st louis « Robin Writes

Yes, I’m going there. I’m going to break a cardinal rule regarding talk of religion, politics, and money.

Okay, not the religion or money, but still . . .

I’m really, really tired of people bashing politicians—particularly the GOP. Yes, I said that. I’m a Republican. Surprised?

See, I’m a child of a mixed marriage: Democrat and Republican. As a teen, I was swayed toward the liberal side and now that I look back, I think it was just an act of teen defiance. Made for some fun times around the dinner table, since I lived with the GOP side.

At any rate, I’d like to set a few things straight, based on my perhaps limited understanding.

Republicans believe in small government. That means that we think less is better: less regulation, fewer offices and rules and bureaucracy. We believe in being conservative with money and are mostly traditional in morals and values. We believe in personal responsibility.

Now, you may say the GOP has strayed from these principles and I won’t argue. You can say that they spend too much on defense, give tax breaks to corporations, pollute with impunity.

Some of them do.

And this is my point:

Individuals are not the party. A politician, or several of them, are not the party. When you bash the GOP and say “all” of them are [fill in the blank], you are bashing ME. And that pisses me off.

For example, the GOP didn’t poison Flint’s water; a series of idiot events, presided over by idiots, did that. They happen to be Republicans? THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT WAS THE PARTY, or even ALL REPUBLICANS.

Get a freakin’ grip.

But as a Republican, what do I see on the “other” side?

Bloated bureaucracy. Regulated everything. Feelings.

A government, or an executive board of an organization, or a business, needs to be workable. Fewer chiefs, more Indians, to use a probably politically incorrect phrase. When there are departments of EVERYTHING, those everythings get confusing and expensive. Look at some of the ridiculous things that the US government spends money on—and please don’t point fingers at one party or the other. They ALL DO IT.

Pork. This is why so many beneficial, sensible laws do not get passed. It isn’t because the GOP is against feeding children, for example, it’s the added crap someone—anyone—put into that bill.

Compare that to an executive board: fifteen people all trying to agree and all voting on everything little thing instead of letting the committee responsible do its job.

Or a business. A mom and pop business, at the beginning, has mom and pop in charge of EVERYTHING; if they’re going to be viable, they share the duties or split them. The company grows, and so mom and pop simply can’t keep up with EVERYTHING, so they appoint or hire say, vice presidents. Twenty of them. All the employees are now executives, making decisions.

End of business.

Conversely, they have maybe ten VPs. And each one keeps hiring assistants or admins or whatever. No one is doing the work, because everyone has a “position.”

End of business.

Regulations and rules can certainly be good things. Christians have the Ten Commandments as a base, and even many of my atheist friends have adopted those, although maybe not in so many words or don’t claim them as such. But they certainly live good, moral lives.

No, I won’t go into morality and all that—my point is that a civilized society MUST have rules. Some. A lot fewer than we have now. We’ve all read articles about silly laws still on the books from way back in the old days. Makes me laugh to think how, in the future, we’ll all laugh about some of the current ones.

Kids pointing fingers and shouting “bang,” for example, as being grounds for suspension or expulsion from school.

And no, I’m not saying Democrats think this is okay—some do; some Republicans do too. These people are idiots. My point, again, is that SOME THINK THIS IS OKAY. Both parties.

Here’s a personal example:

When we had the bookstore, I noticed an odd charge on my sewer bill so I called and asked about it.

Here, in STLCO, all businesses are charged a fee IN CASE they are flushing chemicals down the toilet or allowing run-off into a stream or wherever.

This is not a fair or just regulation. This is an example of government gone wrong. I have no idea who came up with this or to which party he belonged.

Let’s talk about feelings.

You cannot legislate feelings. For myself, yes, I have them; I just don’t believe that everything sad that I read “breaks my heart.” My heart has been broken; whose has not? But by a person, an individual, someone I actually know—and I’m speaking in general, to compare a sad story or article to an actual experience.

Many claim that Republicans have no feelings because—may as well let it all out—for example, those same people claim that the GOP doesn’t want to feed or take care of children unless they are still in the womb.

Bullshit.

Go back and read again about pork. And continue:

Republicans believe in personal responsibility—have children or not, but if you do, take care of them. It’s your job. Your responsibility. It is not the job of the government to take care of you or your children. Be a freakin’ adult.

And speaking of adults, either a person is a child or an adult. In most states, 18 is the age of majority. At that point, you aren’t a teen, per se, you aren’t a child, you are an ADULT. Prior to that, as a parent, you’re darn right I’m making the decisions.

From what I see, Democrats think kids should call the shots—get an abortion, no problem; have sex, go for it. If it feels good, it’s okay, do it; it’s YOUR body.

Wait, see what I did there?

I just said that DEMOCRATS believe these things, and that sentence immediately implies that ALL OF THEM believe these things!

And that, my friends, is just plain wrong.

I have many friends on both sides. I’m quite sure we disagree on many things. But very few of them will post or talk about how ALL REPUBLICANS or ALL DEMOCRATS or conservative or liberal or whatever word you want to use are evil and moronic.

And those that do, piss me off no end. They aren’t fair. They aren’t right. They merely show that they are not capable of thinking clearly or critically.

A lot of protesting in the news the last few years, like Ferguson and Baltimore, the Bundy stand-off; just to name two. And people can argue both sides, all day long. I’ve talked about Ferguson, particularly since it’s so close to me, and I’ve tried to be fair and to boil things down to the facts themselves without emotion.

I haven’t really looked into the Bundy situation—people, again, argue both sides and it’s hard for me to know where the truth lies. I draw the line, however, at making fun of anyone protesting, anyone who believes, in their hearts, that they’re right.

Notice I said the protestors, not the armchair gurus. They’re fair game.

The other night, a friend called me, absolutely beside herself and very angry over the treatment of a another individual whom she knows well. I do not know this person, but I DO know my friend and have known her for 46 years—in case you’re doing the math, we met when I was six and she was seven. In spite of distance, we’ve been very close all these years.

What her story boiled down to is this:

During the 2014-15 school year, my friend M and her family hosted a Chinese exchange student who attended the same Christian school as their own children. In December 2014, the student’s mother decided that her son was doing well, so she contacted the school, Veritas Christian Academy in Virginia, and asked about re-enrollment the following year, 2015-16, or this current school year.

Typically, student tuition is paid here on a monthly basis; the mother was told she had to pay the full amount upfront, in December 2014, for a school year that wouldn’t begin for nine months: $13,000.00. There was no enrollment fee or placeholder fee, just tuition, immediately. After some back-and-forth, she agreed to do so and wired the money.

In April 2015, last spring, she discovered that she had obtained a post-doc medical research position in Wisconsin, and naturally, since she would now be coming to the same country as her son, wanted him to live with her. She contacted the school and asked for a tuition refund.

The headmaster refused.

Now, I could speculate on his reasons: financial difficulties for the school, past and present; costly school expansion; perhaps others.

The mother kept asking for a refund; M discovered what was happening, and she and her husband spoke with the mother, reviewed correspondence, and soon others were coming forward to discuss the matter with them, as the headmaster himself had begun to speak about the situation.

He accused the mother of blackmail, simply because her situation had changed and she’d asked for a refund for a product, if you will, that hadn’t been delivered and would not be delivered for nearly five more months. He also told her that if she spoke to anyone, he would file suit against her for this supposed blackmail.

Finally, he agreed to reimburse her at the rate of $1,000.00 per month—and option he never gave her in the first place—beginning in August 2015.

She received a check that month, for $1000.00.

And not a dime since then.

THIS is why people are angry and upset. THIS is why I posted about it on my Facebook page the other day. Because THIS is wrong, on so many levels.

If you know me, if you trust me, you know I would not make up something like this just for funsies. Yes, I did call for those who were so inclined to leave a review on the school’s FB page; if you heard of any business who treated a client or customer so poorly, would you not speak up?

I did. And within minutes of my post, the school hid all their reviews from the public. I don’t know how many of you posted reviews, it doesn’t matter. They were horribly skewed in the first place, since most posters had the same surname as the headmaster.

M and her husband had recently reviewed it as well, and were subsequently blocked from the page. Others may be too, as all the kids in the high school program left and did not return this year.

Non-Christians often complain about Christians who exhibit less-than-stellar behavior. Christians, however, do not have a market on good behavior—we are all sinners, after all. But publicly demonstrating non-Christian values on a consistent basis, as this headmaster has done, does not make for a good witness.

I will add that this school is for-profit business, and of course, they can conduct that business however they wish. But to do it in God’s name is simply wrong. That is the crux of the matter.

I’ve had experience with this very situation, years ago. My kids attended a Christian school, albeit non-profit, and I had enrolled them for the following year. In June, we decided to move out-of-state and we informed the school. The school initially required that we continue to make monthly tuition payments, even though the new year hadn’t begun and our boys would be educated in another state, hundreds of miles away.

They even mentioned a lawsuit.

Without going into detail, I prevailed. It was wrong for them to require payment. Period. Just as withholding the refund is wrong of Veritas Christian Academy.

Some people will contend that it was wrong of me to ask others to review the school. Or to talk about the situation. Or ostensibly condemn the headmaster and school. Maybe it was. I’m not perfect. But I do know wrong from right and I felt the need to speak up.

We’ve all heard about sock puppet book reviews and we’ve all read articles about restaurants and other businesses who are slammed with bad reviews for no reason or for bogus reasons, and you can compare that to this without the religious component if you wish.

But Christianity is at the heart of this situation. The headmaster was approached privately, with witnesses, and now this has escalated to public censure. Sometimes, I simply shake my head and wonder how man can be so clueless . . .