A&E's 'Pride and Prejudice' Open Thread

- School Officials Look To Expel Good Samaritan

I thought lack of judgment was largely the purview of the Transportation Safety Administration, but no, there is another contender jealous for the top prize:

Alyssa McKinney thought her friend, Breana Crites, was having an asthma attack during gym class. It happened at Lewis-Palmer Middle School. Both Eighth-graders were suspended for 10 days. The principal told CBS4 he couldn’t talk about the case but said it comes down to two students sharing prescription drugs, which is against school policy.

Is Tweedle Dee against using an AED if someone collapses on campus?

“I thought I was having and asthma attack and she’s seen people have asthma attacks,” Crites said. “So she thought I was having one too and she was worried. She’s like, ‘Just use this, it will help you.’"

According to school officials Crites suffered an allergic reaction to the inhaler and had to visit the school nurse, but the incidence of allergic reactions to your standard beta-agonist inhaler are just about nil.

The girl was already having trouble breathing prior to the inhaler being used and the child was not sent on to the hospital, so its a pretty safe bet no true allergic reaction occurred as a result of her friend trying to help her breath. In fact, the medication itself is used to reverse allergic reactions, so the administrator's story doesn't quite wash.

The principal found out what happened and suspended both girls. “I’m extending the suspension for five more days … and recommending expulsion from the Lewis-Palmer School District.

Now there's a command decision for you. Where's your buddy, Tweedle Dum?

The inhaler is actually a prescription drug,” the Lewis-Palmer School District superintendent said.

Yeah... and?

The Age of Brass

Irked at the prevalence of unqualified opinion, Thomas Sowell points out the president is a prince in a brass kingdom:

No one has more brass than the President of the United States, though his brass may be more polished than that of the Occupy Wall Street mobs. When Barack Obama speaks loftily about "investing in the industries of the future," does anyone ask: What in the world would qualify him to know what are the industries of the future? Why would people who have spent their careers in politics know more about investing than people who have spent their careers as investors?

Why indeed.

He goes on to point out the general wool pulling that politicians do as a matter of routine:

Politicians may be crooks but they are not fools. Easily observed direct subsidies can create a political problem. Far better to set up an arrangement that will allow government-sponsored enterprises — whether the Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Tennessee Valley Authority — to operate in such a way that they can claim to be self-supporting and not costing the taxpayers anything, no matter how much indirect subsidy they get.

As just one example, the Postal Service has a multi-billion dollar line of credit at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Hey, we could all use a few billions, every now and then, to get us over the rough spots. But we are not the Postal Service. Theoretically, the Postal Service is going to pay it all back some day, and that theoretical possibility keeps it from being called a direct subsidy.

No doubt about it, we have been failed by our politicians, who think nothing of lying to us and robbing the treasury.

The upcoming elections are of truly historic import. We live our lives on the brink, with our children's posterity in the balance. I would that they would grow up free. If won, the electoral battles of the 2012 elections will not mean the country is saved, but failing to win them in all likelihood will mean the country is lost.

Obama Administration Thumbs Nose at Religious Freedom

In a decision that was consistent with their disdain for the US Constitution, the Obama administration has refused to change an Obamacare rule that will require religious universities and hospitals to pay for abortifactants and birth control. The fact that such actions were in stark conflict with the fundamental religious beliefs of these institutions was brushed aside as being inconsequential. In rejecting the appeals, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius camouflaged her position in words meant to convey respect and consideration:

“This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. This proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”

Bullocks.

Who is Kathleen Sebelius to say what is appropriate and what is not? Certainly those people that believe abortion is the taking of a life will find the ruling does not reflect consideration, careful or otherwise. Were the rights of these individuals considered? Was the Constitution... by which the Federal government is constrained from abusing the people... was the Constitution considered? It would seem not, except to brush it aside. Despicable behavior, underscored by her disingenuous wording.

Levin Fans Brave Snows to Meet Famous Radio Host and Dog Lover

Mark Levin attended the first of three book signings for his latest work, Ameritopia. The cantankerous constitutional lawyer left the comfortable confines of "the bunker" to meet with admirers and sign their books.

"I signed a boatload of books for people who were just wonderful," Levin said. "You should have seen the group, a diverse group, no matter how you look at the group. Tall people, short people. Women, men. Straight people, gay people. Black, brown, red, yellow, white, polka-dot--everybody."

Ameritopia is Levin's look at the ideological clash between those that would look to accept man's nature and set up systems of government conducive for man to excel, and those that would strive to create paradise here on earth, complete with the necessary coeresion and control that such people would need to force the rest of us to live as they prescribe. He explains our current political struggles in terms of the underlying differences in world view the two groups hold. With Levin stand John Locke, Charles Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville. On the utopian side of the ledger are Plato, Thomas Hobbes, and Karl Marx.

The ideas of natural law and individual liberty as advanced by Locke were embraced by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and they are the underpinning principles which guide the Constitution.

Those that embrace the Utopian vision seek sweeping government control over people's lives, and there number would include today's modern Liberals... and the current sitting president.

The book is dedicated to Levin's three rescue dogs, now deceased, Pepsi, Griffin and Sprite.

Levin thanked everyone who turned out.


Update January 26th

Mark Levin's Ameritopia will debut as number one on the New York Times Best Seller List in four different nonfiction categories: hardcovers only, hardcovers and paperbacks combined, E-books, and E-books and print books combined.

Bingo - Bango - Bongo!!

'Justice Must Be Blind'

Reading the Venerable Bede is good for the soul. A recent post of his has haunted me now for several days. In it he comments on the tragic deaths of two young men, different circumstances, same decayed culture. One young man was Stephen Lawrence, and his death some ten years ago has finally resulted in two convictions, but it is the manner in which the government seeks justice in these cases that so underscore the decline in culture. Like England, our system of justice is based on the notion that there is an inherent rightness that every man can find access to justice, that the system of justice is not a respecter of persons, and that all men stand equal before it:

"There are at least two books about Lawrence written for use by children in primary schools. Whatever spirit is animating that, it is not healthy opposition to the crime of murder. Yet this is a point one is almost incapable of making without incurring the insanest slurs. When Princess Diana's death led to that extraordinary and shameful mass-psychosis characterised by Kim Jong-il-style incontinent public grieving, and the mass assembly of thousands of people all individually cocooned in self-obsession, it was permitted to say that we were witnessing something dark and shameful and unprecedentedly vulgar, without implying the least disrespect to those who actually knew her and whose grief was genuine.

So it should be possible here to say that by fixating on Lawrence's murder above and beyond those of the thousands of others killed in like fashion every year on Britain's streets, we not only create the illusion that it was in some way exceptional, we further enable the cultural climate in which the true scale of the problem is not confronted by those we have elected to keep us safe. And the fact that we do so not accidentally, not because Lawrence has been arbitrarily adopted as a symbol of that wider malaise, but rather because our rulers have consciously borrowed his tragedy to serve as symbolic of something else entirely, should give all of us pause."

The value of a blind system of justice is all but lost upon today's society. With a Supreme Court justice unashamedly proclaiming her belief in the inherent superiority of a wise Latina, it is clear that we are not far behind our friends from across the sea. Sad to see such feeble thinking taking hold of the culture and country we have lived in and loved.

Bedes has written another great piece. Read the whole thing here.

Conservative Rick Santorum Declared Iowa Winner

Who knows, Virgina, there may be hope for us yet. Rick Santorum has won in Iowa:

“There’ve been two primaries held now and we’ve won one--with a big win in Iowa that’s finally been certified. I think it’s important to understand that not only did we win the certified vote--but if you add all the other votes, we won by even more. So this is a solid win.”

The Iowa caucus were the first major test, and far more indicative than the open primary in New Hampshire. I believe we conservatives can feel very good about this. How about you, senator?

"We feel very, very good about what this win will mean."

Well, there you go. So, what does this say?

“It says that we can win elections, we can organize, we can put together an effort to pull the resources together to be able to be successful in being the person that can defeat Mitt Romney because, guess what, we defeated Mitt Romney in Iowa.”

Yeowza!