There Is Nothing Worse Than Being Led By Followers

This week catches us vacillating between writing about abortion, or reverting to the school board issues that affect every citizen of Florence County. My conclusion is to attempt to write about them both.

First, let's get into the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court. They essentially made a decision that goes against the will of the American people. The decision appears not so much to decide if abortions are legal or not, it goes more towards the decisions made, and if women can get an abortion or not.

Personally, we believe abortions are a decision best left for the individual to make. On the one hand, we could say abortions are wrong, but on the other hand, one must consider the many reasons women are driven to seek an abortion. There is the situation where the mother's life is at risk, or where the baby has serious physical complications. The list goes on and on. With that amount of uncertainty involved, it begs to challenge if any court can be the obiter of whether or not an abortion should be granted.

For a long time conservatives have been praying for this change to come, but we are reminded of Jesus when asked about a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. Instead of giving them a yes or no answer, He injected the sinful condition of them all when He asked if anyone present was free from sin. Even with this ruling, it will not stop women from having abortions. It will, though, in all likelihood, lead to an uptick in illegal abortions with undesirable outcomes. What this and many other issues suggest is that a conundrum has been added to America's ability to decide other important issues. It also lends itself to the fulfilling of the end-time prophecy which indicates that division will exist between mother and daughter, father and son.

In other words, things are going to get worse rather than better. As well, we can't miss the opportunity to highlight this would not be the case had Mitch McConnell not done what he did to change the president's selection process in fulfilling his responsibility to appoint a judge to the court. McConnell kept President Obama from naming a justice, which changed the balance on the court. That in and of itself can be considered an act that changed the course of history. Now we will see if the democrats have the courage to do what is necessary, to counter what conservatives have been so bold and unapologetic in doing. What this court has to keep in mind is that they are in a unique position to be the arbiters of whether people continue to have respect for law and order and the court.

Not wanting to temper my commentary, I shall allude to the school board by the name we have chosen to refer to them as, the Conservative Gang, led by Townsend and Caulder. They both were mysteriously reappointed by the local delegation without any justification for doing so. It just goes to show the local delegation had no regard for fairness when they erroneously stepped into a matter the education department should have done. Even after getting involved, they did things haphazardly, rushing through the process and making up procedures as they went along. What they accomplished was to demonstrate to the public how ruthless they can be. They did in five days, which should have taken a much longer time if they had followed normal protocol and procedure. We are still left believing some collusion took place, because there had to be some aid provided by the board and administration in order for them to get the necessary information.

Maybe someone can help me understand how they came up with a means of just drawing a duly elected school official out of his position before his term was over? How did they miraculously come to the conclusion to appoint all the White board members to their old positions? Maybe someone can help me see how a mostly Black group of legislatures could go along with such a plan we know they did not come up with. It goes to show what happens when you put a bunch of followers in the position of leaders. You get people voting on things that don't make sense. We still believe there needs to be a coming together of the people to force the delegation to explain the hows and why they took such action. If they can't provide sufficient answers then there should be a cost for them to pay at election time. To us it seems to be reasonable that guys like Alexander would be called to explain the hows and why things were done the way they were, especially since he serves on the education committee.

As we have seen actions have far-reaching consequences for many people. This transition places them in dire hardships while others have still not received satisfactory answers or explanations. The truth is in the end we all will have to pay for the knee-jerk actions in-acted. Unlike what is thought to be acceptable by Townsend and Caulder, the people should have some say in how the district operates.

Our recommendation for you this week is not to keep silent on matters that essentially change the way education is offered. Keep in mind silence is often seen as consent. It would make sense for you to start paying more attention to what your school board and local delegation are doing. The school board and local delegation are trying to keep it moving, but we say, if something illegal has happened, maybe we should slow our roll and find out what, why, and how things happened.

WAKE UP!

Would the leader of the Florence delegation please speak up? Maybe it's time the real leaders of the Florence One School Board take credit for what you are doing.

Sincerely Yours,

There Is Nothing Worse Than Being Led by Followers.

Elder, James W. Williams

Chairperson, Advocacy Organization, Lifelineplus