The proponents of these insane bills, like Scott Wiener, would tell you that opposition to them is driven by homophobia and transphobia. But look what California is doing, and look who our political class is doing it to. The Dickensian effect of all of these policy measures, together, is that they threaten precisely the "LGBTQ+" children they purport to protect. If you're a 15 year-old in California who tells a teacher you think you're gay, you have an increasingly good chance of ending up a de facto orphan, homeless and stranded in group homes for the rest of your childhood (and even well into adulthood). Put all of these measures together, and it's a childhood-stripping policy for gay teenagers. Boom, no parents. And holy shit, that's KINDNESS?
Chris, while I’m in such a disturbed state from reading this article that I want to run up and down the hallway screaming my head off, I am glad you are writing about this and informing everyone again the absolute madness that is current California.
I can’t even imagine the parents who will send little Johnny to school in the morning only to be told that afternoon that little Johnny is not going home, that he’s now declared himself non-binary or some such shit and will be placed in a state sponsored foster home for his own good. Dickens would be aghast to witness this.
There is only one solution for parents in California…GET THE HELL OUT !!! I understand it’s not financially easy for many, but their children are at stake. That state is lost.
I have a group of friends, much younger than me with school aged kids, who have pooled their resources, so to speak, and started their own homeschool. Somehow they’ve varied their off days so some parent is always available to teach the kids and both fathers and mothers are teaching. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I suspect that the "proponents of these insane bills" have absolutely no interest whatsoever in "protecting" anyone or anything. Their ONLY goals are POWER and CONTROL. Period.
The fact that they are condemning thousands, (or tens of thousands?), of kids to the hell that is foster care, (and a lifetime of dependency), is of no relevance to them.
They're not so subtle in their efforts to let you know they want additional means of taking your children away from you if they identify you as a political deviant who doesn't agree with them.
If anyone tries to take my kids away from me, they're gonna find out that I don't really do subtle.
It follows the same logic as when environ-mental-ists release caged animals into the wild en masse.
We've had lots of problems with that over here for decades - tens of thousands of minks and similar released all at once. Imagine what that does to the eco-system, before 99% of the released fur&soap-animals perish from disease, predators and starvation.
For the Wieners, it's all about looking good, not getting good results.
It's a central problem, particularly at the federal level. Look at Joe Biden. He never talks about the results of the legislation because the victory for him is getting the legislation passed. They don't care about if it works.
It’s passing the legislation that opens up the spigot for the cash to flow. That is the only goal….well, that and to wreak more havoc and tyranny upon the plebes.
Yep. Almost all legislation passed these days is designed for patronage, not problem-solving.
Just keep expanding the federal government and keep handing out federal money to politically connected groups and don't worry about actually providing any services to the citizens.
Wonder how long it will last before the house of cards falls down.
Hubs and I are constantly amazed the house of cards hasn’t collapsed yet. It can get discouraging, but he likes to remind me that eventually it has always happened before in history. No exceptions once they start dicking around with the currency.
One night, many, many years ago on a sonar mid-watch, we all decided that "Dickensian" meant being a dick. And that "chicanery" had something to do with chicken, and that Steve was acting "niggardly", being from Compton.
That's what the scariest thing I see out of CA is -- the continuing insistence that disagreement with the 'experts' is a crime. (or at least punishable via loss of license, not much difference.)
The regime wants to have any disagreements with the government be hate speech, and do not think that it is party specific. Think on the talk about treason and supporting terrorism when people complained about the start of the War on Terror over two decades ago. How about the argument that complaining about the security/police state means supporting Trump, Putin, crime, or terrorism? The government at all levels, municipal, state, and federal, wants to control your life and that means controlling speech. The American Regime across the political spectrum wants to control us, and disrupting our lives, individually, in the family, or the whole community is one of ways to do so.
As government becomes less and less competent at solving problems for the working-class and middle-class, since those solutions conflict with the interests of the vulture donor class, governments will become increasingly authoritarian in order to keep the population under control.
The Western World has nothing left to fight & die for. The Death of the Family Unit means likewise the death of whatever little (if any) social cohesion remains in the so-called 'First World' societies, most of which lack sovereignty anyway & are but mere puppets & vassals to the Empire of Lies.
I served four years active in the U.S. Army. I am telling both my sons that if they want to serve, they should become police officers, EMTs, firemen, or some other profession where they might actually serve their fellow countrymen rather than being cannon fodder for the elites.
My husband is finally retiring from active duty next year, with the last 17 in a tier one unit. I’m almost at 20 working in the IC. We met 15 years ago in a shitty sand box, both equally believing in our mission being noble. We now have three little kids, including two boys, and we are struggling with this. Half the time we want to say the same as you, but we have to trust that God has plans for us and will support and encourage them if they decide follow in our footsteps. We can’t give up on our country. If not us and them, then who?
"All they lose is their parents and their siblings, but we’re going to replace their families with government-funded group homes. It’s like a warm institutional hug!"
-----
In my years I've known a few handfuls of people who grew up "in the system", and I've yet to hear anything positive about it.
If there's a silver lining here, it's that these places will likely be so terrible they'll be mocked out of existence. I wonder how "I got molested in the Unicorn Homes" will go over in CA?
Uh….wut…secret safe houses for gay or gender ambivalent minors? What could possibly go wrong?
It’s like kibbutzes for gay kids, only the parents are excluded from saying whether they approve and the kids are removed from their families, you have no idea who is running these homes, and how the homes are going to be monitored. Who checks up on the minor kids, Ru Paul, Dylan what’s his face, the U.S. Marshalls, or Charles Nelson Reilly? And why do adult gay people over 18 need to live in a special home? Can’t they just go to college or get an apartment like everybody else? It’s pretty amazing- according to Democrat geniuses, Black people apparently can’t figure out how to obtain and show a drivers license to perform routine daily tasks and gay people need special secret homes to hide in from their mean parents. The more we indulge insanity, the more insanity we will have.
I served on the grand jury of my county in 2009. At that time, we studied the foster care system because a young teen died in a care home. The stats on CA foster homes in our county showed that 77% of all foster kids who reached age 19 and "emancipation" had some form of contact with a penal system at the city, county or state level. I had a student who was in a foster care home with ELEVEN other kids and no one was being cared for. Yes, indeed, let's extend state child care systems and get kids away from their parents! No wonder we left California.
Wow! Its mind blowing they want to expand a system like that. And it is NOT the case they don’t know how bad it is. Listen to them call people “pro birth” and then say it’s evil to “force” a woman to have a child because of that child isn’t adopted they are post into the evil foster care system. They know it’s awful, they don’t care.
These stats are probably repeated in every state. Kids in foster homes have the deck severly stacked against them. Targets of neglect and abuse pretty much there entire lives. By the time they reach adulthood, only the few very strong minded will overcome that. Most will fall into drug abuse, which leads to homlessness, despair, and crime. These unicorn homes will just be places where pedophiles and perverts will go to get there jollies off at the expense of young, confused, mentally ill kids. Its licensed child abuse, a sick wet dream of the perverts that run california, an arrirmation of there demented lifestyles.
I never thought I’d be experiencing communism from the inside. My army intel background had me scoffing at how stupid the soviets et al were and why are 90% of their citizens alcoholics?
Now I begin to understand.
Born in San Mateo, raised in Seattle. Living in Idaho. I’ve fled communism twice, in my own country.
This is so bizarre that I can't imagine a single sick f_ck that would actually vote for this unless they were the devil. Do people in CA ever get pissed off enough to say NO EFFING WAY? Chris, I feel it is time for another Substack entitled "When does the lunacy stop? "
I need to preface my comments with this truth about myself that I will project onto others.
I have a tyrant that lives inside of me. He's a nasty little bastard. He, like all good tyrants, is only satisfied (almost wrote happy--but power hungry tyrants do not feel happiness nor joy) while in the act of tyranny or seeing the results of his actions. He lives to tyrannize.
I am left with one of two choices: Let him loose on me. Tyrannize myself. Demand I get up at a certain time, that I pay hyper close attention to my caloric intake, that I exercise daily (mostly for mental stability), read Scripture and/or other inspirational thoughts, meditate, journal, get to bed on time, think of and be of service to others (from my pets, to my family to my fellow man)...
...because if I do not preoccupy my little tyrant with my own frailties--focus on the fbomb Giant Sequoia in my own eye--then he gets after everyone else.
Said more simply: if I do not control myself, then I try to control the world. How's that working out for ya Brian? Not so good. Better to focus on my own problems.
Here is my projection. I don't think I'm all that different. When I cannot control myself, I think the problem is others and I try to fix them the world.
So...
Tasha Boerner. She's fat. Look her up. Hey Tasha, why don't you get down below a 140 BMI before lecturing us about the wellbeing of LGBT kids--and WHEN FOR CHRISSAKES DID 24 year olds become kids??!?!?!?!?
Another reminder from Chris that we must focus first on the centers of loci we control or have some influence. Ourselves, what goes into ourselves (media, food, intoxicants), what thoughts and behaviors we want in our lives, influence our families--but most of that--at least the part that sticks--is implicit. It is our behavior. We must be better. Stronger. More courageous. Why?
Because things are speeding up, and more will be demanded of the few. Do 50 pushups right now--even if it takes you 10 sets to do it. We have to start yesterday.
They want us dead. They want the West dead. They have unleashed their own tyrants on us because they cannot step away from the Twinkie. Or the Joint. Or the Porn. Or the Big Mac. Or the Liquor. Or the hate...
Hard agree. Especially with exercise and the things we actually control.
I recently quit smoking and took up exercise which I am quickly becoming addicted to. First walking, then cycling. Now I'm looking at weights and my diet has become stricter.
I dipped Copenhagen snuff for most of my life. I quit and started 25+ times over the 38+years I used that product.
Completely addicted. Finally gave it up during the summer of love lockdowns, but used nicotine gum and nicotine pouches for the next 2 1/2 years.
My wife found out and put her foot down. I had been lying that I had quit for sometime, like all good drug addicts.
Coming off of nicotine is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I couldn’t sleep for weeks. My blood pressure skyrocketed to 150/105. I stank like a bag.
I realized that I was masking an underlying anxiety/depressive tendency with tobacco my entire life.
I put on 15 pounds that is harder to lose now because nicotine is also an appetite suppressant.
I had started cold, plunging a few months before, and that became my anchor. I don’t think I would’ve made it without cold plunging.
We are creatures of habit, too, which only entrenches addiction further. And, if it's true, I've heard that tobacco is one of the hardest, if not THE hardest addictive substance to quit, even more so than street drugs. I am so grateful to have never started the habit!
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could take at least one mulligan in life! 😮💨 I'd need about a dozen to rectify the dumb, stupid and careless things I did to create the hardships for myself and others!! Sigh. All I can do is ask and pray for forgiveness and hope to do better before I have to answer to my Maker.
It was the 'tobaccos choice' for athletes. Baseball is perfect chew activity--too much sitting & doing nothing, but totally tense. Much like Soldiering. Sitting around waiting to go outside the wire.
This is a sickening exploitation of student-teacher confidentiality.
If a student comes to me and asks to talk to me, not in my role as teacher per se but as an adult they trust and who is under confidentality (which is life-long here) and legal compulsion to report suspected abuse or neglect (which the student is always to be informed about /before/ any such talk), that is part of the job.
(And referring the student to counselor, social services, police or other dep. on what the issue is and if the student wants that to happen dep. on what the legal compulsion says - it's a balance and it's never easy if you take your job seriously.)
Talking about sex is for sex ed only, and then it's to be done in a clinical and impersonal manner. Pregnancy and how not become pregnant by accident. STDs and how to avoid them. Hygiene. Respecting safe, sane and consensual. And always be impartial and objective about it; in fact, making it boring makes the students take it seriously. (I'm talking about 15+ students, by the way. Any sex ed beyond "where babies come from" is for age 15/eighth grade, not younger.)
But this thing from California you present here, mr Bray - it's abhorrent! These "unicorn homes" and other group homes will be a watering-hole for sexual predators, and nothing else. We had a state-run foster-parent system back in the 1950s that became exactly that: homosexual pedophiles flocked to it, to have children from broken homes placed in their care. It took until the 1990s to right the ship and to get on the books that anyone volunterring as foster home/parent /must/ show documentation from the registry of criminal offences that they have no verdicts for any crimes relating to children.
Parents of California and other states, you must fight this tooth and claw! The homosexuals and the pedophiles hiding out amongst them /will/ use this to get at children - it's guaranteed.
The LGBTQ+ political movement has become a cult. Except, most cults have voluntary participation. This is forced obedience. Someone needs to say that out loud.
No, it is what is has always been. An addiction. That was understood thirty years ago.
You'll note they rarely interview elderly LGBTQ people. Why is that? Why only the youth?
We were more honest fifty years ago. A small minority had deviant tastes and were left in peace as long as they kept to themselves. They were pitied then because of the bleakness of their lives
There is no mystery here. The goal is to increase the number of potential available sexual partners for a minority grouping. That they will be young is a double-bonus!
It's the assumptions within this movement that is so galling -- and so frightening that we keep electing these people into office:
- The idea that "We can't tell parents about instances of their children requesting gender non-conforming treatment because the default assumption is ALL PARENTS ARE MONSTERS."
- The assertion that it's the government's responsibility to supply housing it deems suitable for those with sacred identities.
This is the cult of affirmation merging with the cult of expertise and the cult of government into a rancid stew that betrays a pathological response to disagreement, to anything to stands in the way of their creepy utopia. One where they just so happen to pull all the levers of power.
We are training generations of kids to rely on government to solve every single problem in their life.
We are entrusting our governance to people who are bent on making reality conform to the twisted postmodern narratives they learned in college and that gave them the purpose of a zealot.
Anthony, your comment about "all parents are monsters" brought something back from 30 years ago.
In the early 90's, I was working as a legislative aid to the Republican caucus in the CA State Assembly. I was a "24": is 24 years old, makes 24K/yr, and works 24 hours/day. At the time, the assembly was trying to figure out what to do about homelesness (yeah, some things never change.) I couldn't wrap my head around what the problem was; everyone seemed to acknowledge that 90% of the problem could be solved with a few simple legislative fixes (this was pre-opioids) but the GOP bills that implemented those fixes were consistently shot down.
Finally an actual Member sat me down and explained it. He said that Republicans believed you should tackle the largest piece of the problem legislatively, accepting that it won't fix everything but that you can deal with the rest with more custom case-by-case solutions. Democrats however, believe there must be a legislative / bureaucratic solution that fixes the problem for everyone equally all at one time, and that any system which allows anyone to "fall through the cracks" and require a case-by-case solution should be opposed. And that this breakdown was true on almost every issue.
So yes, because there are a handful of kids abused by their parents, Democrats really do believe that every parent could easily be a monster, and thus there must be a system to ensure that no child falls through the cracks.
I hadn't thought about that conversation in a while, but I have that dynamic recur many times over the years.
When we toured an LAUSD school we were considering for our oldest child, the principal explained that in public school, either ALL the students get a thing, or NONE of the students can have it. A shock to my way of thinking.
There is no reason aside from laziness and greed for status to send your kids to the intellectual wasteland that is the American public school. They think like this everywhere on every issue. Hence why the entire nation must adopt the Arizona model and crush this leviathan to the fullest extent possible.
Brian, your account aligns with what you, I, and probably most on this thread have observed: To the standard Democrat, to use a crude stereotype, it is government's job to fix every single problem in society.
This is why the New York Times can write an article praising the Deep State. It's why Bill Maher defends government workers by saying we should lay off them because they have a hard job and we should respect what they do. They valorize the technocrat whose politics align with theirs.
Whether something *should* be done will not get a hearing. Nothing is beyond the capability of government. If you're against something that a Democrat is for, it is a sign of your willful immorality, as it's presumed you possess the same point of view they have but have chosen to take the wrong course of action -- or inaction.
Can we take in all the migrants?
Can we forgive all student debt?
Can we give everyone a basic income?
It all helps, so the question of "should" never comes up. See what happens whenever there is news of a potential government shutdown or when a bill Democrats favor is blocked.
To the hard-blue Democrat, this is among the worst outcomes. Government for them is a doing, and if it isn't doing things it favors, then it's broken. They look at rival factions within the Republican Party as a sign of dyfunction.
To me, a healthy democracy is one where no one side is always winning. Because if you're always winning, then you have a huge discontented population that feels unrepresented. That feels like their losing.
Not to today's (or maybe even yesterday's) Democrats. It's an all-or-nothing proposition at all times. The government is perpetually in loco parentis.
I have to confess I completely missed the pop cultural reference to "Governor Patrick Bateman." I was thinking, "Hold on. Aren't we talking about California? Did Chris confuse the governor?" Who is this other governor? So I googled "Governor Patrick Bateman." In my defense, I've never seen American Psycho. But I get the reference now. 😉
I didn't finish the thought:
The proponents of these insane bills, like Scott Wiener, would tell you that opposition to them is driven by homophobia and transphobia. But look what California is doing, and look who our political class is doing it to. The Dickensian effect of all of these policy measures, together, is that they threaten precisely the "LGBTQ+" children they purport to protect. If you're a 15 year-old in California who tells a teacher you think you're gay, you have an increasingly good chance of ending up a de facto orphan, homeless and stranded in group homes for the rest of your childhood (and even well into adulthood). Put all of these measures together, and it's a childhood-stripping policy for gay teenagers. Boom, no parents. And holy shit, that's KINDNESS?
Chris, while I’m in such a disturbed state from reading this article that I want to run up and down the hallway screaming my head off, I am glad you are writing about this and informing everyone again the absolute madness that is current California.
I can’t even imagine the parents who will send little Johnny to school in the morning only to be told that afternoon that little Johnny is not going home, that he’s now declared himself non-binary or some such shit and will be placed in a state sponsored foster home for his own good. Dickens would be aghast to witness this.
Absolutely shameless.
There is only one solution for parents in California…GET THE HELL OUT !!! I understand it’s not financially easy for many, but their children are at stake. That state is lost.
Well, there's also homeschooling. Which is both the moral and practical solution to public-school indoctrination nationwide.
It won't be easy, but given how horrific the alternative is, the only reason not to do it is laziness.
I have a group of friends, much younger than me with school aged kids, who have pooled their resources, so to speak, and started their own homeschool. Somehow they’ve varied their off days so some parent is always available to teach the kids and both fathers and mothers are teaching. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I suspect that the "proponents of these insane bills" have absolutely no interest whatsoever in "protecting" anyone or anything. Their ONLY goals are POWER and CONTROL. Period.
The fact that they are condemning thousands, (or tens of thousands?), of kids to the hell that is foster care, (and a lifetime of dependency), is of no relevance to them.
That, and "enabling older men who experienced similar emotions when young to help and guide teenagers to accept who they are".
Aka grooming.
Precisely. This is a ready made resource for child sex traffickers.
They're not so subtle in their efforts to let you know they want additional means of taking your children away from you if they identify you as a political deviant who doesn't agree with them.
If anyone tries to take my kids away from me, they're gonna find out that I don't really do subtle.
It follows the same logic as when environ-mental-ists release caged animals into the wild en masse.
We've had lots of problems with that over here for decades - tens of thousands of minks and similar released all at once. Imagine what that does to the eco-system, before 99% of the released fur&soap-animals perish from disease, predators and starvation.
For the Wieners, it's all about looking good, not getting good results.
It's a central problem, particularly at the federal level. Look at Joe Biden. He never talks about the results of the legislation because the victory for him is getting the legislation passed. They don't care about if it works.
It’s passing the legislation that opens up the spigot for the cash to flow. That is the only goal….well, that and to wreak more havoc and tyranny upon the plebes.
Yep. Almost all legislation passed these days is designed for patronage, not problem-solving.
Just keep expanding the federal government and keep handing out federal money to politically connected groups and don't worry about actually providing any services to the citizens.
Wonder how long it will last before the house of cards falls down.
Hubs and I are constantly amazed the house of cards hasn’t collapsed yet. It can get discouraging, but he likes to remind me that eventually it has always happened before in history. No exceptions once they start dicking around with the currency.
One night, many, many years ago on a sonar mid-watch, we all decided that "Dickensian" meant being a dick. And that "chicanery" had something to do with chicken, and that Steve was acting "niggardly", being from Compton.
And by the way, the just-introduced AB 3024 looks like an attempt to pathologize and forbid disgreement:
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB3024/2023
"Assemblymember Ward Introduces Legislation to Curb Distribution of Hateful Literature in California."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imBUwE1ujks
That's what the scariest thing I see out of CA is -- the continuing insistence that disagreement with the 'experts' is a crime. (or at least punishable via loss of license, not much difference.)
Chilling. Legalizing tyranny.
The regime wants to have any disagreements with the government be hate speech, and do not think that it is party specific. Think on the talk about treason and supporting terrorism when people complained about the start of the War on Terror over two decades ago. How about the argument that complaining about the security/police state means supporting Trump, Putin, crime, or terrorism? The government at all levels, municipal, state, and federal, wants to control your life and that means controlling speech. The American Regime across the political spectrum wants to control us, and disrupting our lives, individually, in the family, or the whole community is one of ways to do so.
As government becomes less and less competent at solving problems for the working-class and middle-class, since those solutions conflict with the interests of the vulture donor class, governments will become increasingly authoritarian in order to keep the population under control.
Jurisdictions all over the world are criminalizing most forms of disagreement with the local powers that be.
All at the same time.
Wonder what's driving this insanity?
*** Lifts tinfoil hat. Scratches head**
Strange coincidence indeed.
Tinfoil hats are now made of stainless steel given the track record of the conspiracy theorists.
The EU/WEF axis - aka the Fourth Reich.
in case it's helpful to take down these drones.
Dr. Miriam Grossman, MD delivers a good dose of truth regarding so-called "gender-affirming care" during a recent U.S. House Committee hearing.
https://youtu.be/abTMFKoytMo?si=o1TbEAX2LThvwecj
like Bacon and Eggs; or , the first and second amendments.. each support the other.
The Western World has nothing left to fight & die for. The Death of the Family Unit means likewise the death of whatever little (if any) social cohesion remains in the so-called 'First World' societies, most of which lack sovereignty anyway & are but mere puppets & vassals to the Empire of Lies.
Yup. It used to be that I'd die for my country to make sure my children got to experience what the country stood for.
Now I'd give my life for my children to protect them from what this country has become.
This perfectly captures my sentiments as well. Living through the fall of Babylon the Great is proving to be increasingly soul crushing.
I served four years active in the U.S. Army. I am telling both my sons that if they want to serve, they should become police officers, EMTs, firemen, or some other profession where they might actually serve their fellow countrymen rather than being cannon fodder for the elites.
My husband is finally retiring from active duty next year, with the last 17 in a tier one unit. I’m almost at 20 working in the IC. We met 15 years ago in a shitty sand box, both equally believing in our mission being noble. We now have three little kids, including two boys, and we are struggling with this. Half the time we want to say the same as you, but we have to trust that God has plans for us and will support and encourage them if they decide follow in our footsteps. We can’t give up on our country. If not us and them, then who?
We can’t give up on our country, but serving in the military to be cruelly used by these mediocre incompetents is a dreadful proposition
Nailed it.
Well said.
If you wish to Read & Listen to more of My commentary, here is my Main Stack:
https://thefallofthewest.substack.com?r=5jj6h
& Here is my Stack on American History (from the Primary Sources):
https://theannalsofamerica.substack.com?r=5jj6h
Thank You Again to Everyone!
"All they lose is their parents and their siblings, but we’re going to replace their families with government-funded group homes. It’s like a warm institutional hug!"
-----
In my years I've known a few handfuls of people who grew up "in the system", and I've yet to hear anything positive about it.
If there's a silver lining here, it's that these places will likely be so terrible they'll be mocked out of existence. I wonder how "I got molested in the Unicorn Homes" will go over in CA?
I'm afraid molestation would be a feature, not a bug.
Ditto, they will be run by pervs seeking fresh meat, what could possibly go wrong.
Literally grooming behavior all the way, right up to isolation from your old family and acceptance into your 'new' family.
But they’ll be “government certified” pervs, so it’ll be OK…
Things is the first thing I thought of. Pray for the children.
It certainly seems that way, with the.........enthusiasm.....we see surrounding this issue.
just a guess the parties at the unicorn homes will look a lot like the parties on Epstein's island
This was my very first thought, it will be a hunting ground for sexual predators.
There's a 0% chance that most of those unicorn homes won't be staffed by pedophiles.
That waiting list is probably longer than the one for the 'kids'.
this is franklin scandal 2.0
Scott Wiener will rub his hands together in glee.
.......those aren't his hands.........
Oh dear….
Uh….wut…secret safe houses for gay or gender ambivalent minors? What could possibly go wrong?
It’s like kibbutzes for gay kids, only the parents are excluded from saying whether they approve and the kids are removed from their families, you have no idea who is running these homes, and how the homes are going to be monitored. Who checks up on the minor kids, Ru Paul, Dylan what’s his face, the U.S. Marshalls, or Charles Nelson Reilly? And why do adult gay people over 18 need to live in a special home? Can’t they just go to college or get an apartment like everybody else? It’s pretty amazing- according to Democrat geniuses, Black people apparently can’t figure out how to obtain and show a drivers license to perform routine daily tasks and gay people need special secret homes to hide in from their mean parents. The more we indulge insanity, the more insanity we will have.
Except on a real kibbutz, when they still had children’s houses, if a child was experiencing problems, they came back to live with their parents.
I served on the grand jury of my county in 2009. At that time, we studied the foster care system because a young teen died in a care home. The stats on CA foster homes in our county showed that 77% of all foster kids who reached age 19 and "emancipation" had some form of contact with a penal system at the city, county or state level. I had a student who was in a foster care home with ELEVEN other kids and no one was being cared for. Yes, indeed, let's extend state child care systems and get kids away from their parents! No wonder we left California.
Rob Henderson comments in his (excellent) book _Troubled_ that less than 3% of kids in the foster care system attend college.
He concludes that what kids need, more than anything else, is stability. Which, of course, is what these groups want to remove.
Read it a few days ago, and very much have that in mind.
They need responsible fathers.
That's the central issue. Everything else is sequela imo.
Wow! Its mind blowing they want to expand a system like that. And it is NOT the case they don’t know how bad it is. Listen to them call people “pro birth” and then say it’s evil to “force” a woman to have a child because of that child isn’t adopted they are post into the evil foster care system. They know it’s awful, they don’t care.
These stats are probably repeated in every state. Kids in foster homes have the deck severly stacked against them. Targets of neglect and abuse pretty much there entire lives. By the time they reach adulthood, only the few very strong minded will overcome that. Most will fall into drug abuse, which leads to homlessness, despair, and crime. These unicorn homes will just be places where pedophiles and perverts will go to get there jollies off at the expense of young, confused, mentally ill kids. Its licensed child abuse, a sick wet dream of the perverts that run california, an arrirmation of there demented lifestyles.
If California is not hit by a combination of the big one earthquake and tsunami, God owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.
That's pretty funny!
bsn
I never thought I’d be experiencing communism from the inside. My army intel background had me scoffing at how stupid the soviets et al were and why are 90% of their citizens alcoholics?
Now I begin to understand.
Born in San Mateo, raised in Seattle. Living in Idaho. I’ve fled communism twice, in my own country.
This is so bizarre that I can't imagine a single sick f_ck that would actually vote for this unless they were the devil. Do people in CA ever get pissed off enough to say NO EFFING WAY? Chris, I feel it is time for another Substack entitled "When does the lunacy stop? "
DEPRAVITY.
It's fucking disgusting.
Pardon my French
I fucking approve - it IS fucking disgusting! Sometimes there just isn't a clean way to say something.
Most of the people with strong morals have self-selected out of California at this point.
I need to preface my comments with this truth about myself that I will project onto others.
I have a tyrant that lives inside of me. He's a nasty little bastard. He, like all good tyrants, is only satisfied (almost wrote happy--but power hungry tyrants do not feel happiness nor joy) while in the act of tyranny or seeing the results of his actions. He lives to tyrannize.
I am left with one of two choices: Let him loose on me. Tyrannize myself. Demand I get up at a certain time, that I pay hyper close attention to my caloric intake, that I exercise daily (mostly for mental stability), read Scripture and/or other inspirational thoughts, meditate, journal, get to bed on time, think of and be of service to others (from my pets, to my family to my fellow man)...
...because if I do not preoccupy my little tyrant with my own frailties--focus on the fbomb Giant Sequoia in my own eye--then he gets after everyone else.
Said more simply: if I do not control myself, then I try to control the world. How's that working out for ya Brian? Not so good. Better to focus on my own problems.
Here is my projection. I don't think I'm all that different. When I cannot control myself, I think the problem is others and I try to fix them the world.
So...
Tasha Boerner. She's fat. Look her up. Hey Tasha, why don't you get down below a 140 BMI before lecturing us about the wellbeing of LGBT kids--and WHEN FOR CHRISSAKES DID 24 year olds become kids??!?!?!?!?
Another reminder from Chris that we must focus first on the centers of loci we control or have some influence. Ourselves, what goes into ourselves (media, food, intoxicants), what thoughts and behaviors we want in our lives, influence our families--but most of that--at least the part that sticks--is implicit. It is our behavior. We must be better. Stronger. More courageous. Why?
Because things are speeding up, and more will be demanded of the few. Do 50 pushups right now--even if it takes you 10 sets to do it. We have to start yesterday.
One in five Gen Z's now identify somewhere on the LGBT spectrum: This is Gallup: https://religionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/webRNS-Gallup-LGBTQ2.jpg
They want us dead. They want the West dead. They have unleashed their own tyrants on us because they cannot step away from the Twinkie. Or the Joint. Or the Porn. Or the Big Mac. Or the Liquor. Or the hate...
bsn
Hard agree. Especially with exercise and the things we actually control.
I recently quit smoking and took up exercise which I am quickly becoming addicted to. First walking, then cycling. Now I'm looking at weights and my diet has become stricter.
It all counts.
I dipped Copenhagen snuff for most of my life. I quit and started 25+ times over the 38+years I used that product.
Completely addicted. Finally gave it up during the summer of love lockdowns, but used nicotine gum and nicotine pouches for the next 2 1/2 years.
My wife found out and put her foot down. I had been lying that I had quit for sometime, like all good drug addicts.
Coming off of nicotine is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I couldn’t sleep for weeks. My blood pressure skyrocketed to 150/105. I stank like a bag.
I realized that I was masking an underlying anxiety/depressive tendency with tobacco my entire life.
I put on 15 pounds that is harder to lose now because nicotine is also an appetite suppressant.
I had started cold, plunging a few months before, and that became my anchor. I don’t think I would’ve made it without cold plunging.
Good for you, Spiff! Very well done!
The lies caught up with me too. I couldn't wait to go on milk runs....or any errand for that matter.
What helped me is realizing how "selfish" I had been all those years with my dip and spit cup.
Seems gross to me now
It does—but that selfishness had a grip on me for a long time!
Yeah I know what you mean
I too have up many times and was secretly addicted. It is refreshing to be free of that.
I’m doing my pushups after I write this.
YES! YES! YES!
bsn
Holy shit. Exactly same except Kodiak
Holy shit, grizzly
Same I just used tennis as replacement for the "lose" of my best abusive friend....
Never felt better
Amazing how much of addiction is just in our minds.
We are creatures of habit, too, which only entrenches addiction further. And, if it's true, I've heard that tobacco is one of the hardest, if not THE hardest addictive substance to quit, even more so than street drugs. I am so grateful to have never started the habit!
Our baseball coaches gave us dip in high-school! That's when it started for me.
What I would do to go back and not try to be "cool".
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could take at least one mulligan in life! 😮💨 I'd need about a dozen to rectify the dumb, stupid and careless things I did to create the hardships for myself and others!! Sigh. All I can do is ask and pray for forgiveness and hope to do better before I have to answer to my Maker.
It was the 'tobaccos choice' for athletes. Baseball is perfect chew activity--too much sitting & doing nothing, but totally tense. Much like Soldiering. Sitting around waiting to go outside the wire.
bsn
This is a sickening exploitation of student-teacher confidentiality.
If a student comes to me and asks to talk to me, not in my role as teacher per se but as an adult they trust and who is under confidentality (which is life-long here) and legal compulsion to report suspected abuse or neglect (which the student is always to be informed about /before/ any such talk), that is part of the job.
(And referring the student to counselor, social services, police or other dep. on what the issue is and if the student wants that to happen dep. on what the legal compulsion says - it's a balance and it's never easy if you take your job seriously.)
Talking about sex is for sex ed only, and then it's to be done in a clinical and impersonal manner. Pregnancy and how not become pregnant by accident. STDs and how to avoid them. Hygiene. Respecting safe, sane and consensual. And always be impartial and objective about it; in fact, making it boring makes the students take it seriously. (I'm talking about 15+ students, by the way. Any sex ed beyond "where babies come from" is for age 15/eighth grade, not younger.)
But this thing from California you present here, mr Bray - it's abhorrent! These "unicorn homes" and other group homes will be a watering-hole for sexual predators, and nothing else. We had a state-run foster-parent system back in the 1950s that became exactly that: homosexual pedophiles flocked to it, to have children from broken homes placed in their care. It took until the 1990s to right the ship and to get on the books that anyone volunterring as foster home/parent /must/ show documentation from the registry of criminal offences that they have no verdicts for any crimes relating to children.
Parents of California and other states, you must fight this tooth and claw! The homosexuals and the pedophiles hiding out amongst them /will/ use this to get at children - it's guaranteed.
The LGBTQ+ political movement has become a cult. Except, most cults have voluntary participation. This is forced obedience. Someone needs to say that out loud.
No, it is what is has always been. An addiction. That was understood thirty years ago.
You'll note they rarely interview elderly LGBTQ people. Why is that? Why only the youth?
We were more honest fifty years ago. A small minority had deviant tastes and were left in peace as long as they kept to themselves. They were pitied then because of the bleakness of their lives
There is no mystery here. The goal is to increase the number of potential available sexual partners for a minority grouping. That they will be young is a double-bonus!
Fair to say that it is sexual grooming by the State, I think.
Very Fair! LSMFT+++ are major donors to the California D's.
"LSMFT" 😂🤣😂🤣 I know approximately how old you are.
It's a dead give away!
Which brand of cigarettes had that ad? Lucky Strike?
Yes, Lucky Strikes Mean Fine Tobacco.
It's the assumptions within this movement that is so galling -- and so frightening that we keep electing these people into office:
- The idea that "We can't tell parents about instances of their children requesting gender non-conforming treatment because the default assumption is ALL PARENTS ARE MONSTERS."
- The assertion that it's the government's responsibility to supply housing it deems suitable for those with sacred identities.
This is the cult of affirmation merging with the cult of expertise and the cult of government into a rancid stew that betrays a pathological response to disagreement, to anything to stands in the way of their creepy utopia. One where they just so happen to pull all the levers of power.
We are training generations of kids to rely on government to solve every single problem in their life.
We are entrusting our governance to people who are bent on making reality conform to the twisted postmodern narratives they learned in college and that gave them the purpose of a zealot.
Anthony, your comment about "all parents are monsters" brought something back from 30 years ago.
In the early 90's, I was working as a legislative aid to the Republican caucus in the CA State Assembly. I was a "24": is 24 years old, makes 24K/yr, and works 24 hours/day. At the time, the assembly was trying to figure out what to do about homelesness (yeah, some things never change.) I couldn't wrap my head around what the problem was; everyone seemed to acknowledge that 90% of the problem could be solved with a few simple legislative fixes (this was pre-opioids) but the GOP bills that implemented those fixes were consistently shot down.
Finally an actual Member sat me down and explained it. He said that Republicans believed you should tackle the largest piece of the problem legislatively, accepting that it won't fix everything but that you can deal with the rest with more custom case-by-case solutions. Democrats however, believe there must be a legislative / bureaucratic solution that fixes the problem for everyone equally all at one time, and that any system which allows anyone to "fall through the cracks" and require a case-by-case solution should be opposed. And that this breakdown was true on almost every issue.
So yes, because there are a handful of kids abused by their parents, Democrats really do believe that every parent could easily be a monster, and thus there must be a system to ensure that no child falls through the cracks.
I hadn't thought about that conversation in a while, but I have that dynamic recur many times over the years.
Really interesting, I never heard that.
When we toured an LAUSD school we were considering for our oldest child, the principal explained that in public school, either ALL the students get a thing, or NONE of the students can have it. A shock to my way of thinking.
There is no reason aside from laziness and greed for status to send your kids to the intellectual wasteland that is the American public school. They think like this everywhere on every issue. Hence why the entire nation must adopt the Arizona model and crush this leviathan to the fullest extent possible.
Brian, your account aligns with what you, I, and probably most on this thread have observed: To the standard Democrat, to use a crude stereotype, it is government's job to fix every single problem in society.
This is why the New York Times can write an article praising the Deep State. It's why Bill Maher defends government workers by saying we should lay off them because they have a hard job and we should respect what they do. They valorize the technocrat whose politics align with theirs.
Whether something *should* be done will not get a hearing. Nothing is beyond the capability of government. If you're against something that a Democrat is for, it is a sign of your willful immorality, as it's presumed you possess the same point of view they have but have chosen to take the wrong course of action -- or inaction.
Can we take in all the migrants?
Can we forgive all student debt?
Can we give everyone a basic income?
It all helps, so the question of "should" never comes up. See what happens whenever there is news of a potential government shutdown or when a bill Democrats favor is blocked.
To the hard-blue Democrat, this is among the worst outcomes. Government for them is a doing, and if it isn't doing things it favors, then it's broken. They look at rival factions within the Republican Party as a sign of dyfunction.
To me, a healthy democracy is one where no one side is always winning. Because if you're always winning, then you have a huge discontented population that feels unrepresented. That feels like their losing.
Not to today's (or maybe even yesterday's) Democrats. It's an all-or-nothing proposition at all times. The government is perpetually in loco parentis.
“We are training generations of kids to rely on government to solve every single problem in their life.“
There are several former social workers in the CA legislature, and they seem to be confusing their old job with their current one.
Name one thing that the government does better in family situations, than than a loving family.
Name one thing government does better. Ever. One thing?
I have to confess I completely missed the pop cultural reference to "Governor Patrick Bateman." I was thinking, "Hold on. Aren't we talking about California? Did Chris confuse the governor?" Who is this other governor? So I googled "Governor Patrick Bateman." In my defense, I've never seen American Psycho. But I get the reference now. 😉
Read the book to be unequivocally horrified; the movie's horror does not compare. 😣