249 missing books from 37 different authors — and zero paper trail.
by Shaun Kenney
COLUMNIST (and Book Aficionado)
First and foremost, allow me to present a solution to our present woes in Spotsylvania beyond a system that will notify parents when library books are checked out — which is great if only to avoid late fees and the like.
Immediately in January, one of the first things on new business should be the creation of a resource for the purchase and donation of new — not gently used, but new — books to Spotsylvania County Public Schools. I am certain there will be objectional titles — Huckleberry Finn and the Holy Bible and The Complete Works of Milton Friedman among them — yet to have the community rally around such an idea would be a marvelous step forward and entirely voluntary.
Which brings us to the present conundrum where 249 books from 37 different authors have disappeared from Spotsylvania’s school libraries.
The Mortal Storm Has Arrived
One worries that my admiration from left-of-center friends is built upon a particular form of utility. Namely, when conservatives go out of their way to condemn “book burning” then we are most assuredly useful. Yet when we state our reasons why, and when those reasons are far different than the reasons put forward by progressives, then we are quickly reminded that we are most assuredly the enemy.
Not just friends who disagree.
Not just a temporary opposition.
…but an enemy fit to be destroyed.
When it comes from a particular set of human beings known for their intolerance, such sentiments can be expected. When it comes from the voices who claim to extoll tolerance and diversity as their highest virtues? Perhaps there is no greater reminder that the false god of progress is every bit the failure of the old pagan gods. They claim a sunny optimism until someone dares to question the direction of the progress, the penalty for which is the acidity of contempt, condescension, and ostracization from what progressives ultimately term society.
If you had to summarize my opposition to Trump, it is in this critique specifically. For too long, it has been acceptable for Democrats to behave like Democrats, so long as Republicans do not behave like Democrats. Yet when Republicans do behave like Democrats, what are they called? Fascists? Bigots? Haters?
Of course, this is the nationalist — and they do call themselves nationalists — critique of conservatives, namely that if “the good, beautiful, and the true” were so damn appealing, then how does one explain the last 50 years? The political left have no qualms about imposing their values through law and regulation, they claim. Heck, they can’t even see that they are doing it in the name of progress. Why then should the political right have any qualms doing likewise? If the political left can riot, why can’t the political right? If the political left can destroy, weaponize speech, impose their values through coercion and shaming, then why are these tools forbidden to the political right?
The temptation to surrender to equivocation is a terribly strong one. For every abuse on the left, there is most assuredly an abuse on the right. Yet the war — if there is one — is not in the whom but the that. The war is against abuse, coercion and violence in the public square.
In the 1940 film The Mortal Storm there is a tipping point in the film where intolerance overwhelms the good guys. The election of a new chancellor doesn’t do it. The restriction of thought in public spaces doesn’t do it. The accusations during a science experiment that the scientist who developed the proof did not have either the correct religion or ethnic background doesn’t do it.
What breaks the back of civil society? The day when the books are piled into the courtyard and ceremoniously burned. Where the spirit of intolerance finally culminates into what can and cannot be thought, taught, learned and talked about.
The Good Guys Don’t Ban Books
Unfortunately, we are living at a time where two unthinking and unfeeling camps are pushing America to the brink. Set your phasers to mock, ladies and gentlemen — it’s what they openly deserve.
The solution to bad speech (or bad books) is not correct speech but more speech.
A literate society would be buying and donating books in droves to Spotsylvania County Public Schools. There would be read-ins of James Joyce’s Ulysses — the students of the University of Virginia still pull an all-nighter each year doing precisely this to highlight the problem of banned books — and talks with authors and mentoring with students. A literate society, we would open the widest possible investigation into who took on the duties of a public censor and prosecute that person to the fullest extent of the law.
But there is going to be a hiccup in this, for this precise reason alone. There are other voices — other public censors — who view society as something belonging to themselves and themselves alone. Who still view the world in the false dichotomy of us and them, left and right, friends and enemies who must be destroyed and run down at all costs.
I want the books back. I may never read them, and probably deeply and profoundly disagree with most of what is inside of those books as having any literary value. Yet the only public censor any free people should ever tolerate is our own intellectual curiosity and capacity for education. As a Virginian and a committed liberal in the classical sense of the term, my response to any would-be censor will be and remain Jeffersonian: error may be tolerated so long as reason is left free to correct it.
Yet in this supreme command, let there be a warning implied. Banned books are not merely a phenomenon of the right. Not terribly long ago, pressure was applied to edit the works of Dr. Seuss by the political left. Not terribly long ago, Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird was the target of ire. Even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory got a rewrite. Best not to mention Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s opinions on transgenderism.
Even here, there is a deeper problem. As Ray Bradbury mentions in Fahrenheit 451, there is more than one way to burn a book. To be a literate person, one must read literature. One book a week is sufficient — and how many of us do this? When was the last time your children or grandchildren caught you reading a book — a real book?
The enemy is illiteracy, and the self-appointed public censors do the rest of us no favors by mimicking the worst behaviors of their opposition. Put the books back and find out who removed them in the first place. Who ordered it? Who gathered them? Surely there are witnesses. Where did they go?
Then make sure this never happens again.
Leo B Watkins
December 29, 2023Sigh.
Poor little Shaun. Would someone give him his participation trophy already? Geez.
Seems like every other week, he’s searching for praise because he is not either participating nor endorsing this particular affront to decency from members of his party. Well done, SK. well done.
For the record, I too am against book burning, and other forms of suppression of free thought. More so than many liberals. Not just safe things like Dr. Seuss, but likewise Macauliffe’s arbitrary insistence of removing the Confederate flag from SCV’s license plates – or Stoney’s destruction of Confederate monuments. Who are they to interpret art for others?
I see the benefit of a more nuanced ground. Just watched comedy specials from Trevor Noah and Ricky Gervais the other day – and found value in both of them. Along with plenty to criticize.
I liked Trevor’s take on how German’s handle the history of Nazism as compared to America “conservatives” head in the sand approach.
But I found his casual racism toward the French, and white people in general a little tedious. Not enough to quit watching, but it was predictable. A bit mailed in.
And wondered what other demographic could be mocked in such a way without the left condemning them. Plus, from an art standpoint, for me, he’s really not all that funny. A good chuckle, but few horse laughs at an original idea. Then again, I don’t care much for Will Farell’s humor, so to each, his own.
Still, I’d pass on censorship. Humor, like other forms of art, are in the eye of the beholder.
And the idea he applied toward German history, is the one I wished Stoney would have applied toward Lee’s statue. Context, not destruction. Leave the statue, leave the graffiti. It too had become part of the story. That what is valued by one generation, is sometimes despised by the next. And that both those building statues and those destroying them should use caution. That would have been truly valuable.
Funny though, that upon seeing us, I suspect he would have seen myself and Mr Kenney as two sides of the same coin, rather than two individuals with our own perspective. So yes, certainly, the left is equally capable of racism, hypocrisy, etc. As are black people, young people, people with birthdays, etc. I suspect it is a human condition. Can we move on, or do we all get trophies?
Then again, RG did evoke laughs.
Generally because his ideas were so outrageous and shocking. That is more to my taste. As was Richard Pryor, back in the day – though looking at his work now seems a bit more dated than a Marx Brothers or Abbot and Costello routine.
When Gervais did his bit about those who would destroy a statue because it was of someone later found to be a pedophile, or slave holder (or in TJ’s case, both!), instead add context, I agreed.
And he noted the irony of those woke folk who would tear down the statue, but keep the stuff they value. IE, UVA fans happily wanting Lee destroyed, but certainly not the school that Jefferson built.
Again, it’s nuanced. I too would not want UVA, except by VT in football on the last weekend in November, destroyed. But I don’t feel anyone owes me a trophy for feeling that way.
Still, as much as we are in solid agreement regarding the need to avoid censorship, that the “conservative” Puritans destruction or loss of those valuable books are worth investigating – with the chips falling where they may, I do remain astonished at the equivocation that always seems to be part of Shaun’s columns. Again, he may state how much he hate’s Trump’s ways, yet he sure does imitate him.
No, there is no equivalency between a spontaneous outburst of emotion from common citizens at systemic injustices that lead to their continual deaths, and someone who is entrusted (though Shaun, myself, and the majority of Americans agreed he shouldn’t have been) with the most sacred and important position in the land – using scheme of lies and violence to hold onto power.
It devalues those who have honored that trust to so lightly ignore Trump’s failure to do so. No Shaun, 140 cops did not get beat half to death and the Insurrection Act invocation of martial law to impede a lawful election get considered because someone merely forgot to lock the doors on the Capitol that day. No matter how much you try to trivialize or normalize it.
And when Shaun complains of those who disagree with him as saying that he is “an enemy to be destroyed.” How many times has he whined when criticized, plaintively responding to challenges to his falsehoods and subjectivities by asking Why do you hate (us/me) so much?
Denigrating any challenges to his statements by casting them as emotional rather than based upon his actions and statements. That’s not a defense, that’s a dodge.
Again, like Trump.
So again, congratulations on not being okay with burning books. Way to go?!?
Please advise us if you are also expecting praise for not reverting to cannibalism, restarting the Inquisition, or pasteurizing milk.
Cause until you can manage to take a position without always feeling the need to minimize the wrong doing by those you otherwise choose to support, or to pretend that everyone does it, it’s just a bit hard to take it too seriously.
Still, keep your chins up. Maybe next year.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Yep — they really do hate us.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023Thank you for providing me an opportunity to remember how powerful the human imagination is.
In that I can choose to read your vacuous, repetitious, and self-pitying dismissals and picture a middle aged man, bereft of ideas, yet full of sound and fury, curled up in a figurative ball; writing it over and over when challenged – like a modern day chakra, meant to protect him from all evil thoughts.
Whilst I wonder, maybe we were wrong as parents to give kids participation trophies in the ’80s, as we well meaningly coached our soccer, or baseball, or softball teams.
I admit, I too was guilty, of looking during the end of season banquets to find a positive something to say about each kid. If it was wrong, please know it was done with the best of intentions. We truly believed that praise and positive reinforcement for effort spent, was a good thing.
Still, science and clinical observation may prove that we may have gotten it wrong, just as the recent article regarding Representative Spanberger joining her Republican colleagues in changing school policy regarding whole milk usage in schools was based upon objective review of the results.
Or maybe we will later learn that it was not our well meaning praise 40 years ago that has produced citizens so thin-skinned, ill-prepared, yet so incapable of having their thoughts challenged or reviewed.
Perhaps a side effect of so much micro-plastic in the food chain? Forever chemicals? Maybe we passed through a cosmic storm during your time of conception? Or maybe such folk have always been with us, as many claim for the LBGQT community. I do not know.
I truly don’t.
Still, with a mere flick of the imagination, when confronted with such insincere and unflattering whining from what is put forth to us as the modern day Republican Standard, the apex of modern conservatism – I found it quite easy yesterday to substitute for that most unpleasant picture; another.
That of a remembered late 20-something Linda Rondstadt alluringly looking at a camera from around 1980, as she insincerely sings the lyrics of “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me” while every heterosexual male on the planet is hoping that he can be the one to ease her suffering.
Same idea, much more pleasant picture for the mind’s eye to purview.
Therefore, please know that your comment wasn’t a complete waste of space or time.
So again, thanks. : )
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and here it is, going out of your way to demonstrate how deep your hatred is for all things to your right?
You’re proving my point, Leo.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023You poor gentle dear.
Once again mistaking bemusement, confusion, and contempt for hatred.
How important you must feel.
I’ve explained before. I’ll patiently do so, yet again.
It’s not hatred.
Again, as we are in complete agreement – from what I’ve seen, you’re about the best in the bunch. In that you do make an effort to explain today’s Republicanism.
However weakly, vaguely, illogically. Notwithstanding how quickly your claims wilt under scrutiny, and how consistently unable you are to defend them.
The lady on the other thread asked you to provide one clear example of your claim of 20 years of similar abuse by the Spotsy Dems that were equivalent to those we all joined in despising from the current board.
Not unexpectedly, it didn’t happen. Never seems to, does it?
Personally, I was looking forward to learning something new. Someone else was asking. Politely. Concisely. Openly. I had hope. That maybe this person could coax a logical response from you to back your grand and continual claims of conspiracy, injury, and grievance.
I wasn’t here 3 years ago. And was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there was some justification. I’d be open to hearing about it. Isn’t that the way discourse is supposed to work?
Yet, once again, as you have with so many others over the last few months; instead, you choose to mock her and dismiss her questions as being unworthy of meaningful response.
If there’s any emotion involved, please know that it’s more pity and whatever that feeling is when you feel embarrassed for someone else when you realize, apparently, this really is their best.
That sometimes, there really is nothing more coming. This is all there is.
A duck is a duck, a cigar is nothing more than a cigar.
Anyway, as I said, not a total waste. Got to enjoy the Rondstadt memory, and learned a new term from the Nelsons.
Think I’ll go watch some football now. Enjoy your weekend. Can’t wait to read the next batch of rationalizations, you goofy scamp…
Like I said, apparently – you are the best of the bunch, a true epitome of today’s conservatism.
The Republican Standard.
Shame it’s not as much a reason for celebration as some seem to think.
Anyway, ’til then…
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023So here we go again. If folks provided just one instance… would it change anyone’s mind?
The short answer is of course not. You guys can’t beat the drum and demand examples only to categorically deny they even exist. That’s called bad faith…
The problem is that you guys aren’t even willing to consider the other side’s argument even a little bit. Empathy and introspection are in short supply nowadays. But even then — your open hatred for all things to the right blinds you all. Far too Trumpshevik for my tastes.
Mary and Erik Nelson
December 30, 2023No one is demanding an example. You volunteered to provide them.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023To the contrary. You guys asked for an example; I asked if one would even suffice (and you guys are responding “no”).
So be it, right?
Mary and Erik Nelson
December 31, 2023DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse (the positions of) Victim and Offender. Someone responding to your piece asked (asked, not demanded) “Could you give me some examples of how the political left treated the schools as their fief?” You responded: “There’s the thing. Could mention 20 examples.” What began as an exchange has been turned into something confrontational. Not exactly a shining example of what the Advance seeks to be. I am quite sure this note will be construed as another instance of universal leftist hatred for the so-called right, but I guess that can’t be helped.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023..and there *is* the thing, right? I could offer one or 20 examples… would any of them suffice?
The answer was no. So the question was never asked in good faith. Ironically enough, you guys immediately went to deny, then attack… then reverse, etc.
Therein lies the source of confrontation. You guys seem to want to win arguments. If you ask the writers here at the Advance — and why we get along — what the secret is? We talk about this a great deal. There is no such thing as winning an argument, or “right” vs. “wrong” answers. There are good answers and there are better answers… but it requires people willing to ask questions in good faith (1) and then requires people willing to get out of black and white thinking (2) when it comes to us vs. them. The reason for the cartoon, which again, all of you missed.
And so yes — you really do hate us. I’m mystified at that. It is everything I cannot stand about Trumpshevism… but then again, as I explain to others, the behavior was learned. Yet that’s something you guys seem totally unwilling to even entertain (and I have no antidote for that).
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Yeah, I know. You feel you’re being held to too high of a standard.
My youngest grandson is in a developmental stage where he feels the same way. Whenever he is told “No”, he falls on the floor, begins to cry, then looks up to see if anyone notices.
When there’s no reaction, he then gets up and goes about whatever he was doing. I’m hopeful, for him at least, that it is a stage he will quickly outgrow.
Drives his mother nuts. Which I smugly find hilarious, remembering all of the novel ways she found to challenge my authority over the years. As she looks at me in exasperation, knowing full well what I’m smiling about. If there’s a downside to being a grandparent, I haven’t found it yet. And hope I never do.
Still, if for reason he doesn’t outgrow it, I suspect his dating years will end up fairly memorable, for the wrong reasons.
So is it ageism to hold an apparently 40-ish old man to as high a standard as a not yet 2 year old?
One wonders.
The first time I came to this lovely part of the world would have been in about ’95-96. The Sheriff’s Department paid for me to come to the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy to take a 3 day seminar on The Reid Technique of Interview and Interrogation.
This was as I was transitioning from being a Correctional Physician’s Assistant/Paramedic to being an investigator/disciplinary officer. Like many departments, we were transitioning away from deputized medical care to private care, not only because it was cheaper; but because having someone with legal authority over you dispensing your medical care opened up your department to challenges based upon the 1983 Civil Rights Act, whereas if it was a private company – it could only be challenged under malpractice statutes. A much harder standard to meet.
Much was being made at the time of reading body language. So the Reid Technique was in full vogue. There was some value in it, yet a great deal has since been discredited. Still, what I did find valuable, was the systemic way of investigating and documenting crime.
It was extremely helpful when writing up reports, obtaining criminal warrants, civil commitments, or administrative charges for inmates. Or when sitting in on hearings to determine inmate’s guilt or innocence. I found it paired well with my previous experience, in that, as a paramedic – either volunteering in the community, or paid in the jail – what doctors counted on from me, was objective assessments and quantification of conditions, rather than subjective complaints.
So please know, that what you consider as “bad faith”, to be condemned – to me, is considered due diligence.
I’m just trying to imagine how short my careers would have been if I told the doctor I gave some guy a morphine injection because he said he was feeling bad. Or defibrillated him because he was a little sleepy.
Likewise, how quickly a magistrate would have rightly thrown me out of his office if I told him I arrested someone because he made me mad, or I didn’t like the way he looked. With good cause.
Then I think back on history. You state your love of Thomas Jefferson, yet, when writing the Declaration of Independence – he was more than happy to list our people’s grievances. To hold them up for scrutiny and challenge. Why can you not do the same?
PS – funny to see you try to distance yourself from Trump. As he remains the clear leader of your party. Must make you proud as a good Christian American, when you read his loving message to the nation on Christmas Day. You know, the one where he wishes all of his enemies “rot in hell”. If that’s not the true Republican Standard of what would Jesus do, what is?
Carry on.
PSS – I’ve seen groundhogs and prairie dogs under fire be more firm in defending their positions than you are your statements. Bye now.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Once again — how does anyone read this and not come to the conclusion that yes, they really do hate us?
Gotta work on that, Leo. Seriously — it’s not the best version of you (or anyone else).
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Out of curiosity, how many voices are you hearing when you write about “us”?
Can you see them as well? What else do they tell you?
Is Elvis one of them, and has he left the building?
Okay, moving on. Things to do.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Those with whom you disagree (as evidenced here).
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Honestly, I’ve disagreed with many, over the years. In many ways, in many formats.
Though I cannot recall any before that were so reluctant to back up their claims with evidence who was not in the midst of a psychotic episode.
In that, know that you truly are unique, to me at least.
Though some, such as the Nelson’s apparently have had some experience with such a thing.
If that is what passes for Republican intellectualism nowadays, chalk it up as yet another reason for me to see it as so unworthy of respect.
A man who enters the public square, insisting he is there for discourse, but then just curls up in a ball while complaining of victimhood when asked what he’s complaining about.
Until recently, I truly thought, as apparently have others, that it was some type of tactic. An obscure play on Sophistry, learned from ancient times. A novel catfishing technique.
Yet, more and more, I’m coming round. You’re convincing me. Again, though I know it gets tedious for me to mention, much like Trump.
In that there is no “there”, there. There is no master plan, subtle wit, hidden agenda.
I know I shouldn’t mock you in such a manner, it is not kind. Less kind to those truly suffering in such a way. In retrospect, that I do regret, for their sake, though not for yours.
In that I find it hard to believe that a man could be given such a public forum, and be presented as a genuine local representative member of one of the major political parties governing this country – and yet be so unwilling, day after day, week after week – to give straight answers to straight questions.
Still, as mentioned above – you’re starting to convince me. I’m coming around. And if that’s the case, I do apologize.
It’s very kind of Mr. Davis to give you this space and opportunity to express yourself. Keep working at it. Maybe one day you will get to the point where you can find coherent facts and arguments to back up your statements of angst and injustice. One can hope.
Until then, know that I’m rooting for you. You truly are the Republican Standard.
Best wishes in 2024.
Shaun Kenney
January 1, 2024Once again, the open hatred for people with whom you disagree.
The fact that I refuse to pay you back in your own coin? Sorry — not interested.
Leo B Watkins
December 29, 2023Sigh.
Poor little Shaun. Would someone give him his participation trophy already? Geez.
Seems like every other week, he’s searching for praise because he is not either participating nor endorsing this particular affront to decency from members of his party. Well done, SK. well done.
For the record, I too am against book burning, and other forms of suppression of free thought. More so than many liberals. Not just safe things like Dr. Seuss, but likewise Macauliffe’s arbitrary insistence of removing the Confederate flag from SCV’s license plates – or Stoney’s destruction of Confederate monuments. Who are they to interpret art for others?
I see the benefit of a more nuanced ground. Just watched comedy specials from Trevor Noah and Ricky Gervais the other day – and found value in both of them. Along with plenty to criticize.
I liked Trevor’s take on how German’s handle the history of Nazism as compared to America “conservatives” head in the sand approach.
But I found his casual racism toward the French, and white people in general a little tedious. Not enough to quit watching, but it was predictable. A bit mailed in.
And wondered what other demographic could be mocked in such a way without the left condemning them. Plus, from an art standpoint, for me, he’s really not all that funny. A good chuckle, but few horse laughs at an original idea. Then again, I don’t care much for Will Farell’s humor, so to each, his own.
Still, I’d pass on censorship. Humor, like other forms of art, are in the eye of the beholder.
And the idea he applied toward German history, is the one I wished Stoney would have applied toward Lee’s statue. Context, not destruction. Leave the statue, leave the graffiti. It too had become part of the story. That what is valued by one generation, is sometimes despised by the next. And that both those building statues and those destroying them should use caution. That would have been truly valuable.
Funny though, that upon seeing us, I suspect he would have seen myself and Mr Kenney as two sides of the same coin, rather than two individuals with our own perspective. So yes, certainly, the left is equally capable of racism, hypocrisy, etc. As are black people, young people, people with birthdays, etc. I suspect it is a human condition. Can we move on, or do we all get trophies?
Then again, RG did evoke laughs.
Generally because his ideas were so outrageous and shocking. That is more to my taste. As was Richard Pryor, back in the day – though looking at his work now seems a bit more dated than a Marx Brothers or Abbot and Costello routine.
When Gervais did his bit about those who would destroy a statue because it was of someone later found to be a pedophile, or slave holder (or in TJ’s case, both!), instead add context, I agreed.
And he noted the irony of those woke folk who would tear down the statue, but keep the stuff they value. IE, UVA fans happily wanting Lee destroyed, but certainly not the school that Jefferson built.
Again, it’s nuanced. I too would not want UVA, except by VT in football on the last weekend in November, destroyed. But I don’t feel anyone owes me a trophy for feeling that way.
Still, as much as we are in solid agreement regarding the need to avoid censorship, that the “conservative” Puritans destruction or loss of those valuable books are worth investigating – with the chips falling where they may, I do remain astonished at the equivocation that always seems to be part of Shaun’s columns. Again, he may state how much he hate’s Trump’s ways, yet he sure does imitate him.
No, there is no equivalency between a spontaneous outburst of emotion from common citizens at systemic injustices that lead to their continual deaths, and someone who is entrusted (though Shaun, myself, and the majority of Americans agreed he shouldn’t have been) with the most sacred and important position in the land – using scheme of lies and violence to hold onto power.
It devalues those who have honored that trust to so lightly ignore Trump’s failure to do so. No Shaun, 140 cops did not get beat half to death and the Insurrection Act invocation of martial law to impede a lawful election get considered because someone merely forgot to lock the doors on the Capitol that day. No matter how much you try to trivialize or normalize it.
And when Shaun complains of those who disagree with him as saying that he is “an enemy to be destroyed.” How many times has he whined when criticized, plaintively responding to challenges to his falsehoods and subjectivities by asking Why do you hate (us/me) so much?
Denigrating any challenges to his statements by casting them as emotional rather than based upon his actions and statements. That’s not a defense, that’s a dodge.
Again, like Trump.
So again, congratulations on not being okay with burning books. Way to go?!?
Please advise us if you are also expecting praise for not reverting to cannibalism, restarting the Inquisition, or pasteurizing milk.
Cause until you can manage to take a position without always feeling the need to minimize the wrong doing by those you otherwise choose to support, or to pretend that everyone does it, it’s just a bit hard to take it too seriously.
Still, keep your chins up. Maybe next year.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Yep — they really do hate us.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023Thank you for providing me an opportunity to remember how powerful the human imagination is.
In that I can choose to read your vacuous, repetitious, and self-pitying dismissals and picture a middle aged man, bereft of ideas, yet full of sound and fury, curled up in a figurative ball; writing it over and over when challenged – like a modern day chakra, meant to protect him from all evil thoughts.
Whilst I wonder, maybe we were wrong as parents to give kids participation trophies in the ’80s, as we well meaningly coached our soccer, or baseball, or softball teams.
I admit, I too was guilty, of looking during the end of season banquets to find a positive something to say about each kid. If it was wrong, please know it was done with the best of intentions. We truly believed that praise and positive reinforcement for effort spent, was a good thing.
Still, science and clinical observation may prove that we may have gotten it wrong, just as the recent article regarding Representative Spanberger joining her Republican colleagues in changing school policy regarding whole milk usage in schools was based upon objective review of the results.
Or maybe we will later learn that it was not our well meaning praise 40 years ago that has produced citizens so thin-skinned, ill-prepared, yet so incapable of having their thoughts challenged or reviewed.
Perhaps a side effect of so much micro-plastic in the food chain? Forever chemicals? Maybe we passed through a cosmic storm during your time of conception? Or maybe such folk have always been with us, as many claim for the LBGQT community. I do not know.
I truly don’t.
Still, with a mere flick of the imagination, when confronted with such insincere and unflattering whining from what is put forth to us as the modern day Republican Standard, the apex of modern conservatism – I found it quite easy yesterday to substitute for that most unpleasant picture; another.
That of a remembered late 20-something Linda Rondstadt alluringly looking at a camera from around 1980, as she insincerely sings the lyrics of “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me” while every heterosexual male on the planet is hoping that he can be the one to ease her suffering.
Same idea, much more pleasant picture for the mind’s eye to purview.
Therefore, please know that your comment wasn’t a complete waste of space or time.
So again, thanks. : )
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and here it is, going out of your way to demonstrate how deep your hatred is for all things to your right?
You’re proving my point, Leo.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023You poor gentle dear.
Once again mistaking bemusement, confusion, and contempt for hatred.
How important you must feel.
I’ve explained before. I’ll patiently do so, yet again.
It’s not hatred.
Again, as we are in complete agreement – from what I’ve seen, you’re about the best in the bunch. In that you do make an effort to explain today’s Republicanism.
However weakly, vaguely, illogically. Notwithstanding how quickly your claims wilt under scrutiny, and how consistently unable you are to defend them.
The lady on the other thread asked you to provide one clear example of your claim of 20 years of similar abuse by the Spotsy Dems that were equivalent to those we all joined in despising from the current board.
Not unexpectedly, it didn’t happen. Never seems to, does it?
Personally, I was looking forward to learning something new. Someone else was asking. Politely. Concisely. Openly. I had hope. That maybe this person could coax a logical response from you to back your grand and continual claims of conspiracy, injury, and grievance.
I wasn’t here 3 years ago. And was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there was some justification. I’d be open to hearing about it. Isn’t that the way discourse is supposed to work?
Yet, once again, as you have with so many others over the last few months; instead, you choose to mock her and dismiss her questions as being unworthy of meaningful response.
If there’s any emotion involved, please know that it’s more pity and whatever that feeling is when you feel embarrassed for someone else when you realize, apparently, this really is their best.
That sometimes, there really is nothing more coming. This is all there is.
A duck is a duck, a cigar is nothing more than a cigar.
Anyway, as I said, not a total waste. Got to enjoy the Rondstadt memory, and learned a new term from the Nelsons.
Think I’ll go watch some football now. Enjoy your weekend. Can’t wait to read the next batch of rationalizations, you goofy scamp…
Like I said, apparently – you are the best of the bunch, a true epitome of today’s conservatism.
The Republican Standard.
Shame it’s not as much a reason for celebration as some seem to think.
Anyway, ’til then…
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023So here we go again. If folks provided just one instance… would it change anyone’s mind?
The short answer is of course not. You guys can’t beat the drum and demand examples only to categorically deny they even exist. That’s called bad faith…
The problem is that you guys aren’t even willing to consider the other side’s argument even a little bit. Empathy and introspection are in short supply nowadays. But even then — your open hatred for all things to the right blinds you all. Far too Trumpshevik for my tastes.
Mary and Erik Nelson
December 30, 2023No one is demanding an example. You volunteered to provide them.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023To the contrary. You guys asked for an example; I asked if one would even suffice (and you guys are responding “no”).
So be it, right?
Mary and Erik Nelson
December 31, 2023DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse (the positions of) Victim and Offender. Someone responding to your piece asked (asked, not demanded) “Could you give me some examples of how the political left treated the schools as their fief?” You responded: “There’s the thing. Could mention 20 examples.” What began as an exchange has been turned into something confrontational. Not exactly a shining example of what the Advance seeks to be. I am quite sure this note will be construed as another instance of universal leftist hatred for the so-called right, but I guess that can’t be helped.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023..and there *is* the thing, right? I could offer one or 20 examples… would any of them suffice?
The answer was no. So the question was never asked in good faith. Ironically enough, you guys immediately went to deny, then attack… then reverse, etc.
Therein lies the source of confrontation. You guys seem to want to win arguments. If you ask the writers here at the Advance — and why we get along — what the secret is? We talk about this a great deal. There is no such thing as winning an argument, or “right” vs. “wrong” answers. There are good answers and there are better answers… but it requires people willing to ask questions in good faith (1) and then requires people willing to get out of black and white thinking (2) when it comes to us vs. them. The reason for the cartoon, which again, all of you missed.
And so yes — you really do hate us. I’m mystified at that. It is everything I cannot stand about Trumpshevism… but then again, as I explain to others, the behavior was learned. Yet that’s something you guys seem totally unwilling to even entertain (and I have no antidote for that).
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Yeah, I know. You feel you’re being held to too high of a standard.
My youngest grandson is in a developmental stage where he feels the same way. Whenever he is told “No”, he falls on the floor, begins to cry, then looks up to see if anyone notices.
When there’s no reaction, he then gets up and goes about whatever he was doing. I’m hopeful, for him at least, that it is a stage he will quickly outgrow.
Drives his mother nuts. Which I smugly find hilarious, remembering all of the novel ways she found to challenge my authority over the years. As she looks at me in exasperation, knowing full well what I’m smiling about. If there’s a downside to being a grandparent, I haven’t found it yet. And hope I never do.
Still, if for reason he doesn’t outgrow it, I suspect his dating years will end up fairly memorable, for the wrong reasons.
So is it ageism to hold an apparently 40-ish old man to as high a standard as a not yet 2 year old?
One wonders.
The first time I came to this lovely part of the world would have been in about ’95-96. The Sheriff’s Department paid for me to come to the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy to take a 3 day seminar on The Reid Technique of Interview and Interrogation.
This was as I was transitioning from being a Correctional Physician’s Assistant/Paramedic to being an investigator/disciplinary officer. Like many departments, we were transitioning away from deputized medical care to private care, not only because it was cheaper; but because having someone with legal authority over you dispensing your medical care opened up your department to challenges based upon the 1983 Civil Rights Act, whereas if it was a private company – it could only be challenged under malpractice statutes. A much harder standard to meet.
Much was being made at the time of reading body language. So the Reid Technique was in full vogue. There was some value in it, yet a great deal has since been discredited. Still, what I did find valuable, was the systemic way of investigating and documenting crime.
It was extremely helpful when writing up reports, obtaining criminal warrants, civil commitments, or administrative charges for inmates. Or when sitting in on hearings to determine inmate’s guilt or innocence. I found it paired well with my previous experience, in that, as a paramedic – either volunteering in the community, or paid in the jail – what doctors counted on from me, was objective assessments and quantification of conditions, rather than subjective complaints.
So please know, that what you consider as “bad faith”, to be condemned – to me, is considered due diligence.
I’m just trying to imagine how short my careers would have been if I told the doctor I gave some guy a morphine injection because he said he was feeling bad. Or defibrillated him because he was a little sleepy.
Likewise, how quickly a magistrate would have rightly thrown me out of his office if I told him I arrested someone because he made me mad, or I didn’t like the way he looked. With good cause.
Then I think back on history. You state your love of Thomas Jefferson, yet, when writing the Declaration of Independence – he was more than happy to list our people’s grievances. To hold them up for scrutiny and challenge. Why can you not do the same?
PS – funny to see you try to distance yourself from Trump. As he remains the clear leader of your party. Must make you proud as a good Christian American, when you read his loving message to the nation on Christmas Day. You know, the one where he wishes all of his enemies “rot in hell”. If that’s not the true Republican Standard of what would Jesus do, what is?
Carry on.
PSS – I’ve seen groundhogs and prairie dogs under fire be more firm in defending their positions than you are your statements. Bye now.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Once again — how does anyone read this and not come to the conclusion that yes, they really do hate us?
Gotta work on that, Leo. Seriously — it’s not the best version of you (or anyone else).
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Out of curiosity, how many voices are you hearing when you write about “us”?
Can you see them as well? What else do they tell you?
Is Elvis one of them, and has he left the building?
Okay, moving on. Things to do.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Those with whom you disagree (as evidenced here).
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Honestly, I’ve disagreed with many, over the years. In many ways, in many formats.
Though I cannot recall any before that were so reluctant to back up their claims with evidence who was not in the midst of a psychotic episode.
In that, know that you truly are unique, to me at least.
Though some, such as the Nelson’s apparently have had some experience with such a thing.
If that is what passes for Republican intellectualism nowadays, chalk it up as yet another reason for me to see it as so unworthy of respect.
A man who enters the public square, insisting he is there for discourse, but then just curls up in a ball while complaining of victimhood when asked what he’s complaining about.
Until recently, I truly thought, as apparently have others, that it was some type of tactic. An obscure play on Sophistry, learned from ancient times. A novel catfishing technique.
Yet, more and more, I’m coming round. You’re convincing me. Again, though I know it gets tedious for me to mention, much like Trump.
In that there is no “there”, there. There is no master plan, subtle wit, hidden agenda.
I know I shouldn’t mock you in such a manner, it is not kind. Less kind to those truly suffering in such a way. In retrospect, that I do regret, for their sake, though not for yours.
In that I find it hard to believe that a man could be given such a public forum, and be presented as a genuine local representative member of one of the major political parties governing this country – and yet be so unwilling, day after day, week after week – to give straight answers to straight questions.
Still, as mentioned above – you’re starting to convince me. I’m coming around. And if that’s the case, I do apologize.
It’s very kind of Mr. Davis to give you this space and opportunity to express yourself. Keep working at it. Maybe one day you will get to the point where you can find coherent facts and arguments to back up your statements of angst and injustice. One can hope.
Until then, know that I’m rooting for you. You truly are the Republican Standard.
Best wishes in 2024.
Shaun Kenney
January 1, 2024Once again, the open hatred for people with whom you disagree.
The fact that I refuse to pay you back in your own coin? Sorry — not interested.
Sara Toye
December 29, 2023I was very hopeful when I read the title of this article because I really hope that all sides of the book banning versus book retention issue can work together to find a workable solution – and do it quickly and productively. I did not expect to read a litany of how each side is wrong. Nor did I expect to be told as facts what I see as Mr. Kenney’s opinions.
My basic opinion is that before we the people of Spotsy start donating books to school libraries, I want to know what happened to the banned books and then see if there is any appropriate action that can be taken if they were disposed of contrary to written policies. By appropriate action I mean requiring the offender(s) to reimburse the SCSD for the cost of replacing the books.
As for Mr. Kenney’s opinions, perhaps he Is not totally aware of the fact that those of us on the “left“ were totally ignored and belittled by the school board majority of four for the last two years. For example, every challenged book was reviewed by a committee which included private citizens as well as educators. Every single book that was recommended for retention was removed at Mr. Taylor’s instruction. Perhaps he is also not totally aware that Mr. Taylor improperly included school library books in his definition of “instructional materials” so he could remove them and then tried to incorporate that definition into a newly drafted SCPS policy which was presented to the school board by the young, inexperenced man who now sits in Mr. Russell’s office.
I hope to see the refreshed School Board be more transparent, more open to communication, more courteous, more appreciative of school employees, and much more respectful of each other and everyone who contacts them by phone or email or at public meetings.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Now turn that two years into twenty. That is how the left has treated the right in Spotsylvania, and all that happened was that the left was paid back in their own coin.
If this is not clearly seen and there is to be a return to “nonpartisan” school boards? Then the critique is right — the leadership will have learned and forgotten nothing.
Let’s hope there is a return to process, transparency, communication and courtesy. I am not entirely convinced that certain partisans want any of that (but I am hopeful). But it is what the people voted for and expect.
Kassie
December 29, 2023“the Left”? By that do you mean everyone who is not hard-right? Because for the 20 years I’ve lived in Spotsylvania, those on the left have been in the minority by far.
I don’t think you can bemoan the existence of those “…who still view the world in the false dichotomy of us and them, left and right, friends and enemies who must be destroyed and run down at all costs,” while spinning tales of 20 years of mistreatment by the minority ‘left’ and minimizing the mistakes of the past two years as mere payback.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Yes — the political left who treated SCPS as their own private fief.
So when the opposition behaved as the left behaved these last 20 years, what were the words used to describe their behavior? Fascism, was it? Yet all that changed were the people in control of the system…
That should give people pause. Just for a moment.
Kassie
December 29, 2023Could you give me some examples of how the political left treated the schools as their fief?
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Would an example suffice?
Kassie
December 29, 2023You only have one from 20 years of abuse by ‘the Left’? Go for it.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and that’s how we know the question was never asked in good faith.
There’s the thing. Could mention 20 examples. One example should suffice to induce just a tiny bit of introspection… and yet that’s not your point at all (and why the next few years are going to go very badly for the partisans).
Kassie
December 30, 2023And that’s how we know your offer for one example was not in good faith.
I would, in fact, like more than one example of the transgressions from the last 20 years. You have on several occasions talked about how terrible the left was, but I genuinely can’t think of a concrete example that you’ve offered, but I genuinely cannot recall one concrete example that you’ve offered.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023If no example will suffice, then why ask at all?
Kassie
December 30, 2023I clearly did not say that no example would suffice. Given your bold statement about 20 years of control, I’m just surprised that you only pretended to offer one. And now it seems you’d like to punish me for being snarky by not providing any. Do you realize that that doesn’t help you make your case? If in fact, there has been fascist control by the left for 20 years in Spotsylvania, I would think examples would be plentiful, and you’d be happy to provide them.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023Others have noticed as well, K.
Grand claims of injury, little or very obscure facts to back them up. If you are capable of getting him to do better, you will have succeeded where many have failed.
Good luck.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and yet the others are the same small handful that have ruined the Spotsy Dems.
Folks are noticing. Just not in the way you think.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023You clearly rejected the previous question as to whether an example would suffice (which — if the question were asked honestly — it should).
Thank you for admitting the question was indeed snarky rather than honest. That is appreciated.
Kassie
December 30, 2023Oh so you are refusing to provide an example because I didn’t say that one would suffice?
No, one example will not suffice. Your opinion piece clearly asserts that the left has been misbehaving for 20 years. That implies more than one example. If you are only willing to give one example, and only if I say ‘yes, please’ in response to your question, it casts serious doubt on your ability to provide any examples. But that’s your choice.
Jeff
December 30, 2023Kassie, it’s not worth it. If you ask him to back up a claim, he’ll either accuse you of asking a bad-faith question or write: “They really do hate us.” But I’ll try to address your question. Prior to 2022, the Spotsylvania County School Board was pretty middle-of-the-road. I can’t think of any actions the SB took to intentionally antagonize Republican or Democratic parents. I do recall that a conservative colleague of mine at The Free Lance-Star wasn’t happy when then-Superintendent Jerry Hill decided to air then-President Obama’s back-to-school speech in 2009. However, schools provided opt-out forms for parents who didn’t want their children to listen to the speech. And obviously, the mask mandates/school closures ticked off some parents, but that was a state mandate. Lastly, some vocal conservative parents criticized the SB when they decided that high school football players who knelt during the National Anthem had a constitutional right to do so. Every SB member noted that they thought the players should stand, but the majority wisely concluded that violating their First Amendment rights would invite a costly lawsuit. I wouldn’t consider that an affront to conservative parents, just a realistic position. Again, IMO, the previous SB, unlike the outgoing majority, never went out of its way to antagonize Republicans or Democrats.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023And there we go — even reporters from the era can’t make a good faith argument to understand the Jerry Hill era. Or Point out an endorsement as the worst possible case. Which would be but one example that should indeed suffice (but won’t).
Again — you guys keep proving the point. You really do hate us.
Jeff
December 30, 2023Shaun, I don’t hate you. I disagree with you–on some topics. And I apologize for calling you a wannabe intellectual and questioning your academic credentials. That was dumb of me. (And I’m pretty sure your academic credentials are superior to mine.) If I truly hated you, I would refuse to subscribe to the Advance. Yet, I plan on subscribing indefinitely. I completely understand some of your replies to readers that you view as hostile. I sometimes did the same as a low-paid reporter. In the future, when I or other readers ask a question, please don’t immediately assume the question is asked in bad faith. I’ll try to do better, and I hope you do the same.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023I’m not terribly convinced of that, Jeff. Bad faith is bad faith.
As for the rest, while I’m not sure I entirely subscribe to this dictum, it is at least something to chew on:
“It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
— P.G. Wodehouse, “The Man Upstairs” (1914)
More than happy to grab a cup of coffee. Marty and I hold court at Curitiba every once in awhile, so feel free to join us sometime.
Jeff
December 31, 2023Thanks, Shaun. I’d like to meet with you and Marty for a cup of coffee. (Not to complain, just to chat.) Fridays-Sundays work best for me. (You can reach me at 540-538-5256.) Lemme know when you plan to go to Curitiba next, and I’ll try to make it!
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Thank you for providing some context. In what appears to be an objective manner. Appreciated.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023…and it didn’t dent you a bit. See?
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023It provided context, which again, I found informative.
Am I mildly curious what was in President Obama’s back to school speech was perceived as so objectionable that there were parents that felt the need to opt out, and the school system felt the need to give them the ability to do so?
A little.
Was he making them pray toward Mecca? Urging them to read an Angelou Maya poem? Was there a previously unknown message in it, that could only be discerned by Rush Limbaugh when played backwards as he listened in a drug induced haze?
Was it the government mandated mask directive that sets off the crowd that will bomb a medical clinic or prosecute a mother of a dead fetus missing it’s head in order to show how pro-life they are?
I’m sure it sounds better when you say it. Should you ever say it. But I am in awe of your ability to understand my comprehension of a statement by someone else, merely from the above statement. Now I truly do understand what it is to be the bad guy in a Tom Gauld cartoon.
Well done…..and thanks for the insight, heroic adventurer of the blessed homeland.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023That’s not even the worst example. The worst part is that the FLS bent over backwards running interference for Jerry Hill et al. for 20+ years.
…but again, these facts don’t put a dent in the minds of those whose livelihoods and identities depend on the world being a certain way.
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023I can consider a newspaper in VA having a liberal bent. Or even just the appearance of one. Yet how does them doing that affect the actions of the Spotsy School Board?
In all seriousness, what exactly was so bad about the content in the message that President Obama gave that was so offensive to you and others? Other than who was giving it?
Most of those things are so milquetoast boilerplate, I am genuinely curious.
I’ll listen, I promise. But now if it don’t make sense to me, I’m not going to tell you it does, merely to prevent you from curling into a ball of self-pity. Again, don’t encourage it in two year olds, find it less admirable in those old enough to vote.
And since you’ve come this far, might you share, if we supplicate on bended knee, what you do perceive as their (the previous Spotsy SB) worst offense?
Honestly, I do not know how to learn what someone is thinking, other than to ask. If that is a fault on my behalf, I freely admit it. And am in awe of those who can read the minds of others from afar.
As they say, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Hopefully as one of the unseeing, I hope you can understand my suspicion. Though I admit, based upon experience, that hope is fading.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Again — the open hatred.
I don’t get it.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023Of course. There’s no point in answering a dishonest question.
Kassie
December 30, 2023Nice try. The question was not dishonest. If you had answered my question, which was a request for examples, (plural), we would be done and you would’ve had supported your case or at least tried to.
Instead, your response to my question was to ask another question and then, when I wasn’t happy with your response, you picked up your toys and went home.
The net effect of this thread is that people know that I got a little snarky, and they know that you will find any excuse to not provide examples of the 20 years of “left” abuse of power.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Which is the evidence of a question asked in bad faith. I appreciate the introspection, though.
Kassie
January 1, 2024The question was absolutely in good faith. If I didn’t want your examples, I would’ve come on and commented how you never provide examples. But I hadn’t given up on you – in part because this piece is published by someone I respect – so I asked the question. Your behavior since has done nothing but underscore the fact that you don’t have or will not provide examples of this ridiculous claim that the left has been treating the county like their feif.
Shaun Kenney
January 1, 2024But again, as you have stated, no degree of evidence is going to change your mind on this point. So why provide evidence at all (especially when you hate the person giving it)?
Kassie
January 1, 2024I certainly don’t hate you! And I have never stated that no degree of evidence will change my mind.
Shaun Kenney
January 1, 2024Not sure I believe either of those things. Certainly not in this instance.
Sara Toye
December 29, 2023I am optimistic, too! As for a comparison, though, I believe my daughter had a better education when she spent 12 years in Spotsy schools (1990 – 2002) than my grandchildren have had ever since Twigg,Taylor, et al arrived.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023The good news is that we are ALL rooting for this new board!! Here’s hoping for a lot of 7-0 votes.
Sara Toye
December 29, 2023I was very hopeful when I read the title of this article because I really hope that all sides of the book banning versus book retention issue can work together to find a workable solution – and do it quickly and productively. I did not expect to read a litany of how each side is wrong. Nor did I expect to be told as facts what I see as Mr. Kenney’s opinions.
My basic opinion is that before we the people of Spotsy start donating books to school libraries, I want to know what happened to the banned books and then see if there is any appropriate action that can be taken if they were disposed of contrary to written policies. By appropriate action I mean requiring the offender(s) to reimburse the SCSD for the cost of replacing the books.
As for Mr. Kenney’s opinions, perhaps he Is not totally aware of the fact that those of us on the “left“ were totally ignored and belittled by the school board majority of four for the last two years. For example, every challenged book was reviewed by a committee which included private citizens as well as educators. Every single book that was recommended for retention was removed at Mr. Taylor’s instruction. Perhaps he is also not totally aware that Mr. Taylor improperly included school library books in his definition of “instructional materials” so he could remove them and then tried to incorporate that definition into a newly drafted SCPS policy which was presented to the school board by the young, inexperenced man who now sits in Mr. Russell’s office.
I hope to see the refreshed School Board be more transparent, more open to communication, more courteous, more appreciative of school employees, and much more respectful of each other and everyone who contacts them by phone or email or at public meetings.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Now turn that two years into twenty. That is how the left has treated the right in Spotsylvania, and all that happened was that the left was paid back in their own coin.
If this is not clearly seen and there is to be a return to “nonpartisan” school boards? Then the critique is right — the leadership will have learned and forgotten nothing.
Let’s hope there is a return to process, transparency, communication and courtesy. I am not entirely convinced that certain partisans want any of that (but I am hopeful). But it is what the people voted for and expect.
Kassie
December 29, 2023“the Left”? By that do you mean everyone who is not hard-right? Because for the 20 years I’ve lived in Spotsylvania, those on the left have been in the minority by far.
I don’t think you can bemoan the existence of those “…who still view the world in the false dichotomy of us and them, left and right, friends and enemies who must be destroyed and run down at all costs,” while spinning tales of 20 years of mistreatment by the minority ‘left’ and minimizing the mistakes of the past two years as mere payback.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Yes — the political left who treated SCPS as their own private fief.
So when the opposition behaved as the left behaved these last 20 years, what were the words used to describe their behavior? Fascism, was it? Yet all that changed were the people in control of the system…
That should give people pause. Just for a moment.
Kassie
December 29, 2023Could you give me some examples of how the political left treated the schools as their fief?
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023Would an example suffice?
Kassie
December 29, 2023You only have one from 20 years of abuse by ‘the Left’? Go for it.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and that’s how we know the question was never asked in good faith.
There’s the thing. Could mention 20 examples. One example should suffice to induce just a tiny bit of introspection… and yet that’s not your point at all (and why the next few years are going to go very badly for the partisans).
Kassie
December 30, 2023And that’s how we know your offer for one example was not in good faith.
I would, in fact, like more than one example of the transgressions from the last 20 years. You have on several occasions talked about how terrible the left was, but I genuinely can’t think of a concrete example that you’ve offered, but I genuinely cannot recall one concrete example that you’ve offered.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023If no example will suffice, then why ask at all?
Kassie
December 30, 2023I clearly did not say that no example would suffice. Given your bold statement about 20 years of control, I’m just surprised that you only pretended to offer one. And now it seems you’d like to punish me for being snarky by not providing any. Do you realize that that doesn’t help you make your case? If in fact, there has been fascist control by the left for 20 years in Spotsylvania, I would think examples would be plentiful, and you’d be happy to provide them.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023Others have noticed as well, K.
Grand claims of injury, little or very obscure facts to back them up. If you are capable of getting him to do better, you will have succeeded where many have failed.
Good luck.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and yet the others are the same small handful that have ruined the Spotsy Dems.
Folks are noticing. Just not in the way you think.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023You clearly rejected the previous question as to whether an example would suffice (which — if the question were asked honestly — it should).
Thank you for admitting the question was indeed snarky rather than honest. That is appreciated.
Kassie
December 30, 2023Oh so you are refusing to provide an example because I didn’t say that one would suffice?
No, one example will not suffice. Your opinion piece clearly asserts that the left has been misbehaving for 20 years. That implies more than one example. If you are only willing to give one example, and only if I say ‘yes, please’ in response to your question, it casts serious doubt on your ability to provide any examples. But that’s your choice.
Jeff
December 30, 2023Kassie, it’s not worth it. If you ask him to back up a claim, he’ll either accuse you of asking a bad-faith question or write: “They really do hate us.” But I’ll try to address your question. Prior to 2022, the Spotsylvania County School Board was pretty middle-of-the-road. I can’t think of any actions the SB took to intentionally antagonize Republican or Democratic parents. I do recall that a conservative colleague of mine at The Free Lance-Star wasn’t happy when then-Superintendent Jerry Hill decided to air then-President Obama’s back-to-school speech in 2009. However, schools provided opt-out forms for parents who didn’t want their children to listen to the speech. And obviously, the mask mandates/school closures ticked off some parents, but that was a state mandate. Lastly, some vocal conservative parents criticized the SB when they decided that high school football players who knelt during the National Anthem had a constitutional right to do so. Every SB member noted that they thought the players should stand, but the majority wisely concluded that violating their First Amendment rights would invite a costly lawsuit. I wouldn’t consider that an affront to conservative parents, just a realistic position. Again, IMO, the previous SB, unlike the outgoing majority, never went out of its way to antagonize Republicans or Democrats.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023And there we go — even reporters from the era can’t make a good faith argument to understand the Jerry Hill era. Or Point out an endorsement as the worst possible case. Which would be but one example that should indeed suffice (but won’t).
Again — you guys keep proving the point. You really do hate us.
Jeff
December 30, 2023Shaun, I don’t hate you. I disagree with you–on some topics. And I apologize for calling you a wannabe intellectual and questioning your academic credentials. That was dumb of me. (And I’m pretty sure your academic credentials are superior to mine.) If I truly hated you, I would refuse to subscribe to the Advance. Yet, I plan on subscribing indefinitely. I completely understand some of your replies to readers that you view as hostile. I sometimes did the same as a low-paid reporter. In the future, when I or other readers ask a question, please don’t immediately assume the question is asked in bad faith. I’ll try to do better, and I hope you do the same.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023I’m not terribly convinced of that, Jeff. Bad faith is bad faith.
As for the rest, while I’m not sure I entirely subscribe to this dictum, it is at least something to chew on:
“It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
— P.G. Wodehouse, “The Man Upstairs” (1914)
More than happy to grab a cup of coffee. Marty and I hold court at Curitiba every once in awhile, so feel free to join us sometime.
Jeff
December 31, 2023Thanks, Shaun. I’d like to meet with you and Marty for a cup of coffee. (Not to complain, just to chat.) Fridays-Sundays work best for me. (You can reach me at 540-538-5256.) Lemme know when you plan to go to Curitiba next, and I’ll try to make it!
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023Thank you for providing some context. In what appears to be an objective manner. Appreciated.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023…and it didn’t dent you a bit. See?
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023It provided context, which again, I found informative.
Am I mildly curious what was in President Obama’s back to school speech was perceived as so objectionable that there were parents that felt the need to opt out, and the school system felt the need to give them the ability to do so?
A little.
Was he making them pray toward Mecca? Urging them to read an Angelou Maya poem? Was there a previously unknown message in it, that could only be discerned by Rush Limbaugh when played backwards as he listened in a drug induced haze?
Was it the government mandated mask directive that sets off the crowd that will bomb a medical clinic or prosecute a mother of a dead fetus missing it’s head in order to show how pro-life they are?
I’m sure it sounds better when you say it. Should you ever say it. But I am in awe of your ability to understand my comprehension of a statement by someone else, merely from the above statement. Now I truly do understand what it is to be the bad guy in a Tom Gauld cartoon.
Well done…..and thanks for the insight, heroic adventurer of the blessed homeland.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023That’s not even the worst example. The worst part is that the FLS bent over backwards running interference for Jerry Hill et al. for 20+ years.
…but again, these facts don’t put a dent in the minds of those whose livelihoods and identities depend on the world being a certain way.
Leo B Watkins
December 31, 2023I can consider a newspaper in VA having a liberal bent. Or even just the appearance of one. Yet how does them doing that affect the actions of the Spotsy School Board?
In all seriousness, what exactly was so bad about the content in the message that President Obama gave that was so offensive to you and others? Other than who was giving it?
Most of those things are so milquetoast boilerplate, I am genuinely curious.
I’ll listen, I promise. But now if it don’t make sense to me, I’m not going to tell you it does, merely to prevent you from curling into a ball of self-pity. Again, don’t encourage it in two year olds, find it less admirable in those old enough to vote.
And since you’ve come this far, might you share, if we supplicate on bended knee, what you do perceive as their (the previous Spotsy SB) worst offense?
Honestly, I do not know how to learn what someone is thinking, other than to ask. If that is a fault on my behalf, I freely admit it. And am in awe of those who can read the minds of others from afar.
As they say, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Hopefully as one of the unseeing, I hope you can understand my suspicion. Though I admit, based upon experience, that hope is fading.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Again — the open hatred.
I don’t get it.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023Of course. There’s no point in answering a dishonest question.
Kassie
December 30, 2023Nice try. The question was not dishonest. If you had answered my question, which was a request for examples, (plural), we would be done and you would’ve had supported your case or at least tried to.
Instead, your response to my question was to ask another question and then, when I wasn’t happy with your response, you picked up your toys and went home.
The net effect of this thread is that people know that I got a little snarky, and they know that you will find any excuse to not provide examples of the 20 years of “left” abuse of power.
Shaun Kenney
December 31, 2023Which is the evidence of a question asked in bad faith. I appreciate the introspection, though.
Kassie
January 1, 2024The question was absolutely in good faith. If I didn’t want your examples, I would’ve come on and commented how you never provide examples. But I hadn’t given up on you – in part because this piece is published by someone I respect – so I asked the question. Your behavior since has done nothing but underscore the fact that you don’t have or will not provide examples of this ridiculous claim that the left has been treating the county like their feif.
Shaun Kenney
January 1, 2024But again, as you have stated, no degree of evidence is going to change your mind on this point. So why provide evidence at all (especially when you hate the person giving it)?
Kassie
January 1, 2024I certainly don’t hate you! And I have never stated that no degree of evidence will change my mind.
Shaun Kenney
January 1, 2024Not sure I believe either of those things. Certainly not in this instance.
Sara Toye
December 29, 2023I am optimistic, too! As for a comparison, though, I believe my daughter had a better education when she spent 12 years in Spotsy schools (1990 – 2002) than my grandchildren have had ever since Twigg,Taylor, et al arrived.
Shaun Kenney
December 29, 2023The good news is that we are ALL rooting for this new board!! Here’s hoping for a lot of 7-0 votes.
Anonymous
December 30, 2023Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023Unfortunately, the problem remains that the political left in this country — and in most cases — absolutely hates the political right.
Tough to have a conversation with those who hold their opposition in total contempt.
Anonymous
December 30, 2023Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and there we have it.
Anonymous
December 30, 2023Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023Unfortunately, the problem remains that the political left in this country — and in most cases — absolutely hates the political right.
Tough to have a conversation with those who hold their opposition in total contempt.
Anonymous
December 30, 2023Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and there we have it.
Mary and Erik Nelson
December 30, 2023I think we are looking at a reaction called DARVO, where a person being called to account tries to turn things around by attacking the criticizer. They then become the victim. Look it up.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023Not surprised to learn there is a term for it. I just call it modern day Republicanism.
I can think of few that have done it better than the current leader of the Republican party. It used to be shocking to see either the leader or the followers of one of the main political parties in our country have such contempt for their country or it’s citizens when they dare to question their actions, policies, or statements.
Anymore, it’s merely the status quo.
Just hard to take such people’s arguments seriously, though the damage they have created on every level since devolving to such tactics has been very serious.
Pity.
For all of us.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and yet here you are, engaging in the very tactics you claim to deplore.
Weird.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023Or — and hear me out here — we really do have a condition where Democrats can behave like Democrats so long as Republicans do not behave like Democrats.
You guys keep demonstrating the proof in spades.
Mary and Erik Nelson
December 30, 2023I think we are looking at a reaction called DARVO, where a person being called to account tries to turn things around by attacking the criticizer. They then become the victim. Look it up.
Leo B Watkins
December 30, 2023Not surprised to learn there is a term for it. I just call it modern day Republicanism.
I can think of few that have done it better than the current leader of the Republican party. It used to be shocking to see either the leader or the followers of one of the main political parties in our country have such contempt for their country or it’s citizens when they dare to question their actions, policies, or statements.
Anymore, it’s merely the status quo.
Just hard to take such people’s arguments seriously, though the damage they have created on every level since devolving to such tactics has been very serious.
Pity.
For all of us.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023…and yet here you are, engaging in the very tactics you claim to deplore.
Weird.
Shaun Kenney
December 30, 2023Or — and hear me out here — we really do have a condition where Democrats can behave like Democrats so long as Republicans do not behave like Democrats.
You guys keep demonstrating the proof in spades.