, railroads, aviation, maritime and waterborne transit. Thomas’s selection to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee puts him in a position to hold the federal government accountable to taxpayers. Further, Rep. Massie’s background from MIT and the high-tech business world makes him uniquely qualified to serve his state and country on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
Thomas lives on a cattle farm in Kentucky with his wife and high school sweetheart, Rhonda, and their four children.
These are just a few of the speakers who are confirmed to speak; many more will also be taking the stage throughout the evening to celebrate freedom in all its glory. There will also be booths with venders and authors available to sign their books. Matt Mayer will have his own booth where he will be signing copies of his Taxpayers Don’t Stand A Chance. This event will certainly be one of the biggest of the year. And for those who read here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom regularly and have been trying to peg me down for time, I will be there with my cowboy hat on. So if you’d like to meet me or talk with me in person, this will be your opportunity. This Freedom Expo is just what it sounds like, an evening to be around like-minded people away from the parasites of big government and slow-witted progressives. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Friday evening, so I hope to see many of you there. The price is right, the activity will be vigorous, and the company will be spectacular. So make your plans for the April 19th today.
See you there!
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
