Tag: education

Lakota Turns to Children to Solve their Budget Problems: Moody’s makes a threat to force levy passage

When people who don’t pay too much attention to things wonder why education issues make me so angry it’s probably because they don’t see it from the underbelly like I have. Those same personalities might be inclined to consider that looking too closely at how things connect would be regulated to conspiracy. However the reality of such people is that they are simply too lazy to look at the evidence, or the evidence is “inconvenient” for them to learn, because once they accept it they might feel inclined to act, and that would require a responsibility they are not comfortable with. The information that follows is that kind of information. The links to the supporting evidence or at least the tip of the iceberg is there for all to see. All one has to do is look at it. But there is a danger, because once an individual knows the information, they are responsible. They will either do something about it, or they will choose to ignore it which contributes to more of the bad behavior. But the knowledge erases the ignorance, and the manipulation that allows such injustices to be committed upon our communities. Pretending the injustices aren’t in front of us all won’t make them go away into convenience. And the implication of negligence will define much about us as individuals, families, communities, or even the human race. The decisions we make right now will define us well into the foreseeable future, and so far I see that it is the short-sighted of us that is winning. And I will admit that it makes me very angry.

Dealing with these people who have drunk the kool-aid of the education entitlement culture is like dealing with an infant baby. All they can do is cry to get what they want. You can’t explain anything to these education culture people because they have such entrenched ideas and aren’t open to discussions outside of their reality–inside their crib. So the world of bigger ideas is completely foreign to them, and it’s impossible to explain it to them until they grow older and become more experienced. All you can do with such infants is just let them cry so they learn that nobody is going to give them what they want. The article below reflects much of this type of crying that is disguised as sophisticated opinion but in reality is simply just noise designed to provoke a panic reaction from the parents of the community. And it’s disgusting, and insulting.

Yes, as reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer on 3/27/12 Lakota’s next move as one of the most prestigious government schools in all of Ohio is turning toward its children who attend the school to help them solve their budget problems. Superintendent Mantia stated that she intends to select 180 students from the district to participate in a series of “engagement meetings” to ask the children what they think their future will be. Once this process is done, Mantia intends to parade those students out in front of the public to plead for more tax money.

The question is who will these children be? How will their eligibility be determined? Without question many of these kids will be from the families of some of the PTA groups who helped organize boycotts against local businesses that did not support past school levies along with assistance from elementary school vice-principals. (Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but I have the paper trail in my possession with names and places and was just as shocked to see it as you are in reading it. The only reason I have not put it up here is because the owners don’t wish to have more trouble brought down on them) Or other pro levy members who have attempted to boycott local restaurants and threatened boycotts of news outlets that didn’t just lay down and blindly cover all Pro Government School propaganda. (FOR PROOF CLICK HERE) I bet many of those 180 students will come from those parents. Or maybe the kids will be like the ones who left this sign in the yard of a No Lakota Levy supporter. (CLICK HERE). Or maybe the ones who ran around in the middle of the night stealing thousands of dollars worth of property as law enforcement turned a blind eye to the activity. (CLICK HERE TO SEE FOR YOURSELF)

It’s just a guess, but I’d say the 180 children selected will have a “please give the school more money so we can have a future,” message that they will say to the public. Without question the school board is prepared to use those children now to help them sell their school levy. I will bet money that some of those children will be paraded in front of the school board in front of all the cameras to plead to the community to pass a school levy so they can have an education……………tears anybody………….it will be so very, very……….sad.

But I’m predicting the future here. These are things that will happen, not what’s happening currently. Also according to Superintendent Mantia from the same Enquirer article she reports that Moody’s Investors Service “MIGHT” lower the district’s bond rating. She reported that out of the 613 public schools in all of Ohio only 10 have the top AAA bond rating. She said that Moody’s “Particularly hone in on districts that are losing levies.” So because Lakota has failed three school levies, there is a risk that our interest rates will go up if we lose our AAA rating. (kind of sounds like what America is going through—Hmmmmmmm)

So in the very same article Superintendent Mantia is telling us that if we don’t pass a school levy, then we will lose our bond rating, and we’ll be hurting children, this is of course implied.  Nothing is ever directly said. That just might cause a lot of parents to panic—maybe even homeowners and business owners. Oh my—that is scary stuff! The message is that everyone should panic so that the community will pass another school levy.

This kind of behavior should insult the intelligence of everyone who has a brain. Any organization that uses fear in this fashion should be questioned as to their intentions. When people question what the solution is to these government schools, the answer is to control the costs, don’t let the costs control you. In the case of Lakota they are letting the costs of 80% of their budget drive all the bad things that are happening in the other 20% which is where all the detrimental cuts have occurred. The labor union that has refused by default to renegotiate their contract with the district due to the three levy failures is to blame for why Moody’s is threatening a downgrade. Lakota is infested with a radical, selfish labor force that is certainly willing to destroy our community so that they can protect their gold-plated wages and benefits.  (Just because they smile and speak in complete sentences, they can still think and believe as a progressive radical does)

When I first became involved in these levy fights I often heard from teachers who said, “You’ll support players in sports who make millions of dollars, but you won’t support a teacher who gives a child a future.” That kind of rhetoric is standard union nonsense right out of the NEA playbook. My response to that ridiculous statement is that even sports teams have limits. Players are often let go from teams because a team can’t afford them. CLICK HERE TO SEE AN EXAMPLE OF THIS. If teachers and administrators make too much money, they should be let go in favor of cheaper employees, just like the way the rest of the world functions. It is the refusal of these employees who make over $63K per year on average to cut even 5% to save the community they live and work in–it is they and everyone behind them who have caused all this trouble.

When the only resort for an organization is to use fear to get what it wants, then the validity of their argument must be questioned. If the facts of the matter cannot stand on its own, then why is fear needed to provoke a reaction? Because the organization in question is up to no good.

What we’re dealing with at Lakota and most public schools is a radical, union workforce that hides behind layers of emotional supporters directly attached to children. I would say that any organization that hides behind children to create emotional support is a faulty organization that is scamming the public. The solution to this budget problem is very simple. Superintendent Mantia has been given a budget by the community and she is required to live within that budget. But her real boss is the labor union. That’s who is wagging the dog in this case and dictating to her and a token school board what to do. If Moody’s drops Lakota’s credit rating it will be during the term of the quarter million dollar woman, Superintendent Mantia and will thus be her fault for not finding a way to maintain that rating. She chose to participate in the union extortion tactics of the community instead of forcing the labor to live within the community’s budget. She is the one who has decided to fight half the community who has voted against her by turning the minority into the majority with a contentious levy battle three times that has given Lakota national headlines. Those acts were done by the school with radicals acting behind the scenes who are simply acting on behalf of their selfish interests. Make no question about it—when these employees attempt to say that everything they do is for children, they are lying. Much of what they do is to protect their extraordinary compensation packages. CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW GOOD THEY ARE. If money was not the driver, then the union would have taken a 5% concession to help the community stay strong without tax increases, and maintain the excellence of the school district. Instead, these radical employees are choosing to hide behind children to twist the arm of the community, and are attempting to wreak the bond rating with a public relations campaign designed to incite fear through the business community.

If these employees of the Lakota School District were so interested in doing what’s right for the children, they wouldn’t attempt to even inject them into the debate. It is the school boards job with Superintendent Mantia to make their payroll fit the budget allocation while still providing the services the community expects. These radical cutbacks of 20% of the budget while protecting the 80% is disgusting and an insulting display of arrogance from an organization that seeks to make itself the center of community value. Yet in that role, they fail to make the sacrifices they ask the rest of the community to make. They expect everyone but them to make a sacrifice. And if they don’t get it, they chose to hide behind children. And that should go a long way to revealing what they are really all about.

I see the tricks shown in the Enquirer article by Superintendent Mantia to be among the lowest of the lows. It actually sets a new standard for deceptive practice that is despicable. And what’s worse, there are many parents who will allow their children to be used for these tactics. On the surface, everything looks spiffy. Everything seems very professional. But all anyone has to do is raise up the rug just a little bit to see all the dirt that’s been pushed under it, to see what is really going on. And the fact of the matter is that Lakota is protecting its labor union at the cost of the community. Pure and simple.

If the issue were simply a straight up and down vote about the level of taxation in our communities, I wouldn’t have a problem. But when boycotts are organized against those who disagree with one side and vandalism is encouraged against those with opposing views then there is a serious problem, and that’s been my experience with dealing with these tax culture education people. When an organization openly manipulates the voters with games, and emotional tactics, and disrespects the voters over a three-year period with more tax increase demands, then there are serious problems with that organization. There comes a time when an organization’s value must come into question, and I would say that we are there with the Lakota School District. After three years of fighting them over tax increases I no longer have any faith or trust in them as an organization. I don’t think I should have to pay one cent to such a corrosive organization run by such selfish employees. I see that my money has been wasted so far on a system that I don’t agree with, that is teaching kids all the wrong progressive values, and I think it should be in my right to opt out of paying the tax all together—and not even entertain further taxes. I think this is the new direction that must be pursued, because it’s obvious that these education employees understand only one path—more taxes—more behavior of the tail wagging the dog—and a level of selfishness that I don’t think should be taught to children in any capacity. It deeply disturbs me that a school would even consider bringing children into this debate. And it should concern you too.

To understand the truth it helps to view the world through Hoffman Lenses.  To understand what those are CLICK THE LINK.  If you can’t handle the truth, then don’t read here.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/socialists-live-hoffman-lenses-on-urban-meyer/

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

The Ugly Side of Politics: Going over the edge in full control

For a bit of perspective, I have received messages, email and other comments to the effect shown below for the last three years now due to my involvement in staving off potential school levies and advocating labor union reforms.  This is my view of many of my political rivals; it’s what I see routinely.  I typically respond to each of them with an equal answer to keep things fair and balanced, and on occasion I will respond in mass to them with a blog posting to save myself some time.  One of these comments from the fake email address RICHHOFFMANHATESKIDS I received yesterday.  The other I received a few days ago. I picked these two because they are different but have the same intention.  I have received these types of messages for years now and have grown used to them, but it always brings to my mind, why should I have to.  What is the purpose of these harassments?  What is their objective? 

dmtracey15 03/16/12

Rich Hoffman is a vile, disgusting, piece of shit!

Submitted on 2012/03/19 at 4:42 pm richhoffmanhateskids@gmail.com
coward coward coward!! hiding behind your ability to moderate comments. you are a small small little man. no wonder your wife is seen in the company of other men.

HA HA HA! NO LAKOTA DOESN’T WANT YOU…HA HA HA! Its a sign that you are a nobody when groups start running away from you.
ha ha ha ha ha!!!

The criteria for me that a political organization whether it be a school or any other branch of government is up to no good is whether or not they respect the voice of the voter.  In order for our nation to operate the way its intended, utmost respect must be given to the power of the vote.  The vote is the voice of the people in our government, so in order to understand what that voice is; we typically count votes at the balance box. 

You can see how honest a political group is however by their actions during this process.  If they attempt to steal the campaign literature of the other side hoping to take away the voice of the opposition, then the thieves are afraid that their message cannot stand on its own and seek to manipulate the vote with vandalism.  You can also see if voter intimidation is at play, where members of an opposing political party try to turn a vote in their direction with threats of various kinds.  You can also see if a political party is attempting to spend money on firms to tell them how to convey their message to manipulate a potential voter with marketing key words.  All these practices and more speak volumes about the intention of these political entities. 

In my personal situation at Lakota where I have taken a stance against higher taxes, I have now been in a three year fight against a school driven by radical politics.  The public image is like most political entities, good and full of smiles, but behind the scenes is a radicalism that is expensive, manipulative, and very disrespectful to the voters who have now voted three times to defeat potential tax levies.  In that three years I have seen everything mentioned above and much, much more in an attempt to shut down the voice of opposition so that a vote in their favor can be achieved.  And since I’ve been on the front line of that fight, I have seen lots of attempts at intimidation—acts that were intended to push me off the front line and hide in the background so my points could not be heard in an election.  When people wonder why I get so mad and say some of the things I have said, they often don’t get the context of what goes on behind the scenes, behind the newspapers and television reports, which tend to paint things with pleasant images that don’t dig too deeply into the real issues.  The political rhetoric can be intense, and many nasty things can and do get said. 

This is why The Pulse Journal had to shut down their comments section on their web site and why The Cincinnati Enquirer turned their comments to Facebook accounts, because the political rhetoric sometimes became so heated that very nasty things were said—and people were saying more than they should because they were using screen names, and not their actual names.  This still goes on with online forums, and some of the really nasty stuff has calmed down on the Enquirer sites but it still does not change the fact that in a political endeavor, both sides want to win, and they’ll say and do just about anything to achieve their aim—especially if the real intent is up to no good.

I started this site at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom because I couldn’t get all the depth needed to understand some of our modern education problems with just interviews in the newspaper, because the story is complex and requires a lot of information.  A political entity such as a school tends to want to dominate their public perception by gaining as much control of the media as possible.  They lean on reporters who write articles not favorable to them with “blacklisting” or letter writing campaigns from volunteers dedicated to their cause, and this is typically how they achieve media monopoly.  So by starting this site, it is a form of media that they don’t control. 

On the other side of my political beliefs are vast networks run by the OEA, the NEA, ProgressOhio, and countless smaller organizations who propel myths intended to manipulate the typical voter, and it works.  And within each of those organizations are groups of radicals who lay in wait to provide pressure, protests, and apply defensive positions upon any opposition under the mantra of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  Because most of the time, it does, so whoever screams loudest and longest tends to win in this kind of politics.  Because on the surface, the mainstream media carries only the bullet points of all the results of the dirty deeds that go on behind the scenes, and most people don’t want, or have time for all the nasty business.  They would rather not know because in knowing there is a responsibility to act.

Public education behind the façade of children’s learning and community enrichment is a deep seated radicalism that is very powerful, and corrosive to the world around them.  The source is the labor unions that make up the labor force of these schools.  They seek an employment monopoly that they can use against the tax payers to drive up their wage rates.  They seek to eliminate any DISCUSSION of competition let alone actually embrace it.  And they are one of the most destructive forces currently at play in politics. 

If you speak out against them, and take ownership of your comments you will see lots of messages as those seen above.  And the hate speech will fly in your direction.  The obvious reason for the hate speech is to control your behavior.  It is the same motive of a typical bully, they threaten to hurt you or will push your buttons trying to find something that hurts you so that the pain will be so great that you won’t question the reality they are trying to sell. 

Hiding these radical elements are the emotions of being in business with children, and the parents of these children tend to want to believe they are doing the right thing, so they put blinders onto the ugliness and do their best to put on a positive outward appearance.  These parents tend to be the outward appearance that a school system uses to protect their monopoly status to the mainstream media.  It’s a scam that has worked for many years and is excessively corrosive to community involvement.  For those like myself who expose these discrepancies there is much anger, and letters like I’ve shown at the beginning of this article are typical. 

I believed up until a few weeks ago that this kind of thing could be combated with just facts alone and I was willing to put up with the harassment.  But seeing what happened in the Little Miami School District with 9 levy attempts every 6 months or so and seeing that as soon as the levy was passed the district turned on the spending facet to full blast, then noticing that Lakota was doing nothing to proactively solve their problems by driving down their wages, and Lakota was headed for a 4th levy attempt in 2012, I realized that just fighting them on the high ground would not be enough, because at Lakota, we are headed for the same path as Little Miami, and this is all by design by the radical elements behind public education, especially in Ohio. 

There are many who read here who know what I’m talking about from experience.  There are many who are learning these things for the first time.  And there are many who want to hide the information I’m exposing so they can continue on with this epic education scam that is perpetuated at our expense.  That last type is dangerous and they’ve been able to hide in the shadows behind feel good sports stories and busy parents just wanting an education for their children.  The media that they largely control with the same extortive methods employed on me just cannot dig too deep into these stories. 

So sometimes, to beat such types you have to beat them at their own game.  You have to flush them out of their hiding places and expose them for what they are.  And you can’t do this without going down into the burrows where they dwell, behind the layers of facades they’ve created. 

I wish none of this were necessary.  I wish that a vote was a vote, and we could let those votes speak the desires of the public.  But when groups see that a community says NO, and they proceed to take away offerings to the public that the public is paying for with their tax money because there isn’t any competition, and that same organization pretends that the majority did not vote against them, so they try again 6 months, or 1 year later hoping that the numbers will change while there are members of these organizations who work behind the scenes attacking voices who present opposing points of view—with the hope of altering the final vote, the system is broken beyond repair then action is mandated. 

And action is what will happen.  Because the value of the vote is worth fighting for—without it we have nothing.  Executive Order 10988 should be repealed, and then we can start to figure things out.

To understand the truth it helps to view the world through Hoffman Lenses.  To understand what those are CLICK THE LINK.  If you can’t handle the truth, then don’t read here.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/socialists-live-hoffman-lenses-on-urban-meyer/

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

Fight Back: You don’t owe anybody, anything!

My wife and I dined out with friends on Friday March 16, 2012 one day after the media blitz against me where every single radio station in the city of Cincinnati broadcast the salacious details of the Cincinnati Enquirer article designed to crush me into oblivion where quotes from my blog postings here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom stirred up my community into a vengeful froth. Everywhere I went that day a radio personality was reading the latte sipping prostitute quotes I wrote about and the metaphor used to describe the type of dangerous voters who do not spend time educating themselves on facts, but instead cast reckless votes based on emotions. It wasn’t just AM radio but many of the FM stations as well. Everywhere I went, every person I spoke with knew the news of the day and I was it.

I was made out to be a radical, even though I’m not; I was told I’m a sexist, even though I’m far from it. My name was slandered with complete lies by supposedly respectable public personalities. And I was betrayed by many, many friends when they saw how much heat I was taking because they feared those same guns being turned on them. But I’ve been there before and I’ll be there again. I can say that I completely understand what Glenn Beck goes through on a routine bases, because the backlash toward me was not because of what I might have said. Those same critics of me say much worse things online themselves where they think their user names make them anonymous, (which it doesn’t). It’s because I’m in the way of the powers that wish to change the world in a direction I don’t agree with. It’s due to progressive politics using our public education system and the easy target of emotional parents to advance an agenda that translates to a federal government that is quickly turning toward socialism. The same people who targeted me target anyone who opposes them with a fury so that uncontested advancement of a corrosive political ideology can proceed. Glenn Beck in the following clip is spot on to what I am thinking at this very moment except for the part where he speaks about jail. I wouldn’t go to jail peacefully.

My trouble began when I received several messages and comments from pro tax levy supporters calling me a “baldy,” because of my receding hairline which I make no attempt to hide, and proceeded to inform me that “I hate children,” “I’m anti education,” and other derogatory statements. So I responded by calling them in an article I wrote, “Latte sipping prostitutes.” Sticks and stones. It was OK for them to say such things in public in an attempt to smear my name, so it’s only fair that I return the favor. But that’s not the rules they are functioning under. Since I’m a “public” official I am held to some invisible standard—I am to behave “above” such insults.

Well, I don’t know who made up those stupid rules, but…………no I’m not. It’s that kind of double standard that has brought about the kind of world that Glenn Beck is talking about in that clip. The world has gone mad, and I’m not the crazy one. And I’m not going to follow the rules made up to subtly control the “middle class” with social customs that will lead to our demise by progressive nut jobs.

All during that day and thereafter people asked me if I really said what I said. I replied that I did. The conversation would end there because I was supposed to feel some kind of guilt I suppose and people didn’t know how to react when I didn’t show any remorse. But why would I? I said what I thought portrayed the situation as I saw it. It wasn’t meant to be taken literally, but since I’m a writer I often use metaphors. But these radical locals who see me standing in their way of a tax increase wanted to use some silly social standard to control my behavior, to actually apply pressure on me to retract my statements, to cheapen my property, which are my ideas, my words, my essential being. They exhibited all the signs of a typical looter who consumes the world around them.

Lakota School Board member Julie Shaffer on her Facebook page started this process by inflaming her base with the question as to why so many people listen to what I have to say. This is the spark that set the fire of radicals to come after me and blitz the media, putting my name on every radio station and newspaper in town with a vengeful fury. They sought to separate me from my friends, to break me down so I was standing alone. They wanted to push me in the dirt alone, begging for forgiveness. But as I switched through the stations and heard the howls of anger and I read again, and again, and again the salacious details of the Cincinnati Enquirer article I felt pride.

Whenever you do something so innocent that attracts so much attention, and congers up so much power against you, you know you have done something right. And to answer Julie’s question, people listen to me because I tell them the truth. And I’m not afraid to tell them the truth no matter how harsh it may sound. It is these radical types who have put Obama in the White House, and given us a 15 trillion dollar deficit. It is these types who have allowed college tuition to escalate to such high levels that kids are quitting after 2 to 3 years $100,000 in debt. It is these types who think public education can hide the fact that they are not doing their job as parents and they think the community should blindly support per pupil costs of over $10,000 per child. It’s these kinds of people who have made gun ownership taboo, and made it so we can’t even say certain words in public for fear of offending their fragile sensibilities.

The same personalities who came after me with great force are the same idiots who are screwing up our country and it gives me great pleasure to see them so upset! Because it tells me I did something right. They are the same idiots who say that Glenn Beck is a kook, or Rush Limbaugh is a whack job. They say these things because they hope people won’t listen to them. But there’s a reason Glenn Beck is so popular. And there’s a reason Rush Limbaugh has weathered so many storms over the years to still have one of the top radio programs in the country. Because they say what people are already thinking.

Progressive politics assumes that every human being feels an inherit need for human company, for acceptance, so they use that need to attempt to crush down thoughts of insurrection against their policies. If you begin to question them, they will seek to isolate you with emotional arguments and publicly discredit you. But in my case, I don’t care what the opinion of a fool is. So if thousands of fools are passing judgment on me to attempt to change my behavior it will have no effect. It might affect those connected to me, because they might care about those fools’ feelings so the leverage can be used against them, but it can’t against me. That’s why I seldom ever get involved in anything that I don’t have complete control over that has a lot of people in the organization, because when things get hot—and they always do—some of those people will turn on you. So it’s better to fly fast and loose, and as independent as possible.

But Beck is right. As an individual in America it is not the individual’s obligation to surrender anything to a collective mind. In my case the public schools are a form of collective that is permeated with radicalism. It’s so bad that those close to it, who understand no other way of life can’t even see it. They seek to impose themselves on the community as though they are owed something that can meet their outrageous social expectations. So my plan is that if Lakota ever get’s their tax increase, then I plan to have my home reevaluated lower so I can offset the tax. I would encourage everyone to request a new appraisal at such a time to be taxed at the lower value. Because it’s not my obligation to pay anyone a tax. It’s my money and nobody is entitled to it. If I want to support an organization like a school, I want the free will to do it. I don’t want my arm twisted into doing so, and I certainly don’t want assassination attempts because I’m in the way of passing a levy, which is what Thursday was all about. It’s why Glenn Beck spends over $1 million dollars a year on body guards. It’s why most people I speak to about why they don’t get more involved say, “because, I don’t want anything to happen to me.”

We don’t owe them anything. They don’t own, or control our lives. And if they steal from you with tax increases, you have a right to evade the tax, through legal means. But they are not owed anything by you to them. Nobody has a right to legalized theft. Nobody has a right to detain or arrest you for no reason other than you disagree with them. If the attempt is made then we as individuals have a right to end their reign of power.

When Julie Shaffer painted me as anti public school on her Facebook account and deliberately sought to put an end to me so she could have her tax increase on the community and become the hero of her followers what she can’t control is why people listen to me. She can try, but the essence is what she misses. People listen to me because I have shown that I cannot be forcibly dismissed, and that the information I provide begins the process of thinking. And people are grateful for that because in most forms of media, and sources of information, the pressure can be applied to twist the world around to convince people that red is blue and white is black on a whim. And here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom the colors are always what they seem, and the truth is spoken even when it hurts.

It’s not because paying a tax is unaffordable, and it’s not that I hate anything, other than people who impose themselves on me. It’s that I have the right to my own time, my own money, and my own thoughts and anyone who imposes themselves upon me has committed an attack against my personal sovereignty. And if that seems radical, it’s only because the people who believe such things are so far gone that they can no longer see reality.

To understand the truth it helps to view the world through Hoffman Lenses.  To understand what those are CLICK THE LINK.  If you can’t handle the truth, then don’t read here.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/socialists-live-hoffman-lenses-on-urban-meyer/

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

Julie Shaffer’s Facebook: My response to the salacious Enquirer article

It’s true; when I was with No Lakota Levy we did approach Patti Alderson at the Community Foundation to partnership with them to attempt to heal the community. We had a plan to give substantial amounts of money to help kids and the community as a whole, but within a week of making the announcement public, Patti decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea and pulled away from the community unifying idea. Disappointed our guys went to work to begin our own foundation to be able to help the community in some way.

(To review this story as it personaly affected me CLICK HERE.)

The maneuver to me appeared to be completely motivated by community politics. Word from within the Lakota front who inform me of many things, let me know that a group that fights tax levies cannot be seen helping children, because to their minds the only thing that can help children was passing tax increases. Now, my opinion of Patti is that she does a lot of good in the community for what I see, but she stuck her name on my personal situation, and since her name appeared in probably the most salacious article the Cincinnati Enquirer has ever produced, I have to address her involvement and what led up to the demise of something that was intended to be very good.  (You can review that article here)

Shortly after this collapse of the No Lakota Levy reaching out to help heal the community while the levy fights continue I attended one of the large school board meetings at Lakota East and was shocked at the amount of parents who urged the board to attempt to pass yet another levy for the fourth time, instead of asking the union to take a 5% wage cut to balance the budget. I reported my findings at this article, CLICK HERE.

The more I thought about the situation, the refusal of the pro levy people to work with the anti levy people for the good of the community, and the push by a handful of parents to advance another tax increase on a community that already has high taxes, the short sightedness of it all stirred me into a rage. While all this was going on I was getting comments and messages along with information from my “feelers” within the school that I was anti child, anti education, and bad for the community in an effort to paint me negatively in front of their next campaign. Yet it was the group I was associated with that was reaching across the aisle to bring peace. And that peace was refused because the pro levy factions needed to maintain the public image that No Lakota Levy was a group bad for the community.  Because their message was that if you want to do “good” for the community then a new levy needed to be passed.

This blog site of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom has become over time to be something like a newspaper that many people come to for information. Its numbers compete with small press newspapers daily, so I decided to take advantage of my site to stir the pot a bit and paint the picture of the situation as I saw it using a graphic metaphor. I didn’t hold back, for one, a blog site has an expectation to be a different news source than a traditional newspaper. So my readers like to see passion when I exhibit it, which was genuine. But I also wanted to see if I could smoke out some of these pro levy people who worked behind the scenes to make it so good things couldn’t happen, so the illusion that it was Lakota Schools who held all the cards in doing good things for the community could be exposed.

When I put up the controversial articles, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get much reaction from the pro levy people. I shrugged it off and moved on. Approximately two weeks later the No Lakota Levy group had our press conference announcing the new foundation to help kids and it felt good to do something positive. The press enjoyed it. But ironically, the pro levy people seemed to become infuriated in a way that I wouldn’t have guessed. You can see some of their comments about me personally here upon this announcement.  (CLICK HERE)  And as you can see when reading those things, people used far worse language than I did in the bit I wrote and it was personalized where my wasn’t.

Within three days of our big press conference, Julie Shaffer went to my articles and took out sections of them and put them on her Facebook as seen below. Keep in mind that Julie has worked on previous levy attempts and she is now a school board member. Her intention here is to fan the flames of her supporters obviously against me. I wanted to see her do this, but what is most telling is that she waited until I was involved in something very good to take the shot.

I didn’t get all the screen shots from the posting, but down the page a bit was Pam Parino urging Julie to send this information to her “friends” at WLW, which she apparently did. Pam is a long time levy activist; you can see how she attempted to extort WLW a few years ago at this link. Now I still get along with people at WLW, but I was surprised at how they turned on me during the broadcasts of March 15th 2012, especially considering how they chose to broadcast. But I was told by Scott Sloan that I am a public figure and that I couldn’t say these kinds of things even if similar statements were made on their very shows. I disagree. I may be a public figure, but I am not a public servant. I can say whatever I want and it’s up to me to decide if voters will reject or embrace it. Not any social standard. It’s my risk to take.

My feelers at Lakota told me that the superintendent was personally sending out links to Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom to “community leaders.” My initial response was, “good, maybe they’ll learn something.” Then some of my friends asked me to take out some of the things I said which might affect the good work they were trying to do, which was fair enough, so I put the articles that might cause such trouble on password protect not to protect me, but to protect them. The entire time I saw no reason to not stand by my statements.

Within days the anger mounted and I was getting very heated messages like, “Rich Hoffman, you’re going down!” I knew the pro levy people were mounting an offensive, which I anticipated two weeks prior, so I wasn’t surprised. But once the Enquirer article came out, I was a bit surprised. It was way over the top and made me realize I should have just kept the article up so people could have seen the context of the metaphors I was using to describe the situation. Because the way that Mike Clark assembled his article painted me in such a bad way that there was no way to explain it without a tremendous back-story, which there wasn’t time for. I agreed to do the Scott Sloan show and I didn’t have a problem with the hard nature of that interview, but I was surprised at how he inflamed the situation after our interview, which again was fair play. Their ratings at my expense. When WLW called me later in the day to see if I would do a spot on Eddie and Tracy’s show I said no, because they had put me in a really bad position. Eddie and Tracy tried to call me out on the air knowing I almost said yes to the interview, so they attempted to push me over the edge to get me to come on. But they only had a piece of the story, and openly calling me a sexist all day long broke friendships that I felt for some of those guys, who have used worse language than I did on many occasions. So I elected not to blow my top on the air for 200,000 people to hear, and to calm down. Yet the blood was in the water, and I put it there to learn the lay of the battlefield. When I wrote that quote I wanted to see if Julie would take the bait, I wanted to see how Mantia would react, and who was in the pro levy network so I could figure out how to fight them. Because taking a passive approach wasn’t working. After three levy failures, it was still the minority who sought to impose on the majority their intentions for a levy increase and they had a network that was vast enough to prevent our work with an independent foundation headed by a powerful local personality in Patti Alderson. So I needed to see how these people were connected. When they thought they had me on the fence they emerged with bold words. Patty felt strongly enough about me to speak before the Lakota school board. She wanted to clarify that her group, which also raises money for needy Lakota students, has no affiliation with Yes to Lakota Kids. Alderson told the board audience of more than 200 people, that No Lakota officials had approached the foundation last month but that “we refused to accept their funds.” She said that with a pride that I found fascinating. She also said, “We refuse to accept funds where political statements are attached.” What she should have said is that she refuses to accept funds that had political statements that she didn’t agree with, because by endorsing the pro levy faction she is supporting the political position of the school, and not the entire community.

Out of all the terrible news that came from the Enquirer article the parts that actually made me laugh that day were from West Chester Township Trustee Catherine Stoker who said “the language used by Mr. Hoffman is not only egregiously offensive, but reflects badly on the No Lakota group that Mr. Hoffman supports.” So does that mean the No Lakota group had a good name before all this? If so, then why was our help turned down? And who in the world is Catherine Stoker? She’s a public servant. She should have shut her mouth and done some work instead of trying to grandstand on my head, which is what she was doing as a favor to Superintendent Mantia and the pro levy people. And who decides what’s egregiously offensive? Her? The pro levy people? Or these next two pretentious specimens.

Lakota school mother Kim Hesselgesser said “I was very disgusted by the blog Rich Hoffman posted.” I was also very saddened for this extremely disturbed man. To me it is evident that he has some agenda that goes far beyond increased school taxes. Although I hate the fact that he is getting exactly what he wants – a lot of media attention. I feel it is worthwhile to make the public aware of who they are truly supporting when placing No Lakota signs in their yards. Pro levy or no levy…is that the type of person you want leading a group in our community?” Well, Kim, if you don’t like my blog postings—don’t read them. You refuse to see what’s right in front of your face. You have no right to say that I’m an extremely disturbed man. You have no authority to speak from. You read one thing I said because Julie Shaffer put it in front of your face and you cast a judgment without any thought, just like you do when you support a school levy. If someone like Julie, or Catherine tells you to pass a levy because it’s for the kids, then you do what they tell you without further consideration. And that’s the problem. We will still be paying off the debts your type of people bring to our community decades in the future because you can’t get your mind around the truth. You just listen to what people tell you to do, and you make statements about which you know nothing. I’d respect your opinion if it was yours, but it’s not. You have no right to tell all of Cincinnati that I’m an extremely disturbed man. Based on what? Because I don’t agree with you? You made that comment as a fact, not an opinion, and I’m considering in the back of my mind of what to about it next. I’m waiting to calm down before acting. I can see such things being said in online forums, blogs, blog comments, but it surprised me that The Enquirer printed that quote. That’s very dangerous stuff and yes, I am deeply pissed off about it. If that’s what you wanted, then you succeeded.

And Laura Sanders who has personally emailed me with what I consider to be messages way outside her level of expertise and who I personally addressed at this link (CLICK HERE) said “Mr. Hoffman uses misogynistic and vile language when addressing women and mothers because most teachers are in fact, women and mothers. He wants the public to think that he is merely attempting to rein in public school spending, but his underlying mission is really one of hatred and fear of women earning decent salaries. He alone is the destructive force behind the last three levy failures, and I hope this … convinces the women in our community that he is not a rational or credible source for the counterpoint argument.” Laura—you are out of your mind to paint me in such a fashion. While I am certainly not one who supports feminism, mainly because I think it has destroyed the modern family, it does not give you the right to paint me with the broad brush of stating what I think and making the high salary issue all about hating women. That is a pathetic argument and I can’t believe you said it. Just like Kim you used generalities to explain aspects of me that you know nothing about. If you did just a little research you would know what my number 1 Rule is on my Ten Rules to Live By. You can see those rules for yourself at the bottom of every signature at the end of every post I make. The number one rule is to honor women, because they are the pillars of our society. I believe in it so much that I wrote a book about it, and I made boys who dated my daughters read that book so they’d know my position. Those Ten Rules to Live By are in the back of that book published in 2004! Everyone and I mean EVERYONE who knows me, particularly women, knows how much I love them. I have daughters, I have been married for over24 years to the same person, and I have a lot of women friends. I help women carry heavy objects—always! I hold the door for them when they come in behind me—always! In fact I do a lot every day that doesn’t even begin to articulate the kind of person you and your pro levy friends have attempted to paint me as. And for what, so you could try to destroy me, and get me out-of-the-way so you could have your money!!!!!!! IS THAT WHAT YOU THOUGHT GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO MAKE STUFF UP AND PUT IT IN THE PAPER ABOUT ME WHEN I’VE WENT TO GREAT TROUBLE TO BE OPEN HERE AND SHOW EXACTLY WHAT I AM! That’s what you have told the world through your actions!!!!!! You spoke about nothing of which you had an understanding. You smelled my blood in the water and you crossed the line with made up assumptions!

I had a conversation about you with a man the other day who attends your church. He told me you are just the sweetest girl there is and he tried to calm me down after that email that you sent me which I was still mad over a week after you sent it. I listened to him and took your actions as just political rhetoric and blew it off. But what you said in the paper was not just inflammatory, it was personal, and your type of people believe you have a right to step all over me to get what you want. My comments might have been audacious, but they were left obscure on purpose. I wanted badly to reveal the names I was thinking of when I wrote the salacious blog posting, but I didn’t because that would make it personal, and even if I want to bring my enemies down, that is not the way to do it. There is a difference between political rhetoric and personal attacks and what you, and your pro levy friends did to me on Thursday was a personal attack designed to hurt me in every single way possible, and I had planned for you to do it. But I was disappointed to be right once again. I will tell all of you something. There will be payment given to me in one fashion or another for what happened on Thursday. You can decide for yourselves what that is and I expect at a bare minimum a public apology. Failure to act will dictate action on my part.

This isn’t just about name calling anymore. I am happy to argue back and forth, and even debate on the radio as we have in the past in friendly competition. And when you make yourself a public official you make yourself prone to attacks. And when you work in a government job, you are prone to tax payer scrutiny. But I have made a choice to never be involved in an elected position because I want the freedom to be able to speak my thoughts, even when they are outlandish to get my point across, because sometimes that’s what it takes. But what the people mentioned in this article attempted to do was destroy me for standing in their way, and that WILL not be tolerated or left unresolved!

I stand by my comments that I posted. I wrote it as a metaphor to the type of woman who just don’t grasp fiscal concepts, and their opinions should therefore be discarded in political theater. I spoke in generalities to protect the real people I was thinking of even though I was very angry with them for desiring to drag our community through a fourth levy attempt. But what the women above did was turn me personally into the poster child for progressive politics to attempt to remove me the way they have for many years any barrier that stood in their path. If I had to guess, 80% of all legislation that gets discussed daily in any governmental body has it’s start with these same radical types who came after me so aggressively, so the same blind pro levy supporters who refuse to look at any facts and vote purely on emotion are the same who lobby members of the house and senate to pass all types of ungodly legislation, and pass more rules of every kind in every neighborhood across America. It’s these pro levy types who have made it so a kid can’t just go out and ride a bicycle anymore, but have to arm themselves from head to toe with padding and helmets. I see these radical progressive agenda driven pro levy supporters as being a huge problem on not just our communities but our human race, and I said what I said to call them out on it, to let them know that they aren’t fooling anyone—maybe themselves. I used a metaphor that was taken literally to use against me as a political maneuver which was fine, but everyone mentioned here took it several steps further and for all different reasons. Some of those reasons were strictly economic. Some were political. But mostly it was pure hatred for anyone who thinks different from the pretentious pro levy supporters. And these people felt they had a right to “destroy” me and everything I have ever been, or will be.

And it all started on Julie Shaffer’s Facebook. See what happens when you elect a levy activist onto your school board. And do you see now what kind of school board we have? She’s the Vice-President. What does that say about how wrong the entire situation is and what we have been fighting against? And since they can’t win the arguments against me with facts, they sought with every gun available to them to destroy the mouth piece.

It’s not Lakota as a school that I am fighting. The school will still be there if every employee were removed, and the kids would still be successful because the parents in general of Lakota, as I’ve said many times, will make sure it stays good. I’m fighting the radicalism that has embedded itself into our tax dollars. And to continue that fight, I have to do it my way using my network of Overmanwarrior’s to help get under the covers. This group has always been the force that supplied No Lakota Levy with information, so the attempt to separate me from No Lakota Levy was a lot of energy spent on nothing. I know there is a lot of disappointment because the assumption was that the members of No Lakota Levy were funding me, and if I were cut off from them, I’d be rudderless. But my funding comes from my professional writing endeavors and exemplified by my The Symposium of Justice where my Ten Rules are published.  I wouldn’t bring it up if my integrity had not come into question. It’s my personal projects that allow me to fight like this. That’s also why at the bottom of the book on the front cover it says, “Tyranny has a new enemy.” Did you just think it was silly words on the cover? I meant it literally! So nothing that happened Thursday was unforeseen. I knew what to expect. But my disappointment is in being right and to witness firsthand the destructive nature of my neighbors and the manipulation that can be employed to advance an agenda even if it costs lives.

And if you want to know who I am and what I believe, look at my Ten Rules to Live By. I don’t talk about my books during levy discussions because I don’t want to confuse any messages with the selling of books. So I just put the link out for those interested, and never mention it otherwise. But those are my beliefs and I live by those every single day. I should know them, because in this case—I wrote the book on the subject—so I know the material well. The person that I am and what these reckless characters described in this article tried to paint me as are not even close to the same thing.  The words used to describe me by these people mentioned here are as far from the truth as one could get.  They took small little bits of information because they didn’t want to work for the truth even though I placed it here for all to see.  They did with me what they do with the funding problems at Lakota, saw what they wanted to see and assassinated the characters of anyone who stood in the way of what they wanted. 

 Here are the rules I live by:

1. To honor women, they are the pillars of society.
2. Stand as an example of the highest moral order.
3. Avoid mental depletion such as intoxication, and ignorance.
4. Pursue learning like a person on fire pursues water.
5. Live with integrity, where values are in line with behavior.
6. Live the given life, not the dreams of others.
7. In a crisis handle everything calmly and without confusion.
8. Be capable of firmness in the heart.
9. Sorrow is everywhere, accept it with a smile.
10. Resist hiding in numbers, stand as an individual contributor.

And to add a bit to that, I consider telling the truth even if the names are ugly to be of the highest moral order. That’s why I stand behind my comments.  The truth does not live behind political correctness.  It lives in the facts.

 

To understand the truth it helps to view the world through Hoffman Lenses.  To understand what those are CLICK THE LINK.  If you can’t handle the truth, then don’t read here.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/socialists-live-hoffman-lenses-on-urban-meyer/

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

The Power of Guilt: What Rush Limbaugh and Rich Hoffman have in common

Below is the link to the article of which this post is dedicated. 

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/03/14/lakota-anti-levy-figure-whips-up-controversy-on-blog/

When Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown University student a prostitute on the air at the beginning of March it was several weeks after I had said similar things here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom about the type of people who attempt to make citizens who don’t want to vote for a school levy feel poor for not wanting to commit to further taxes. I didn’t mention anyone specifically, but alluded to a mentality that seemed to think applying peer pressure on their friends and neighbors in order to secure increases in school funding was appropriate.

Well my comments had been up for weeks, and clearly thousands of people saw them, and I personally didn’t think they were all that bad. But shortly after the Rush Limbaugh story shown below broke Julie Shaffer the new school board member and former tax levy advocate took sections of my comments and placed them on her Facebook page–and taken by themselves–without the context of the rest of the article, they sounded bad. So I put those articles on password protect so I could re-read them to see if there was any validity to the claims of my critics that they were harsh.

When I wrote them I was very angry, and tired of the criticism leveled directly at me saying that I “hated children” and that I was “greedy,” for fighting off the tax increase. So the text was more colorful than usual, but I still thought my critics were reaching, until I watched the news and saw where they got their idea from. Rush Limbaugh had just lost some of his radio sponsors and were protesting his show because of his comments and his enemies had him on the ropes. It became clear to me that the same type of progressive forces had just got in their heads to do the same to me.

The progressive mode of attack they use to protect their positions which cannot withstand scrutiny is to attack people like Rush Limbaugh whenever he says something they believe they can use against him in an emotional argument. Conservatives typically are terrible at playing this game with progressives because they tend to operate on a belief system rooted in the truth. So they can easily be attacked because if they cross the line, they feel bad about it, and that guilt is used against them to change their behavior in the future.

Locally I have seen this up close with the school levies. I have seen PTA groups work with principals of elementary schools to organize boycotts against businesses that have supported tax fighting efforts. The intent is not to allow all citizens of a community to vote their conscious, but to win votes, even if the method is arm twisting and extortion. Routinely those who oppose school tax increases are labeled as anti child, anti education, and anti community, and when citizens who do own businesses and are genuinely concerned about their taxes going up they are called selfish, greedy and destructive to the neighborhood if they oppose tax increases. The situation is so bad that there was even an effort to apply pressure to local businesses who opposed the levy by contacting the higher offices of some of those businesses to apply pressure on the business owners the next vote around. That is called “strong arming” the public and its wrong.

I have been categorized in all the ways above and more because I have been putting the focus of the real problem with school funding on the runaway costs associated with school salaries. The progressive political machine that functions behind the labor unions and is subscribed to by parents who just want their child to get what they perceive a good education have used boycotts, letter writing campaigns, and protests to apply pressure to anyone who opposes their plan. And that plan is to create budgets that always inflate and must be fed with higher taxes without opposition. It’s that plan that has made school boards only able to deal with 20% of their costs leaving 80% to be untouched which is ludicrous.

My approach to the levy fight has been to take on that 80% and I knew when I did this that the progressive machine would be very angry with me. But if the solution is ever to be fixed in public education, then the 80% of the costs must be tackled rationally. And this has made me public enemy number one in my community as far as those who support progressive politics are concerned.

Going into this fourth levy fight I have been reading the online boards and studying what has been said about me so I can get an idea of how to plan for the next levy attempt. The trouble is there are never any real names behind many online forums. It’s difficult to tell who is doing what and to trace back what’s behind them. So one tactic in discovering who your enemies are, and what they are planning to do is to provoke them to do it when you control the circumstances, instead of waiting till they decide to attack. So on occasion I will install dialogue at this site to provoke a reaction so I can study the behavior.

As predicted the forces who oppose me sought to take my words and use them in the same fashion that the progressive left did against Rush Limbaugh. It started with a school board member posting it on her Facebook account. Then it migrated into many of her supporters wanting to picket my house, wanting to run me out of the community, and wishing to declare that I was a threat to their safety. All these inflammatory comments were on the tips of their tongue and were prepped for the next campaign attempt. They then went to the next step of contacting anyone who might support me and put pressure on them to withdrawal from me, because I was not to be trusted, I was inflammatory, and a right-winged-nut job—to use their words. Then they contacted the papers to drum up articles about what a menace to the community I am, and they took excerpts of my words and are planning letter writing campaigns to our local paper to expose me. Of course their hope was to isolate me of my support in the community, by painting me as a radical.

From the inside and outside at Lakota I have learned that the superintendent has been sending links to this site hoping to turn the community against me. (I wonder if she has been doing this during company time.) But what she doesn’t know is that was my intention all along.

When you are fighting against forces who believe that boycotts, intimidation, peer pressure, and the dismantling of a school system to protect wages and benefits are good behavior, then equal force must be used against them, which is what I’ve done. But unlike Rush Limbaugh and other conservative and libertarian activists I don’t feel I should apologize. When I am told that I hate children, I take that very personal. It is one of the worst names anyone could call me. I consider it a very low blow, and I do not have any reservations of turning the tide against those name callers, especially when I need to identify the behavior patterns of those who are plotting for another tax hike. Now that I have seen that behavior I can adjust, and with the increased traffic coming to this site, those eyes will see the articles that those same angry activists hoped to avoid, such as the sex story at Lakota involving the teacher and the parent using the child as a vehicle, or the Laura Kursman $90,000 payout, or the fat double-dipping contract of the current superintendent.

Because the other side has dictated that using inflammatory rhetoric is the way they have chosen to play the game, I will oblige them with heavy doses of it in return. And I will use those words as a marketing device to bring people to the truth, so their eyes can see for themselves what our community is fighting for. You can’t fight a radical with a smile on your face and a polite nod. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place. You have to fight them the way they fight, and you have to be better at it than they are. Because in order for any community to survive, the radicals must be removed from games of extortion and peer pressure to cover up bad business practice. And this is the task that is before us.

Rush Limbaugh is using inflammatory speech to generate ratings for his radio show. I’m using it to bring people to the truth, not the same old people who read here every day, but I want the people from the other side of the aisle to join our levy fighting efforts. So I fanned the flames a bit to attract attention and bring people to the information that they may have been avoiding, because the truth is there for all to see. But they have to be willing to act on what they see, and not allow extortion methods to hijack their senses. The truth is more important to me than my public reputation, more important then having friends or supporters, or even having people wave hello to me at the grocery store. I’d rather get things out in the open so we can fix the problem instead of just throwing money at it to bury our community ten years down the road in debt beyond repair. The time to fix it is right here, and right now, and if some toes get stepped on and feelings get hurt in the process, then so be it.

I’m not interested in protecting the employees of a school system; I am interesting in protecting the community and the kids who are products of that community. Everything else must form itself to those two entities without compromise.

To those who wish to categorize me as a right leaning radical or Tea Party activists, the truth is that I’m a Transcendentalist in the purest form of the word.  Just to clear the air. 

Rich Hoffman

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

 
 

Protected: The Land of Illusion: Tears that fall late in the evening

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Lakota Superintendent Mantia: The employement contract

My anger at Superintendent Mantia of the Lakota School District is not some unwarranted diatribe incited by a simple disagreement. There is a history which is shown at the beginning and ending of this article where I gave two public presentations, one for Educate Ohio in June of 2011 and again for the West Chester Tea Party in October of 2011 shortly before the election. One of the reasons the pro levy people think my arguments are combative, vitriolic and harsh are because they typically only speak with people of their own kind. They do not associate often with the 18,000 people who voted against the tax hikes, so are ignorant as to how the other side thinks, and they make no attempt to understand. This is why both groups that I spoke to about Superintendent Mantia and my high hopes that she would get the Lakota budget under control were greater in number than those who attend the typical school board meeting. We have a lot of supporters in the No More Tax Effort. If more levies passed in this recent election it is not because people support those schools, it’s that the schools wore out the resistance, which is by design. The message the schools send is that if a levy does not pass, it will be back. So resistance yields to the oppressive tactics of union controlled public schools.

For those levy supporters who think I’m some lone wolf who simply doesn’t want to pay taxes because I can’t afford it, keep indulging in that fantasy as you stay in your little circles of pro levy supporters thinking that you are good because you don’t know how to say NO. No Lakota Levy as an organization and our supporters are deep, and active, as you can see in my public presentations over education. In my presentations I defended Mantia hoping that she would do as those of us in No Lakota Levy do routinely, and that is make hard decisions to balance our budgets. And I feel like she made me look bad for giving her the benefit of the doubt. In fact, every core member of No Lakota Levy has had to work with budgets in the millions of dollars, had to fire, hire or ask employees for wage freezes or reductions, and have had to spend many sleepless nights rolling around over those decisions. That is why we have no sympathy for Superintendent Mantia. She has turned out to be not what she sold to the community, and we are disappointed—me specifically. Residents from Pickerington warned me how Mantia was, and they were right.

I know the tricks of school superintendents. I know what they learn in Levy University in Columbus because I’ve read the same books and material they have. I got this material from my friends who are current school board members and have attended this class. My information also comes from former school board members who want to blow the whistle on the corruption that goes on in public education. The tricks are standard for every school and are designed by the Ohio School Board Association and the Ohio Education Association to extort from the public using Saul Alinsky’s methods of consensus, money if communities refuse to increase taxes on themselves. Those methods include, cutting busing to increase the burden on parents and force them to pass a levy. If that doesn’t work, schools take away liberal arts electives. If that doesn’t work they make sports pay-for-play. And if that doesn’t work they lay-off teachers at the bottom of the seniority ladder to scare parents into a declining school district and plummeting property values. These methods are used in every single school in the entire state of Ohio because they all share a connection to the OSBA in Columbus.

Another OSBA strategy is to form good relationships with realtors in a community so that home sales will be directly connected to school levy support. That’s why Joan Powell, former president of the Lakota School Board and current board member is so involved at Lakota—her full time job is that of a realtor. And one of Lakota’s biggest pro levy supporters is another realtor, Pam Perrino. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW HER INVOLVEMENT AGAINST MY GROUP. This is all by design at the Ohio School Board Association (OSBA). It’s a system designed to stack the schools and labor unions against the community. Both of those women will tell you they do what they do because it’s in their heart to do so, but they were brought into the circle of power because of their status as realtors. They may not be aware of it because they are only looking at their small piece of the pie, but they are part of the overall strategy, and they play their roles in levy advancement as expected.

And this is the reason for the disappointment in Superintendent Mantia. No Lakota Levy thought that Mantia should have proposed a wage reduction to the school employees in order to sustain the district far into the future. That way everything the public expects from the school could have still been maintained, busing, sports, electives and so on. But Mantia chose to preserve the system designed by the OSBA and imposed hardship on the residents just as the OSBA teaches at Levy University. In fact, she followed the text-book of levy passage taught at Levy University word for word. And this is simply unacceptable.

So this is the reason for the anger. We are not a stupid group of people at No Lakota Levy. In fact, we’ve seen it all, done it all, and could perform many of the decisions we are asking Mantia to make in our sleep without breaking a sweat. The solutions are so obvious and so easy that it doesn’t even require thought. But Superintendent Mantia is taking up a quarter million dollars in compensation from the district’s tax payers and she has not done the job we expected. She instead stood up for the teachers union that she started in as a teacher herself, and she knows as a double-dipper that she would never receive such a high salary with such poor performance in any other occupation but school superintendent. She is standing up for the system that has made her wealthy by employing these extortion measures taken straight out of the OSBA Levy University Class given every November the week after elections in Columbus, Ohio.

So I’m putting up the contract for Superintendent Mantia here for the residents of Ohio to see, so they can see what a juicy deal she has—a deal she would get no place else in any field of work. If Superintendent Mantia were in the private sector she would not stay employed for a single week making the level of income she currently is. I wouldn’t mind paying for a token superintendent job if it wasn’t filled with so many perks and loaded as if she were a celebrity on a Hollywood film; it deserves close scrutiny from a public that must fund her lifestyle for performance that is lackluster in only 6 months of employment. I would encourage you dear reader to watch these videos completely, especially the radio broadcast, and read this contract. If you are interested in understanding the scoop of the problem, you can at least do that much. I’m making it easy for you.

Use the tools I’ve placed before you! This is a very serious problem that is much larger than just passing a tax increase or not.

This will determine the kind of world we chose to live in for the foreseeable future.

Now, to be fair, I had several friends who attended the school board meeting on Thursday, March 9th, and below is the report from one of them to me from that event, which does involve Superintendent Mantia.  Her response is one that I believe a person of her caliber should be able to handle over the position of a lawyer, because lawyers are in the pocket of the unions.   With the kind of contract Mantia has, I expect her to be smarter than the lawyers.  They make a lot less than she does.  But here is the final word as spoken from her mouth to my friend.

At 10:50 I stood and asked why they DIDN’T DO ANY CUTTING ANYWHERE and simply lowered salaries and benefits until they were BELOW the budget?
After the four of us who stayed to ask questions at the close of the evening were finished, Karen Mantia answered my suggestion.
 
She took about 15 minutes and said that solution had been considered, but she was warned by the lawyers that it was illegal and therefore OFF the table.
They are going to chop the Hell out of the Lakota School District to meet the budget.
SIMPLY lowering salaries is OFF THE TABLE, when the alternate is to virtually destroy the school system in Lakota?

Ms. Mantia said she and the Board DID NOT HAVE THE POWER to lower salaries and benefits.

She said WE had that power, referring to the NO Lakota Levy Group.

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

www.Yes-to-Lakota-Kids.org

Yes to Lakota Kids & NO to Lakota Levies

The Termites in Lakota: Pulling up the floorboards to find the nest

The only way to describe how I feel at this current moment is to describe the situation as if I were trying to exterminate a home from the termites that are eating it from the inside out.  You know the termites are there, but you never know how many till you start pulling up floor boards.  Then once you do you see a giant nest of infestation that is bustling about in a fury now that you’ve removed their hiding places.  Obviously the termites must go; otherwise they’ll destroy your home.  It’s their nature to destroy.  So termites and a healthy home do not go well together, so if you want to save the home, you must exterminate the termites. 

Of course the termites will be angry when you start to burn them out, and put poison in their nest to destroy their eggs so more of their kind cannot hatch.  And they will think that you the homeowner are evil for trying to remove them from your home.  To them, you are the most evil being in the universe, and are the destroyer of their existence. 

And this is what I feel has happened in the wake of my announcement of our new group Yes to Lakota Kids.  What should be a good thing for the community and should have been a bridge that helps heal the community has turned out to become an angry tirade against me personally.  CLICK HERE TO READ SOME OF THE ANGER UTTERED ABOUT ME IN THE WAKE OF THE YES to LAKOTA KIDS PRESS CONFERENCE.  Considering how much anger was generated by our $10,000 donation proves that our community has termites, parasites that we always knew were there because we could see them here and there, but once we pulled up the floor boards, we discovered a swarming nest of vitriolic parasites that are slowly destroying our community. 

Just as I could never hope to set a termite down and explain to them the nature of things, the rules that all life are governed by, I could never explain to these blind school levy supporters the same type of information because they appear to have the same mental processing faculties as a termite—they consume, destroy, and breed.  So it’s wasted energy to attempt to explain to them anything.  But for my readers here who have their minds confused by the rhetoric of these parasites let me set some things straight for you. 

As demonstrated in a termite colony, it is quite possible to have 1 million insects be completely wrong if they establish their nest in a location that violates the property of ones home.  The proper place for the termites to create a nest is in a decayed tree, not a quarter million dollar home.  In that case, the termites are not correct because their collective minds believe the home is a good place for a nest.  So it is that 1 million pro school levy advocates are not correct by consensus.  Because they wish to believe that taxes are owed to them to maintain their existence does not make it so.  Their wish is simply that—an arbitrary desire that is not grounded in reality. 

No idea was ever implemented off group thinking.  The PC was not created with a group mind.  The car, the airplane, electricity, nothing in the history of man has ever been created by committee—anywhere—at anytime—or in any place.  An idea, such as public education was created in the mind of one man, then lesser men and women looted off that original idea for over a hundred and fifty years not adding anything but more funding requirements and rules to the concept.  But nothing new in thinking has ever come from a “consensus.”  Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.  I challenge my readers here to come up with one thing created by a group mind in committee—-think hard.  Take the idea back to its root to conclude before you write.

It is not the obligation of any individual or business to give anything to anybody just because they exist.  It is not the individual’s job to provide sustenance to parasites.  There is no compassion clause that an infant signs for upon coming from its mother’s womb.  Yet that is the assumption from the parasitic levy supporters.  Levy supporters believe that every human being and the businesses they create are part of some “community property” and they have a right to the profits of those who create ideas. 

Taxes are legalized theft of property.  Taxes assume that a community will not take care of their communities on their own, so the money is stolen and distributed by bureaucrats for the aims of the bureaucrats.  The tax money collected is done by force.  It is stolen.  If a levy is passed and I vote no, then a group consensus has just found a way to legally steal from me because a democracy of fools, of termites, have decided they want what I have.  That is fundamentally wrong.  The way these schools operate is that they do not answer facts, they deal with emotion to achieve a group consensus, and this is how they perform the legalized theft.  I have proven here that homeschooled kids perform better than publicly educated children, (CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW) so the argument made that a community must pass a levy if it is to produce great children is completely invalid and arbitrary.  It has no ground in reality.  Kids are produced good or bad depending on the quality of their parents.  It has almost nothing to do with the quality of the teachers and testing proves it.  That’s why unions are so terrified of testing children to determine compensation amounts. 

Anyone who claims they have a right to your property is a thief.  Anyone who makes comments that have no foundations in reality is a fool subscribing to theories of mere wishes that have as much merit as making a wish on a birthday cake or shooting star.  They are mystics who believe their lives are guided by mysterious forces they are too lazy to understand.  It is far easier to surrender thought to others and make wishes.  Not to function from reality.  That is the world of the termite and the school levy advocate.

The world, our country and our school system are in trouble because we have let the termites rule, and those with thought have avoided those parasitic nests because of the sheer ugliness, and unpleasantness of dealing with such bloodsucking insects.  This has made the thinkers of society victims to the parasites, and this is not how it is supposed to be. 

I personally know when I am right and once I know it will not retreat ground under any circumstances.  Other people who pursue actual truth will arrive at the same conclusions by default, because there are right answers and wrong answers.  There are not negotiations between the right and wrong to arrive at some middle.  A person of thought who wants to preserve their home cannot negotiate with the termite and hope the termite will not eat their entire home.  The termite must go if the home is to be preserved.  If the world all pursued the truth instead of wishes of the truth a consensus of correct answers would be achieved.  If every human being pursued the truth, they would all find the correct answers and incorrect answers.  The only variations would be their path to that truth.  But there are no arbitrary aspects to reality.  A fact is a fact and those who wish for more taxes, for collective “group” thinking, who take no responsibility for the thoughts in their heads, are parasites to society.  I am as sure of that concept as the sun in the sky causes daytime on earth.  And taxes are not owed become some mystic fool not rooted in reality decides they have a right to legally rob me.  Because that’s what taxes are, theft. 

The Yes to Lakota Kids group formed by the No Lakota Levy group is proof that the community is willing to privately take care of aspects of education without the interference of the looters, the termites, who just wish to consume more and more of our community until there is nothing left.  That is why there is so much anger at me for helping to start a group that does community good, because the do-gooders of education want monopoly power over community activity so they can justify their looting tendency.  They don’t want community volunteerism because it shatters their false reality of self-importance.  If we allow that to happen it is our fault for denying the destructive tendency of the termites.  And the pro levy people who do not think for themselves, who believe what the “group” tells them, who fantasize that boycotting me, or “running me out-of-town” with some sort of peer pressure–as some of these idiots have proposed, are attempting to rally the parasites to destroy me because I am a threat to their nest of vermin. 

To me, they are just insects.  They do not think, they can not be reasoned with, and they will never ever stop till they are destroyed or they destroy.  (Kind of sounds like a Terminator from the movie doesn’t it.)  There is no consensus.  There are only right answers and wrong answers and the most dangerous people on this planet are those who cannot distinguish between the two, and seek to use money to hide their ignorance.  And that ignorance will not be tolerated.  The more they push me, the angrier I will get, and I can promise you I won’t be the first to blink.  It doesn’t matter if it’s 1 parasite, 5 parasites, 50 parasites, or 1 million.  They’re all just insects of no thought to me, and have as much relevance as a termite.

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

 
 

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Rich Hoffman is Evil, Mean, and Wants to Hurt Kids: Letters from my critics

For some bizarre reason the announcement that the new group created by the No Lakota Levy has created a firestorm of controversy……………..who would have thought such a thing. (SHRUG) And I was the target of much criticism. As of this writing I have only been able to read a fraction of the emails sent to me or to follow the links discussing me online. So for fun and perspective I am putting a few of them up here to share with my readers.

Anyone who reads here every day knows how foolish the following comments are except for the comment by Joe Montana. If you hit the link below you can see the whole thread of these comments, and the author called Joe Montana was actually thought to be me. But I had never heard of this online forum until one of my readers tipped me off to it today. So as a scientific experiment it is interesting to study just how these people think. Obviously prior to this posting are over 600 articles that I have written each of them over 1000 words a piece, so there is a lot of documented evidence that shames these poor people to shame. I respond at the end of this posting to one of the emails I directly received that I only read because I recognized the name coming from The Pulse Journal last week that I responded to this week. In fact, I’ll post my letter that is in the Pulse this week after my response to Laura Sanders who I use as a climax to this mess. Enjoy.

Joe Montana below starts a discussion in reaction to the announcement that Yes to Lakota Kids is providing money to needy students struggling to pay the $550 fees to play sports at Lakota. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW THIS ISSUE. (Caution, the text below is presented as written, grammatical errors and all.)  Also, remember that all the anger and talk of boycotting below was started with my announcment of helping children.  That’s how messed up these people are. 

http://yappi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4978906

JoeMontana

Lakota will balk at this, for sure.

It would be great for the kids, and great for the district…

BUT, unfortunately, the only thing Lakota admin/board cares about is funneling as much money as possible to their union cronies.

Thus, since NoLakota is actually trying to help the district–rather than funnel money to the teacher’s unions–the higher-ups in the district will shun and badmouth them…

Don’t believe me??? Just watch this unfold, and tell me if there’s ANY other possible explanation than simply that these crooked thugs are trying to funnel money to their union cronies…

Stizostedion

I get so sick of idiots complaining about what teachers make or how much time off they get. Think of the job we are trusting them to do. We want them to mold the minds of that which is most precious to us, our kids. Yet, we don’t want to pay for it, at least not what it’s worth. Everytime a community votes against education it’s an assault on children. That guy running the No Levy campaign in Lakota is punching every kid there right in the stomach. And he’s laughing about it. People there need to take action against that guy and all the jack knobs falling in line behind him. Picket those businesses, picket his business, picket his house. Make sure people know he’s hurting their kids and their community. It’s one thing to make this about politics and money, but make it about the kids he’s hurting and he’ll wither. Because that’s what bullies do when faced with united opposition.

fish82

That’s the thing…there have been changes in compensation. No Lakota asked for a pay freeze. They got that. Instead of offering support, Rich Hoffman moved the goalposts and asked for benefit cuts. He got that. He moved the goalposts again, and asked for salary reductions.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m no cheerleader for Teacher’s Unions. That said, Rich Hoffman is a lying, passive-aggressive dooshbag.

Easthawks14
What’s most disturbing about this is Rich Hoffman is using this as an opportunity to become a hero and gain more favortism within the community to support his cause but what about all the other students that have been hurt – those in the arts, band, other activities, etc.

What’s also disturbing is No Lakota is largely backed by business owners who don’t want to pay more taxes. Common sense would say you want your business to be established in a healthy community that is prosperous and growing. Will a community with a minimalized school system foster growth? Will their business benefit from this? I hope their revenues fall as fast as my home value. There needs to be an all out boycott of businesses that support NoLakota.

Dear Rich Hoffman

You are making teachers out to be lazy, not worthy of the salaries they earn. I have close friends who teach in Lakota, and believe me, they do more in a day than you will do in a week. BACK OFF!!!!!!

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/pay-rate-for-the-top-625-teachers-at-lakota-schools-yes-the-number-grew-much-larger/#comments

 

If you are going to post salaries online, then make sure you get your facts straight. The top 625 are NOT ALL TEACHERS. They are administrators as well. The average teacher salary is $58,000. The average salary in Liberty Township is $107,000. Do you have a problem with that ratio? Don’t you think our community can afford to pass a levy?

I know now much your home is worth, and it’s about half as much as most homes in Liberty Township. People built their big houses here, knowing fully well how much their taxes would be. We are a highly-residential community with no big businesses to offset our property taxes. I pay $5400/year in taxes. How much do you pay? $2800? If you don’t want to live in an affluent community with good schools, then move!

You are ruining Lakota.

Laura Sanders

Pretty interesting isn’t it. Amazing how these people think. To my frequent readers here, you might think that these comments were written by children, but no, these are adults—I know it—it is scary to think. But these are functioning adults who are really lost and have a long way to go. So I am including here what I sent back to Laura since she decided to send me her real name and email address.

Dear Laura and the rest of you misfits, buffoons, lowlifes, and ignorant apologists:

You and your kind are the problem. You only see your little piece of the pie. And I’m concerned with all the jobs, not just teachers. And being able to pay is not the same being stupid and just paying. And I was here long before you were, and I’ll be here long after. You are a fair weathered resident that needs a vast education before we can even have a conversation.

I don’t care who your friends are. Don’t you even think to tell me to back off. You’re likely to piss me off more than I already am. You left me two messages; both of them aren’t worth the time of my dog. I do so much work in a week that I could do your job and any 10 of your teachers at the same time. Don’t be so stupid to assume you have any idea to declare your friends are equitable to my work week.

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid sweetie. And learning the value of someone’s home is pretty easy. That’s no technical marvel, but it’s cute that you think it is.

And to answer your question, yes, I think $58K in average salary is way too high for what we get out of those employees. For the same reason that Payton Manning was cut from the Colts, teachers with a high salary at the top of the scale that are under performing should be removed to make room in the budget. That’s good business. The education output will not change. Believe me.

And you are comparing household salary to individual salary. You just made my point for me. If the average salary at Lakota was in the mid 50 range, we’d have a balanced budget. In fact, we’d have excess money.

A correction from last week’s Letters to the Editor–the average Lakota employee is not making $58,000 per year, but rather $63,000 per year.

And no, we are not obliged to pay a tax increase because the community can afford it. The superintendent and school board have shown so little skill in dealing with a multi-million dollar budget that I wouldn’t give them .75 cents to buy a can of soda from a vending machine. The final straw for me was the second budget meeting held at Lakota East. Their idea of meeting the budget is to cut away the outside crust of their funding pie instead of dealing with the middle. Every cut made, including the administrative cuts from Monday were token cuts that deal with jobs that should have already been reduced. The cuts do nothing to handle the problems of fiscal year 2013, and 2014. There is no long-term plan but to ask for more money—forever!

If Superintendent Mantia tried to sell the smoke and mirrors game she and the school board pulled with these large forum budget cutting meetings in the private sector she would have been fired after the first meeting. They were an insult to the intelligence of the community.

The only hope I have for Lakota’s employees is that in 2013 Ohio will have the Workplace Freedom Amendment which will allow teachers stuck under the Lakota Education Association contract to leave that union enabling the community to deal with them individually instead of the current collective bargaining agreement that is bankrupting our current $160 million plus budget. Be sure to sign the petition when you see it to help us make that happen. In the meantime, No Lakota Levy has started Yes to Lakota Kids to help families pay for the sports fees that the district has consumed on excessive union contracts. We are taking donations and this will help kids in the short-run while the adults of the community get the budget straightened out by driving teaching costs down. You can get more info including applications and helpful links at www.Yes-to-Lakota-Kids.org

 And to those who are thinking of retaliation against me in ANY way.  A fair warning……………….

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/dead-men-tell-no-tails-a-fair-warning-im-obligated-to-give/

Bad idea…………….I’ve been doing this stuff for a long time.

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

Check out Rich Hoffman’s favorite website, (besides this one):

http://thepeoplescube.com/