Comments

Episode-1364- Listener Feedback for 6-10-14 — 118 Comments

  1. When I was a kid just about everyone who owned a truck had a gun rack and had guns in them and drove said truck to school, I had a gun rack and kept my Model 60 .22 and my Model 12 12 gauge in my truck at all times and drove my truck to school everyday with my guns and never did I see anyone even threaten to pull a gun on anyone let alone actually shoot someone, I was thinking about this the other day and was trying to remember the last time I saw a truck with a gun rack in it and it has be at least 20 years ago, but back in the 80’s when I was in High school I bet 25 kids had them and brought guns to school everyday, no one was ever hurt and no gave a damn and even more crazy no one ever had their truck broken into and had their guns stolen…it just never happened

    • I remember gun rack days fondly. I don’t even know if they are sold anymore?

      • Jack it’s funny how we grew up in small towns and both had almost the same jobs, my 1st was fast food and my 2nd was a sacker in a grocery store making $3.15 an hour plus tips, back then we carried the groceries out to peoples cars and put them in the the car for them even in the pouring rain and I made more in tips than my weekly check LOL, what’s even more funny is my spell check doesn’t recognize the word sacker LOL!

        • Cool, I was a stocker not a sacker, the store was so small the register people did their own sacking. I tried to get a job at the Acme, if I had done so I’d of made more money (50 cents an hour) but I stopped trying to get on there when I heard they would send me to “bagging school” for a fricken week to be a sacker and becoming a stocker would be a move up. LOL

          I did get tips though! The store had an old van and I did deliveries. Many older customers that had been customers for years had trouble getting out. So the owners started to do deliveries to anyone the really needed it at no charge. A guy older than me I worked for did most of them but I got to do them on his days off, twice a week. I’d knock back an extra 15-20 bucks a week. Some old folks were sterotypical cheap skates and would tip a quarter or something. But I would go in and put stuff in the fridge and shelves for some of the people that really needed help. They’d tip a dollar or two.

          That 20 bucks was a BIG DEAL at 16-17 in 1988 to me. I lived on my own at that time already and needed money. 20 bucks when far in Pottsville at the time. Hell a case of Yuengling “Pounders” (16 ounce bottles) was 12 bucks minus the deposit return. They came in returnable bottles back then, nickle a bottle! That got a case down to 11.80! I hear you can still get yourself in trouble for less than a 20 in coal country but I haven’t been back in a long time.

          I am glad I left but there is something special about that place. Problem is when I did go back so much had been lost, I really have a had time wanting to see it again now, I know progress hasn’t stopped. All my hunting grounds are subdivisions and projects now or shut down by the coal companies for “liability issues”.

    • back in the 80’s my school had a shooting team. we had .22 and shot guns for target and trap shooting. we use to jump in the truck after school and go shoot land dogs and rabbits. 6 of us use to go and shoot doves before trap shooting team started. A gun rack was not to hold a wepon, it was like a tool box.

      school shooting have been going on longer in other country’s for a long time and have been much worse. (I do understand that any shooting is bad, I am putting in the point that we are so inabled that we think it only happens here and it is the worst.)

      June 11, 1964: Cologne school massacre. Armed with an insecticide sprayer converted into a flamethrower, a lance and a homebuilt mace, 42-year-old Walter Seifert entered the Katholische Volksschule and opened fire on the girls playing in the courtyard. He then knocked in classroom windows with his mace and fired inside. Eight children and two teachers died, twenty children and two teachers survived with very severe burns. After taking a cyanide pill, Seifert died the following day, in custody.

      • I agree mass killings, school shootings etc. have existed a long time. My concern today isn’t just the larger frequency though, it is WHO is doing it. When you look back 25 years and keep going, almost every shooting and killing spree was an adult going after kids. I guess this is due to the effect it has on society.

        Recently it has been students, almost all students. Young people either in grade school, high school and college. That is the big change. Rather then crazy and angry adults we have hurting, angry and legally drugged up kids doing it.

    • Its not an issue with the guns its an issue with the individual/child and our society. Since there are the unknowns out there then we must protect the children while in the schools. Take lessons from the Israeli’s who’s children are assumed to be targets for terrorism and violence. There schools are like fortresses. If we can’t protect the most precious of our society how can ewe ever expect to protect anyone.

    • Does anyone know where the video was taken? He mentioned FSP but it doesn’t appear to be in NH (I couldn’t find a town named Eminence, as shown on side of the police car).

      What people should do is gather all the black people they can, with dogs, and have them walk the dogs at that same spot, over and over. When a whiny neighbor near my mother’s house called the National Guard (not kidding!) on me for having a non-white wife, I made sure to walk back and forth in front of the bee-itch’s house all the time. I’m sure it drove her nuts.

  2. I knew you couldn’t go a day without trashing public education and teachers. “Supposed heroes not stepping in while our children are raped?” Are you freaking kidding me? If you had ANY experience working in public schools, you would realize that the actual attitudes of the public school system toward sexual assault and bullying in most cases is almost the exact opposite of what you claim them to be. That’s why kids are getting expelled for making guns out of Pop Tarts and students have to register as sex offenders for making out at a high school dance; there has actually been an overreaction to the slightest thing that might make some teacup kid the littlest bit uncomfortable. Please do enlighten us with details of your pedagogical training, the number of years you have been teaching, how many years you have served on your local school board, or otherwise volunteered to actually do something positive for our schools or teachers instead of tearing them down.

    I think you have some deep, unresolved issues from your youth that have manifested themselves as disdain for those of us who are tasked with the enormous responsibility of preparing your children to be successful in the world with fewer resources than ever before given how little support many of them have at home. You need to come to peace with whatever is inside you that makes you believe that public schools are out to get our kids. If you got bullied in school, had unsupportive parents who never supplemented what you learned in school or motivated you, or just didn’t give a crap about your education then fine, but at least be honest about it instead of pretending to understand a system so that you can malign people who actually make a difference in this world for your own selfish political ends. You tear down teachers and people who choose to go to college and get a degree (made up paper, yikes!) all the time on your show. Having some regrets about something lately?

    You want to know why kids shoot up schools? Yes, you’re right; they are in pain. But they’re in pain because so many of them don’t have two parents with the same last name who live in the same house (which media and society tells them they don’t need), they’re all doped out of their minds on SSRIs by Big Pharma (you got that one right), they’re programmed to be violent at very young ages (I know you know who Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is; he’s spot on), and they’ve never been taught that it’s OK to fail as long as you pick yourself back up (thank you teacup parents who demand these policies be in place). But the way that kids learn in public schools is the real reason, you say?

    • Marc, teachers are “supposed heroes” because that is what they are made out to be and teaching first grade doesn’t make you a hero. That would be the very example of a proposed hero, one set up as one by society that isn’t.

      I also didn’t say teachers wouldn’t step in I asked a VERY real and honest question. WHEN THE HELL do these kids have the time and space if these proposed heroes are the heroes we are led to believe they are? How the hell do kids have time to assault the weak or rape someone (yes it does happen) how and when do they have this time? If teachers are paying attention, if kids are in good hands where does the time and ability come from for this shit to happen?

      When I was in school during class changes teachers were IN THE HALL, all of them keeping an eye on things. Same at lunch, recess, gym, etc. Where the hell are they if kids are being beaten up and picked on.

      As for your assertions about me, well they are assumptions and we know how those work out. I had a great time in school other than being bored and MOSTLY unchallenged. I was well liked, had lots of friends and really wish school was at least as decent as it was at the time.

      You claim this is for my own “political agenda”, seriously my political agenda is anti political.

      They school system is part of the entire system that created a place where so many children have one parent. The school system is part and parcel to big pharma and big food and everything you think you oppose.

      As for the over reactions, well that just shows that IDIOTS are in charge of our schools, doesn’t it?

      Marc frankly if you don’t like what I have to say, check out NPR they have a bunch of podcast that will tell you what you want to hear.

  3. No, I usually do like what you have to say and that’s why I listen almost every day. However, I will call you out when you occasionally do things that you admonish others for doing, for example, essentially turning your minarchist/”live and let live” political philosophy into your de facto religion with which you proselytize.

    NPR is one-sided garbage that only confirms what somebody of that political persuasion would already believe. Trust me, you won’t find that station on my dial.

    • Call me out, to be blunt when it comes to such I am as we said in the military, “above your pay grade”, you don’t get to call me out, you don’t get to influence my opinion on things like this.

      I know exactly why I believe what I believe here, it is based on large amounts of facts and research. What you mistake for personal tragedy in my past is present passion and anger for the ABUSE we are subjecting our children in this nation to.

      And I do believe in live and let live, I make my case and people like you are free to keep your kids in these schools, just as others are free to take them the hell out!

      This is what bothers people like you Marc, it isn’t that you disagree, that is not the big deal. Your problem is you are afraid people will listen and use their own free will to act on what I say.

      You don’t hear me calling to pass laws to close schools down, do you? No.

      You don’t hear me saying to cut teacher pay, do you? No.

      What you keep hearing me do is call on good teachers, good entrepreneurs and good parents to do a better job than the schools do and pointing out that it can and IS BEING DONE.

      And that Marc is your actual problem, you are afraid I might actually be effective. You are afraid that the market can actually do a better job, that my statement that schools are going to be gutted in the next two decades is accurate and you can’t understand how, but you on the inside at least know it is possible.

      Put simply if children and parents had a real choice in where they got their educations most of our current problems would not exist. I am simply calling for more choices to be created. If you vaulted institutions are as good as you think they are, you have nothing to fear.

      Sure NPR is one sided garbage, but they will tell you teachers are heroes and other lies you likely find comforting.

      And I have been quite clear my quarrel is with the system, not with the teacher. If we fixed the system by creating enough options the shitty teacher problem would rapidly be corrected by the market.

    • Sure I know it’s possible, there are politicians selling out to their top donors to ensure that it happens, but I haven’t heard you talk about that yet. You said it’s not about the teachers but then a few paragraphs later you talk about shitty teachers. Every profession has people who shouldn’t be there. What other profession is judged by the bottom 5% of their members?

      You say that you don’t want people who agree with you on 100%. Well, I’m one of them (I’m maybe 95%). I haven’t seen you do anything other than get your feathers ruffled when anybody states that you might be wrong or if they present an alternative view on your forum or blog.

      • Marc

        1. There are shitty teachers, not most but a lot of them. Teaching is a job where it is easy to coast. We are told that isn’t the case but I know enough teachers to know it is. My comment that the shitty teacher issue would take care of itself doesn’t put down teachers in general. It is a simple truth of the free market. Give the market a chance and it will show you the good and the bad VERY QUICKLY.

        I am not judging teachers by the bottom 5%, I am not even judging them by the bottom 20% which is about the layer where we would separate shitty from decent. If people have no choice the bottom 20% is going to be pretty low! Right now people have no choice.

        2. I don’t care that you disagree I care that you disagree so far off the mark (pun not intended). You seem to be ranting on as though I am in league with big business and charter schools, like I am siting next to one of the Koch brothers right now. It is complete and total nonsense. The reality is you are clearly an academic and blinded by your own institution.

        I don’t want a new state solution, I don’t even want a new private solution using the state model, WE CALL THAT FASCISM. I want our talented people to replace public education by doing a better job and I know full well it is possible.

        Frankly Marc, you don’t want that, you want your vaulted institution preserved at ALL COSTS including the costs to our children.

        Put simply, if I could push a button that didn’t do anything directly to public education but removed the states ability to force children to attend schools and nothing more, I would push it, and you would not. That really says it all!

        • ““Supposed heroes not stepping in while our children are raped?” Are you freaking kidding me? If you had ANY experience working in public schools, you would realize that the actual attitudes of the public school system toward sexual assault and bullying in most cases is almost the exact opposite of what you claim them to be.”
          -Quote from above

          The actual attitude from many teachers and apparently even school boards is in support of child rapists. Here’s a story where 7 (SEVEN!) teachers wrote letters of support for a fellow male teacher who raped one of his middle school students for years. They even sat on his side of the courtroom during sentencing. When parents were outraged and demanded action, the school board supported these scumbags and the Michigan Teacher’s Union is demanding the rapist get thousands in ‘severance pay’.

          http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/12/michigan-school-district-sees-student-exodus-after-teachers-defend-convicted/?intcmp=related

          I understand one ‘child rape supporting teacher’ can be an anomaly. But SEVEN from one school! And the school board and state teacher’s union as well! This is clear evidence of deep rot present in the public school systems. A simple Google search will reveal problems at other school system after school system (e.g., the infamous rubber room for teachers in the NYC system where teachers declared unfit to teach were instead paid to sit all day). Jack, thank you for the shows on this. Many of the parents at this school exercised what little free choice they had and removed their students from school and these teachers’ supervision.

        • Well I do work for a school system. And in the years of working here my respect for teachers crashed. In my experience teachers have an entitlement mentality like you would not believe. The stuff I have seen will blow peoples mind.

      • I guess you didn’t pay attention to what Jack said? Wow a teacher who doesn’t listen? Go figure! Maybe the fact that you’re profession is in a system that is failing our youth miserably today hits home a little too hard for you…that’s what mirrors are for, instead of attacking Jack why not try and find a way to fix it?….Seems to me that’s what he’s doing and you attack him for it?? Very Sad!

  4. I don’t understand the the bullying thing, where are the parents during all of this? If I found that one of my kids was picking/bullying another kid, I think he would get beat till an inch of his life. I do believe a swift slap on the butt will get the attention of a kid. And when the boys get big enough they can beat-up their ‘old man’, that is fine, but if they are behaving like that; they will need to get some sick comfort that they will beat-up their father, because I will act.

    • Kids don’t tell often, they are embarrassed and they are afraid if the parents get involved that it will get worse and it might.

      Where are the parents? Right where the state wants them! At work paying TAXES.

      This is why I asked, WHERE ARE THE TEACHERS. How do children have the time and space to bully and torment others? When I was in school, the bell rang to change classes and at every single door was a teacher on the watch, you couldn’t fart and get away with it! When I was at lunch there were say a dozen faculty walking the cafeteria and the recess area.

      About the only place kids were not supervised was walking home from school or to and from the bus stop. Other than that, well Senior Lounge was unsupervised but as you had to earn that right no one was a dick there to anyone. If anyone started anything looking like a problem a group of us would shut it down in a nano second.

      When do kids have this time is what I want to know! It must be between classes so that means teachers are in the class room vs the hall. If it happens IN CLASS well that is just worse isn’t it?

      Like I said my son told me there were fights weekly at his school, bad enough for the cops to show up. But you know what, I learned this form him only weeks before he graduated. When I asked why he never told me, he said, “because no one ever bothers me and I didn’t want you to worry”.

    • Perhaps I misunderstood so forgive me if I jump to a conclusion here and not casting any dispersion on you personally. But as I understand your comment Scott, you would beat the hell out of your kid if you found out he was bullying. I fail to understand how bullying your kid for bullying is going to teach him not to bully. Seems to me it would have the opposite effect.

      • Yea I think you misunderstood, I have said shit like if my son did X I would kick his ass, but never meant that I would actually harm him, only that I would hold him extremely accountable.

  5. Raising the min wage is corporate welfare. The poverty line that qualifies people for free cheese is tied to the min wage. Raise the min wage and you raise the poverty line. Suddenly employees find themselves qualifying for welfare and not so eager to leave their current job.

    • You may have some points on the minimum wage, but I think the actions of bankers and high level elites is by far much worse and the minimum wage issue is really nothing in comparison as well as it’s effect on the economy.

        • Bingo!

          I am surprised you didn’t touch on that in the podcast Jack.

          All this hype over the minimum wage is nothing but a smoke screen, it is a combined effort between Republicans and Democrats to make up a cause for inflation that deflects from the FED’s last 2 years of printing money like a drunken sailor.

          Here is the plan, Democrats agree to start this grass roots effort to raise the minimum wage to equal where real inflation is already going anyway. Republicans agree to raise a stink saying that it will drive up prices and cause inflation.

          In the end the minimum wage WILL get raised because that was the plan all along from BOTH sides of the aisle.

          When the smoke clears they get to print money like madmen causing tremendous inflation and blame it on the increase of the min. wage.

          In the end they will have made all of your savings worth less by devaluing the currency which is a hidden tax, and, they get to blame it all on you because you greedy min. wage workers wanted a bigger paycheck.

        • Well said, but you didn’t finish!

          You just said lather, rinse

          Here is the last part, repeat

        • When a politician promises to raise minimum wage, can we charge the politician “vote buying?” Also I wonder how much income tax increased when the minimum wage? It is like raising taxes without the bad publicity.

  6. Jack,
    I was flipping through various movies on Netflix today, and was reminded of yesterday’s show when ran across this “School Dictator” INDOCTRINATION scene… even in our “Entertainment”.
    If you have the time check out this piece from “Ghost From The Machine” from 11:37 through 13:33.
    (… it’s a “B” movie, and I didn’t finish watching it after this part, as my head exploded and I’m still picking up the peices. )
    Wrap your head in duct tape prior to viewing.

  7. If there isn’t already a youtube video of this rant on kids in pain, can you make one? It needs to be shared and shared wide.

  8. Cows vs. Horses on grazing? I have horses that have almost destroyed our 15 acre pasture. Right now as Colorado law stands we have to build a fence to fence the horses out. The horses are on the pasture 24/7. So assuming that I paddock the acreage and fence the other horses out, should we paddock with cows or horses?

    • Keith, I also own horses. When I return to NV. I’ll try introduce an animal to till the soil for me. The denuding of the land is from the flat hooves of the equine. A horse will close off a water hole. Whereas a cows cloven hooves will in essence plow the land and restore it. I’m no expert. I haven’t done it myself. I have seen it in the wilds of Nevada tho.
      How many horses do you have? Could you section off, and do paddock shift? Can you lease out to have cows on the land?
      I’m the one who sent the original article in to Jack. I’ve been following this issue throughout the west in ‘Range’ since before the ‘Jetta’ days.

    • Curtis is spot on but I think paddocking works with anything at all if done sufficiently.

      The biggest thing that struck me with horses recently was in Mark Shepard’s book when he talks bout grazers and says horses are the one grazer like no other animal. Because you can’t use a Dog to graze them and they don’t “pack up” when approached by a predator, which is why you can’t use a dog.

      Take cows and introduce a predator, they pack together and move away, so you can use a dog because he emulates the predator. Do that with a herd of horses, what happens. The mares move the foals off some, the stallions run out, kill the dog.

      When I read that it struck me how much I don’t know about some things, that makes sense but I never considered it or its implications before. And on and off I have ridden horses my entire life.

      • We have horses and cattle and pasture them together. The horses are moved off the pastures after limited time grazing each day and placed on track systems that cause them to move frequently to graze. Grazing horses in a system like this and planting a mixture of grasses and shrubs is an excellent way to manage pasture they have access on. Our cattle are pushed through in a rotational system. As far as moving the horses, I see no real trouble in managing this, I don’t need a dog to bunch them up. They will move through the system and can be gathered up simply by calling them in. This has worked for me for larger bands of 10- 13 head with no trouble getting them in off of large tracts of land (30+ acres). Horses and cattle will learn the routine and comply in most cases if you invest some effort in getting them exposed to routines. Another excellent option is to create the track system on the perimeter of your pastures for the horses and alow the cattle to graze the center. Horses thrive best with 24/7 access to feed in a slow feeding method @ make them “work or move” to graze. This creates a more natural feeding environment, similar to a wild band. Horses will over graze a pasture if just turned out into a big section. They will eat all the “tasty stuff” and leave the less desirable forage alone. This is why we use the track systems instead, better for pastures and animals. Goats work well to bring in behind them to clean out the scrub brush, weeds and lower branches of trees.

        • PERFECT! I started with horses only 10 years ago. I have witnessed the effect of wild mustangs and cattle in the outback of NV as a wildland FF, & outdoor enthusiast.
          I’ve gentled 2 adopted mustangs, and rescued 24 others.
          They thought so much about the nature of horses, and cattle.
          I also worked with a rancher in a 100+ year grazing area. There are very old swales. The USFS calls them canals.
          I just never had the vocabulary to argue what I saw.

  9. I wonder if part of the hopelessness our kids feel is not just from the global warming people screaming that we will all be under water, but also from the prepper screaming “There’s gonna be marshal law and we are gonna be put in FEMA camps.” or “We’re gonna have a huge SME and there will be no electricity. It’s all gonna be Mad Max.”

    Think about it. If all you know is the dichotomy, and you look one side and they say you are all gonna die, and then you look on the other side and they say you are all gonna die. What are you going to believe? You’re gonna die.

    • I seriously doubt it, it is a vast minority of even preppers saying stuff like that and even people like me call them nut jobs. It is certainly not taught as scientific fact by teachers in schools.

  10. Another issue not remarked on is the culture of violence which is the norm now. Way back in the 60’s a study with preschoolers showed a very strong correlation between kids who were shown violent programs on TV who then became aggressive with the other kids. Kids shown non violent TV programs did not show the same aggressive changes in their interactions with other kids.

    How many years now has it been since the first studies came out with the stats about how many murders on tv kids had seen by the time they were 10. Movies showing people being dismembered with chain saws and videos with points being given for however many people killed.

    People talk about kids being indoctrinated about religion…what they are being indoctrinated with is the idea that violence is power and non violence is weakness. Violence IS power.. the power to hurt through Facebook and other such media when the ability to defend against it is really nonexistent. I’m not suggesting censorship is the answer, I have no idea what the answer to that is. We need to find an answer though.

    Quick fame is gained by committing some atrocity – an easy if transient way to mark an existence. Anyone trying to do good is often either ignored or belittled, and whatever they do is picked apart as being the wrong thing or not enough, there was even a lot of attention given to a woman who tried to belittle Mother Teresa who spoke at length about how she was difficult to work with. That was apparently more newsworthy than the work she was doing with people well beyond the margin who’d been abandoned by everyone else.

    Listen to any newscasts, it’s the people behaving badly who get the notice.

    We don’t value much of anything as a society anymore except the surface values, and that isn’t enough. This isn’t to say everyone should get religion by any means, religion has caused as much or more grief over the centuries than possibly anything else, and in fact still is. But the fact that all societies have had some sort of belief system which said that the individual was not the centre of the universe suggests that humans need some form of this structure and presently that’s a void for many if not most people. There’s nothing beyond the moment and sometimes that means there’s nothing beyond feelings of loneliness, hopelessness and misery.

    I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your remarks about legal drugging of kids was also right on.

    • I didn’t want to go there because people get so touchy about it, but, don’t forget video games, the top selling games are the ones where people kill people or steal cars…I like what you said about people getting famous…I was watching an interview with the comedian writer Dave Thomas (not the hamburger guy) and he was saying how he hated the word celebrity because now days all it take to be a celebrity is to take a dump on the sidewalk LOL sad but true!

  11. Not to step in someone else’s shadow, but when I attended that mind numbing institute of lockstep procession-ism, we were not taught to be successful after school. I didn’t have a single class that fit that description. The schools goal was to get us graduated and out of the way for the next class. Perhaps thats changed since the late 60’s?

    I had some great teachers and I remember them fondly but thats about all I remember from school. I certainly do remember the wasted years of rote memorization but not what was so important to be memorized. I never had a history class that studied the dynamics of major paradigm shifts… just endless dates of when things happened. It was a prison for me and the end of the 12th year of my sentence was sweet freedom. You might be getting the idea that I loathed school, especially high school. You would be correct. 😛

    Letting the other shoe drop, I absolutely loved college!

  12. Just this morning as we were witnessing yet another shooting in a school, with the swat team in urban warfare battle rattle fashionably late and just there to show-off, we were discussing the ailments afflicting American society that trigger these kinds of events. It has to be a side effect of decadence, the result of cheap money and instant gratification that has left a void in the soul of people. Other countries, especially 3rd world, have more violence but there is a rhyme and reason to it: drugs, religion, ideology, etc… But when for no apparent reason kids turn on themselves it’s almost like surreal, except that it happens too often.

    I blame the State that by way of its many policies has broken down the family, the typical roles and authority of the mother and father over their kids. I agree that when kids are not made to work for anything because there are no winners or losers in anything aggrandizement gets ingrained in the kid’s physique. Many surpass it but other can’t deal with it, especially if at home they have no one to tell them otherwise. It will be interesting to see how some of the china cups deal with the work environment once out of school, where there are definitely right and wrong decisions and winners and losers as a consequence. School shooting may be the start of what will evolve into work place shootings.

  13. I had an absolute evil 2nd grade teacher. Mrs. Cramer as we knew her. A school mate and I , Bruce Groves would be caught talking and she would have a vote of hands from the rest of the class as to whether we should be sent to the principals office for a strapping. Sure enough almost every kid raised their hands and we were sent down for the strapping, across the knuckles. I must have been quite the chatterbox cause I seem to remember it happening once a week. So Jack is correct, one teacher can ruin a kids experience. I’m 50, and I remember that as clear as daylight.

      • Yep getting the right to choose the initial after the name of the gangsta that steals from you is so awesome right? LOL

        Oh I bet Marc will come along and point out that gangsta is wrong it is gangster. LMFAO

  14. Right on about kids being in pain, as I speak from experience. My grades were excellent, but I was bullied to extreme amounts. Every day was a living hell, wondering who’s going to smack me in the head, or spit on me, or knock me over, or beat me up on the bus ride home, or “only” hurl insults next. Everyone either did it or did nothing to stick up for me, which leads to quite a feeling of hopelessness. Even the “good kids” wanted nothing to do with me, for fear of being bullied themselves. The teachers also did absolutely nothing. The one time I punched back when I was in 7th grade forced against the wall of a classroom being punched (while the teacher sat there doing nothing), I punched once and gave him a black eye and got kicked out for the rest of the school year. Granted, it was June so not much left of it, but still it was absurd.

    No one had anything to offer except useless platitudes which I’m sure you all know. “Get over it.” “Toughen up.” “Make some friends.” “Sticks and stones….” All bullshit. The only thing I wanted was to get out of there, since I was trapped by my oppressors and no way to get out of it. All day, every day, with no solution. To this day, I still can’t realistically come up with a positive solution other than to not be there. There were no pharma drugs then nor any Internet. If the Internet did exist then, I might have been able to find others with the same problem and console each other; I’m not sure if that would have helped though, since that’s also an opportunity to plot together against one’s tormentors. I never did anything (I knew violence was wrong), but I could certainly imagine a child being pushed to their limits, and even taking their life or striking out violently against others. It doesn’t make it right, but what do people expect when they force children into hellish hopeless unwinnable situations and then want a good outcome.

    • If I ever meet you I will shake your hand and thank you for your courage you just displayed. I only wish you had been in my school! I can’t say no one was picked on, I can tell you though there are good people. In my school razzing each other was tolerated but stuff like you are talking about, I and others stuck up for, and did so at anytime it seemed necessary.

      It is funny to me because we were part of the “in crowd” the group that others wanted to be part of. The kids that generally are made out to be the ones that bully, but we did something when it was needed to protect others. Why?

      I can tell you exactly why. Modeled behavior. Our dads, our grandfathers, our uncles, etc. all modeled the same behavior. The strong were to protect the weak, period. Some guy was rude to a lady in a bar, 10 old carpenters, farmers and coal miners would have him apologize or he was going to end up “curbed” and yes young boys went to neighborhood bars. We were sat on a stool and bought drinks by everyone, ginger ale was my favorite and given quarters for pistachios from the vending machine.

      This modeled behavior is now missing! We knew what is was to be a man, we knew we were boys but we idolized the old men, we wanted to be like them and WE KNEW what they would do in our situation so we did that. It didn’t hurt that we knew if our “old men” ever heard we didn’t step up, they would likely step into our asses!

      Please don’t ever fail to share your story, most people can’t do it while it is going on and people need to know. Again, had you been around us, rest assured someone would have done something. Never forget brother, some people will always do what is right and if ever you have the chance to do for someone what wasn’t done for you, I already know what your choice will be.

    • I am so sorry that happened to you. I know how it feels because it happened to me too. Almost identical to how you described it.

      It was only by the grace of God that I didn’t act out violently. I had one classmate who did, he was the only other student that was tormented as much as I was. He is in prison now because he took a rifle and started shooting at cars on the highway.

      Fortunately he never hit anyone, although he has since been released and only lasted a year on the outside before he went back in for another act of violence.

      We were tormented not only by the students but the teachers as well. In fact the teachers started the torture. They would hurl insults at Jerry and I and the kids would join in.

      I understand the pain that Jack described today, as you do as well.

      Jack is 100% correct that the pain comes from feeling worthless, because others tell you you are worthless. But also kids feel worthless because the know they are being lied to. They know that they are not as good as they are told so they think, they need to live up to the hype. But they know they can’t.

      What they need is this. Someone to love them in their failure.

      Someone to say, well son you didn’t quite make it, you lost today, but we don’t measure your worth by your failures we measure you’re worth because of who you are, and what you were created to be.

      Even if everything you do is a complete failure, you are loved because you are you. You are unique, there never has been nor will there ever be another you.

      No matter how much of a failure you think you are, God knew who you would be before he created you, and knowing you he thought you worthy of creation. You are infinitely valuable to him. So much so that he would sacrifice himself to rescue you.

      That is why I see value in myself today, not because of anything I have done but because of the value that my creator and my savoir Jesus Christ has placed in me by creating and saving me simply because I am me, his child, who he created and died for.

      That is the message that our kids need to hear today, that is why I mentor a kid in the schools every week, and that is what all Christians are called to do.

      • I thank you for your courage too sir! I also thank you for your solution, it is what they need to hear.

        • Thank you Jack.

          I would encourage everyone to become a mentor. It not only changes a kids life but it changes the mentors too.

          There are several programs that folks can go through to become a mentor. The one I went through is called Kids Hope. There moto is One child, One Mentor, One Hour per week.

          That is very important because the kid understands that you are there for them, and only for them, for that one hour. They realize that you took that time out of your busy day to come and see one person, “me”

          Can you imagine the sense of worth that can give a kid? They know… An adult has taken time for just me, and is committed to being there every week.

          It’s not even crucial that they get any work done at all during that hour, it is simply the building of their self worth , and that alone helps them with everything else.

          Can you imagine if every kid who needed a mentor had one?

          I have to believe that school shootings would be non existent.

      • Thanks Jack and BarnGeek.

        Jack, I did see you at the Liberty Forum in 2013; I was the geeky guy with the lovely Asian wife not saying much. 🙂 The bugout bag room had filled up before we could get in (was hoping to go to that one), but at least we saw your keynote address.

  15. How bad have schools gotten?

    I recently worked a prom (I deal casino nights) and two things struck me.

    First, they were “wanding” the kids as they entered. They even wanded the girls who had low cut tops with those spaghetti straps (go figure.) Second, they had school police, not “security” but p-o-l-i-c-e. Carrying sidearms which looked to be Glocks.

    Now, let me note that this is not a “bad” or “tough” school. Very typical, 98% white middle-class place. Blue collar to be sure, but a respectful group of kids. Not once did I really have to ask them to behave at my table. I’ve had to tell adults to behave at my table.

    POLICE with Glock sidearms at a prom in the suburbs! Really?!

  16. The cases of someone getting teased to their face about their clothes or the bully beating up the wimpy kid for his lunch money are very rare. The lion’s share of bullying happens online with social media. This makes it a lot tougher for schools to address it when it’s happening outside of the school (again where are the parents and who taught them that this is acceptable?). Law enforcement can get involved, but the threshold for action is actually pretty high. Pecking orders happen in all institutions from business, church youth groups, homeowners associations (ugh) the military, and yes, school. Take a guess where kids who bully learned it from. It almost always starts with parents who treat servers and cashiers like garbage and do nothing to reinforce proper social interaction. It doesn’t make it right that it happens in school, but the truth is that there is a social hierarchy anywhere there is more than one person to some degree.

    I’m confused how you think that our schools are run like prisons, but yet you state that the teachers should be in direct sight and control of the children all of the time otherwise they don’t care. Which is it? Also, why don’t we save the “ABUSE” word for the piece of crap teachers who sleep with their students and not use it to refer to the fact that little Johnny (or his enabling parents) doesn’t like the fact that he has homework or that he’s not interested in what he’s learning so he doesn’t want to do it.

    As far as what I do to make the system better? I often each lunch with my kids (I can’t tell you how many kids I’ve fed), treat my students (high schoolers) like adults when they make responsible choices, I call parents with both good and bad reports, I plan engaging lessons that my students can relate to, I keep in touch with several of my students after they graduate, and I’m the adviser to the gardening club. Most of the students know that I was a Marine, so I’ve had many kids come to be who have been in contact with a recruiter because they know I will give them the truth (which is generally more or less what they’ve already heard) because they trusted me when they had me in class.

    • You want to know where the kids who tormented me learned how?

      It was the teachers!

      I have a hunch that, that is more common than one might think.

      If you think face to face torment and bullying is rare than you are in a fantasy world! The only reason we know so much about bullying now is that it is recorded when it is put on social media. Not because that is the only place it happens.

      It happens in schools face to face every day in every school in nearly every classroom.

      • I’m sorry you had that experience. What I stated is that most bullying is done on social media these days and it would be happening whether or not kids are in public schools, charter schools, private schools, eschool, or online at home. It happens because putting careers and status symbols in front of one’s family and faith is more important to so many parents; the ones who should be doing many of the things that teachers and police officers are now expected to do for them.

        If you had a teacher who tormented you, then I’m sorry that happened to you. I really am. However, if you are going to assert that it is the norm, then I’m going to be curious of how you know this. By the way, I’ve spoken to scores of parents of students who don’t do their work or in general are not willing to play a role in their own education, and I’ve heard from more than one parent that I’m “hassling” or “overwhelming” their child by making them do work outside of class. Hopefully this isn’t what you’re referring to.

        • Really? I dare you to engage with the HUNDREDS of home school parents that are part of TSP and test your theory that it happens anyway.

          Frankly it doesn’t because children of such are not forced to engage with those who abuse them.

      • Thanks Jack and BarnGeek.

        Jack, I did see you at the Liberty Forum in 2013; I was the geeky guy with the lovely Asian wife not saying much. 🙂 The bugout bag room had filled up before we could get in (was hoping to go to that one), but at least we saw your keynote address.

      • It is not new either. I was in elementry school in the 60’s and clearly remember a “special needs” child being taunted and hit with ropes, sticks and rocks on the playground. I went inside and told my teacher, who then replied “it was none of our business”. I told my parents after school that day….the next thing I know the entire neighborhood is meeting with the school about this teachers lack of action. All I really remember is he was gone shortly after this situation. ( He was responsible for some other very questionable acts too..yep I narced him out!!) Crap like this went on in schools, but at least parents had the power to change the situations and would act on it…promptly. Kids could call out a teacher and not be punished by the school for insubordination. I am a grand parent of an Autistic child and believe me when I say I will be paying attention when he starts into school. We are searching for a private school system that is equiped for students with special needs. They are few and far between. There is a real need for better solutions in the private sector, that don’t push medication as the solution for a busy child.

    • Your opening sentence plus the fact that you are teacher tells me there are only one of three possible conclusions…

      1. You are totally clueless to reality and do not pay the F attention to what the F is going on around you at all.

      2. You know you are full of shit and are in denial because you can’t accept reality.

      3. You’re a bald face liar defending your paradigm at the expense of your students.

      I think three is the absolute least likely say 1% chance and one the most likely say 80% chance, I am sure a super academic such as yourself can work out what that makes my odds on option two.

      As for the rest of your comment Marc, didn’t read past the first period and I won’t ever bother to. The fact that your open was so absolutely disconnected from reality just invalidated anything else you might say even if you might accidentally be right about some of it.

      Frankly to this statement “The cases of someone getting teased to their face about their clothes or the bully beating up the wimpy kid for his lunch money are very rare.” makes me wonder if you are even qualified to be a teacher. I will give you stealing lunch money is generally not done, but teased to their face about closes etc being rare, you are either clueless, in denial or outright lying, you can decide for yourself which one it is.

      I’d love to line up a few hundred people like the COURAGEOUS men here that shared their stories, let them tell you their stories to your face, dare you not to shed tears and dare you the hell to say what they experience is “rare”. If you managed to do so, I’d plant you on your ass and you would discoverer it.

      Just to be clear I think you are indeed clueless and grew up in a bubble and have stayed in one your entire life. I’ve known many like you, such people I describe is good people, well intentioned, extremely naive and in denial of any reality that counters their buffered lives.

    • Thank you, Marc, for being an excellent demonstration of the types of teachers I grew up with. They too were completely oblivious to bullying, or if they acknowledged it they were clueless about what to do about it.

      You really think bullying is extremely rare? I’m shocked anyone who works in a school can be that clueless. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in psychology could explain to me the thought processes behind this, as I don’t fully understand them.

      Here are some hints. First, bullies tend not to do what they do directly in front of a teacher, unless they know that particular teacher will ignore it. (Are you that teacher?) If you can’t see the bullies directly, you should be able to see their side effects. That child standing alone at recess hoping no one notices him because that means another bullying session — he’s being bullied! The child in the lunch room trying not to sit near anyone (not possible since its full) or talk to anyone — he’s being bullied! The child who only calls in sick on gym glass days because that’s bully paradise — he’s being bullied! Or, the child who is driven to school so he won’t get beat up by the others on the bus while the bus driver does nothing –well, he’s being bullied! It’s not complicated.

      Bullying is very traumatic, not just something we have to “deal with”. If it was rare and minor, it could be dealt with. But, when you get it all day every day, in every class, every hallway between class, at the bus stop, and on the bus ride, literally zero friends for support, no ability to use force to repel the tormentors, with nowhere to go because I’m forced to go to this school, well you try coming out of this without being mentally scarred and see how it goes. I’m glad I managed to survive it at all.

      You’ll probably point out my grammatical errors as a response. When you do, thank you again for the demonstration of what kind of person you are.

  17. Jack, for somebody who says he doesn’t want society to produce more teacup children, you sure do everything you can to absolutely make sure that children never have to learn how to deal with conflict. There is a HUGE difference between bullying and someone saying rolling their eyes or saying something negative that you don’t like. Except when it’s continued or particularly acute, the whole “bullying” obsession is akin to calling people “racist” because they said something you don’t agree with. Kids have picked on one another since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. Teach your kids to be better than that and when they face someone who simply says something they don’t like, teach them to be the stronger man instead of identifying as a victim.

    So it’s teachers who create (and apparently are) bullies, not the kids who are actually doing it, their parents who haven’t taught them respect, the negative media they consume 24/7, the ultraviolent video games, and the mindless “anything goes” celebrity culture they worship?

    We should all trust the podcaster with a high school diploma who doesn’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” to tell us what happens each and every day in the schools that he’s not actually in and has never been a apart of other than he did go to school just like every other person in this country. Yeah, you’re the one who knows what’s going on.

    • Marc, I wonder if you would do a little experiment. It is going to take some time but I think it will be worth it.

      Go and interact with kids in and environment where you are not in an authority position over them. Bullies are very good at hiding from authority and I think that is what is happening to you.

      You are seeing the spit polished kid, who when you turned your back is saying some of the most vile and hateful things you would ever hear, but you don’t because they are good at hiding.

      A mentor sees things that parents and teachers do not, because they are closer to a pier relationship with the students.

    • Again your first sentence prevents anyone with a grasp on reality from reading past the first period. Marc, here is my guess, you could not stand physically toe to toe with me, for even 10 seconds. My guess is I could beat your ass down with little effort. I could quickly establish dominance over you, smack the piss out of you, likely disable you and make you punch yourself in the face while I held you down and insulted your momma.

      As I am a civilized man I would not. As we live in a relatively civilized world if I tried to, they would rightfully shove my ass in jail for doing such a horrible thing.

      But lets ignore that and move on to the fantasy world that is public education.

      What if you had had to be locked into a building with me 8 hours a day and the people in the building told you to just deal with it. I could torment you and if you tried do to anything I just smacked the piss out of you! I kicked your ass, mocked you and everyone who saw it mocked you for being weaker than me? Now imagine you have to deal with this shit for 12 years?

      Calling that child a teacup? Really?

      I would love to have you stand in front of me and confront this reality. Don’t be stupid and think it is a threat I would never be violent with you. But I would take it in the ring just to prove to you how out matched you are. I’d then ask you to put your ass in the place of the child you have the arrogance to call a tea cup for one day, just one day Marc.

      I mean Marc there is a point where people’s words start to make them look so bad they would be better off shutting up, you passed that line at least one comment ago.

      • Let me add I ended up reading the rest of your comment for the fuck of it, I am bored and my wife is watching Orange is the New Black so I figured I would. Wow did you just become weaker in this! Yes I know the difference between your and you’re, one is a contraction of you are the other a pronoun. But you know what people that type 120 WPM plus make typos and people with busy active lives get to a point where what they say is more important than how they say it to them.

        Thing is I don’t debate people based on their typos like only people with weak ass points do. I didn’t insult your writing Marc, I challenged your point, but I do have to point this out. When you try to attack a person over your vs. you’re but you in the SAME PARAGRAPH fuck up apart vs. a part you make a weak ass argument even weaker.

        So should I argue your failed point or your typo Marc? LMFAO

  18. Your last paragraph doesn’t exactly indicate that you practice what you preach when you compare it to the first paragraph of your same response there, Internet tough guy. I’ll be moving on now though; I feel like I’m being cyber-bullied.

    • Oh so you are (you’re) being a tea cup. You got “called out” and can not (can’t) handle it. I was very clear that I was not threatening you, I simply made a point. If you had to deal with a person with my physical ability compared to your own, no one would help you and IF I was a dick and would bully you that you might have some fing empathy for those that experience such as worse!

      Talk about a weak ass tea cup child!

      My point is many physically weaker children deal with that often not that I would harm you, has not common core helped you master context Marc? Shit if it wasn’t true if you were physically tougher than me would it even matter. Just replace me in that with someone that can kick your ass, shit plenty of people can kick mine right? This is the reality that people like you cowardly tell others to just deal with.

      Way to look weak ass and lose big time bro, move on indeed, that is the best choice when you lose on every level possible.

  19. Wow, a radio show host stated (even facitiously) that he could kick my ass. Thanks for reminding everyone who the professional is.

    P. S. The word you’re looking for in your last sentence is “lose.” Both times.

    • Could you make your argument weaker? Seriously? Again my point was what if you had to deal with that for 12 years and that even if you were not weaker then me, what if you had to deal with someone anyone like that for 12 years? As always people go after typos when they cannot, can’t, can not (all of which are proper BTW) argue the point.

      • I remember teachers like Marc back when I was in school.

        Get over it, kids will be kidss, stop being a pussy, ect…

        Pretty hard to get over it when your facing things like having comics of you having sex with animals circulated amongst the class, cat feces inserted into your food at lunch, pelted with pennies in the back of the head, having jokes made about your sexulity, being called a greaser, a spic, Senior Slimer and other racial slurs because you have a Spanish last name, contanstantly being tripped and hard checked in gym class, having people cheer for you to lose if you dared to play any games on the playground, ect..

        Of course bullies often target the weak and vulnerable and it was no help that I was being raised by a mentally ill mother who was abusing me terribly.

        So everyday after the hell that was school I would come home to a horrible trash heap of a house and constant beatings.

        My mother used to go into random rages and make me clean my room while pistol whipping and shooting me with a BB gun.

        She would pull me out by my hair off the top bunk I shared with my brother and take polariods of me in my underwear and threaten to show them to everyone in school to shame me.

        She would choke my cat in front of me and threatened to kill it if I did not behave.

        One time she even held a knife to my throat because I ate some cookies I wasn’t supposed to…thought I was gonna die by my own mothers hand.

        So it was kinda hard to just get over all the abuse at school and so I dropped out of school and got my GED.

        But what do I know I am just a grammatically incorrect whiny teacup with a GED.

    • Let me add, knowing you could not think theoretically, (I think that is the right world, as I was not going for humor and didn’t you misspell facetiously by the way?) I should not have put myself in the concept as your bully.

      Sorry for that, it really was a mistake and I am not being terse there, I mean it Marc, that was a mistake.

      So let’s try this, lets us see the bully as somone that could kick both our asses, say oh, “Shaquille O’neal”.

      Now I don’t think there is any shame in me admitting that in a fight Shaq would beat me like rented mule. I am simply mismatched. I assume the same for you?

      Okay let’s now toss old Shaq into a cloning machine and make a few of them, now lets give him some assorted minions little guys that are oh say 6 foot 6 vs. Shaq’s seven foot one stance.

      Now Marc lets give those guys the mentality of a 6th grader striving to be seen as cool and in pain and miserable themselves. Let us make you Marc the target of their aggression. Let us lock your ass in a building with them 9 months of the year for about 8 hours a day. Let us have them shadow you when you walk home, etc.

      Now if your tormentors just beat you up and moved on, it really would be less cruel. What they do is use that superior size and strength to pick at you, push you around, mock you, call you names, humiliate you, etc.

      We are in 6th grade here so your sentence is short, just SIX MORE YEARS MARC, let’s put you in that scenario, let’s tell you to buck up, make friends and deal with it and see how you fair. We can just tell you words can’t hurt you, but that is a FING lie isn’t it Marc, words indeed do hurt people do they not?

      Do you get it now or are you still in denial?

    • @DanielBoone,

      Thank you for having the courage to share your story. I am sorry for the way you were treated as a child. You did not deserve to be treated that way, nobody does.

      You may have felt helpless to defend yourself as a child….

      But as adults we have the ability to stand up for kids who are going through the same stuff. We can defend the helpless. We can show them they are valuable simply because we spend our time with them.

      Become a mentor, and you don’t have to feel helpless anymore.

  20. Wow, a lot of anger reading these threads. Some good points but damn. Like arguing in a forum is going to drastically swing society. To me it really does start with parenting. One of the most important choices as a parent is going to teach your kids. If you put them in school, they are mainly going to learn from other kids and the luck of the draw teacher you get.

    We could do all the theory and the past, but I actually have two step kids in school, and was working on getting custody of my two nieces who had a great time with DHS and school. After all that, my daughter is never going to public school.

    I have seen my one stepson (10) be bullied by students and the target of a teacher who hated men. He is still a year behind maturity wise, plus he’s the tallest in the class and the skinniest so obvious target. If bullied it was his fault, if he’d stand up for himself it was his fault. She didn’t want to work with him to really teach him, and he needed that because he was socially awkward. Come to find out she was getting a divorce and we are not the only one with issues with her. Split relationship between his mom and his dad, lots of fighting and manipulation using the kid from the father’s side. My stepson had a miserable second grade. Better teacher this year, but he still hates going to school, very few friends. He is getting better grades with a lot of help at home. Outside of school plays well with others and has a good time. One thing I would say after voicing ourselves to the principal and teacher, there was never going to be an incident about toy guns or anything… they were not going to deal with us coming down to the office on something like that. We did get some silly calls and they heard about it.

    My older stepson, they put him on drugs in the 5th grade, what a mess he was when he came into my life. So emotional, got him off the drugs and he started sleeping and acting like a kid again, I think that hurt his thinking ability, his mind won’t make connections. He’s failed about every grade, now that he’s in highschool, he’s failing that. He’s the kid getting the 33 on the test cause he doesn’t care. Now the school wants me to pay for summer school, so we basically told him he is done with highschool this year and we are going to homeschool, work toward a job and GED. He hates it, why because he likes to socialize there. He knows more about drugs and sex then I probably do from school. He hung with that crowd all through middle school. I’ve heard about 13yr girls giving blowjobs to 13 yr old boys in the bathroom. My stepson acts like a teacup but has never had anything in his life. He’s grounded here and his parents were poor all his life. Hangs out with kids who have the latest and greatest Iphone’s and 6 gaming systems. Funny story there, we were waiting in the office to meet with his counselor and this girl was throwing a fit in the office because she got her phone taken and they would only give it back to her parents so she wouldn’t have it for the weekend cause they had to work until 5 and couldn’t make it in time. (highschool)

    You did touch me the other day Jack. You mentioned the guy that takes his kids outside but doesn’t have the patience and ends up doing all the work anyways. That guy is me. I get a few hours to put in a fence and try to get him to help, after 20 minutes I’m like screw it, its faster if I just dig the post hole. I’m now trying to be more patient, that’s hard cause I’m an A type get it done.

    So, my nieces. There is a fun story. Abused as children by a step dad, he left the picture, mom pretty much didn’t want anything to do with them. Yet, somehow she did at least keep them from boys and drugs. Finally, mom snaps, smacks one of them and DHS gets called. We were thinking well finally they can get out from their mental mom. They get bounced from DHS home to home finally kicked out of the last one cause the foster parents let the 14 yr old have sex in the house with a 19 yr old. Go into DHS youth home custody and put on drugs. One of them runs away. The other one sneaks off with her boyfriend has sex. Openly bragging. Both are doing drugs and part of that goth something scene. Same teacupness, basically whoa is me on facebook now buy me stuff and I’m an adult why won’t you treat me like one. They initially wanted to come up here, but found out we weren’t going to buy them stuff and let them do what they want and threw a fit to DHS, so we finally said we don’t want them if they don’t want us. I have my own family and don’t need a toxic relationship.

    The teacup story is more than just I’m special and want everything. It’s a sense that we are adults and should be doing adult things. I understand it when all the adults are crap in your life why you think that. These kids are like I do it all myself and then ask you for a new phone and money for the movies.

    So, public school. This isn’t building character, this is society dumping its irresponsibility into the schools and the kids teaching each other about social norms. Throw in some propaganda (but this isn’t new… look at them teaching Eugenics in the 40s). Then you have a one size fits all education approach which doesn’t work and if you fail, well you just get moved on, until they can’t fail you anymore. The problem is the kids don’t even realize they have failed. They think there is a magic light switch that will just be turned on when they are ready. The school doesn’t promote and kind of self-pride in ones work, everything is a good job.

    This isn’t the school I went to (graduated 97). We had honors classes and I was the nerd. I was picked on being the geek in school, but my motivation saying FU later in life with here’s successful I am. The honors classes kept things competitive for me. My mom had me afraid of drugs and alcohol so I steered clear of that. I don’t know if it built character, I tend to be a bit introverted because of the bullying in school, I’ve worked hard to come out of that shell but still revert back from time to time. I really don’t trust people and I link that to schooling.

    I am glad I found Stefan Molyneux and Brett Vienotte for help in the schooling and parenting section. They talk about when you don’t teach your kids, other kids and the state will. We remain committed to having only one of us working and the other one watching and teaching the kids. Which back to socialization, my daughter is now free to go anywhere during the day.. parks, clubs, etc… I try to interact with my kids and find ways to be around them more. I’m not sure about my oldest stepson, but my daughter is amazing and my younger stepson is coming along. The thing about homeschooling though, it makes you spend time with your kids… I think that is the biggest thing. Stop buying houses and cars you can’t afford, or Xboxes and just spend some time with your kids.

    • You said,

      “You did touch me the other day Jack. You mentioned the guy that takes his kids outside but doesn’t have the patience and ends up doing all the work anyways. That guy is me. I get a few hours to put in a fence and try to get him to help, after 20 minutes I’m like screw it, its faster if I just dig the post hole. I’m now trying to be more patient, that’s hard cause I’m an A type get it done.”

      Now that my son has a son, I am learning that grand children are God’s way of teaching us how to do just that, slow down and put the teaching ahead of the task.

    • The truth never comes from the main stream, RIP George you told the truth and found a way to get people to listen and laugh!

  21. Well… I’m off to jail yet again.

    Every week I volunteer at the local jail (Travis County, Texas) and do my best to save yet another human being from himself because ultimately, no matter how damaged we are, unless we are literally mentally incapacitated (and it happen) the majority of the screwed up do not pick up a gun a shoot other people. They pick up a bottle or some other drug and try to hurt themselves. I am a volunteer chaplain. Not every jail has them but this one does. I go once a week and meet with a group of inmates, 10 to 20 of them. It’s a different set over time but I do my part to help.

    Do YOU have to do this?

    No, but I know I can do it so I’m doing something I can do. If you do something that I can’t do then eventually most of it get done.

    Be well. Gotta go.

  22. Jack, You are absolutely spot on about the public school system. I am a survivor of public school from back in the 1950’s/1960’s. My grandmother taught me to read when I was 5 years old. God bless her! My 1st grade teacher taught me to write. After that I was pretty much on my own. The vast majority of my teachers were mediocre at best. I educated myself better than they ever could educate me. As far as bullies are concerned we solved the problem ourselves, after school, in the alley, on our way home from school. I would suggest that Marc take the time to read “The Underground History of American Education” by John Taylor Gatto, he might learn something. Then again maybe not, since seems not to want to be confused with facts. Anyway keep up the good work.

  23. Are we talking about the same bullying of yesteryear? I can confidently say that I faced bullying many times because growing up I moved schools 8 times by 12th grade, five were before 6th grade. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time being the new kid in my school years. But every time it was the same, I’d standup to the bully and magically the problem was gone. Sometimes I lost, sometimes I won, sometimes the bully backed down. The kids that got picked on most were those that kept on evading the problem. Bullying is a problem that a kid has to face and overcome, so long as his life is not in danger. My dad could have talked to the principal or the coaches, but we both knew I had to face the music eventually. Instead, in 7th grade he got me into martial arts and for some reason, perhaps a projection of self-confidence on my part, all the bullying disappeared. I never got in a fight again.

    Now, I’ll be the first to admit that at no time did I ever feel like my life was on the line. I was never in gang ridden schools. The most that would happen was getting into a fist fight and maybe a paddle by the coach.

    Maybe things have changed today, but I’d say that as a father I always tell my kids to fight for their space and not let anything slide. Bullying starts with a little mockery to test the waters, then it escalates to worse things. The kid has to recognize the behavior and nip it.

    Bullying is not so much about being physically weak as much as mentally weak. I’ve seen big kids bullied by a dweebs. In schools today both bully and victim get punished the same, the bully for picking and the victim for defending himself. This awful and cowardly form of justice only empowers bullies. I have told my daughter that if she ever has to defend herself verbally or physically to do so without hesitation for school policies.

    • Jose, seriously why do kids have to face being bullied? Why? For what purpose? Do you have to put up with it right now? If I came down to south Texas and started bullying you do you have to deal with it? No you don’t, you have multiple resources.

      1. The law will arrest me for assault, the school will likely punish the child bullied as bad as the bully.

      2. The law recognizes and society recognizes your RIGHT to self defense against your aggressor. In school both parties are just wrong.

      The only reason “children have to deal with bullies” is compulsory education due to state mandates.

    • I agree, kids should not have to deal with bullying. But until we live in a perfect world, that behavior will not go away. And it not just happens in schools. It happens everywhere else, too. Of course, school is somewhat mandatory and kids in public school are stuck there. So they have little choice but to play the hand they’re dealt. So why not equip your kid to deal with the average classroom bully. I cannot think of another pragmatic solution besides taking the kid out of school, which ultimately does not address the problem of why he got picked on. Just like in the streets predators select prey based on perceived vulnerability, so it happens in schools.

      If you came down to South Texas, you’d find another Jose. I live in Frisco and if anyone provokes me I don’t call cops. I deal with it. It’s just the way I grew-up.

      Perhaps you should address in another podcast solutions to dealing with bullies, independent of how screwed up the school system is. The public education system has a lot of emotion on both sides and the problem so the message gets buried in the tit for tat.

      • See that is the problem, there is no good way to deal with a bully in school because the victim is captive. They are not permitted to fight back and you can give most 100 karate classes and they are still out gunned and out numbered anyway. Telling makes it worse, the only real solution is other students that will stand up. Dorothy an I have actually discussed starting a non profit to encourage that behavior.

        Anyway you are STARTING TO GET IT but you also seem to indicate that there is something “wrong” with the one being bullied. That’s pretty F’d up man, pretty F’d up!

        The reason most are bullied is simply they are different, I am never going to tell someone to just be like everyone else, most can’t it is what makes them unique in the first place.

        • I’m not staring to get it. I got plenty of it growing-up and the only way I figured out how to stop it was to fight back. This is not an implication that the victim is at fault. Predatory behavior happens because of perceived weakness and if allowed to continue it only gets worse.

          I was once duped by those I thought my friends into a desolate part of the school’s play ground after school and made to fight for 2 hours with older kids. It was a depressing experience. But I learned not to trust so easily. I learned to read signs of malice. That helped me when I came to the US and faced similar problems.

        • @Jose yea I’d say starting to get it is about right.

          First it isn’t often a perceived weakness, the child being bullied is often actually weaker, much weaker than his tormenter more accurately tormenters. You were tough enough to fight back, that is good and bad. It is good because it worked for you, it is bad because since it worked for you, you think it will work for others.

          Not only will it not in most instances, it will often get the bullied child into far more trouble than the bully will ever get into. Bullies are smart, they taunt, torment and push people to a breaking point. They love it when the tormented child breaks! Especially when it happens in front of authority. It is in fact often the goal.

          The bully uses every weapon including redirecting authority against the victim. Such as this, http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/11/kid-twirls-a-pencil-in-class-nj-threaten

          You don’t seem to understand the issue, you seem to keep relying on your own past to prove the current point with little understanding.

          I would also say you are likely skewed in your memory as to how victorious you really were and how well you really got by. You were likely scarred by this, you fought back where and when you could and the memory if better than the reality. This is a human coping mechanism.

          I know by your comments you are a damn good man! Just please understand you’d be no less a good man today if you were not bullied by peers in your past. You have not become a good man due to having to fight back against bullies but in spite of it.

    • I was bullied because I was funny looking (not by choice, could not really do anything about it), dirt poor (I literally had two shirts and two pair of pants that I wore the entire school year, alternating each day, although they were identical so they looked the same – and most importantly they were not the expensive popular brands my parents could not afford), not physically strong, and very smart. There was nothing I could do about appearance or poor. While I guess acting stupid is an option, there’s not much I can really do about intelligence, and why should I? Well meaning idiots would occasionally say “They’re just jealous that you’re smart” –… please please please people, for the love of God, don’t ever say anything so stupid!!! No!!!! They are NOT jealous!! They hate smart kids! For crying out loud, if anyone here ever hears themselves about to say that incredibly stupid statement, please stop yourself before it comes out!! It comes across as the most absurd statement you could ever say to someone who is bullied.

      Physical strength was the only remotely possible to change characteristic, but I had no access to gyms or weight equipment or any kind of martial arts training. Plus, they would gang up on me, 10+ at a time, and I was genetically not physically strong too, not just due to lack of weight training… no amount of beefing up was going to make me able to take on all of them, or even one of them. Besides, teachers only ever punished me for resisting, never the bullies. Sometimes, beefing up and fighting back is all it takes, but it wasn’t really an option for me.

      Being captive is where the problem is. I would never have chosen to be there had I been able to not be there. I recall begging to go to a private school, although we could not afford it. Besides, they probably bully some there too.

      • Reading this makes me wonder if by ‘socialization’ people mean ‘victim training’.

        As in ‘get used to being victimized’.

        Is this perhaps an INTENDED lesson of the original German curriculum? Learning to be a ‘good slave’ who has learned to tolerate any level of abuse his masters may throw at him?

    • I think it can be really hard for someone who wasn’t on the bottom of the social ladder in school to imagine just how bad it gets.

      How does a 13 year old handle being told that they are trash and that they should kill themselves by their peers on a daily basis?
      http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_24895008/activist-lawmakers-battle-increasing-threat-cyber-bullying

      And to show its a systematic problem with the way we school our children this is also a problem in Japan
      http://abcnews.go.com/News/kids-and-laughing-teachers-bullied-suicide-teen/blogEntry?id=16724822&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Djapanese%2Bbulling%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D10%26ved%3D0CEEQFjAJ%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fabcnews.go.com%252Fblogs%252Fheadlines%252F2012%252F07%252Fkids-and-laughing-teachers-bullied-suicide-teen%252F%26ei%3DiOyYU5urC87xoASu34L4Bw%26usg%3DAFQjCNHCouys9oJsYgXnp9Ma2BDkh8FJQw%26bvm%3Dbv.68911936%2Cd.cGU

      Its alot to ask of child to deal with such overwhelming hate.

      Most adults would be broke by this kinda stuff.

  24. Just wanted to add my 2 cents. When I was in middle school, me and my friends were picked on and often ‘jumped’ at school for being skate boarding punk rocker kids. We had different colored hair and wore ear rings and leather jackets, so it made us stand out. Me and one or two other friends were often jumped outside, sometimes even in the hallways between class, by at least 10 or 20 other kids. I usually always fought back, but the one time I held my fists down and let them whoop on me, I ended up getting suspended for as long as the kids who started the fight. I never refused combat again. Hell of a lesson to learn. The last time it happened, my friend got his face busted open and an ambulance had to be brought to take him to the hospital. When my mom came to pick me up, she overheard two teachers talking and one said, ‘boys will be boys.’ That’s the attitude of most teachers, either from ignorance of the problem or macho hyperbole. They are helpless to affect change in that regard.

    After several more incidents, my parents and I had a talk with the principal. He basically said that there was nothing they could do, and that if we wished to change schools, he’d have no problem with it. 2 years later I finished my high school time with home schooling and a GED. Lessons were learned by myself and my family, but I doubt anything was learned by the State or its agents.

    We are failing our children. School is failing to do what we believe it is there to do. Jack is right. Public education is doomed. I know that from experience. We can either begin to change it now gradually and limit further casualties and expense, or we can we ride this car until the wheels come off. Either way, the writing is on the wall. Thanks for what you do, Jack. One way or another, eventually people will come around.

    • You’re right. The boys will be boys crap has to end. I remember two kids in high school that we’re picking on and slapping a special need boy. He was 14 and the two goons were 16. I myself was 17, a popular jock guy. When I saw this happen I did not hesitate. I beat the shit out of both of them and told them if I ever heard of them do this crap again I would hunt them down. That was back in 1996. A lot of this shit that is going on today in our school system did not exist back then, well not to the degree it is today.

      • I would also like to add that if the year was 2014 and not 1996 and I defended that small boy I would have been arrested and at the very least expelled. It scares the crap out of me when I think about my sons going to school where values are turned on their head and the mob mentality rules, aka fit in or else. I was taught to help and protect the weak, not to abuse them.

  25. This is important because the best methods of building classroom
    discipline come from experienced classroom educators who have
    got lots of on-the-job first hand experiences. and Britain, because they allow students access
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    Even if the most brilliant student of the class violates the standard rules, he should
    get the same punishment like others.

  26. I agree with what your saying on the minimum wage. I hate that I would take a buying power paycut just on the fact that slackers would get paid more. But I dont think that is the end of the story there. I dont think we (general public) have the ability to keep up with the devaluation of jobs due to automation and regular inflation. So people are willing to work for less and less and not hold out for what they are worth or a livable wage.

    I made a podcast covering my different thoughts on the subject Episode #31 on my site.

  27. Its funny how those against homeschooling always talk about the “lack of socialization” by taking a child out of public school.

    Is this kind of socialization we really want them to have?

  28. Jack, I couldn’t agree more about your perspective on the latest police officer incident. I hope that the Police Chief deals appropriately with the situation. Here’s the link to the police officer (Phillip Parham, Eminence, KY) with contact info to reach Chief Carey Duncan, if you feel inclined to make your thoughts know.

    • Sadly I have learned that while what I said was true about this jack ass in quite a few states you do now have to ID if asked. Ill talk more about that on Monday.

  29. People sometimes harm themselves and others when they have pain caused by their perception that their future looks bleak and that they are powerless to do anything about their future.
    The way our country is currently being managed is causing an increasing quantity of people to think their future is bleak. It doesn’t have to be that way, but the only way to fix it is for the people to rise up en-masse and break off their shackles and yell “Enough!”.
    Shrinking the government, shrinking regulations, replacing leaders, and fighting to regain personal freedoms not only provide purpose to people’s lives, they accelerate the providing of purpose and the reduction of personal pain for even those who chose not to rise up.

  30. Thankyou for this rant Jack! It was incredibly powerfull.

    I was in high school only three years ago, so everything you described is still very fresh in my mind. It is all true, and I even think you underestimate the severity of some of it (especially the self harm and suicide parts). I was in the Canadian school system, by the way…. no difference.

    You have inspired me. I am currently starting my own farm at the age of 21 (no grants, loans, or parent money)! I plan to include teen-outreach and empowerment in my farm, once it is off the ground.

  31. Sorry I’m late. I get my “teacher’s perspective” from a close relative. She’s excited about Common Core because it focuses on critical teaching/teaching the same idea multiple ways, rather than teaching kids how to figure out the correct multiple choice answer (the old way). CC is not a test, it’s a set of standards that covers a breadth of learning modalities.

    Incidentally, my wife teaches individual learning through a charter school where she can draw each kid along using the modality that’s best for that kid. That’s more efficient, but it still requires a large commitment from the parents.
    I like what you said about parents being a child’s #1 teacher, some things you just can’t (and shouldn’t) farm out to others.

  32. Hey Jack, I was very excited when I heard about AgriTrue in July 2011, I thought it would be a perfect fit for us. But today you said that producers who use GMO feed are not invited while also saying that you are trying to replace organic. That’s a fantastic goal, but realistically for me the only way I can get non-GMO feed is to buy organic feed 100+ miles away. It also stops me from being an AgriTrue producer.

    We’ve been raising chicken on pasture for 3 years. We use both 1) organic feed and 2) local feeds mixed with organic Fertrell supplements as recommended in Joel Salatin. Since we offer both options to our customers we can support our organic-fed operation with our local-fed operation. About 10-20% of our sales are organic-fed, all of which wouldn’t be possible if our business wasn’t also supported by the other 80-90% of local-fed buyers.

    Our local-fed option is leaps and bounds beyond conventional store bought chicken, shouldn’t we be able to benefit from and support AgriTrue?

    • I should add that local feed is feed mixed at our local feed mill, really the only local feed mill. They can not guarantee the exact source of the feed so we can not determine if it’s GMO or not, it almost certainly is. The only way to guarantee the feed source is to either mix it ourselves, which is a huge financial investment, or to buy it from someone else that sources and mixes it themselves. The nearest place that does that is about 100 miles north. Ordering organic pre mixed feed is IMO WORSE than local feed and much more expensive.

    • @James, sorry man but all I can say is there is ALWAYS a way. First consider that GMO only exists in Corn and Soy are the only GMOs common in most stock feed to begin with though Alfalfa is becoming more common as a GMO. So if you just started sourcing wheat, oats, rye and barley alone you would be half way home. The feed we use contains those, it also contains as a primary base peanut meal. So my first question would be have you even priced out those raw ingredients. Next I would ask have you checked to see if there are any brewers around for spent grain? Brewers use Barley and Wheat, so no GMO.

      Next are you doing paddock shift or tractors? If so are you seeding behind your shifts? Doing that should considerably reduce feed costs. Right now I have grain heads of wheat, rye, oats and triticale almost anywhere the birds can’t get at.

      Have you thought of adding black oil sunflower to the mix, too much is bad but some is REALLY GOOD, not to mention the only reason too much is bad is it can cause premature molting after a while, but meat birds can be finished on a LOT of it for the last two weeks, if anything it actually makes plucking easier.

      Last your organic birds could be sold as AgriTrue and you could start some each cycle as in between organic and local fed and develop that market too. In the end I think if you actually look at the no GMO requirement with the permaculture principle of “the more restrictions the more elegant the design” you might find it cutting your costs long term.

      Heck if you give me some stats, acres, methods,bird counts, etc, I will see what I can do to help you design a solution. We are stuck in this “buy a solution” mentality, we need to begin designing solutions. Tune in today, I will be saying more about this issue in today’s show.

      • Oh and a hardy sorghum, would be great. Our birds kill it! Black Amber is so drought resistant it dies then comes back with rain. Planting it as part of a pasture seed mix and when you move birds to where a stand has heads, just chop and drop it then move the birds on it. They will incorporate it into the soil (stalks) and will feed on the grain.

        Also what if you added another animal to this? What if the birds were following sheep or goats about 6 weeks behind in a leader follower and you were only grazing at 1/4th of graze with them? How much feed would the droppings and resulting insects create? May be that isn’t in your plan but it is just another possibility.

        Please understand I realize I don’t understand your individual problems. I don’t know your climate or slope and that alone has many “buts” that are legitimate buts not just excuses, I get that. My point is only that there are many solutions to consider. Another, contact your extension agent and ask about producers in the “organic transition”. Going from growing conventional to organic has a 4 year I believe period where you can’t call it organic, see if you can buy such grain direct paying more than wholesale but less than organic wholesale. The producer can’t get any premium during that delta so they will take a small one happily.

        There are ways, the key is finding them.

        • I get it, and I’m on board with “finding a solution” – that mentality is required to do what I’m doing at all.

          Keeping the price where it is for at least some of our birds is worth it to us because it decreases the cost of entry thus increasing the number of people who are eating locally instead of buying from the grocery store.

          I’m at 25cents/lb right now with local grains and organic supplements, the organic feed I mentioned above is 50 cents/lb. So while I could potentially hit 45 cents with my own local-mix, that price increase would still send a lot of my otherwise-customers to the grocery store.

          On a scale from 1 to 10, I would put grocery store birds at a 1, my local-fed birds at an 9 and my organic-fed birds at a 10. By putting the 9 on the market for $1 less per lb I have a big positive impact on my community, since I can provide better quality, transparency and availiabity of local meat. Would you rather me serve 100 families a 9 and 10 families a 10 or just 10 families a 10? If I provide that quality 9 I don’t meet AgriTrue’s standards. I think AgriTrue’s standards are high such that they’ll have a negative impact on it’s ability to achieve its goal.

          We raise our poultry in portable shelters similar to Darby Simpson & Joel Salatin, no seeding. If the seeded grasses are lower than 20% protein they would eat more of our feed to hit their protein needs. What type of grass would contribute enough protein to reduce their supplement protein needs?

          Our conversion is very good, 2.75-3.00 at 7 & 8 weeks. That’s about 1,000-1,200lbs of feed (20% protein) for a 75 bird shelter for 4-6lb birds. We are still saving the money for fencing so we can add cattle.

          We shoot for 20% protein in our feed. To hit that we use corn (cheap) at 9% protein, oats at 12% (cheap), roasted soy (expensive) at 37% and fish meal (very expensive) at 60% (per Joel Salatin’s PPP). So in order to remove the soy, we need things that are higher than 20% protein. Field peas are 25%, but are not available at my local coop (where I can get things mixed/rolled). Black oil sunflower seeds are 15%, so I can’t supplement soy with it. Sorghum, I googled, and it says its about the same as corn, so that doesn’t help.

        • First I am not asking you to change anything, you do what is right for yourself, understand that but it also sounds a bit like you want my standard lowered to meet your performance. Not going to happen.

          Frankly I would say your 9 may be overrated, but not far off, say a 7-8. The organic may be the 9 the 10 well may be no one is hitting it yet. 10 is perfect right. Don’t get me wrong if I were local to you, I’d buy and eat your birds any day.

          Let’s look at your needs though, soy you say is expensive and 37%, well have you priced peanut meal? It is 46% on average.

          What if you planted a shit ton of comfrey on your pastures, Comfrey is 15-30% depending on Bocking and growing conditions.

          Again too the sorghum is about growing it on site, save some seed and keep doing it, instead of cheap make the cost close to zero, comfrey the same.

          Again we are still on different wave lengths are we not, I said to “design a solution” while you are using the words “finding a solution”. Again I am not being hard on you, I love how much better what you do is than what most do but don’t think that little nuance there find vs. design doesn’t matter it does. Even if it is just subliminal it shows the thought process. Tune in today I have a LOT of ideas here.

          FWIW I am not trying to tell you buy X instead of Y, I am at least in part saying Grow X instead of buying Y. Not with peanuts but with some. Black Oil if grown costs almost nothing for instance.

          There are some you can do both with too, like cow pea for instance. Talk about protein! 24% not as high as soy but damn solid. In a good pasture once seeded behind birds it will generally start to self reseed a lot. It is also cheap to purchase, birds do prefer it green or cracked, but green is really the way to go! Pulse them through and let em take what they want. What is your cost after say 2 years? Almost nothing for that one plant to come back over and over, may be 20 dollars in new seed to keep it really going?

          What if you got a good mulberry for your area along with some other good mast feeds, use something like this to establish them, http://www.tal-ya.com/ and plant them in blocks, not in all nice curvey permaculture swales so your tractors can still move in between them without problems. Is it 20%, no but what is the long term cost of the mast?

          Finding a solution is getting something to work now, you always have to buy it and you have to buy it over and over. I didn’t say to buy sorghum and sun flower for instance I said to grow it, did you see the videos of the cow pea and sunflower growing on my property after only one year without me planting them a second year, hell I never even planted the sunflower the first time.

          Oh and hey remember with birds protein is important but fat makes up for it as long as the protein is sufficient. Sunflower and Peanut are both about 40% plus fat, good fats too. I think soy may be like 40% too but the fat quality isn’t as good.

          I mean let me put it this way, what if your birds took two weeks longer but your feed cost came out to a total of 25% less for that longer cycle?