However, even so we're still fortunately nowhere near the loony bin that places like this are:
Posted on 08/04/2003 8:19:19 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Open-Air Nuthouse
I've said before that our poor country sometimes resembles an open-air insane asylum. Alas, here are two more pieces of evidence to support that assertion:
1. New York City has decided to fund a high school strictly for homosexuals.
2. The Pentagon planned to set up a "futures market" in which investors could speculate on such things as terrorist acts, assassinations and the overthrow of governments. As Jack Paar used to say, "I kid you not."
Fortunately, enough people in Congress were outraged by this latest wacky idea from the Pentagon that the fearless bureaucrats have backed off. They already had a Web site for what they euphemistically referred to as the Policy Analysis Market. Apparently, they reasoned that the famed invisible hand of the market would be a better predictor of future terrorist acts than our intelligence agencies. It was to be set up so you could, in effect, bet money on who would get assassinated or which government would get overthrown.
Well, given the record, tea leaves and the readers of entrails from roadkill would be better predictors than the CIA, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) or all the other alphabet organizations in the so-called intelligence community. One day, Americans are going to ask their politicians just what we get for the $40 billion these spooks spend every year, aside from mythical weapons of mass destruction and a failure to protect Americans from terrorists.
Nevertheless, belief that market forces could predict political events shows an insane, cultlike faith in capitalism. You would think somebody in the Pentagon would have remembered the millions of Americans who lost trillions of dollars in the last market collapse. What made them think that the market would be any better at predicting murder and revolution than it is in predicting a good economic future?
As for the homosexual high school, this is being done on the grounds that homosexual students are harassed and bullied. Well, are we going to build separate high schools for everybody who gets teased or bullied — skinny kids, fat kids, freckled kids, redheads, not to mention blacks, Hispanics, whites and Asians?
In the first place, the homosexual lobby greatly exaggerates the alleged harassment of homosexuals, in my opinion. Most of the young people I've talked to are quite tolerant. And why shouldn't they be, given that they are being brainwashed daily by the media, Hollywood and television to accept homosexuality as normal behavior?
In the second place, as politically incorrect as it is to say, there is no homosexual gene. Homosexuality is a product of the environment and choices. Why, then, put 13-year-olds who are just coming to terms with sexuality in an environment that will definitely encourage them to choose homosexuality? That, it seems to me, is social engineering run amok.
Third, the answer to rude behavior and bullying is to toss the bullies and the yahoos out of school — not isolate their victims. This leads us to another case of social engineering run amok.
When I was a kid in school, the standard answer to bullies was to fight them. Teachers, at least in the civilized area of the Old South where I lived, paid no attention to students' fistfighting. Today, students face criminal charges if they swap punches in a public school. This is stupid. Boys are naturally competitive, and they need ways to let the steam out. Keep it bottled up by prohibiting fistfights and you might end up with a Columbine shooting spree.
Most schoolyard fights ended with a handshake and no serious damage to either participant. My first suspension came in the second grade when, after losing a fair fight to the biggest boy in the whole elementary school, I beaned him with a rock. When he recovered, we fought again with the same result, only this time I could see the pointlessness of getting beat up, beaning him with a rock, getting beat up, beaning him with a rock, etc., on into the indefinite future. I decided to shake hands instead and go back to being friends.
Unfortunately, the social engineers don't allow kids today to have the benefit of that kind of learning experience. Just as they call high spirits a medical condition, they call normal conflicts criminal behavior.
God save the nation that loses all of its common sense.
(steely)
When I heard about this I was beside myself in disbelief! What a “stoopid” thing to suggest (did I hear right that it was a Rummy brainchild?). There are so many conflict of interest issues with this that it seems more like something I would joke about with my buddies after having a few drinks too many.
Here’s one. How about an SEC regulated “Death Pool” on Congressmen? We kick into the kitty betting on which will drop first with bonus points if the rep is assassinated . Makes sense to me [/sarcasm].
However, even so we're still fortunately nowhere near the loony bin that places like this are:
No! It was Poindexter!!! The same idiot of Iran/Contra infamy that embarrassed Reagan and the same idiot that earlier this year proposed a total invasion of citizen privacy with a Pentagon Data Base that would include all our credit card purchases to fight terrorism!!! He just resigned from the Pentagon and GOOD RIDANCE!!!
Thank God! Someone I work with told me it was Rummy and I couldn’t believe he could do something so stupid. Thanks for the clarification.
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