Tens of thousands of students played Ferris Bueller for two days across the United States in March.  Along with teachers and celebrities, they protested against the Second Amendment.  It doesn’t matter that many of these students read at a sixth-grade level or can’t pass a Math exam.  Who cares if they can’t find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map?  They got to march in Washington.  They got to say bad things about politicians and guns.  And they were on TV.  Hi mom!  Hi dad!  I’m a rock star!  

The Praetorian Guard leftist media ate it up!  As one news commentator said, “These students are taking part in the democratic process.”  

The democratic process?!?!  They’re 16 years old!  They don’t vote.  Some of them can’t even read.  The marches are what 40 years of extreme leftist progressive indoctrination looks like.  They are what brainwashing has done to the last two generations of American students.  

I hate guns.  I have never touch one and I hope I never have occasion to.  But I support those who feel the need to own one or three.  Not wanting guns in schools to protect students?  What about armed security in banks?  Children go to banks.  Should banks not be protected?  What about armed security in airports?  Children go to airports.  Should airports not be protected?  What about security at sporting events?  Children go to baseball games and football games?  Should sporting events not be protected?   

Did I mention that the students at these anti-gun protests were protected by people with guns?  So, the students don’t want to be protected with guns in their schools, (or say they don’t since the media shows us only what they want to show us) and are protesting this surrounded by armed security.  How does that work?  I’m guessing they missed the class on cognitive dissonance.  

Safety

Speaking of guns and protection, I spend every Friday evening and the occasional Saturday in a synagogue here in Bangkok praying, singing, and enjoying a Shabbos meal with 50-60 of my fellow Jews, including several Orthodox Rabbis and their children.  Before entering the synagogue at sundown, there are two armed guards outside, one Thai, the other Israeli.  I feel very safe inside, and I suppose the other congregants do as well, as we enjoy our gefilte fish, challah bread, and kosher chicken over stimulating conversation.  

The Rabbi’s children spend their days studying in a nearby Yeshiva which is also guarded.  At a recent Passover Seder in a swanky hotel, I had to pass through a few layers of armed security before I could even smell the Matzah, let alone eat it.  Not that Bangkok is a hotbed of anti-Semitism, but I wouldn’t advise anyone with nefarious motives to try anything around these places.  Going toe-to-toe with the armed Israeli would probably not be a pleasant experience.   

I am convinced that firearms work when it comes to protecting people.  I am also convinced that those who advocate gun control, (there is no such thing as gun control; only people control through forced confiscation of their firearms), are anti-woman.  What emancipated American women, and women everywhere, was not the birth-control pill, (although Gregory Goodwin Pincus and Carl Djerassi may take some credit for what their invention has done for female-kind.)  Three other men come to mind when thinking about the emancipation of women:  Samuel Colt, Horace Smith, and Daniel B. Wesson.  The Colt 45 and the Smith and Wesson Pistol did more to liberate women than anything else I can think of.  After all, when was the last time a man grabbed the butt of a woman holding a Smith and Wesson?  

Besides being anti-woman, those that want to ban firearms seem to be anti-Semitic, or extremely ignorant of the history of the Jewish people.  Ban guns and the ability of a people to protect themselves, and the first to get shot and dragged to the gas chambers are the Jews.  Gun control (and people control) are sensitive issues with a lot of people, and for a lot of good reasons.  

The Second Amendment

Do most of the 16-year-old Ferris Buellers who took to the streets across America know who James Madison was?  Maybe some of their teachers do, but they’re not talking very much, except to say that he, and the other founding fathers, were slave owners; thus, to be scorned.  James Madison was the fourth president of the United States.  Along with Alexander Hamilton, he authored the Bill of Rights.  He also penned these 27 words which became ratified by the U.S. Congress in 1791:

“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This is the Second Amendment many of the 16-year-old Ferris Buellers railed against.  Do they know what it means?  Do these students talk about it in school?  Have they thought profoundly about why it was written, and the historical context in which it was written?  

Those who have read Madison and understand him know that he thought that the states do not have rights, people do; the states have power.  The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Who could infringe on that right?  The State or states.  Why?  Because it (or they) have power, and that power can be misused and abused.  How can a citizenry curtail a state (or the State) with designs on taking too much power and control over its citizens?  You guessed it, by a well-regulated militia.  It is necessary to note here that the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-4 decision, (D.C. vs. Heller 2008), upheld this right by claiming that individual citizens do not have to be a member of a militia to keep and bear arms.    

James Madison also wrote The Federalist Papers, one of the most important documents in American history and political thought.  Have these 16-year-old demonstrators read it?  If so, they would have certainly come across this: 

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

--- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788. 

James Madison knew that there were two kinds of tyranny:  top-down tyranny and bottom-up tyranny.  He feared both.  That is why he, and the other Founding Fathers, created three separate but equal branches of government.  The existence of subordinate governments?  Who would these subordinate governments be?  For one, those not in power; or the opposition party.  For another, the Praetorian Guard media, who are not reporting fairly and accurately by taking sides.  Third, extremist citizens or groups who may deign, for whatever reason, to overthrow the existing order. 

On March 19^th,Roll Callreported that Democrat Representative Tom Suozzi suggested using the ‘Second Amendment’ on President Trump.

“It’s really a matter of putting public pressure on the president.  I mean, this is where the Second Amendment comes in quite frankly, because you know, what if the president was to ignore the courts? What would you do? What would we do?” Rep. Tom Suozzi, said during a March 12 Q&A session with constituents in Huntington, on Long Island.  

A listener asks, “What’s the Second Amendment?”

Representative Suozzi replies, “The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms.”

Yes, that’s it!  Finally, someone gets it!  This politician knows exactly why Madison wrote the Second Amendment.  

The Mess that is America’s Public Schools

The American public-school system is an absolute mess.  According to Pew Research, 

“One of the biggest cross-national tests is the Program for International Student Assessment, (PISA), which every three years measures reading ability, math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries. The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38^th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19^th in Science.”  

Johnny can’t read or conjugate verbs, but he can choose his own pronoun.  Little Susie can’t add or subtract, but a quick perusing of the Internet treats us to a plethora of articles and stories about how the progressive morons that run most public schools, are now allowing Johnny and Little Susie, and millions like them, to choose their race or gender.  

So, if Johnny wants to be a little black girl from Mississippi, that’s just fine.  And if little Susie yearns to be an Indian Chief from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, then way to go little Susie!  If it’s good enough for an American Senator who claims to be part Cherokee, then it’s good enough for little Susie.  Forget about learning the hard stuff like Science and Algebra.  It’s much more fun playing Hamlet 24/7.  And when nature calls, the little tikes can now make pee-pee and poo-poo in any bathroom that strikes their fancy!  I can hear this conversation taking place in homes all across America today:

Johnny’s Mom: “What did you learn in school today, Johnny?”  

Johnny: “Nothing.  But the teacher is really nice.  She let me use the tranny bathroom.”  

Twenty-fourth in science, twenty-fourth in reading, thirtieth in math… but, apparently, number one in protesting!  I can see field trips to national parks to tear down statues of Andrew Jackson and Stonewall Jackson to be replaced by statues of Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, (wardrobe malfunction not included.)  Then back home to post their “research” and “learning experience” on Facebook and Instagram, alongside photos of spaghetti and meatballs.  These 16-17-year-old Ferris Buellers, brainwashed, indoctrinated, and bathed in Purell, know almost nothing about themselves, their country, the world, and most importantly, their role and connection within it.  The takeaway from these marches is that it is easy, so easy, to solve the world’s problems, specifically gun-violence, if we would just listen to these kids.  After all, they know everything, or think they do.  And those who dare question their motives, or misguided beliefs, or lack of life experience are knuckle dragging Neanderthals who want to kill people with their guns.  

Take David Hogg, now an instant celebrity on leftist anti-gun media.  He is also a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.  In an interview that can be seen on YouTube, he has made it clear that he is not anti-Second Amendment.  But he does have this to say: 

“When your old-ass parent is like, ‘I don’t know how to send an iMessage,’ and you’re just like, ‘Give me the f**king phone and let me handle it.’ Sadly, that’s what we have to do with our government; our parents don’t know how to use a f**king democracy, so we have to.”

Wow!  What an erudite and eloquent young man Mr. Hogg has become.  Congratulations to his teachers.  And his parents.  By the way, Einstein, the United States is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic.  Or it was.  When extreme leftists use the term “a living, breathing constitution” that can be ignored, bent, manipulated, and challenged at will; when hard-working people must pay 30, 40, or 50 percent of their income to the government or face prison time, you know what that’s called?  When law-abiding citizens are spied upon by their government and have their phone calls monitored, you know what that’s called?  When the upper echelon of the FBI goes rogue to protect a presidential candidate, then lies to the court to get permission to spy on the opposition, you know what that’s called?  Bueller?  Bueller? When the head of the DOJ and IRS target specific groups and people because they don’t like their political views, you know what’s that’s called?  When federal prosecutors and their henchmen break down doors at 3:00 a.m. and drag law-abiding citizens in front of a Special Council in a brazen attempt to ruin their lives, you know what that’s called?  When the attorney/client privilege is breached, and then celebrated by the Marxist Praetorian Guard media in a shameless attempt to take down a president and certain television news commentators, you know what that’s called?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Mr. Hogg?  Mr. Hogg? When Facebook, Google, Amazon, Verizon, AT&T sell your personal information to the highest bidder, track your every move, and know what toilet paper you use, you know what that’s called?  

Tyranny.  Totalitarianism.  A Police State.  A banana republic.      

But wait, there’s more!   

“It just makes me think what sick f**kers out there want to continue to sell more guns, murder more children, and honestly just get reelected.  What type of shitty person does that? They could have blood from children splattered all over their faces and they wouldn’t take action, because they all still see these dollar signs.”

Yeah!  Take that, you savage politicians!  Speaking of “blood from children spattered all over their faces”, I’m sure Mr. Hogg knows where some of the funding for these demonstrations came from.  That’s right, Planned Parenthood.  The same Planned Parenthood that supplies abortions to millions of American women; the same Planned Parenthood that was caught marketing in baby parts.  You want to talk about “blood from children”, Mr. Hogg, not to mention livers and kidneys?  

Not to be outdone, Hogg had this to say about current Florida Governor Rick Scott:   

“You’re kind of like Voldemort at this point. You should just retire, because you aren’t going to get elected to Senate.” 

So, Mr. Hogg has read the Harry Potter series but not, I’m guessing, The Federalist Papers, or the U.S. Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence, or… or… taking the time for a Math test.  

Interviewed by the news Website Axios, Hogg was asked, “How do you do all this and make sure you graduate?”

He replied, “Good question. Talking to my teachers and trying to work it out day by day. I was supposed to do a math test yesterday, and I was like, ‘Nah,’ but it works out. My teachers are very understanding.”

What a guy!  And what understanding teachers!  I mean, cut the guy some slack.  This superstar has no time to study history; he’s too busy trying to making it.  

Then there’s Lane Murdock, a 15-year-old high school student in Connecticut.  In a recent interview she gave, she said, “We were raised to let the adults do the work.  When I was growing up and Obama was president, I didn’t pay much attention to politics.”  

When you were growing up?  You’re 15 years old!  When President Obama was first elected, you were six and playing with dolls.  

Then there’s Madison Leal, a 16-year-old student from Stoneman Douglas, who held up a sign at the march bearing 17 blood-red hands and the message: ‘How many more?’  If elected officials do not act, Ms. Leal warned, “I’m going to vote them out of office.  And so is my entire generation.  And they’ll be sorry then.”  

More blood symbolism from a generation raised on violent Hollywood movies, violent video and computer games, and violent rock and rap music.  Why aren’t they protesting that?   

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy regularly meets with these students.  He says, “These kids are impatient.  This is a generation that is used to demanding immediate gratification, and they want it politically, too.”  

No kidding, Sherlock!  Besides low reading, writing, and math skills, we can now add a lack of impulse control to their repertoire.  

At the March 24^th march, Campus Reform interviewed various students, finding unanimous support for banning “assault weapons.” The students were confident in their support of such a ban but fumbled around for words when asked to define the weapons they wanted to ban.

One ban supporter was asked, “Do you know what an ‘assault weapon’ is?”

The student responded, “Yes, it’s, uh, assault weapon, it’s like a, I kinda do, but kinda don’t.” Other students supporting the ban just looked blankly at one another when asked the same question.

Thank God they weren’t asked when the War of 1812 was, or how long the Six Days War lasted.  That could have been like, kinda embarrassing.  It was both hilarious and astonishingly tragic watching this on the news.  

Back to Common Sense

Now ‘Children of the March’, let me tell you what an assault weapon is.  Any inanimate object cannot be classified as an assault weapon.  An assault is something that one person does to another.  If I’m walking around with a fork in my pocket, the fork is not an assault weapon.  If I use the fork to stab you in the eye, then the fork is an assault weapon.  If I’m sitting in a chair, the chair is not an assault weapon.  If I smash you over the head with the chair, then the chair is an assault weapon.  If I’m driving to Big C, my car is not an assault weapon.  But if I run over a few people, then my car is an assault weapon.  And if I’m walking around with a gun on my hip, the gun is not an assault weapon.  If I take the gun and shot you in the head, then the gun is an assault weapon.  This is called logic and reasoning, something most students are never taught.  Come to think of it, if misused, human hands are probably the ultimate assault weapons.  Should we ban forks, chairs, automobiles, vans, and human hands?  ‘Children of the March’, use your head.  Stop believing everything your Marxist teachers tell you and learn to think for yourself.    

What is frightening with so many of these student demonstrators and activists is their unyielding absolute certainty about everything, except for what an assault weapon is.  There is no philosophical inquiry, no rational thought or healthy skepticism, no introspection or reflection, and certainly no spirit of compromise or tolerance.  It is my way, or the highway.  The ignorance, arrogance, and hubris of the people at the two marches was absolutely astonishing!   The leftist Praetorian Guard media are fawning all over these people and seem to be treating them like Plato and Cicero.  You wonder, like I do, why the American people are the dumbest on earth?  This is one of the reasons.  

Yes, I’m being tough on these kids.  I do support their First Amendment right to peaceful protest.  I will cut them some slack.  After all, they heard the gunfire.  They saw the blood on the classroom floor.  They saw the dead bodies of their classmates.  I get their anger and their newfound “love” of politics.  From a psychological standpoint, this is how they are dealing with their anger, pain, and confusion.  But if you want to change the world, you must first know something about it.  If teachers today are not educating their students properly, (and many of them don’t seem to be), if teachers are not preparing their students for the realities and rigors of the outside world, then students must take the time and make the effort to educate themselves by reading great literature, both classic and contemporary, and studying history.  

You know what happened in the 1970s in Southeast Asia when a bunch of 16-17-year olds were commandeered and conscripted by a group of extreme leftists in an attempt to change the world?  Two million Cambodians died.  The progressive leftist media in the U.S. supported the Communists in Cambodia and Vietnam; they thought the world of Mao.  They still do.  It goes back to Walter Duranty and the New York Times’ support of the Bolshevik Revolution.  Does anybody really think that Americans are above what happened in Cambodia, or in Mao’s China during the Cultural Revolution?  Americans, like everyone else, have a history of turning on one another.  Like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot before them, these revolutionary students, thanks to their teachers, live in a hyper-present tense, where the history they don’t agree with is denied, and the past is destroyed.  Holocausts and genocides are what can happen next. 

Gun control is a theory, and the theory is this:  if you eliminate guns, you eliminate killings. People would be nicer to each other.  They would smile more and say ‘good morning’ to one another; even to strangers.  That’s preposterous.  Do most of these kids know who Genghis Khan was?  If they read history, they might.  Genghis Khan and his army conquered huge swaths of territory in the 13^th Century.  He also slaughtered 40 million people, ten percent of the world’s population at the time.  And he did it without AR15s.  He did it without semi-automatics.  He did it without pistols.     

In 1994, Hutu extremists in Rwanda slaughtered 8,000 Tutsis a day for 100 days.  That’s 800,000.  The didn’t use AR15s.  They didn’t use semi-automatics.  They didn’t use AK47s.  The Hutus used machetes.  Who would like to join me in a march to outlaw machetes?  

It has recently been reported in many newspapers across the UK, that in February and March of this year, the homicide rate in London exceeded that of New York City, 37 to 32, with the vast majority from stabbing.  What’s next, knife control?  Oh wait, Mayor Sadiq Kahn has already called for knife control, and there are strict limits on what kind of knives are now bought and sold across England.  I suppose we should prepare for spoon control or chopstick control.  This would be comical if it weren’t so amazingly stupid.  This is not a “slippery slope.”  What we are witnessing in the Western World is the total collapse of common sense.    

Let’s say that these extreme leftists succeed one day in confiscating all the guns in America without causing a civil war in which millions will die.  And one day they just might.  So now in their Maoist utopia, year zero, there are no guns.  But there are still some really bad dudes out there who want to kill people, especially children.  Can they still do it?  Can any of these really bad dudes enter a school and do some horrendous damage?  Of course.  They could bomb the school.  They could release toxic gasses causing mass suffocation.  They could drive a car bomb into the building.  They could set fire to the place.  The point is that guns are not needed to kill a lot of people.     

How many of these students come from one-parent homes, I wonder?  How many of them spend their Sundays in church or their Saturdays in a synagogue?  To the first question, my hunch is a lot.  To the second, my guess is not many.  Has it occurred to these young protestors that it was, (and still is), leftist progressive social policies that brought the United States, and most of Western Civilization to this point?  The 1960s and 70s changed just about everything.  The leftists have now gotten so extreme, one can safely conclude that they are at war with the three ‘Fs’:  Family, faith, and firearms.  They have spent the last 50 years destroying the family, taking God and prayer out of the public schools, and now deign to take away the guns from law-abiding citizens.  The first two were easy; it’s the third one that is proving to be more difficult than the extreme leftists anticipated.  

They rail against marriage, except for gay marriage.  It’s perfectly fine for Susie to have two mommies and Johnny to have two daddies.  They ban prayer in public schools, except when it comes to facing Mecca.  Gender is now a social construct, so much so that the progressive leftists claim that there is no difference between boys and girls.  So, tell me, where can I find my ovaries?   The public-school system in the United States and Canada has become a putrid, boiling laboratory for social and sexual experimentation; a playground for all 50 genders, or is it 51 or 56, or 58?  They keep adding to it.  A-genders, Bi-genders, Cis males, Cis females, gender fluid, gender- nonconforming, gender-questioning, gender-variant, gender-queer, intersex, non-binary, pan gender, transgender, transsexual, trans-masculine, trans-feminine, two-spirits, three-spirits, men trapped in a girl’s body, women trapped in a boy’s body, men trapped in a goat’s body, women trapped in a pig’s body.  And on and on and on… And just what is it with the extreme leftist obsession with guns, gender, and genitalia?  

We wonder, at least I do, why many kids are so screwed up today.  It’s a miracle that so many others aren’t.  If some of these kids go on to study psychiatry, they would make a fortune trying to help many others.  But then again, they are also brainwashed into believing that Capitalism is evil; that Wall Street needs to be shut down.  

Solutions

There are some very good solutions out there.  I will list some of them.  For those who have read and understood the U.S. Constitution, you’ll know that there is absolutely nothing in there which states that the federal government must or should get involved with education.  In fact, the federal Department of Education is a recent phenomenon, created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.  Solutions to the problem of violence in schools must be local.  Top-down edicts are just another form of tyranny.  They also must be rational and long-term, no kneejerk reactions based on emotion.  

The solutions I will outline come in four categories: (1) Social, (2) neuropsychological, (3) Nutritional, and (4) Commonsensical.  Taken together, and if fully implemented, these four categories can and would significantly reduce school violence and violence in society. 

A bit heavy-handed, you say?  It won’t work, says another.  Ridiculous, says a third.  You can’t punish every student for the crimes of a few.  Oh, well, sort of like punishing all law-abiding gun owners for the crimes of a few. 

Those who advocate forced gun confiscation for the sake of protecting students, should also be for ankle bracelets, subcutaneous computer chips, and motion sensors for the sake of protecting students, right?  I jest, of course.  Okay, some real solutions:  

Kyle Kashuv, a survivor of the school shooting, summed this up on the American news program ‘Face the Nation’ on March 25th: 

“Something called the Marshal Program, which was registered and implemented in Florida and which would allow properly trained officers, veterans, and unemployment veterans, to acquire the training to protect our school because we’ve seen in Maryland that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

The host interrupted him and asked, “You want — you would have liked more armed guards at the school?”

Kashuv replied: “Absolutely. I mean we saw it in Maryland. He stopped the shooter. He did his job. And had the cowards of Broward done their job, I think that the count in Parkland would have been much lower. We saw that in Maryland that a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun. The only way to stop an active shooter on campus is to have another person to eliminate him.”

It is a scientific reality that those who commit horrific crimes, like shooting up a school, are not mentally and emotionally fit to participate in school life.  In his book, “The Anatomy of Violence:  The Biological Roots of Crime”, Neuropsychologist Adrian Raine goes into great detail about the making of a killer, whether a serial killer, a mass murderer, or a domestic abuser.  He draws on the latest research in Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Criminology, and Neurology in an attempt to understand the inner and outer workings of those who commit murder.  His findings are as controversial as they are insightful.  

Using PET scan imagery and MRI studies, one can clearly see neurocognitive damage to the prefrontal cortex, the ventral prefrontal cortex, the polar/medial prefrontal areas, the amygdala, the angular gyrus, and the posterior superior temporal gyrus, all parts of the brain that regulate and control complex emotions, behavior, impulses, actions, and moral judgements.  Damage to these parts of the brain can predispose one to violence.  Those with severe brain damage manifesting in behavioral problems and violence should not be anywhere close to a school where they can harm others.  But this is what the leftist progressives wanted in the 1960s and 70s.  Empty the psychiatric wards and let those with psychosis roam free.  Put them in the same class as everyone else in the name of progressive education and inclusion.  It doesn’t matter if the kid in the corner has fantasies about chopping up animals and eating them raw.  It doesn’t matter if he runs around biting other students.  He’s just like everybody else.  Well, those who love progressive education, you reap what you sow.  

Raine also tackles the subject of nutrition, specifically, the connection between diet, cognitive ability, and school performance.  His research shows how a lack of iron, zinc, protein, riboflavin, vitamin B, and omega-3 in our diets, can predispose some to become aggressive and violent.  Conversely, a diet rich in these substances can have a calming effect on aggression.  Fish is brain food.  So is liver, which is packed with iron and vitamin B.  Omega-3 plays a crucial role in cognitive functioning.  It increases synaptic functioning, facilitates communication between brain cells, and regulates serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitters.  What is the connection here between a healthy diet in students and violence in schools?  

According to Raine, “Poor nutrition leads to low IQ, and this lowering of cognitive ability leads to antisocial behavior.  Indeed, poor nutrition is very much an environmental factor.  We see here that a negative environment--- not getting enough of the right food--- results in poor brain and cognitive functioning, which leads some kids down the primrose path to crime and violence.”  (p. 212.) 

This was also discussed in Raine’s book as a possible solution to the reduction of violence in schools, families, and society.  Around 80 percent of violence to children is committed by their own parents and step-parents.  It is also well-known that most of those who commit heinous acts of violence, whether in schools or society at large, have had horrendous upbringings.  As Raine puts it, classes are 

The broader context is on becoming a responsible citizen, the curriculum covering

Courses of this nature can go a long way in enhancing and creating a deeper understanding of how to properly raise children.  

Actually, God never left.  Anti-religious leftist progressives have simply kicked Him out or locked Him in the closet.  

Earlier I mentioned the Rabbi and the large Jewish community in Thailand of which I am a member.  This school shooting hit the Rabbi hard.  He discussed it in shul.  He wrote about it in his weekly emails which he sends to the community.  This is part of what he wrote on March 30^th:

“Take the concept of a ‘Higher Power’ out of society and everything becomes negotiable.  Even things that were held as sacred rules of society for generations.  When morality is no longer treated as sacred and divine, crime rates shoot up.  But that really sounds too simple and basic.  It’s unfashionable for intellectuals like us to go along with the good ole Bible stuff.  But the statistics are there.  Take God out of the schools and schools become dangerous places.”  

I will take that a step further.  Yes, everything does become negotiable when we take the concept of a ‘Higher Power’ out of society.  Everything in life is also cheapened, including life itself.  Babies are killed in the womb, love becomes almost meaningless, marriage is a joke, children are dispensable and used as a means to an end, teachers don’t teach what needs to be taught, parents don’t stick around to see their kids grow, and money becomes God.  Schools are dangerous places indeed, not because of guns; because we have not given God His rightful place in the scared space of learning and teaching.  

Perhaps the best response and solution to this mass shooting came from a man named Ryan Petty.  Mr. Petty’s 14-year-old daughter was one of the students who lost her life in school that fateful day.  He would have every right to be angry at the world, angry at God.  He would have every right to take to the streets and demand action.  But instead of walking out, his advice is to walk up, or walk up to… On March 14^th, he posted this on Twitter: 

“The#March4OurLives supporters will accomplish only two things. 1. They'll exercise their 1st Amendment right. 2. They'll get a little exercise. If you really want to stop the next school shooter #walkupnotout”

"Instead of walking out of school in March 14, encourage students to walk up - walk up to the kid who sits alone at lunch and invite him to sit with your group; walk up to the kid who sits quietly in the corner of the room and sit next to her. ... Walk up to your teachers and thank them; walk up to someone who has different views than you and get to know them -- you may be surprised at how much you have in common.  Build on that foundation instead of casting stones.  I challenge students to find 14 students and 3 adults to walk up to and say something nice in honor of those who died in FL on the 14 of March.  But you can start practicing now!”  

My initial thoughts when I read this and saw Mr. Petty interviewed on the news was, (1) Wow, this is brilliant, and (2) holy crap, this guy is going to get clobbered.  It’s brilliant because it puts the responsibility for positive social and political change exactly where it belongs: on the backs and shoulders of the students, teachers, and administrators themselves.  Instead of demanding what others must do to make the world a better place, Mr. Petty’s advice is to ask yourself, “What can I do to make my school a better place?”   

“Ah man!  You mean I have to walk up to Billy, that fat kid in Math class who picks his nose and can eat 12 donuts in 30 seconds?”  

Ah yeah, you do.  And if you’re real nice to Billy, he may even give you a few of those donuts. 

High school students, generally speaking, are not known to be nice to other people.  Besides lacking world knowledge, many seem to lack compassion, kindness, and simple human decency.  Blame their parents, blame their teachers, blame technology, blame their culture or society, blame whomever you want, (and all are responsible for the mess that we’re currently in), the point is that they are not learning the values they need in order to become the moral, ethical, and responsible human beings the world needs them to be.  

But all of this ‘walking up’ stuff won’t work, you say.  It’s too Pollyanna, too pie-in-the sky.  Again, I bring up my Rabbi and the synagogue I attend.  I bear witness to Mr. Petty’s sagacious advice on a weekly basis.  During Friday and Saturday services, when a baby cries, he or she is immediately picked up, held, and comforted.  When someone looks sad or has had a bad day, somebody will invariably walk up to him or her, say hello, and talk to them.  If someone is found to be sitting alone, he or she won’t be for very long.  We eat together.  We drink together.  We pray together.  We celebrate life together.  Religious communities tend to be the opposite of high school cafeterias.  High schools are also dangerous places because of the one thing they don’t foster: a sense of community.  

The etymology of the word religion comes from the Latin ‘religare’ or ‘religio’ meaning ‘to bind.’  It also refers to reverence and having a ‘sense of the sacred.’  It has become platitudinous to say that modern man has lost any sense of what was once considered sacred.  Psychologist Carl Jung had a great saying: “Modern man does not see God because he is not looking low enough.”   

There is nothing binding these students to anything.  They sit in classrooms untethered to anything traditional or historical.  They spend several hours each day in a mind-numbing, sterile, nihilistic environment completely devoid of traditional culture, social values, positive role models, and constructive educational ideas.  Because of extremist leftist progressive education, the overwhelming majority of the last two generations of American students, and their cheerleaders in the media, have more in common with tribal bushmen who practice witchcraft and animism than they have with God-fearing Christians in Kansas who love their spouse and attend church every Sunday.  For those who think I am engaging in hyperbole, check out the recent White House Correspondence Dinner on YouTube.  It resembled the high school cafeteria I discussed in this blog, where the “plastics” or “mean girls”, (comedians and the leftist elite media), ridicule the fat kids, the boy with funny hair and acne, and the girl who wears braces and a retainer.  This annual freak show has become exhibit ‘A’ in how far American civil discourse has fallen.   

Students who are given a traditional religious and moral education by teachers who are themselves moral and ethical, students whose parents are not alcoholics or drug abusers, students who are well-nourished and taken care of, students who are taught compassion, social skills, respect, and responsibility, students who walk up to others with loving kindness tend not to play Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday at the OK Corral, unless it’s in the school play.      

I wish I could say I’m optimistic about the future of the Western World, but I’m not.  Religious and moral education is not a part of Western society; it’s APART FROM it.  It has been for generations.  The new religion of the leftist progressives has won.  This is not going to end well.  History tells us that it’s going to be catastrophic.  These new Red Guards that we saw marching on TV are waiting for the second coming of Mao.  He’s right around the corner, and it’s not going to be pretty.  

I haven’t even discussed massive immigration to the West, which is leading to crime levels and social decay never seen before.  But that’s another blog.  I am grateful, however; grateful that I am now living in Thailand and can watch the downfall and eventual collapse of Western Civilization from half a world away.