Every day seems to be Fight Club Day at my old alma mater, Greater Johnstown High School, a notable development in itself.
But it all rises to another, Marie Antoinette level when, on the very same day that two students were taken away by police for allegedly possessing a knife, and videos streamed across social media of a substantial brawl at good, old GJHS, the official school district Facebook page posted a picture of an office celebration.
The district superintendent finally had obtained her doctorate and people posed around a cake to celebrate the occasion.
There was no knife evident in the posted photo with which to cut the cake. I guess they could borrow one from a student.
This school district has many social media trolls; often correct in their criticism. One notably claimed to have emailed the superintendent some of the fight videos, requesting she take a break from eating cake to act to quell the violence in her schools.
If social media posts are to be believed, the large brawls happen more days than not at this high school. This particular melee couldn’t be swept under the rug because of police involvement and both the local television station newspaper decided to report on it.
Perhaps there will be follow-up reports in coming days, with the superintendent either explaining these are isolated incidents and it’s all been blown out of proportion, or that steps are being taken that make the administration confident the problem soon will be under control.
Either way, I wouldn’t bet on it.
The situation at Johnstown High School is a microcosm of how far this nation has fallen in the past few decades.
Greater Johnstown High School wasn’t out of control when I attended way back when, but that wasn’t due to having a student body full of choir boys and sweet, innocent girls.
I once got into a fight in gym class – a dispute that broke out in a free-for-all activity known as four-court volleyball. Not that much further down the line, my fight partner was killed by the police while trying to escape in a river channel after having robbed a nearby auto dealer.
My brother and I had friends who were both fellow students and, eventually, murderers. We knew and mixed with dealers in stolen merchandise and/or illegal drugs.
We were familiar with many thieves, liars and general miscreants that we lumped into the category of “neighborhood hoods.” Most of them attended school with us.
Yet fights at the school were rare. I can’t recall witnessing a single massive brawl.
It was simple how order was kept. Administration demanded and received respect and obedience to the rules. If the rules were violated, often physical pain was inflicted on the offending student.
Those who could not, or would not get the message, found themselves receiving instruction elsewhere, perhaps in rooms complete with barred entrances and windows.
Such harsh measures worked. That’s why the progressive morons who have taken over our public schools have stripped away means with which out-of-control students can be reined into compliance.
It serves the purposes of liberals, progressives, socialists, anti-Americans, whatever you want to label them, to neuter the public schools and thereby produce an increasingly stupid, unproductive populace dependent on the leftists in government to provide them handouts.
In turn, this underclass is a reliable voting base. Mix in confused, otherwise intelligent people who buy into the liberal cult while attending college, and you have a recipe for election victories.
If that fails, manipulate the count.
Soon, the left won’t even have to cheat to win elections, their voter ranks having been swelled with each successive graduation class populated by functional illiterates.
Until you cure this leftist cancer that has invaded our government and public-sector groups at all levels, from the Oval Office to the local school board meeting room, there is no way to deal with our declining educational system and downward spiraling society overall.
Sam Ross Jr's site 