Socialism – RESOLVE

Two years later

By Steve Woodward

While generally skeptical about so-called resolutions prompted by one month bleeding into another, I nonetheless resolve to torment hypocrites and Marxists (Democrats) as never before in 2023.

What other choice do we have? Anthony Fauci is retiring but his legacy — gain-of-function, fear, masking, boosters — is not going away. In fact, it is going to places heretofore uncontemplated. Vaccinated sheep (citizens) we are told now are more vulnerable to upcoming “variants” of the Wuhan virus. And pay no attention to vaccinated healthy young adults becoming ill or dying “suddenly”.

The blank canvas that is 2023 should not be frittered away at the hands of status quo Republicans. The battle in the U.S. House of Representatives to name its speaker reinforces a pressing need to deflect establishment forces. Our Founding Fathers did not create their framework to limit conflict within a party; they envisioned a battlefield upon which bold ideas and deep passion would overwhelm hypocrisy and political fraudsters.

Were we to summon a fraction of the determination that drove the Founders just think what we might accomplish. Locally, we would create a coalition to insure that a drag show never would darken our community again. We would direct our school board to eradicate gender grooming and race theory from public education. And we would challenge our county commissioners to marginalize the county board of health — over which it presides — so that it never again intrudes on public education by recommending school closures, masking and subjecting children to experimental mRNA injections.

But we also must stand resolute against purveyors of revisionist history as we approach the second anniversary of the unity rally of January 6 in Washington, where your correspondent traveled to chronicle what would unfold. We know many brothers and sisters who came and went without so much as raising their voices an octave, while raising objections that D.C. government chose to limit rest facilities apparently in an effort to disperse the “mobs” of seniors, families and young Republicans. The choice was clear: urination or defend the nation.

Apart from the planted, scripted disrupters who raged into the Capital two years ago, those who merely showed up are now, two years on, still sobered by what our nation looked like after the crowds went home and the Biden Administration ascended. Where we are in 2023 affirms that our motivation to assemble in Washington on that fateful January day in 2021 was prescient.

To the extent that a few hundred people swelled into the Capitol we now see how that modest demonstration pales in comparison to the trampling and burning down of societal norms in the aftermath. We might ask, where was the outrage on that January afternoon amid news that the lone fatality was an unarmed military veteran (Ashli Babbitt) who was gunned down in cold blood by a Capitol police officer? Why does January 6 merit a “commission”? Where are the commissions denouncing violence on America’s streets that, by comparison, make that citizens’ rally look like a county fair? Innocents who participated that day still rot in D.C. jail cells charged with taking selfies. But who was doing the plundering of our democracy in reality? Facebook and Twitter, of course. When will those digital accomplices be shackled and sent away?

Two years on, the Left is waging its own insurrection. Look no further than an essay I endured in a recent, Dec. 31-Jan. 1 weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal. It is worth noting that, in order to fill up the sections in weekend Journals, editors give voice to authors who would prefer to be published in The New York Times. The Journal helps them audition.

Zachary Karabell, who is the founder of the ominously named Progress Network, wrote to praise 2022 as as year in which “far more went right … than most of us recognize”. One can only imagine from which penthouse or city brownstone the author was perched as he typed fervently to remind us that 2022 was the year “climate technology was supercharged” by $400 billion allocated through Biden’s absurd Inflation Reduction Act. (In China, the equivalent would be the Oppression Reduction Edict).

Mr. Karabell is positively giddy in reminding readers that voter suppression laws failed (but misses the point that no such laws existed). Without a hint of irony, he claims “voters surged to the polls in (2022) despite fears (expressed only by left wing media) that laws passed in states such as Georgia and Texas would lead to voter suppression.”

The illogical Mr. Karabell goes on in his rambling essay to praise wage gains for citizens he disparages as “workers” — up by 6% in 2022 — “that did not (emphasis added) for most of the year keep pace with inflation.” Not to worry, he writes, “inflation moderates”. Just as urban crime waves sweeping our nation moderate. Some nights are less deadly than others.

2022 was a train wreck but, apparently, Mr. Karabell blissfully travelled on a parallel track.

The reliably moderate Gerard Baker, in his weekly Journal column, tried to ease into a new year by calling for an ideological truce. “Can we start to work to eradicate the binary mind-set that has seized our thinking about the kind of society and world we think we should live in?” Baker asks.

He answers his own question near the end of the column — as if the more he kept typing the more he was talking himself out of the premise. (As editor emeritus, Baker should impulsively have send the column back for a re-write).

Baker continues: herein is “the great conundrum for the more skeptical among us: Advances in the lot of humanity have rarely come from calls for moderation and humility, but from true believers — zealots who convinced enough people that the choice they faced really was a binary one between good and evil.”

Citizens who endure wages ravaged by bad economic policy, and law and order dysfunction driven by the “woke”, deserve our fierce defense of their liberties, no matter the cost.

If parents with children in government run indoctrination centers (schools) must become zealots to reform the system, let them do so boldly. If mechanical ballot tabulation presents a binary choice between integrity and fraud, we must go full binary to expose the Left. If U.S. border security is de-emphasized even as Ukrainian border security is funded by an American Congress to the tune of $100 billion; if medical tyranny advanced by thinly veiled lies threatens livelihoods, mental health and the well being of healthy young adults; if we observe the normalization of transgenderism and the rejection of Judeo-Christian values in our communities; if the very foundation of American exceptionalism is crumbling under the iron boot of the Left’s Great Reset in pursuit of a one-world order; well, then what?

With grudging apologies to Mr. Baker, the task is not to eradicate a mind-set. The task is to eradicate enemies within.

Walk in light

By Steve Woodward

Which is more frustrating? The sense we are getting that Duke Energy thinks power grid security should be turned over to government solutions? Or, that the Raleigh drag queens who infiltrated Southern Pines on December 3 are doubling down, promising to perform here in Moore County frequently next year?

Take your pick. As a practical matter, I guess I’d rather have lights shining on the continued decline of American culture. In which case, confidence that proactive measures will be identified and implemented to secure electric stations, close to home and nationwide, deserves priority over delusional dragsters and their rainbow protest mobs.

What is whistling down the alleys is word that law enforcement at all levels, while undeterred from trying to find the source of attacks on two Moore County sub-stations, are left holding a bag full of firearm shell casings and little else. (Some have surmised that the perps must have been less than sophisticated terror merchants for having failed to collect their shell casing. But does anyone really believe that Antifa- trained ninjas walk around with registered firearms? The casings are about as useful as discarded granola bar wrappers).

Meanwhile, local and state elected officials are said to be underwhelmed by Duke Energy’s upper management and support staff. Apparently, the Dukies feel comfortable restoring power but are less than inclined to restore confidence. Duke certainly dares not complain that security is unaffordable. In November, Duke announced it would be selling its commercial renewable energy assets for $4 billion — only five percent of its operations.

Duke Energy on December 1 bragged about giving away $1 million in social justice and racial equity grants to 40 organizations across North Carolina. Yet another investment that does everything but keep the lights on.

Rep. Richard Hudson, who soon will be sworn in as the NC-9 U.S. congressman (and will once again represent Moore County after a two-year break), is right to suggest that the federal government is long overdue in launching a nationwide initiative to protect America’s antiquated power infrastructure. But it’s hard to believe it’s going to happen in a nation that can’t/won’t secure it’s Southern border, and has willfully farmed out all of it’s manufacturing, textiles, prescriptions drugs and energy producing equipment to China.

Yet we are learning that the attack on Moore’s grid was not as random or isolated as first believed As reported by Wired.com, ”Duke Energy, reported gunfire at another facility, a hydroelectric power plant in South Carolina. And combined with two more incidents of hands-on sabotage of U.S. power facilities that occurred in Oregon and Washington in October and November, the vulnerability of the U.S. grid to old-fashioned physical harm has begun to seem like a serious threat.”

Meanwhile, Triangle-area drag “celebrity” Naomi Dix says she, too, is worried about attacks on power: on the power of LGBTQ deviants to attack the moral fabric of small-town communities. During a December 8 forum in Durham, Dix said that suspicions that the Moore power outage targeted her cast’s performance at The Sunrise Theater inspires her to bring additional shows here in 2023.

While Dix claims that drag shows are under attack — in Southern Pines the “attackers” read scriptures and prayed for the community at large — these so-called threats do not seem to be much of a deterrent to the hijacking of more and more community events. A December 10 “Christmas parade” in Shallotte, N.C., reports independent journalist A.P. Dillon, was interrupted by a leotard clad dance team led by a transgender coach who donned gay apparel that was merely a thong.

In Taylor, Texas, 35 miles northeast of Austin, Taylor Pride hoodwinked Christmas parade organizers when registering for a spot in the 2021 event. “The Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance … naively thought a group calling itself Taylor Pride was simply proud to be from Taylor,” wrote Taylor resident and political science professor Kevin Stuart in a December 9, 2022, op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.

So what happened this year? A new parade was created by a woke city management staff, acting without Taylor’s city council’s input. The 2022 parade ”ran right behind the traditional parade on December 3. It featured even more drag performers than last year, including one called Sedonya Face.“

Stuart concludes, “civic and cultural battles are sure to become more frequent and more intense” as social norms dissolve. “For those who simply want to work, worship God and raise their families in peace, this news is unwelcome.”

When darkness visits our towns we have no choice but to walk in the light.

Domestic jihad

By Steve Woodward

It was striking that Election Day and Veterans’ Day fell 72 hours apart last week. Both events, one a duty, the other a sacred observance, have reliably and boldly reflected American priorities and values across the years.

There was indeed much to celebrate among values-based conservatives after November 8, Election Day 2022. There was much for which to be thankful and sobered on November 11, Veterans’ Day.

In Moore County, the conservative values wave sent the left crashing into the jagged rocks of irrelevance. Voters overwhelmingly chose morality and stewardship when offered the alternative – cultural secularism and reckless spending. More on these triumphs later. Let’s simply say that where public schools and the Moore County Board of Education are concerned the status quo rubber stamp has been placed permanently in a drawer, and citizens who attend future meetings can rest assured they will not be subjected to metal detectors, masks, and intimidation by security personnel.

But the bigger picture is disheartening, and not for reasons about which the corrupt mainstream media would dare pontificate.

Two examples. Republicans did not seize iron clad majorities in the U.S. House and Senate because they ran too many tainted, Trump-backed “election denier” candidates who are not, and never will be, electable. BS.

Are we to accept this absurd notion even as The Big Steal 2.0 plays out before our eyes in Arizona, California, Nevada and Oregon? Election integrity is taking another hit out West, where “officials” are complacent and, likely, complicit.

The Left is not a wing of the Democrat party in 2022. The Left IS the Democrat party. Its candidates and its voters are not fixated on the so-called insurrection of January 6, 2021. Their fixation is abortion on demand, climate change, LBGTQ rights and gender fluidity. They do not care about our “institutions”, and they are not Never Trumpers. They barely noticed Trump because they never cared about low unemployment, peace through strength abroad, energy independence and restoring the greatness of America. Trump’s foe was and is corporate-owned media.

We can no more understand the radical Left than can we understand that which drives Islamic jihadists to commit acts of unthinkable terror. But we must acknowledge what drives them to vote, what inclines them to go all-in for John Fetterman (PA), Gretchen Witmer (MI), Mark Kelly (AZ), et al, allies of the Left who have no obvious popular appeal.

It’s not about ideology. They have no ideology. They have a religion that is untethered from Christianity, or even common sense. Common sense tells us that citizens of all political stripes would reject unbridled inflation, rising urban crime spreading into formerly “safe” neighborhoods, energy dependence on our enemies and crippling prices for gasoline and heating oil, a military significantly weakened by vaccine mandates, and endless January 6 commissions that crucify Trump but seek no remedies for election fraud.

Second example. It is the default mode among Americans of a certain generation to honor and salute military veterans. But the aforementioned Left views the military industrial complex, alive and well, as a channel through which wokeness and transgenderism will be further engrained. Thus, we honor our veterans one day a year but, should we lose focus, we will witness the demise of the brotherhoods that sustained them in times of war and peace. The Left is in charge in the upper ranks. The faces of valor they see in the black-and-white photos from past World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, leave them cold. They are not moved by these men and women who fought unconditionally. The woke military brass of the 21^st Century prefers conditions for those who serve. They must be vaccinated, indoctrinated, and emancipated from the past. Duty is not inherent; it is irrelevant. Duty gets in the way.

Savor we must the victories gained this first week in November that will subdue the march of the Left. Treasure we must military valor of ages past. But the stark reality of this moment is that we no longer can take for granted the absolute certainty of Election Day “results”, or the sanctity of future missions of those sworn to defend our homeland from enemies foreign and domestic.

In fact, domestic enemies are thriving in a perpetual open season, and they know it.

Adorable pawns

Unmasking the failure of public education

By Steve Woodward

Parents have begun to accept that their kids can’t breathe in school. Turns out there are a lot of things they can’t do.

They can’t read. They can’t add and subtract. They can’t stop thinking about sex. They can’t reason. They can’t wait for Thanksgiving Day to be over.

In a world turned upside down, educators demand (pretend) that students will be absolutely safe but are not concerned, apparently, that they know absolutely nothing. The dirty little secret has been unmasked. School performance across Moore County for 2020-21, an academic year sacrificed at the hands of hysterical lockdowns, unreliable “virtual” learning and cancellations of everything, went from lackluster to alarming. Thank God, administrators say, consoling themselves, there were fewer runny noses and scraped knees.

The problem, laments longtime Board of Education member Ed Dennison, is that parts of Moore County are occupied by too many “disadvantaged families”. And how does the Moore County school system show it’s compassion? Let us count the ways.

It allocates tens of millions of dollars drawn from a bond referendum to build Taj Mahal schools in Aberdeen, Pinehurst and Southern Pines for the same reason dogs lick their privates — because it can.

(Case in point, courtesy of fiscally focused board member David Hensley, who reported via Facebook last September: The Moore County Board of Education spent $37,875 per student building the new Aberdeen Elementary School. Contrast that with The Academy of Moore County, a charter school and Moore County’s only “A” rated school, (which) spent only $8,333 per student to build (its) new school. Phrased another way, the Moore County Board of Education spent almost FIVE TIMES building a new school (more) than what the county’s only “A” rated school spent.)

(Another Hensley Facebook nugget from last June: At $47,500 per student seat, Pinehurst Elementary is, by far, the most expensive elementary school ever built in the state of North Carolina. Had the previous Board of Education spent the state average of $26,278.43 per student seat for new public school elementary school construction, Moore County could have FIVE new, 800-seat elementary schools, not three.)

Meanwhile, schools in “disadvantaged” north Moore County remain decrepit and in need of innumerable repairs. But even after blowing its wad on south Moore school construction, the school board’s four disciples of Superintendent Bob Grimesey had a chance to do the right thing and take a fiscally sound vote. This could have happened September 22, just last month, when the board decided the time had come, once and for all, to decide what to do with 17 acres formerly occupied by the old Southern Pines Elementary School.

The back and forth on this debate is well known to those who pay attention (never enough, by the way). The board finally voted 4-3 (chair Libby Carter and her three sock puppets) to “sell” the land to a fly-by-night Southern Pines Land Trust for an apprised value of $685,000. The other board members exercised common sense and backed selling the land to a commercial developer at a fair-market price that was projected to come in around $1.5 million .

Never mind that the Land Trust, in collaboration with the Left wing Southern Pines Town Council, stole the land to build a park that will keep west Southern Pines effectively racially segregated. The real gut punch here is the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Moore County schools left on the table to pander to a racially charged cabal without regard for how the additional funds from a private sale would have benefited students across the board. The land belonged to the school system. The board was obligated to sell it to the highest bidder. It betrayed the community.

Carter lamented that she wanted to separate the board from endless forays into the “real estate business” under the false pretense that it is laser-focused on quality education. But that does not square with:

A board that twice has voted 4-3 to force kids to be masked all day in classrooms despite overwhelming bodies of evidence that masks are not effective and more than likely pose a mental health threat. Elementary school children especially are distracted and despairing of their filthy masks.
A board that is hell bent on ramming down the throats of students so-called Social Emotional Learning and Climate surveys to learn as much as possible about their sexual proclivities, gender insecurities and emotional states. Currently, Moore County schools are surveying parents about the implementation of surveys by a third party, Panorama, a data mining operation backed by Tech tyrant Mark Zuckerberg. What could possibly go wrong?
A board on which three members refused to condemn the inclusion of Critical Race Theory in history and social studies curricula. CRT would, for example, condemn Thanksgiving Day as a celebration of the disenfranchisement of native Americans. In other words, “Tell granny you’re sitting out next Thanksgiving.”
A board that has refused in recent years to deny Superintendent Grimesey a contract extension amid a downward spiral in school wide performance numbers.

A local sage wisely observed that the Moore County school performance stats are so categorically disappointing that it is impossible to cherry pick them. But three categories shine light on the big picture staring county educators in the face.

55% of third graders are not reading at grade level across Moore County public schools.
49% of all eighth graders are not proficient in reading. (In other words, they probably can not pronounce “proficient” or tell you what it means).
In grades three through eight, only 46% of students are performing at grade level in math.

The third rail of public education is the teachers themselves. In Moore County, the time seems ripe to re-evaluate both who is teaching our students and why they’re forsaking them. Let’s not repeat the mistake made in allocating new school funding. Let’s spread the blame around.

Land grab

By Steve Woodward

(Editor’s note: The content of this post reflects the author’s informed opinion and is not necessarily endorsed by the Moore County Republican Party)

The Pilot‘s August 8 editorial presumes to instruct our county board of education on making “the right choice” with regard to the sale of land formerly occupied by Southern Pines Primary School. Allow me to interject that “the right choice” would have been to do some research on the topic.

For if one does not choose to conclude that the editorial begins with a false assertion and an erroneous claim, the only other conclusion is that the writer is lying in order to make a racially charged argument for the Land Trust’s proposed land grab.

To wit, the opening of paragraph five: “The rules are complicated, but the school board is not obligated to take the highest bid. It can accept the lesser offer if it deems it to be in the best interest of the community.”

To the contrary, the rules certainly are not complicated, while the board certainly is obligated to accept the highest bid for the 17-acre parcel. These are plainly cited by a state general statute and by the state’s constitution. In other words, law dictates what the board must do. A few examples. First, “local school boards have statutory authority … to own, purchase, and sell real property.” And, as one sales option, “bids are solicited and received at one time and opened publicly, and the highest responsive offer is conveyed to the school board.”

But, but … what about the section allowing non-competitive sales to a non-profit or a trust seeking land owed to its “cultural, historical, natural or scenic significance”? The statute addresses this plainly. “The exception listed above is discretionary, not mandatory.” Which leads to the constitutional authority granted school boards to dismiss low bids. This is hiding in plain sight in Article 9, which holds that the constitution prohibits “school boards from donating real property or selling it for less than its fair market value” unless another school would be built on the land.

The Land Trust’s plan for the land includes “affordable housing for minority teachers”, along with a museum, an outdoor learning lab and “entrepreneurial opportunities” (black-owned businesses, in other words). Thus, this pandering editorial begins with falsehoods and goes on to advocate for converting the land into “a mixed-use hub … focused on serving its historically black community.”

The Pilot’s “right choice” envisions a permanently segregated Southern Pines. That’s a false choice. The board’s only choice is to comply with the law and the North Carolina Constitution, sell to the highest bidder and allocate a projected $1.5 million in proceeds across all of Moore County’s structurally deteriorating schools.