The Hub of Politics

I've never believed "fiscal responsible" and "Democrat" ever belonged in the same sentence. Our local gas-bags (Kennedy and Kerry), coupled with virtually all of our Congressional delegation (leftists, all), help confirm that on an almost daily basis.

Massachusetts Democrats are complaining that the Bush Administration's "austere" $2.57 Trillion budget will hurt the poor, depress the cities, starve the hungry, blah blah blah blah blah - like we haven't all heard these arguments from the same usual suspects for, well, my entire gosh-darned life. Further, our guardians of the federal purse-strings vow to fight cuts in block grant programs "that pay for everything from after-school programs, to road construction to cheap housing and loans".

But let's put a human face on this, shall we - liberals are great at that:

Noemi Laboy, who works and lives at Mission Main public housing in Roxbury, which was revitalized with federal money, said the funds keep the once downtrodden area on its feet.

"Instead of leading people to self-sufficiency, we would be leading them back to the `hood,' "she said. "It would lead to deterioration.''

Memo to Ms. Laboy - if you need federal pork to keep your neighborhood from becoming "The Hood" again, said neighborhood is not "on its feet".

Before we start thinking that this is some massive grant that will sink municipalities, we're talking about $43 million in "cuts" . Well, let's hear what Boston Mayor-for-life Thomas "Mumbles" Menino has to say on this issue:

"How do we replace the funds?'' asked Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who said Boston alone could lose $23 million, endangering affordable housing, English as a Second Language classes, job training and affordable housing.

"This is really a serious situation.''

Wow, what leadership! What a Profile-in-Courage. I'm awe-struck.

Heaven forbid we see a cut in the ESL programs - and believe me, Mr. Mayor, those "job training" programs aren't going to be necessary if the massive business property tax increase you've been pushing for more than a year is adopted, because there aren't going to be any jobs left.

Here's the bottom line on this situation for Massachusetts: $43 Million, while a great deal of money for you and me, represents about 1/4 of 1-percent of the budget for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That's it, 0.25%. So, to respond to Mumbles' rhetorical question he thinks is unanswerable: Gee, I don't know Mr. Mayor, how about we merge the Turnpike Authority with the Mass Highway Department? That alone would save at least $25 Million annually, no one would know the difference, and we can plow that money back into these useless programs you claim you cannot live without.

How hard was that? I did that at 0808 on a Saturday morning, before breakfast. You would think the Mayor of the largest city in the Commonwealth could do as well.

Massachusetts Democrats are claiming this is a "litmus test" for Governor Mitt Romney, to see, in their words, "whether he cares more about the Bay State or his presidential aspirations in 2008".

This is not a test for our Governor. It's a test of leadership for our congressional delegation - a test they're failing miserably. Which is it, Fat Teddy: Are the Democrats the party of "fiscal responsibility"? Or is "fiscal responsibility" just another talking point you're prepared to do little-to-nothing about?

We already know the answer.

The Democrats want all the wasted cash they can possibly shovel into their communities to be flushed down the toilet - with none of the responsibility that comes with that money. Well, at least one Red State has decided they've had enough of the outrageous and unconstitutional imposition the federal government - with the full endorsement of Fat Teddy, by the way - is making in primary and secondary education. "We'll spend the federal money we get, and that's as much as we'll be able to do," Dr. (Steven) Laing (Utah's state superintendent of public instruction) said. "And then we'll be subject to the consequences that come when we're not able to meet our moral obligation to help all students meet a rising standard."

Though I fault Utah for not being willing to give back the money entirely, the fact that such a step would even be considered is one in the right direction. Locally, all I hear is people whine and complain about the NCLB requirement - most of which should have been done all along - all-the-while complaining that the outrageous sums of money coming into the Commonwealth from the Act aren't enough. We should know by now, there will never be enough money to satisfy school administrators, teachers' unions and their wholly owned subsidiary - the Democrat Party.

Massachusetts Democrats have the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to fiscal discipline by showing they can cope with a minor drop in federal largesse. Obviously, they're not even capable of doing that.

They bitch-and-moan about the deficit, offering nothing in the way of solutions other than economy-crushing tax increases they know full-well cannot cover the $500 Billion operational deficit at the federal level. So they deplore even modest reductions in programs that either should be handled at the local level or not done at all, while whining about the deficit and proposing precisely nothing as an alternative.

Their hypocrisy knows know bounds.

Around these parts, you don’t have to say anything else and everyone you talk to immediately knows precisely what you’re talking about. “The Milton Academy Story” is a sordid, salacious tale of teens, sex, privilege, and the reputation of a 205-year old school that educates those who will likely grow-up to become Wall Street power-players, Congressmen, Governors, Prime Ministers (many of the school’s students come from abroad), the rich and powerful who live in gated communities most of us will only see if we drive through the upper-crust neighborhoods in places like Greenwich CT, Short Hills NJ and Brookline MA.

But for now, some of these children of privilege are in potentially really big trouble.

A little background – on February 19th, a Boston Globe piece by Donovan Slack broke the a story that started-out sounding like something from a pulp-fiction novel (or a bad porno movie)

Milton Academy expelled five students on the boys' hockey team yesterday for allegedly engaging in sex acts with a 15-year-old female student in a boys' locker room last month, according to a school spokeswoman.

(Note that it is not practical to directly link to the full text of any of these articles as they are likely to be in the paid archive section of boston.com before too long. I will attempt instead to appropriately credit the authors of the pieces. The story was also picked-up on the 19th and subsequently carried in the Boston Herald.)

Here’s what is known about what happened (with no lurid details) as detailed in a follow-up Donovan Slack piece on February 23rd, quoting from a letter sent to the parents of the pre-school’s students.

The head of Milton Academy sent a letter to parents yesterday, offering new details about what happened the night school officials say five varsity hockey players received oral sex from a 15-year-old sophomore girl in a school locker room, triggering a police investigation.

The episode lasted about 15 minutes, according to the letter, signed by Milton Academy's head of school, Robin Robertson. After dinner and before study hall on Jan. 24, the players, ages 16 to 18, headed to the private academy's athletic center, where they used a passcode to enter a boys' locker room reserved for team use during practices and games.

The girl joined them and subsequently fulfilled a request that she perform oral sex on the boys, one by one, in a shower area, the letter says. Toward the end, two male students who were not involved happened to walk into the shower area from an adjoining locker room. The first six students dispersed.

The school notified the police (the 15-year old is under the age of consent in Massachusetts, so technically speaking, a felony was committed – even if there is no allegation of sexual assault), expelled the 5 boys and placed the girl on "administrative leave" – making a concerted effort to let everyone know that the young lady is not being punished for her participation in this affair. The girl’s parents have stated that, at least as of yesterday, they had not decided whether or not they intend to press charges. At least one of the boys’ families has announced (as appeared in today’s Globe) that they have secured the services of a well-known criminal-defense attorney – something that at a minimum seems to me to be an obscenely prudent thing for them to do at this time.

How this got out is not known precisely, but it is not at all hard to figure out speculatively. The incident occurred on January 24th and was witnessed by at least two people who were not participants. It is therefore likely that the school was abuzz with the news of this (hopefully) unusual event by the next morning. There are also unsubstantiated, 3rd-hand accounts (mostly heard on talk radio) from young ladies who would audibly appear to be contemporaries of the young lady in question that she was bragging-on this even at parties in Newton (a nearby city, for those not familiar with the area) the following Saturday night. I don’t put too much stock in these accounts, but the bear noting as they are certainly part of the conversation around here.

At some point, it seems obvious that the faculty and/or administration of this secluded, closed campus would get wind of these allegations in short order. The administration conducted a 3-day investigation that resulted in the expulsion of the boys and discharging of the girl on February 18th. The school also notified the Milton Police Department - at which point it is inevitable that the story would be public, so the school put the story out there that afternoon (the source for the 2/19 Globe story). Within a couple of days, it was everywhere in the local media and a hot topic of conversation on and off talk-radio.

With that as the background, it’s time to get down to the issues of this affair. First, the criminal aspect: quoting from the February 24th Globe piece by Slack and Michael Levenson:

Under Massachusetts state law, an individual can be prosecuted for having sexual intercourse or "unnatural sexual intercourse" with someone under 16, even if the sex is consensual.

Sounds cut-and-dry, right? Things rarely are that way, however.

Continuing from the Levenson/Slack piece:

"Milton Academy cannot tolerate situations in which any individual, regardless of gender, is pressured, consciously or unconsciously, to perform sexual acts," head of the school Robin Robertson wrote in the letter.

Curiouser, and curiouser, as Alice might say. Does this not hold out the possibility that maybe at least one of the boys did not go along willingly? Also, as may not be clear from the original story as quoted above, there was apparently some time between the time when the boys secured entry into the locker-room with their passcode and the time at which the young lady joined them. How long? No one seems to know – but it seems obvious that the young lady had plenty of opportunity to bail-out of the situation if she chose to. Would this not tend to negate the possibility of coercion? But again, things are rarely that simple, and everyone's interests in this case - as will be obvious presently if they are not by now - are mutually exclusive.

The school … sa(id) the 5-to-1 ratio represented coercion, whether implicit or explicit.

Well, that would seem to be somewhat contradicted by the facts of the case as highlighted previously, right? But then, the school does need to be more than a little concerned about how this sort of thing could happen.

The state Department of Social Services, meanwhile, confirmed yesterday that it is investigating what happened and whether there was enough supervision of students. ''What we do is make sure there is nothing neglectful," said Denise Monteiro, spokeswoman for DSS.

If the school is found to have been neglectful, Monteiro said, DSS would notify other state agencies, such as the Department of Education and the Office of Child Care Services, which sets guidelines for child care.

Thus, it’s in the school’s interest to see to it that the boys are found responsible for this reprehensible behavior, and it seems to me the only way to do that is to demonstrate coercion in some manner or form. Finally,

Robertson's letter cites the student handbook, which specifies that students are expected to uphold the rights and well-being of others. ''Therefore, impinging on the well-being of others is an unacceptable breach of this value," the letter says.

I do not take issue with the expulsions, to be honest. The fact that standards have crumbled to the point that youngsters seem to think the can get busy on school busses on the way to school doesn’t mean that Milton Academy has to drag their standards down with society.

There are more than a few issues that arise from this incident that to my mind expose larger societal concerns:

• As there is no allegation of coercion, then why was the girl not suspended as well?
• If we're supposed to believe that women are capable of making their own decisions in this regard (I know, she's 15 in this case - and consent cannot legally be given at that age), then why is she not seemingly being held in any way responsible for her actions?
• Were age of consent laws truly meant to be applied when all of the parties involved are within 3-years in age of each other?
• Do you believe that all of the boys were willing accomplices? Or do you think one of more of them might have been pressured into it? (Can't you see that situation arising - "You don't want to? What are you, some sort of fag?”)
• How widespread do you think this sort of behavior among teens is? (BTW, if you think it's limited to high-brow prep-school campuses, you're delusional.)
• Milton Academy costs $32,725 for boarding students (the girl and four of the boys were boarders), $25,675 for day students. Do you think there are a few parents wondering what in Heaven’s name is going on at a school they’re shelling-out private college level tuition for?
• If a boy was caught in the girls' locker room, or even in the girls' dorm of the campus, even with an invitation, don't you think he would have been suspended immediately?
• How much pressure do you think there will be on this 15-year old girl (who, recall, is home on "administrative leave") to change her story? In other words, how long before you think an allegation of coercion is made?
• If the stories about the young lady bragging about the incident at parties the following weekend are indeed true (a mighty big if, to be sure) prior to the story breaking in the press, is that an indication that this behavior is not only common, but something kids today believe is something to be proud of?

I'll be frank; this sort of behavior makes my flesh crawl. It is disgusting. It is shameful to think that a "Lewinsky" is given out casually as party favors by 15-year olds - and my nausea is due only in part because I have a 10-year old daughter of my own. I'm not that old (39), and I'm certainly no prude - but I can say with total confidence that this sort of behavior was not at all common among High Schoolers in the early 80's - at least not in my neighborhood.

At a minimum, I suppose we could hope that something would be learned from this affair. However, I’m not convinced. With the way the young lady is being treated (and again, I only say this because no allegation of rape has been made – and seems unlikely to be credible given the circumstances) it seems to me that she, or any other young lady so inclined to participate in this sort of activity, is likely to learn very little in a positive sense from this case.

In fact, it appears that the only thing learned by a member of the "fairer sex" from this incident is that that she can behave like a slut and suffer precisely zero consequences for those actions - except perhaps some small embarrassment at being "outed" and having to face her parents - something I seriously doubt would bother anyone capable of debasing herself in this manner.

It would appear that “hooking-up”, as this sort of activity is evidently referred to, has become the new 2nd base - and is seemingly treated just as casually by today's teens and pre-teens.

How common is it? Well, in my (lilly-white, middle-to-upper-middle-class, suburban) home town, a SIXTH GRADE GIRL was suspended a month ago for the rest of the school year after being caught in flagrante delicto in a school stairwell, during school hours, participating in an identical behavior, with a SEVENTH GRADE BOY.

Because of the nature of that particular case, not a great deal is publicly known about the particulars – which has not however stopped anyone in town from talking about it. The prevailing "wisdom" among the chattering classes in town (virtually everyone - it's a very small, townie town) is that self-esteem issues may have been the root cause.

The girl in question (the 6th-grader) was unpopular, heavy-set (though apparently not "fat"), braces, not "trendy"-looking, etc. In other words, a perfectly normal 12-year old - in the eyes of most people. But in her own eyes, perhaps the ugly duckling that needed something extra to get with the "in crowd".

Tragically, it didn't work. Nearly as tragically, no one in town seems to see this as a failure of parenting – at every single level of this young girl’s now rather messed-up life.

The times they are a-changin' – and not for the better for our kids, I’m afraid.

Look, we can gripe about Our Past President in this regard all we want. The plain and simple fact is that, while his pathologies, and lack of candor regarding them, certainly have not helped stop the slide of what little was left of our moral fabric, this has been degrading for quite a while. We're seeing the logical end-result of the sexual revolution - girls can act as just piggish as boys, anything goes, debasement is just another rite of passage.

Joy.

[update: 20050225 20:38] It would appear that I have incorrectly credited the authors of the original Boston Globe story from February 19th. The authors of the original story were Globe correspondents Jennifer Nelson and Kaitlin Thaney with an assist from Maria Cramer, and the original story can be found, for the time being at least, here.

The Boston Globe, and other leftist mouthpieces (subscription req'd), are all aghast that Mitt Romney has "flip-flopped" (their words) on social issues like homosexual "marriage" civil unions, and abortion.

So, the same people who had no problems with a failed-Democrat Presidential nominee supporting, not less than 5 distinct positions on the War in Iraq, and for whom a Google Search of "Kerry" and "flip-flop" reveals an excess of 321,000 hits, have a problem with the Republican Governor of the Bluest of the Blue states in the Union, nuancing the way he states long-held positions in these issues when he's in front of a more, shall I say, Red crowd.

OK, so long as I have this straight.

A Deborah Orin column in today's New York Post argues that the Democrats are becoming increasingly irrelevant to political discourse in the United States. I would tend to agree, but do not believe the situation to be terminal.

That said, I feel that it's pretty easy to lapse into irrelevancy when you don't know what your core beliefs are, or what you even stand for, other than being "against".

The party that had no problem meddling in the affairs of any number of countries during 1993-2000 (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Sudan - most of them half-assed bomb-hurling exercises) suddenly returns to their Vietnam-induced pacifist fever-swamps post-9/11 because a cowboy who doesn't take kindly to terrorism decides to get all ninth-century on Jihadistan.

So, which are they? Are they the interventionist, "democracy"-spreaders of the previous decade, or the "peace"-at-all-costs, pacifist, isolationists of today?

Merely 8-years ago, Social Security was a "crisis" that needed to be "fixed" (I can still hear the chants of "SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY FIRST!!!!" ringing in my ears). Today, everything is swell, and no changes whatever are required to this Depression-era behemoth. Again, which is it?

Zell Miller's quirky personality aside, his point that the Democrat Party is no-longer a national party is spot-on. The modern Democrat Party is little more than a cotillion of competing interest groups (radical feminists, homosexuals, ethnic pressure groups, urban liberals, academics, career unionists, dirt-poor recent - or illegal - immigrants), with very little in common with each other aside from their common distrust (hatred, loathing of) Republicans in general and Dubya in particular.

Now they have the personification of that hatred, Dr. Howard "I-hate-Republicans-and-everything-they-stand-for" Dean as their lead-spokesman for the next four years. YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGHH!!!!!

I suppose we'll see how successful being the anti-party is for them over the next few years. It's been going swimmingly to date - for our side, that is.

Cross posted at Random Thoughts.

Greetings!

Here at the hub of politics, we will present to you the perspectives of some red americans living in the deep blue precincts of Massachusetts and our neighboring New England states.

In addition, we expect to comment on the goings-on in some of our localities - which can be just as interesting as the (mis)adventures at the Commonwealth level.

We expect that our national, state and local politicians will provide us with more than enough material to comment on, and we hope to provide insights and a point of view that you won't hear very often in the MSM (mainstream media - for those of you who don't speak "blog").

So saddle up, Pilgrims. It's gonna be a bumpy ride!