Monday, January 7, 2019

Attack the Problem, Not the Symptom


Tonight I spoke at Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) monthly school board meeting, the second in a series.  You could say this presentation is a follow-up to my presentation this past September entitled, Sue the Gun Manufacturers.  My speech is as follows:

Good evening Board Chair, Fellow Board members, Superintendent Greene, Guests and fellow attendees.

Is not the purpose of an education to gain the cognitive thinking skills with which to solve problems?  Reading, writing, arithmetic are just means to that end are they not?  Many educational institutions based on perusing their websites do not share this goal; instead I mostly found oblique objectives.

I contend this lack of focus and direction is not new or our country would not be encountering problems that should have never arisen. We have allowed our own laws to infringe upon and even annihilate for some the unalienable rights endowed by our creator.  We respond to these outcomes with the very same activity that leads us there- passing new laws that further rub out these rights.

When in a hole, stop digging.  Some may even say the hole in which we find ourselves is analogous to hell given that lives were snuffed out in Parkland, FL and Duval county schools now look like the pea farm (James I. Montgomery Correctional Center).

As I understand it, some of you want more guns on campus. We do not need more guns. I am not alone in this thought as evidenced by the Gifford Law Center (GLC) lawsuit.  However, I think GLC is misguided as well.  It tackles the symptom not the disease that has led to this rot and stench and in doing so forces DCPS to consume precious resources that should be used to educate our children. 

When I stood before you back in September I advocated that you sue the Federal government.

In 2005 Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.  Arguably it is unconstitutional as it gives gun manufactures protections that neither you nor I have and it hinders your ability to protect my children’s unalienable rights; worse, it has led you to infringe on their rights. Meaningful change will not occur until it and other misguided laws are altered or abolished.

We do not need gun laws, as guns do not kill people; people kill people.  Since people are well, human, we need laws to ensure people are:
  1. Capable of handling an instrument of death and
  2. Will respect other’s unalienable rights.
I call these laws, Responsibility Laws.  

Madam Chairwoman, School Board Members, and Doctor Green I encourage you to set aside your differences with GLC and seek to overturn those laws that force you to infringe upon my children’s unalienable rights. After I leave this meeting I will share these thought of mine with GLC representatives.

I encourage both DCPS and GLC to join forces to fight for our unalienable rights because "whenever any law becomes destructive of these [rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new [laws] to [a]ffect their Safety and Happiness."

Most of the words in that last sentence were written ~ 250 years ago. I just nipped and tucked in a few places.

Let’s fight the good fight.  Let’s fight for our children’s well being.

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