A bunch of stuff here. The US is apparently disengaging from Africa and Canada and pursuing AI for diplomacy…
Should be an exciting 2025/26 as America ramps up for its 250th birthday and Trump rewrites the history books.
The National Garden of American Heroes sounds like a must-see destination.
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Extending sewer service to poor black communities is woke DEI.
In November 2021, the Biden administration opened an investigation into whether the Lowndes County Health Department and the Alabama Department of Public Health were violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Black residents in the provision of sanitation access. Around a year and a half later, the Justice Department secured a landmark settlement that put Lowndes County on a path to provide Black residents with basic sanitation services that more affluent white communities have long received. “Today starts a new chapter for Black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama, who have endured health dangers, indignities and racial injustice for far too long,” said Kristen Clarke, who was, at that time, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced that, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” it was terminating the settlement immediately. “The DOJ will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, Clarke’s successor in the Civil Rights Division. “Americans deserve a government committed to serving every individual with dignity and respect, and to expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria.”
If only the 2nd amendment was protecting the right to bare chest instead of bear arms…
“I’d like to pry those with my warm, alive hands.”
Happy Earth Day!
What legitimate reason is there for removing discussion of consent from sex ed?
https://www.axios.com/local/indianapolis/2025/04/22/consent-requirement-indiana-sex-ed-bill
It makes the pool of future partners smaller for creepy old state legislators?
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More seriously… I can’t tell whether the following is the case from the news article, and I’m not interested enough to go digging to see if debate/discussion transcripts are available, but I can imagine a line of discussion that boils down to “we’re going to let local boards set the curriculum, period”, as opposed to “we’re going to let local boards set the curriculum, except that consent has to be taught”.
That sort of thinking does resonate with my inner libertarian, even while the rest of me speculates on the badness that would be involved in anything crafted by a conservative Republican legislature.
At least they aren’t mandating an abstinence-only curriculum…I hope.
This path of complete local Libertarian control seems problematic. Math and science should be replaced by Bible and White Supremacy indoctrination if a local district decides that’s best for their community? Let them all compete in the marketplace of ideas?
Some minimum criteria for schools seem appropriate. Reading, writing, 'rithmetic is good for me even if the locals think that’s stupid. Science is good too. I don’t mind if consent is part of that, as it’s part of being a decent human.
I agree.
The article mentioned that the legislative debate was focusing on delegating questions on the instruction of sex ed to local boards.
Within that context, there’s at least logical consistency of not making that delegation contingent on teaching about consent.
But on the broader libertarian aspect… I’ve resigned myself to the fact that a libertarian utopia would has certain prerequisites that probably cannot realistically be met in reality – people making rational decisions, generally being decent, etc.
Put more bluntly: libertarianism fails in reality because people suck.
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Public Schools are usually off the dole for libertarians.
“Consent, eh.”
“But you MUST show how alive a fetus is so more pregnant kids will decide not to have abortions.”
At least they aren’t mandating an abstinence-only curriculum…I hope.
No, but they are mandating …
The bill would not let locals decide whether they wanted to show a “high-definition ultrasound video — at least three minutes in duration — showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs and other vital organs in early fetal development.” It would make that a required part of sex ed, if schools chose to teach it.
- It also would mandate that schools show students a rendering or animation of the process of fertilization and each stage of fetal development.
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So much for logical consistency.
Where is this?
Noap. Central control of curriculum bad means central control of curriculum bad. The whole point of believing this is that if central control is bad, you don’t get to pick and choose which things are less bad to centrally control.
Ideally, school boards and parents should be partners (along with teachers and admins and even the students themselves up to a point) in education rather than adversaries. As long as things are age-appropriate and viewpoint-neutral, allowing the things is usually going to be better than banning the things.
This little exchange started with this article about Indiana.
https://www.axios.com/local/indianapolis/2025/04/22/consent-requirement-indiana-sex-ed-bill
My quote is from the article.
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oof consent could also be cross-listed as an SEL skill though (Social Emotional Learning for those who don’t iykyk) so there’s really no reason not to teach it in some form … 
you can’t, always get, what you waaaant
That’s actually a good point, as consent extends to so many more things than just sex.
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That’s why I wrote this before your post:
“But you MUST show how alive a fetus is so more pregnant kids will decide not to have abortions.”