Loud Voices

If conservatives have a biggest weakness it is the lack of ability to express their ideas in interesting, ecstatic, easily understood fashion. Maybe conservatives do not care about their cause as much as Liberals. Maybe they are afraid to offend someone. This isn't just about politics either.

I had no intention of writing a blog entry this evening but as I was checking up on my fantasy football team I noticed a column that was written by Chris Mortensen of ESPN that the NFL players union president had either written a letter or personally spoken to the NFL commissioner about not allowing Rush Limbaugh to become an owner in the NFL. This enraged me but not in the obvious way. It reminded me of so much more. If a liberal radio host who has said 10 times as many controversial things that were 10 times as controversial, would a conservative speak up and express their dislike of the idea of that person becoming an owner. Sure I would not speak up on this issue because it does not matter what the owner's politics are. But it still brings up a good point. I do not know if the protest will carry any weight in the decision process. But it definitely could. And if the bids are equal and there was a toss up it might pressure the Rams into being sold to a different buyer.

I was not rehired at my job last year. I loved my job and the people I worked with. They did not have to give me a reason for not rehiring me. It has been a really tough 5 1/2 months for me. I had the fewest number of kids and lowest percentage of kids fail the End of Course standardized test that high school history students in Tennessee take. I believe I had the most students who had Special Individual programs as well meaning I had some tough classes to teach. This is something I take pride in because I considered the Social Studies department at my school to have been a really good department with mostly really good teachers. Our basketball team doubled our wins that year despite losing the best player on the team from the previous year. I had high ranking people in the school that supported me including my mentors and in essence the leaders in my department and athletic department. My head coaches supported me too. Yet I was not retained to teach or coach. Most believe there were some complaints from parents. There were alot of parents that supported me. I found that out later. Some spoke up after news got out that I was not going to be brought back. But from what I have been told the other parents had been louder longer. No doubt I made mistakes everyone does. but I deserved to have been rehired. I was usually the first to get to school and in many cases one of the last to leave because I was a coach in basketball and baseball. I am not angry with the school and am happy coaching at another school today. But if those wonderful supporting parents called to express support all year this would never happen to many teachers in our country. Think about it though, how often do you call or write a letter to someone about a great job being done in any aspect of life? How often to you speak up when something is done that you hate? The loudest voices in many of our churches are keeping progress from happening. There are people I know that want some changes at local organizations in which many people are upset and for good reason but they refuse to speak up and they say it is because "it won't help."

Unfortunately good parents and decent people rarely speak up being afraid of offending someone or not believing it will change anything. How much more would get done in this world if the right people spoke up. Recently it has worked on Healthcare. Maybe we should learn from that and speak up with loud voices.