At the June 6th Windsor Co. Democrats - State Senate Candidate Forum, all three sitting legislators vying for election stated directly or implied heavily that their response to recent Supreme Court decisions (rulings that school choice programs like the one Vermont has had for over a century and a half cannot discriminate against religious schools) would be to end our tuitioning system entirely.
Senator Alison Clarkson, who is currently the Democrats’ Senate Majority Leader, and in a strong position to influence her caucus, said flat out, “I know we will have a battle royal if the Supreme Court decision comes down and says public money will be able to go to parochial schools and to religious institutions, and I think that will call the question on public dollars going to private independent schools. It is already a challenging subject for many legislators.”
When asked specifically if she was referring to Thetford Academy and the Sharon Academy in Windsor County, Clarkson added, “the Waldorf School, there are quite a few of them!” She went on to note about the four Traditional Academies, “My would guess would be in play to come up with a special status, but this will be a big challenge for us.” That’s a big “but!”
When Senator Dick McCormack, one of the most senior serving senators, was asked the same question, after a short ramble, concluded with, “What she said,” referring to Clarkson.
And Representative Becca White, who is running for the open Windsor senate seat, said “Whenever we have a drain against our public schools we are directly harming our most vulnerable children in our communities. So, in any instance that we could be supporting public schools over private academies, that’s where I stand. What concerns me on top of that is when we have private institutions that for low income students offer financial aid, and then are getting the cream on top, which is those vouchers.”
It's no secret that many legislators in the majority party are openly hostile to Vermont’s independent schools and are resentful of the fact that many do a better job of educating children for less money than their public school counterparts. They have long desired to eliminate them, and are clearly looking at the recent Supreme Court decisions as their excuse to do so.
Clarkson said that the only reason they (the legislature) didn’t act in 2022 was because they were waiting for the Supreme Court to rule in Maine’s Carson v. Makin case regarding religious schools. Well, that ruling came down two weeks after the above comments were made, and the Court sided with the religious schools. So, families in Vermont’s 130 independent schools and the 8800 K-12 students they serve had better start paying attention if you want your schools and your tuition vouchers to exist beyond this school year. Majority Leader Clarkson and her team are coming for you.
- Rob Roper is on the board of directors of the Ethan Allen Institute
You can see the full exchange on the this link, with the relevant portion coming in the last 12 minutes or so of the video. https://okemovalley.tv/windsor-co-democrats-state-senate-candidate-forum
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Facebook“Numbed by the endless psychotropic drugs that are handed out in every school in the country by crackpots posing as counselors and of course, they’re angry. They know that their lives will not be better than their parents. They’ll be worse. That’s all but guaranteed. They know that. They’re not that stupid and yet, the authorities in their lives, mostly women, never stops lecturing them about their so-called privilege. You’re male. You’re privileged. Imagine that. Try to imagine an unhealthier, unhappier life than that.
So, a lot of young men in America are going nuts.
Are you surprised?
And by the way, a shockingly large number of them have been prescribed psychotropic drugs by their doctors, SSRI or antidepressants and that would include quite a few mass shooters and keep in mind, again, these drugs are meant to prevent crazy behavior and yet there seems to be a connection.
Eric Harris, the columbine killer was on Zoloft and Luvox.
A year earlier, a 15-year-old called Kip Kinkel shot his parents and dozens of classmates.
He was on Prozac.
In 2005, a 16-year-old called Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and ten kids in Minnesota.
He was on Prozac, too.
So was 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak who murdered six people at Northern Illinois University.
In 2012, you may recall when 25-year-old James Holmes walked into a movie theater and shot 82 people. He was on Zoloft.
The list goes on and on and on and on. It includes the shooter at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013.
That would be 34-year-old Aaron Alexis.
It also includes Dylan Roof. He’s the 21-year-old who shot up the church in Charleston.
Now, he was apparently a racist, and we’ve heard a lot about that. Fine, but we’ve heard next to nothing about the fact that he was taking SSRIs, he and many, many others.
You’re not supposed to notice, but some have.
The Journal of Political Psychology once assembled a list of dozens more mass killings, all committed by young people, young men on prescription drugs.
So, is there a connection?
Well, we don’t know definitively.
We do know there are a whole lot more of these drugs being taken by kids than ever before and by the entire population. Who’s not taking some prescription medication at this point?
Between 1991 and 2018, total SSRI prescriptions in the United States rose by more than 3,000%. 3,000%!
3,000% of anything is a massive change. You don’t see changes like that, but the point of this change was to make Americans calmer, saner, happier. Take these drugs and your problems will go away.
Yes, you will become numb. You will lose part of yourself. You no longer experience deep joy. You’ll become part robot, but at least you won’t want to kill yourself or harm other people. That was the promise.
3,000%. Did it work? Let’s see.
Over the very same period, the suicide rate in the United States jumped by 35%. Did it work?
Well, millions of people got on anti-suicide drugs and we wound up with many more suicides. So, maybe it’s not working. Is it possible it’s making the problem worse, you think?
Well, let’s see. Mass shootings also increased dramatically over the very same period.
Now the halfwits on Twitter always scream the same thing. Correlation is not causation. All right. Whatever that means, but tell us, halfwits. What is going on exactly? What does that chart mean?
We know that SSRIs are dangerous. It says so right on the label. They increase “the risk of anxiety, agitation, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity and mania.”
Oh, not a big deal. That’s not causation. Then what is it?
According to one meta study by the FDA, young people who’ve been prescribed SSRI have an increased rate of suicide. Oh, wait. More suicides? Weren’t they supposed to reduce suicide, but we’re getting more suicide?
Let’s stop right there, but we’re not stopping. We’re accelerating.
Between 2015 and 2019, the use of SSRI drugs by teens in the United States rose by nearly 40%. So, it’s not working? Let’s do a whole lot more of it.”
h/t to Carlson
You wonder why parents want to reduce their kids exposure to young, angry, classmates – both male AND female?
“Numbed by the endless psychotropic drugs that are handed out in every school in the country by crackpots posing as counselors and of course, they’re angry. They know that their lives will not be better than their parents. They’ll be worse. That’s all but guaranteed. They know that. They’re not that stupid and yet, the authorities in their lives, mostly women, never stops lecturing them about their so-called privilege. You’re male. You’re privileged. Imagine that. Try to imagine an unhealthier, unhappier life than that.
So, a lot of young men in America are going nuts.
Are you surprised?
And by the way, a shockingly large number of them have been prescribed psychotropic drugs by their doctors, SSRI or antidepressants and that would include quite a few mass shooters and keep in mind, again, these drugs are meant to prevent crazy behavior and yet there seems to be a connection.
Eric Harris, the columbine killer was on Zoloft and Luvox.
A year earlier, a 15-year-old called Kip Kinkel shot his parents and dozens of classmates.
He was on Prozac.
In 2005, a 16-year-old called Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and ten kids in Minnesota.
He was on Prozac, too.
So was 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak who murdered six people at Northern Illinois University.
In 2012, you may recall when 25-year-old James Holmes walked into a movie theater and shot 82 people. He was on Zoloft.
The list goes on and on and on and on. It includes the shooter at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013.
That would be 34-year-old Aaron Alexis.
It also includes Dylan Roof. He’s the 21-year-old who shot up the church in Charleston.
Now, he was apparently a racist, and we’ve heard a lot about that. Fine, but we’ve heard next to nothing about the fact that he was taking SSRIs, he and many, many others.
You’re not supposed to notice, but some have.
The Journal of Political Psychology once assembled a list of dozens more mass killings, all committed by young people, young men on prescription drugs.
So, is there a connection?
Well, we don’t know definitively.
We do know there are a whole lot more of these drugs being taken by kids than ever before and by the entire population. Who’s not taking some prescription medication at this point?
Between 1991 and 2018, total SSRI prescriptions in the United States rose by more than 3,000%. 3,000%!
3,000% of anything is a massive change. You don’t see changes like that, but the point of this change was to make Americans calmer, saner, happier. Take these drugs and your problems will go away.
Yes, you will become numb. You will lose part of yourself. You no longer experience deep joy. You’ll become part robot, but at least you won’t want to kill yourself or harm other people. That was the promise.
3,000%. Did it work? Let’s see.
Over the very same period, the suicide rate in the United States jumped by 35%. Did it work?
Well, millions of people got on anti-suicide drugs and we wound up with many more suicides. So, maybe it’s not working. Is it possible it’s making the problem worse, you think?
Well, let’s see. Mass shootings also increased dramatically over the very same period.
Now the halfwits on Twitter always scream the same thing. Correlation is not causation. All right. Whatever that means, but tell us, halfwits. What is going on exactly? What does that chart mean?
We know that SSRIs are dangerous. It says so right on the label. They increase “the risk of anxiety, agitation, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity and mania.”
Oh, not a big deal. That’s not causation. Then what is it?
According to one meta study by the FDA, young people who’ve been prescribed SSRI have an increased rate of suicide. Oh, wait. More suicides? Weren’t they supposed to reduce suicide, but we’re getting more suicide?
Let’s stop right there, but we’re not stopping. We’re accelerating.
Between 2015 and 2019, the use of SSRI drugs by teens in the United States rose by nearly 40%. So, it’s not working? Let’s do a whole lot more of it.”
h/t to Carlson
You wonder why parents want to reduce their kids exposure to young, angry, classmates – both male AND female?