Times change, Bossier illegal behavior doesn't

A whole generation goes by, and nothing changes for Bossier Parish apparently playing fast and loose with the law when it comes to squeezing money from the citizenry.

The Bossier Watch transmission of Apr. 16 contained a couple of minutes of commentary and video of a sign reading “VOTE SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024 BOSSIER PARISH LIBRARIES” planted near a roadway. The hosts recounted they had seen some around, although the exact location of this one was unknown. On that date is the spring municipal runoff elections in Louisiana, where a 7.43 mils property tax renewal to fund Bossier Parish libraries reengaging in 2026 for 10 years is the one item that will appear on ballots parish-wide.

What follows is a reprint of a post I made at my Louisiana-centric blog site, Between the Lines, on Dec. 30, 2010 that reviewed events of four years previous. (Keep in mind nearly 18 years ago that the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway stopped at the southern end of the now-Brookshire Grocery Arena). It’s amazing how little things (and people involved) change:

Bill to deny foundational CRT prevents hatred

If nothing else, SB 262 by Republican state Sen. Valarie Hodges would inhibit in Louisiana racial division and hatred.

The bill, currently passed out of the Senate into the House of Representatives, would add to the state’s Parental Bill of Rights that schools “shall not discriminate against their child by teaching the child that the child is currently or destined to be oppressed or to be an oppressor based on the child's race or national origin.” This addresses the use of critical race theory, or the idea that racism is pervasive in all societal institutions shaped historically by, if not currently dominated by, people of Caucasian ancestry, as the foundational tool by which to shape instruction.

Similar to Marxism, CRT bases itself on a series of unfalsifiable, if not empirically unverifiable or logically suspect, propositions that if questioned automatically connotes racist actions (or, if the analyzer is non-white, axiomatic of a false consciousness), making the whole enterprise intellectually lazy and devoid of true scholarship. It increasingly has become a tool by those ideologically compatible with its policy aims – strong government action to level differences in outcomes of resource allocations – for instruction from the academy on down.

Unrepentant left still opposing children's needs

Don’t expect apologies from Louisiana’s leftist institutions and activists having now been caught out on supporting the erroneous “gender affirmation” model of addressing difficulties faced by a small number of youths, which state policy-makers continue to address.

The tiny proportion of youths who express “gender dysphoria,” or a feeling their mental maps of themselves are incongruent with their physical sex, has multiplied in numbers over the past decade. Until then, from the last part of the 20^th century medical professionals addressed this through watchful waiting as children, perhaps with psychological therapy, sorted out their feelings. Data indicated that feelings of this dysphoria were highly related to, if not a reflection of, other psychological maladies and that most children by their adult years shed the condition.

But in the early 21^st century the competing “gender affirmation” model developed in the U.S. and was exported globally. Over time the approach became more radicalized, dictating that even the youngest children who appeared to see themselves associated with typical conceptions of one physical sex while the other, whether consciously picking up on any cues to do that from adults called in to evaluate them, had to be catered to with social and even physical interventions to physically alter them to the sex with which they identified at that particular point in time.

Protest restriction bill enhances expression

Don’t be misled by the usual suspects’ disingenuous blather about “free speech.” HB 737 by Republican state Rep. Kellee Dickerson doesn’t inhibit that; rather, it promotes free expression.

The bill would prohibit picketing near a person’s residence which interferes with, disrupts, threatens to disrupt, or harasses the individual's right to control, use, or enjoy his residence, and has passed the Louisiana House of Representatives. Leftist critics have bemoaned its progress, calling its potential application overbroad by not allowing protesting on the street or right-of-way and potentially an unconstitutional restriction on free speech and assembly.

As to constitutionality, that’s a moot point, because Louisiana already has on its books a very similar law. R.S. 14:401, the law for decades, prohibits demonstrations near residences of judges, jurors, trial witnesses, or court officers, and it’s never faced a challenge. Legally, the judiciary recognizes that people engaged in official business of the state have a right when not performing official business not to have their lives disrupted at a nonpublic place.