Dr. Chicago responded to a post the other day lamenting the fact that TPC doesn't get the traffic it used to and how this used to be a "raucous and lively place."  I miss it, too, Dr. C.

Part of it is the censorship and thought police control all media, the internet, and 'polite society.'  I find it strange that even here, people are afraid to say certain things.  The world I was born into allowed anyone to say anything they liked - we call that Freedom.  People didn't have to like it or agree with you, but no one would stop you or sue you or force you to think otherwise.  Now, saying anything remotely offensive to certain minorities or classes of people is just not allowed.  Even here.

He also said the world has become too serious to laugh at, which got me thinking.  I agree: things have become too serious to laugh at.  We live in a bizarro world right now that is exhausting and terrifying.

End Game

Anyone paying attention can see how this will all end.  It is not hyperbole to say we are probably members of the 'last free generation' from Reagan's famous quote

The fate of our Republic - predicted by Ayn Rand, Nikita Khrushchev, FA Hayek, George Orwell, and on and on and on - appears to almost be here.  This glorious new world may not happen next Tuesday, but gets closer every day.

When it happens there will be no deus ex machina - no other country or force will step in and bail us out like we did for the world in 1945, restoring democratic governance and priming the economic pumps.

It's bleak and depressing, which isn't very funny.

A New (Old) Hope

The way I see it, we have only one hope - the same hope that always exists and always has: the next generation.

The rest of Reagan's quote provides the guidance:

But how?  Leftists, statists, and other crazy people control everything having to do with education at every level.  A few folks are home-schooling, sure, but in the end it will be like a zombie movie where the good guys fight the good fight and are simply overwhelmed.

The Actual PSA

Here is the PSA part: The only way to fight this long term is by taking back your local school board from the nutjobs and useful idiots that currently (probably) control it.  This is a task that anyone and everyone can do and it's happening across the country right now (except California).  You don't have to run for school board if you don't want to, but find the groups in your area fighting this nonsense and help them.

The plan is this: take your local schools back and institute a curriculum that is sane.  Find teachers and admins that support it, and ditch the rest.  Inoculate these impressionable young minds against the ridiculous lies they'll be exposed to when (if) they go to college or when they read or watch almost anything today.  Hillsdale College has an excellent K-12 curriculum to use, laid out by grade level - completely free, ain't that fine?

If this next generation can be saved, it follows they would bring the Universities and Colleges back to teaching truth, logic, and open-mindedness.  Those colleges are where the corrupt judges, lawyers, journalists, SJWs, activists, etc are currently programmed.  Who knows, even California might someday get with the program.  Ok, now I'm just talking crazy...

My Story - It Can Be Done

We're trying to do this in my school district.  A group of about 15 of us were outraged when the pandemic started and we started seeing what our kids were being taught.  We started digging into curriculum and school board minutes, and attending meetings.  We filed FOIA requests and endured some dirty tricks from the lefties.  But we didn't quit.

It turns out most people are of the same opinion as us, but we all thought it was just us.  Alone, we were intimidated by the school bureaucracy and awed by their fancy degrees and education buzzwords.  But they don't really have any special knowledge that is better than common sense.  And the bureaucrats ultimately work for us.

We now have hundreds of people working to oust our 7 school board members and replace them with people more in line with what all but a vocal minority (and the teachers union) believe.  It's a long term goal (2 board members every 2 years), but the endzone is worth making a run for.

I live in a pretty conservative area, so it was case of the tail trying to wag the dog.  Results may vary - but we've got to try.  Even saving a few school districts from generating thousands of woke drones per year has got to help.  And who knows - the next Reagan might be one of them!

It is time-consuming to do all this and unfair that we should have to.  But it's the only credible way forward I can see where I don't end up trying to explain to my grandkids what freedom was.

If anyone wants to know how to get started, post here or send me a private message and I'd be happy to help.

Panem Et Circenses wrote: ↑

9/21/2022, 5:00 pm

 

Well written and delivered, Comrade. I agree, which is why I began voting in the primaries.

The only thing I add is from a previous post—and this is not sarcasm: have local schoolboards dismantle every gigantic dais and public address system and make them stand behind cheap folding tables and speak out loud.

Every elaborate dais gives schoolboard members the unearned and false impression that they are higher and more important than the parents they serve. If anything, they should be at the bottom of conversation pits, looking up at the people they serve in the most humble way, as prisoners looked up at Caesar in the Colosseum, awaiting his judgement.


 

Ours isn't too bad for that - the school board sits at about the same level as the audience. A neighboring school district does have that "we look down on you" approach to school board mtgs and they made national news spying on parents in their district and harassing them. Maybe the two are related...?

Yeah, these guys.

I have no kids so I don't have a dog in this fight but I do understand the urgency and desire. What I don't understand is the censorship on this website and where have the most prominent voices, who for years mocked those who proclaimed that government should rule us, have gone. I've been looking over old posts from 2014 until today and I'm finding many posts and images have been deleted. That tells me that TPC is no longer a reliable place to voice my opinion. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Panem Et Circenses wrote: ↑

9/21/2022, 6:32 pm

You make me feel lucky: ours sits—with the public—at a long wooden table and few shenanigans although it mismanages a sizable budget by hiring union workers for construction (big cost overruns).

Worth noting: your local library board meetings. Librarians are not the mousey shooshers they may appear to be, they are among the wokest of the woke. Eg;
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/m ... s-n1333872

Kapitan Kangaroo Kourt wrote: ↑

9/21/2022, 7:38 pm

I have no kids so I don't have a dog in this fight but I do understand the urgency and desire. What I don't understand is the censorship on this website and where have the most prominent voices, who for years mocked those who proclaimed that government should rule us, have gone. I've been looking over old posts from 2014 until today and I'm finding many posts and images have been deleted. That tells me that TPC is no longer a reliable place to voice my opinion. I hope I'm wrong about that.

The explanations for the cause of your observations and conclusions are less onerous than one at first might think...

1. Many comrades are on the older side of young and probably too worn out to continue.

2. Some comrades may not have withstood the pandemic or old age.

3. The movement of The Cube to a new host and new security measures was not a perfect one, as evidenced by some lost avatars, broken links in The People's Karaoke, etc., to say nothing of older links (in older posts) that lead nowhere due to the extinction of or changes to some sources. I believe nothing was intentionally deleted.

4. Despair after the 2020 elections. Many felt it. I tried to rally our spirits and it worked for some but likely not for others. A shame, since the current regime is a gift on a silver platter for satirists and parodists.

5. Censorship within this site is imperceptible if it exists at all. Attempts to censor, break, shadow ban or disappear this site from without are ongoing (it only took one well-positioned liberal asshat to erase The Cube from Wikipedia).

6. I'm confident that TPC remains a reliable place to voice your opinion if it is expressed within the protections of the 1st Amendment and/or under the umbrella of parody and satire and/or does not express criminal intent.

7. TPC is a political humor site; entertainment for some, influential for others. Anyone who feels threatened by TPC should stay in their parents' basements, suck on their binkies and continue tapping Cheeto dust on their keyboards. TPC is as safe a place to express opinions as anywhere else, and nothing—NOTHING—should cow us from expressing our opinions while those who hate us get to freely express their opinions anywhere and anytime they want. When we flee, they win. When we speak, many listen.

Colonel Obyezyana wrote: ↑

9/21/2022, 8:53 pm

Kapitan Kangaroo Kourt wrote: ↑

9/21/2022, 7:38 pm

I have no kids so I don't have a dog in this fight but I do understand the urgency and desire. What I don't understand is the censorship on this website and where have the most prominent voices, who for years mocked those who proclaimed that government should rule us, have gone. I've been looking over old posts from 2014 until today and I'm finding many posts and images have been deleted. That tells me that TPC is no longer a reliable place to voice my opinion. I hope I'm wrong about that.

The explanations for the cause of your observations and conclusions are less onerous than one at first might think...

6. I express opinions as anywhere else, and nothing—NOTHING—should cow us from expressing our opinions while those who hate us get to freely express their opinions anywhere and anytime they want. When we flee, they win. When we speak, many listen.

I do hope you're right about that, Comrade Colonel. I have been on and off The Cube over the years for many different personal reasons. I may disappear for a while but I will always return whilst I have breath. I will never relinquish my sense of humour but I do see humanity giving up on it. Maybe that's always been the case since The Fall. Cain certainly was not in very good humour with Able. I never give up and always try to have a hopeful perspective but it's tough sometimes and does take some effort. Thank you for your kind encouragement. I will fly the flag.

Oh, say can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched
Were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there

O say, does that star-spangled
Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free
And the home of the brave?

I know there is more to the lyrics but that's what everybody learns and it's very special.

I'm an immigrant and a patriot. I love where I came from and I love the land that accepted me as one of their own. I am blessed.

Now if I could just live long enough to see Ohio State and the Cincinnati Bengals win their respective championships in the same year, I could die a happy man.

Panem wrote,

The world I was born into allowed anyone to say anything they liked - we call that Freedom. People didn't have to like it or agree with you, but no one would stop you or sue you or force you to think otherwise.

The Alinsky world ‘pelipsky inhabits is the twisted world of the bookmobile librarian. The tyrannical forcing upon ‘pelipsky to think otherwise about the purposeful destruction of basic jackalope belief system is ‘pelipsky’s world. ‘pelipsky must not be allowed to infect the established social engineered civility, without any shared doctrine, with her nonsense.

Never forget the Alinsky factor in understanding the chaos we face, comrades. Academics use Alinsky Rules rather than intellectual honesty as first preference and the practice has trickled down into the neighborhood public school where instilling chaos, rather than civic unity, is priority. The evidence is self-evident.

ISD Administers can demand school board candidates be trained and qualified by the administration to force quit change agents sneaking in through community voting process. Be aware of such ISD tactics in your collective. Also remember, the salary of the ISD Superintendent is excessive when compared with salaries of the community misused and under served. The end result in local public education is never the Superintendent’s responsibility; it is the fault of the fatally flawed community served.

‘pelipsky is full of informational nonsense that must never be allowed to gather others to challenge cultural unity without doctrine.

Jackalopes are instinctive bs change the record agents. Say no! to Superintendent’s public school haiku-kus of engineered unity which denies fixed values at every opportunity.

Cube On!

Panem

Thanks for writing this and please forgive any grammar mistakes. I'm a carpenter, not an English major.

I waited a couple of days to respond because I wanted to really think about what I wanted to say. Your personal story with the school board is why I'm writing. I see a lot of reasons for hope in the future of liberty in this country. Many of my neighbors have gotten more involved at the local level and that's really where the rubber meets the road. I think we focus too much on national politics and for good reason, but we've neglected our towns, cities and counties expecting others to do the heavy lifting. To be honest, that's exactly where the framers thought the people's focus should be. Many Americans, thanks to the current disaster of another progressive administration, are waking up and I can guarantee you that your story is not an outlier.

I have a daughter who is a junior in college in central New Jersey and she used to be annoyed with my talk of politics. You know, conservative dad who voted for Reagan twice, the first time as a 19 year old... She's not so much annoyed anymore. Lately we've had some great conversations and you would be surprised at how conservative she, and many of her classmates are. Of course they run the risk of many things at school if they speak out, so they don't, but rest assured, her generation aren't fans of the left. Can't speak for all, but it's not the monolith the media would have you believe.

As for humor... Ahhh, humor. It may be our greatest weapon. There's a reason why they attempted to cancel Dave Chappelle; humor is effective at poking fun at the absurd and trust me, the American left is steeped in the absurd. Having said that, we must learn to laugh at ourselves because people find self deprecating humor endearing. Taking a joke is as important as telling one and people notice. I learned that on construction sites. One thing I've noticed about progressives and leftists in general is their inability to laugh at themselves. They view themselves, or rather their causes too serious and important. There is no joy there. It's the reason that the left can't meme. Their attempts at humor always seem to fall flat because of it.

We, conservatives, and yes libertarians need to go about what needs to be done to preserve liberty and our republic and we need to do it with a smile on our faces and in good cheer expressing joy in the fact that we are Americans. That, my friend will win hearts and minds. So yeah, get involved and speak out. Take courage and be bold. What the hell do we have to lose? Once the republic is no more there will be no point.

Oh, and one more thing. Return to these pages often. Post and comment with humor, joy, boldness and of course seriousness from time to time, but never, ever let the bastards get you down. As the penguins in the movie Madagascar say; "Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave"

MTPCGA!

Make The People's Cube Great Again!

I remain
Dr. Chicago

Spot on, and I don't think we need despair about the Cube not being quite as lively as it used to be, BTW.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the raucousness just moved to facebook and twitter - lots of posts there.  I don't think most people want to go to the trouble to make an account for every website they visit, so FB and T allow them to surf where ever they like and post willy-nilly anywhere, you dig?

As for what I meant with my "even here" censorship comment, it's complicated

Our right to free speech means being able to say anything - including offensive things - without fear of reprisal or attack by the gov't or anyone else.  That means racist, horrible things even.  It comes down to being allowed to believe and say whatever you like in this country.  This used to be case - no one and nothing was sacred.

Most people on this site remember the Robert Mapplethorpe controversies, right?  Terribly offensive to Christians, but Christians didn't deny he had the right to say those things and make that (using the term loosely here) "art."  The only controversy was that taxpayers funds shouldn't be used to pay for it.  But Mapplethorpe's rights extended to everyone and included all subjects - every race creed, color, sexual orientation (which wasn't really a thing back then, there was just "gays" not the ever-changing Kaleidoscope of genders and what-not we have now), etc.

Or Keshia Thomas?  It's the most amazing example of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.."

So, here is the question and why I made my censorship comment - maybe it should be called "self censorship" since we really are doing it without thinking anymore: we've been trained and we obey - if someone wrote a racial slur on this website, would it get scrubbed?  Would it get flagged and removed?  F-bombs are ok, insulting Christians is ok (ever heard of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?  I accidentally saw one of their parades once while vacationing in San Fran - yuck), threatening conservatives is ok, teaching people the best ways to commit crimes and get away with it is ok: none of those would get flagged and removed, right?  But a racial slur left unattended here would probably end with your friendly neighborhood DOJ or FBI snoop stopping by Oleg's house for a chat.

If there is anything we aren't allowed to say, our freedom of speech is no more.
 

jackalopelipsky wrote: ↑

9/22/2022, 8:38 am

Panem wrote,

The world I was born into allowed anyone to say anything they liked - we call that Freedom. People didn't have to like it or agree with you, but no one would stop you or sue you or force you to think otherwise.

Also remember, the salary of the ISD Superintendent is excessive when compared with salaries of the community misused and under served. The end result in local public education is never the Superintendent’s responsibility; it is the fault of the fatally flawed community served.

Yup, District Supers make a TON of money $150 - 250k (base) + benefits and lucrative bonuses.

By the way, you would be excellent at naming rock bands.

From just this one post, I see several great turns of phrase:
"bookmobile librarian"
"basic jackalope belief system"
"informational nonsense"
"engineered unity"

any of which would be perfect for aspiring young n'er-do-wells with loud guitars.
 

Panem

Much as the media tells us that the young generation is a monolith, the same is true of LGBTQEIEIO. It is not as monolithic as we are led to believe. This just appeared on my twitter feed. My lesbian sister in law agrees with this man's statement



I remain
Dr Chicago

Dr. Chicago wrote: ↑

9/23/2022, 11:36 am

Someone give this guy a medal!

Colonel Obyezyana wrote: ↑

9/21/2022, 5:32 pm

If anything, they should be at the bottom of conversation pits, looking up at the people they serve in the most humble way, as prisoners looked up at Caesar in the Colosseum, awaiting his judgement.

☝ This is a great idea. And they should end every sentence with the words "thank you, taxpayer, thank you" while bowing deeply.
 

Dr. Chicago wrote: ↑

9/22/2022, 3:26 pm

 and we need to do it with a smile on our faces and in good cheer expressing joy in the fact that we are Americans

My favorite political commentator (and also a successful politician) here in Europe (Roger Köppel) has as motto for his daily podcast:
"Kritisch, unabhängig und gut gelaunt"
ie
"critical, independent and in a good mood"

You are completely right comrade, we must be happy warriors first and foremost.