Governor Kristi Noem and her Republican minions have blasted mandates for vaccines and masks in schools and other precautions to beat a two-year pandemic that has killed 2,522 South Dakotans as unnecessary violations of our freedom. Representative Jon Hansen (R-25/Dell Rapids) has likened mandates of any kind to Nazism.
Yet Republicans like Hansen will likely fall all over themselves to support a statewide school mandate to fight the vague threat of “the frenzy of daily life” and “set a tone of decorum.” Those are the reasons written into Section 1 of House Bill 1015, Governor Noem’s culture-war bill to beef up her previously exaggerated claim that she is making a big push to put prayer in public schools.
Section 1. The legislature of South Dakota finds that schoolchildren and school employees are best served by a moment of silence at the start of every school day to afford them a reprieve from the frenzy of daily life and to set a tone of decorum that will be conducive to learning.
Section 2. That chapter 13-1 be amended with a NEW SECTION:
Each school district shall require students and school employees to have a moment of silence lasting up to one minute each morning that school is in session. Students and school employees may engage in voluntary prayer, reflection, meditation, or other quiet, respectful activity during the moment of silence. No school employee may dictate the action to be taken by students or school employees during the moment of silence. No student may interfere with another student’s engagement in the moment of silence. Nothing in this Act may be construed to permit schools to conduct the moment of silence as a religious exercise [emphasis mine; 2022 House Bill 1015, introduced 2022.01.06].
Every student, every teacher, every janitor must take action to fight a pandemic of frenzy and indecorum. What a violation of personal choice!
The Governor and the Legislature have ignored, and sometimes outright denied, the science and the experience of our crowded hospitals that prove vaccines and masks reduce the harms of coronavirus. What concrete evidence will they offer of the harms caused by this alleged “frenzy” and the alleged lack of “decorum” and the ability of staying silent for a few seconds each day to rectify those harms? And even if they offer such “evidence”, why should we accept this heavy-handed mandate on the actions of every child, teacher, secretary, and janitor in our public schools, a mandate with no exemptions for conscientious objection?
House Education put HB 1015 in the hopper for the Governor. If you hate mandates, you’d better get on the horn to House Education Chair Lana Greenfield (R-2/Doland) and tell her to kill this silence mandate.
Any school employee over 21 should be able to exercise their right to worship with a gummy or even a hit from a vaporizer, right?
Let us pray: “The herb is the healing of the nations.” Revelation 22:2
They should make the moment of silence at least a half hour long so teachers and students can at least get a good nap in…
“The demon weed is the decay of society.” grudznick 01:08
Tomorrow at the Conservatives with Common Sense Breakfast, three sides of the weed questions will be in the debates.
So LITERALLY using thoughts and prayers instead of proper funding and placement of crucial mental health services: the ACTUAL “reprieve from the frenzy of daily life and to set a tone of decorum that will be conducive to learning.”
I suppose putting thoughts and prayers before potential mass shooter events counts as “pro-active” among the MAGA/GOP/Right.
No minimum time? That’s easy. One second will do as much to ease the frenzy as will one minute.
Frenzy. We’re on it.
grudnix: I know you won’t read this because you’re fully consumed with yourself. But anyway, I want to thank you for all you did to get legal marijuana over the mountain and down to the valley of South Dakota. When I came to Cory’s blog in 2007, with the intent of helping get cannabis legal in South Dakota, I picked you out, right away, as just the “contrarian” the cause needed. After working to legalize in CO for over fifteen years, the pattern was laid out and SD followed tooth and nail, to how it was done, here.
Every time you make a ridiculous statement, like you did today, several SD people made the choice to do what they could to prove you to be a fool and donate time and money to the legalization issue.
Thanks, again grudz.
Melissa Mentele just got her card this week. She’s done more than anyone to advance the progress.
PS … I picked Pat Powers out in 2007, too. When I heard he was a narc in college and targeted freshmen to make friends with and then turn them in to the SDSD cops, I knew right away he was another one that would recruit legalizers, just by his arrogance and lack on intelligence.
Comical is the construction of Section 2 which echos the 1st Amendment [“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….”] in its use of anaphora [“No….No…Nothing…”] as a determined attempt to disavow any inherent religious motivation whatsoever being prerequisite and conducive for “learning,” when what is meant by “learning” is clearly student education predicated upon the defiles of religion so disavowed.
And comical those who have proposed such.
Rastafarians pray with the aid of ganja. Ganja is part of their prayer or meditative process. From what I hear from those who imbibe, ganja definitely is “a reprieve from the frenzy of daily life….” Some students in their moment of silence could use rosary beads or a crucifix as part of their prayer routine during the moment of silence. In Section 2 we have the following: “No school employee may dictate the action to be taken by students or school employees during the moment of silence.” It seems that Section 2 precludes preventing students from using a crucifix, rosary beads or smoking ganja or ingesting it during this moment of silence.
Amen, Brother Donald.
They hate mandates which try to keep people from getting ill or dying, but impose a mandate that makes everyone go through the motions of prayer. This legislation is trying to make schools the vector of idiocy.
grudznick may provide pentagrams for some students at Stevens to play with during their silent moments.
Vis a vis mandates for the good of the many (as in the good of individual and collective public health) and Hansen’s reprobate Nazism comment, Bonhoeffer described stupidity not as an intellectual but rather as a moral defect which has sociological roots where the power of the One requires the stupidity of the many.
https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/
Well Cory what do you expect from a Jon without the H. Its like spelling Mark with a C.
By the way Cory, just refer to Republicans as Killer from now on. It would be easy to prove in court and they can adopt it for their hats
What Frenzy???
As the saying goes: Let them pray.
Happened in Indian boarding schools throughout the United States from the 1800s to the 1970s without care or word, but with a stick or whip depending on the gender of the beater. Legalize prayer in the many religious schools established in the state.
It is well know that after about 30 seconds of silence someone will pass gas and the day will begin.
Sheila Kennedy weighs in on a magat justice who weighs in on government mandates and how they don’t outweigh religious freedumbs….
https://sheilakennedy.net/2022/01/why-judges-matter-2/
Good read from a knowledgeable source.
Who is this Ms. Kennedy, Mr. mike? Is she also from Iowa?
RTS I love the passing of gas part. I will use it elsewhere maybe right now.
Proof can only exist if there is no doubt. One cannot prove anything. The use of prove is a very strong word. Your evidence strongly suggests masks and vaccines work doesn’t sound as ignorant.
Mandates for vaccines at schools, which we have always had, benefit everyone.
How does this mandate for a minute of silence benefit any individual, let alone everyone?
It’ll take 5 minutes instead of a minute; getting everyone quiet, getting them back on task after the interruption. Five days a week and you’ve wasted 25 minutes OR MORE (like 7th graders). Precious content learning time. Some schools/classes say the Pledge of Allegiance but may drop it because they can’t spend the time on both.
I’d really be peeved as a student if it were my favorite specials class like music, swimming, or PE.
Magat justice in Texas gave Navy personnel carte blanche to defy direct orders on vaccine mandates.,
https://www.vox.com/2022/1/4/22866839/supreme-court-covid-vaccination-navy-seals-reed-oconnor-religion-military
If you want to know about Sheila Kennedy, Grudzilla, look her up. She is not a libbie of any stripe.
MFI, I was left with one question after that decision: what religion is OK with joining the Navy Seals, potentially being assigned missions to kill, but is NOT OK with vaccines? The “religious freedom” doctrine also does not require a religion to be disclosed to justify the religious exemption.
Ergo, MAGA has been raised from political ideology to religion.