Sweeney Trips Over Gigantic Bag Of White Powder

Sweeney is at it again.  As old age creeps up on him as with everyone else, his edge has dulled.  In this case it is not his intellect, but his wisdom which fades.  Instead of thinking for himself, he is led by the nose with a thread, sewed through his septum, then tied in a knot, with a long string dangling out of his nostril….

“They” tried to hide the author.  It is buried under ….”Our View…”  But like his face in the picture often used to represent him… some things one just can’t hide….   There is a particular slant of Sweeneyism that is hard to copy.  That could be described as preaching the gospel of creationism long after it has been debunked…

In his latest attempt Sweeney gets called to save the dying Charter Schools.  Public opinion has turned against the administration….  Yet in Sweeney’s entire argument, there are no facts.  Why should we turn to Charter Schools? The facts are that they teach worse than do public schools, they waste more tax dollars than public schools, they actually cost more dollars than public schools, and they drain resources away from public schools,  Oh, and they pay their owners, superintendents, and administrators more than public schools…  To the tune of $72 dollars a student more!

So why should we continue with Charter Schools?  The only reason Sweeney can possibly derive… is because people want them.  Well. … …. … People want heroin too….   So perhaps the perfect rebuttal to Sweeney’s argument would be to substitute the word…” Heroin”…  for his words… “Charter Schools”…  Trust me… It is a really fun read… It also shows the spuriousness of Sweeney’s argument… “Why should everyone suffer just to make a few people happy?”   Here is Sweeney’s explanation… (Warning: don’t drink and read at the same time..).. 🙂

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“Twenty legislators have asked the state Board of Addictions to consider the possible harm five new heroin dispensaries pose to the Red Clay Consolidated School District.

The legislators are worried that too much legal heroin will drive students out of Red Clay schools. They argue this would be a detriment to the district and to those who prefer a public drug-free culture.

They have a point. Looked at from the institution’s point of view, heroin poses a threat. However, what does it look like from the point of view of the addicts who would want to send their children into heroin addiction? What do they see? What is the need addicts are trying to fill?

The heroin debate generally has ignored questions like these. Most of the arguments coming from the legislators and others, focus on the concerns of the institutions and those who run them. The viewpoint of the typical addict is missing.

Abstinence has been, is and will be the backbone of the American anti drug system, its religion, its workplace. However, for generations, people with money could sidestep any legal faults they saw in that system by sending their children money for heroin. However, since the advent of laws allowing for legal heroin, middle- and low-income parents now have had the ability to leave that dull reality as well. Most likely, these parents do not see themselves as leaving an old reality; they are just trying to get a better thrill for their children. The parents, in other words, are voting with their actions, driving into Wilmington, buying bags, and giving it to their children.

Instead of complaining, the anti drug establishment and their legislative supporters should be asking why.

People who hook new addicts study their customers. When the customers stop coming back, those business operators find out why and do something about it. They do not blame the competition, they kill them. As one businessman recently put it, Pepsi does not try to shut down Coke when the customers stop drinking Pepsi. Pepsi fights back.

Do the leaders of Red Clay or any other anti drug institution know why parents want to take their children out of abstinence? The districts cannot blame the growth of drug use on just the plight of middle-class white parents. Heroin addiction is extremely attractive to lower-income minority parents as well.

Why? What prompts them to shoot up? What attracts them to heroin? If the anti drug leaders know what the reason is, why isn’t it on the table for discussion? Suppose the problem were lack of love or curriculum. Shouldn’t that problem be the topic for discussion? Shouldn’t the legislators be trying to assist the anti drug establishment to find a solution for the heroin addiction, rather than complaining about alleged unfairness of those selling heroin to be beyond the law?

We applaud the legislators for their concern, but they would have a better argument if they could speak to the addicts’ concerns as well.

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This argument doesn’t work for heroin; it doesn’t work for Charter Schools…. The definition of freedom… at least as we (and that includes Sweeney) once learned…. “is the right to do what you want as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else”…… There are only two Charter Schools doing well…. Newark and Wilmington’s..  Between just the two of them, there are 2700 students…. Across the state there are over 133,000….  Why should every other student have to experience a decline in resources-per-child to benefit only 0.2% of the student population?

In Sweeney’s topsy turvey world, everyone of those 130,600 other students must now suffer (which even he admits to), until we find out why 0.2% of the population has an addiction to something different……

Yes.  It truly boggles the mind, doesn’t it?