Daniel, Absolutely love that you think and write and share your experiences and ideas. Belief in the goodness of God and believing in His goodwill makes all the difference. Keep it up! I am so proud of you! You are what America is all about!
Bookmarking this to reference when people ask me when did Daniel first demonstrate his potential to you that he would be a future President of the United States?
This kid is obviously full of rational thought and guts! On a related note, if you want to read an article on "How to teach your kid NOT to be a racist," go to this link:
Dearest Daniel: You give me hope! But you had the one thing so many kids lack today, and not just in the black community - 2 involved, admirable parents. You are a lucky young man and I wish you the best in life!
Thank you, Bari, for the articulate and rational voices you are sending out for those of us that haven’t seen light for sometime. Just the title of your blog “Common Sense”, says that not all the world is upside down. I encourage all open- thought persons pay close attention to these courageous, thoughtful people who are willing to stand up to “wokeness” and bring back old- fashion willingness to thought provoking debates that lift us to work together for the good of all.
Young adults like Daniel give me hope for our future. In a sea of negative and crisis driven news which dominates the field of journalism, it is refreshing to read the POV of someone with common sense and the courage to speak his truth. Well done Mr. Idfresne 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Brilliant! Daniel - may you always speak your mind and your truth. I commend your parents for providing such strong constitution and raising you to be such a fine young man. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open for what you have to say next.
I can only imagine the keeness of mind and determination required to repel this abhorrent groupthink at the tender age of 17, and to even disocver thinkers like Sowell and Peterson in the maelstrom of disinformation and smear jobs online.
Does anyone know how to get a message to Bari Weiss? I would like her to investigate homelessness as a result of drug abuse. I don't believe it is essentially a housing affordability problem. Also, has anyone seen any statistics on COVID amongst the homeless population? I am an avid reader and haven't seen anything.
Where to begin? Yes, Virginia, there is a future worth reaching for.
My first job teaching English ("Language Arts") in the NYC high schools was at Thomas Jefferson, (in Bedford Stuyvesant) in 1974. I had attended that school 20 years earlier, and my father had attended it about 25 years earlier than I. Even in 1974, one of my colleagues told me that Jefferson had among its alumni more PHDs than any other high school in the nation. When I left Brooklyn at 14, NYC had one of the best school systems in this nation.
In 1974, the student body was more than 90% minority and on welfare, and reading at 5th grade level. I was a Democrat, but not exactly youthful and naive at 34 with a husband and 4 children. But having been a founding mother of the Brooklyn College Day Care Center and a pragmatic campus activist, I was idealistic enough to believe that the Democrat party meant the same thing I did when they said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." I was shocked to learn that they didn't. I interpreted it to mean that young minds need to be cultivated and nurtured, and taught not WHAT to think, but HOW to think. What THEY apparently meant was the same thing Rahm Emanuel meant when he said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." In fact, to make the most of a crisis, it's even more profitable if you can create the crisis so you can adjust and control it. Here's how I learned that: I never accepted the myth that all those Bed-Stuy kids were some how not capable of learning at the same rate as everyone else; there had to be a logical explanation. In the ten years that I taught there, I learned that many of my pupils were trapped in a vicious cycle of several generations of the same stifling pattern. As soon as a young girl was capable of reproducing, she qualified for a welfare check when she became pregnant. By the time they were 12 or 13, many of them were already pregnant; at least one of my students had 4 children by the time she was 18. Unless I'm mistaken, 12 years old is too young to legally marry. These young girls were the daughters of very young grandmothers, often tasked with caring for their grandchildren while their daughters attended school. Some of those babies were born with drug addiction--they were dubbed "crack babies." I had already been vaguely aware of the plight of so many of these young girls who lacked the knowledge and power to make better choices. The boys never had to marry the adolescent mothers of their children, so generation after generation came into the world bereft of the presence of a father. What I didn't learn until I'd been teaching there for a few years was that our generous public-spirited government did not require our pupils to actually attempt to learn anything. Once a month, they could simply walk into the assistant principal's office and demand a "face-to-face" letter--an official document that certified that they were enrolled in the school. They were not even required to set foot in a classroom, let alone show a report card.
I long ago came to the conclusion that the only plank in the Democrat party platform is to expand the Democrats' voter base. For all their "wokeness," virtue-signaling and hypocrisy, the Democrats have not only resisted calls for welfare reform for at least 50 years, but have cynically promoted the morally bankrupt philosophy of total government dependence as the height of benevolent human kindness. (And anyone who dares to disagree is a racist!) I believe Obama called it "wealth redistribution"...
Daniel is exactly the kind of student I would have loved having in my class; his story is inspirational. As an atheist, I don't share Daniel's religious convictions, but I was heartened to read his assertion that we don't have to have religious convictions to recognize the basic morality of choosing the path of enlightenment. I don't have his exact words in front of me, but I think that's essentially a point he made toward the end of his well-written essay. I suspect he'll go far; he's already wise beyond his years.
Argh... Had INTENDED to quote M. Daniel at the end: "...you do not need to believe in God to see that goodwill is a force for positive change. Believing in that is the ultimate immunization against nihilism."
I use “M.” like the French do, for Monsieur but ALSO for Mesdames and Mademoiselle EQUALLY. ALL CAPS are ITALICS. :)
I very sorry, M. Schwartz, to hear about Your disillusionment with the Democratic party. My own has come when I'm a lot older than You were, and from reading the experiences and the wisdom of others. It wasn't THRUST on me PERSONALLY, the way Yours was.
I was, as I mentioned, reading "The Vision of the Anointed" by M. Sowell. He points out three cases where the results where the exact opposite of what the original intentions had been. Or what the CLAIMED intentions were, the original JUSTIFICATION for the laws. One he highlighted was Federally sponsored sex education in '68. The supposed intention was to decrease venereal disease and teenage pregnancies. This despite the FACT that fertility rates among teenagers and venereal disease had been DECLINING for a decade since '57.
In '78, Sargent Shriver testified: "Just as venereal disease has skyrocketed 350% in the last 15 years when we have had more clinics, more pills, and more sex education than ever in history, teen-age pregnancy has risen." M. Sowell says that abortions outnumbered live births, the year You started teaching at Thomas Jefferson, M. Schwartz. Hard-ta imagine.
Congressional report noted that plan was to reduce teenage pregnancy, "while the primary goal of most sex educators appears to be encouragement of healthy attitudes about sex and sexuality." Report ignored.
M. Sowell: "the real goal was to change students' ATTITUDES -- put bluntly, to brainwash them with the vision of the anointed, in order to supplant the values they had been taught at home."
Then he talks about sexually explicit videos shown to 13 and 14 year-olds. Teachers told "Many of the materials of this program shown to people outside the context of the program itself can evoke MISUNDERSTANDING and DIFFICULTIES." (emphasis mine)
Somehow parents got wind and complained. These Episcopalians from Connecticut "were labeled 'fundamentalists' and 'right-wing extremists'". Vision of the anointed preempts decisions of parents. Again, book written in '95.
"A typical comment from 'experts' is that 'sex and sexuality have become far too complex and technical to leave to the typical parent...'" And "is completely consistent with the vision [of the anointed], however inconsistent it is with decades of empirical evidence on the actual consequences of 'healthy attitudes towards sex' as promoted by 'experts'."
Maybe a little off the points made above, but now? Critical Race Theory too complex and technical for the typical parent.
Long-winded Way of saying, TY (thank You) M. Schwartz for Your views, prolly because I've come around to Your way of thinking a LOT lately. Or maybe it's a case of them just making too much sense to ignore. Just a different view of sex education, is all.
I'm pretty sure this young man won't be retweeting: "Death to america", as the student body president did at the University of Kansas. Then she blamed the blowback on trying to shutdown people of color -- claiming her retweet of “death to america” was “unintentional,” but that “I still stand by my retweet regardless.”
Was it really an issue for her? She later tweeted, "Please know that it is death to an America that was built on Indigenous genocide and the backs of Black slaves. If you’re worried about people in the service of the military, be mad at your government because my words shouldn’t make you this mad."
So what is her defense really based on? "She said among the reasons she wasn’t surprised by the backlash was because of this country’s history of condemning Black people and other people of color for speaking out." Because, of course, she is black. And by using the race card, she believes she is immune from criticism.
This is woke in a nutshell.
Good for Daniel Idfresne, his immunity to this madness will serve him well. He probably won't share my party affiliation once he's eligible to vote, as I'm a liberal. We differ, but I still appreciate his perspective and his voice. And I'll say this: woke isn't liberal, woke is madness.
Daniel, Absolutely love that you think and write and share your experiences and ideas. Belief in the goodness of God and believing in His goodwill makes all the difference. Keep it up! I am so proud of you! You are what America is all about!
So good. What hope.
Bookmarking this to reference when people ask me when did Daniel first demonstrate his potential to you that he would be a future President of the United States?
Late to this, obviously, but that is one impressively-written essay by an amazing young man! Wow.
This kid is obviously full of rational thought and guts! On a related note, if you want to read an article on "How to teach your kid NOT to be a racist," go to this link:
https://themadmommy.substack.com/p/how-to-teach-your-kid-not-to-be-a?r=b7p1n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy
Dearest Daniel: You give me hope! But you had the one thing so many kids lack today, and not just in the black community - 2 involved, admirable parents. You are a lucky young man and I wish you the best in life!
Thank you, Bari, for the articulate and rational voices you are sending out for those of us that haven’t seen light for sometime. Just the title of your blog “Common Sense”, says that not all the world is upside down. I encourage all open- thought persons pay close attention to these courageous, thoughtful people who are willing to stand up to “wokeness” and bring back old- fashion willingness to thought provoking debates that lift us to work together for the good of all.
awesome!
President Idfresne, I knew him when...
What an inspirational young man.
Young adults like Daniel give me hope for our future. In a sea of negative and crisis driven news which dominates the field of journalism, it is refreshing to read the POV of someone with common sense and the courage to speak his truth. Well done Mr. Idfresne 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Brilliant! Daniel - may you always speak your mind and your truth. I commend your parents for providing such strong constitution and raising you to be such a fine young man. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open for what you have to say next.
I can only imagine the keeness of mind and determination required to repel this abhorrent groupthink at the tender age of 17, and to even disocver thinkers like Sowell and Peterson in the maelstrom of disinformation and smear jobs online.
What an exceptional young man.
Go with God, young man.
Does anyone know how to get a message to Bari Weiss? I would like her to investigate homelessness as a result of drug abuse. I don't believe it is essentially a housing affordability problem. Also, has anyone seen any statistics on COVID amongst the homeless population? I am an avid reader and haven't seen anything.
Where to begin? Yes, Virginia, there is a future worth reaching for.
My first job teaching English ("Language Arts") in the NYC high schools was at Thomas Jefferson, (in Bedford Stuyvesant) in 1974. I had attended that school 20 years earlier, and my father had attended it about 25 years earlier than I. Even in 1974, one of my colleagues told me that Jefferson had among its alumni more PHDs than any other high school in the nation. When I left Brooklyn at 14, NYC had one of the best school systems in this nation.
In 1974, the student body was more than 90% minority and on welfare, and reading at 5th grade level. I was a Democrat, but not exactly youthful and naive at 34 with a husband and 4 children. But having been a founding mother of the Brooklyn College Day Care Center and a pragmatic campus activist, I was idealistic enough to believe that the Democrat party meant the same thing I did when they said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." I was shocked to learn that they didn't. I interpreted it to mean that young minds need to be cultivated and nurtured, and taught not WHAT to think, but HOW to think. What THEY apparently meant was the same thing Rahm Emanuel meant when he said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." In fact, to make the most of a crisis, it's even more profitable if you can create the crisis so you can adjust and control it. Here's how I learned that: I never accepted the myth that all those Bed-Stuy kids were some how not capable of learning at the same rate as everyone else; there had to be a logical explanation. In the ten years that I taught there, I learned that many of my pupils were trapped in a vicious cycle of several generations of the same stifling pattern. As soon as a young girl was capable of reproducing, she qualified for a welfare check when she became pregnant. By the time they were 12 or 13, many of them were already pregnant; at least one of my students had 4 children by the time she was 18. Unless I'm mistaken, 12 years old is too young to legally marry. These young girls were the daughters of very young grandmothers, often tasked with caring for their grandchildren while their daughters attended school. Some of those babies were born with drug addiction--they were dubbed "crack babies." I had already been vaguely aware of the plight of so many of these young girls who lacked the knowledge and power to make better choices. The boys never had to marry the adolescent mothers of their children, so generation after generation came into the world bereft of the presence of a father. What I didn't learn until I'd been teaching there for a few years was that our generous public-spirited government did not require our pupils to actually attempt to learn anything. Once a month, they could simply walk into the assistant principal's office and demand a "face-to-face" letter--an official document that certified that they were enrolled in the school. They were not even required to set foot in a classroom, let alone show a report card.
I long ago came to the conclusion that the only plank in the Democrat party platform is to expand the Democrats' voter base. For all their "wokeness," virtue-signaling and hypocrisy, the Democrats have not only resisted calls for welfare reform for at least 50 years, but have cynically promoted the morally bankrupt philosophy of total government dependence as the height of benevolent human kindness. (And anyone who dares to disagree is a racist!) I believe Obama called it "wealth redistribution"...
Daniel is exactly the kind of student I would have loved having in my class; his story is inspirational. As an atheist, I don't share Daniel's religious convictions, but I was heartened to read his assertion that we don't have to have religious convictions to recognize the basic morality of choosing the path of enlightenment. I don't have his exact words in front of me, but I think that's essentially a point he made toward the end of his well-written essay. I suspect he'll go far; he's already wise beyond his years.
Argh... Had INTENDED to quote M. Daniel at the end: "...you do not need to believe in God to see that goodwill is a force for positive change. Believing in that is the ultimate immunization against nihilism."
I use “M.” like the French do, for Monsieur but ALSO for Mesdames and Mademoiselle EQUALLY. ALL CAPS are ITALICS. :)
I very sorry, M. Schwartz, to hear about Your disillusionment with the Democratic party. My own has come when I'm a lot older than You were, and from reading the experiences and the wisdom of others. It wasn't THRUST on me PERSONALLY, the way Yours was.
I was, as I mentioned, reading "The Vision of the Anointed" by M. Sowell. He points out three cases where the results where the exact opposite of what the original intentions had been. Or what the CLAIMED intentions were, the original JUSTIFICATION for the laws. One he highlighted was Federally sponsored sex education in '68. The supposed intention was to decrease venereal disease and teenage pregnancies. This despite the FACT that fertility rates among teenagers and venereal disease had been DECLINING for a decade since '57.
In '78, Sargent Shriver testified: "Just as venereal disease has skyrocketed 350% in the last 15 years when we have had more clinics, more pills, and more sex education than ever in history, teen-age pregnancy has risen." M. Sowell says that abortions outnumbered live births, the year You started teaching at Thomas Jefferson, M. Schwartz. Hard-ta imagine.
Congressional report noted that plan was to reduce teenage pregnancy, "while the primary goal of most sex educators appears to be encouragement of healthy attitudes about sex and sexuality." Report ignored.
M. Sowell: "the real goal was to change students' ATTITUDES -- put bluntly, to brainwash them with the vision of the anointed, in order to supplant the values they had been taught at home."
Then he talks about sexually explicit videos shown to 13 and 14 year-olds. Teachers told "Many of the materials of this program shown to people outside the context of the program itself can evoke MISUNDERSTANDING and DIFFICULTIES." (emphasis mine)
Somehow parents got wind and complained. These Episcopalians from Connecticut "were labeled 'fundamentalists' and 'right-wing extremists'". Vision of the anointed preempts decisions of parents. Again, book written in '95.
"A typical comment from 'experts' is that 'sex and sexuality have become far too complex and technical to leave to the typical parent...'" And "is completely consistent with the vision [of the anointed], however inconsistent it is with decades of empirical evidence on the actual consequences of 'healthy attitudes towards sex' as promoted by 'experts'."
Maybe a little off the points made above, but now? Critical Race Theory too complex and technical for the typical parent.
Long-winded Way of saying, TY (thank You) M. Schwartz for Your views, prolly because I've come around to Your way of thinking a LOT lately. Or maybe it's a case of them just making too much sense to ignore. Just a different view of sex education, is all.
TYTY, and hope all is well with You. :)
I'm pretty sure this young man won't be retweeting: "Death to america", as the student body president did at the University of Kansas. Then she blamed the blowback on trying to shutdown people of color -- claiming her retweet of “death to america” was “unintentional,” but that “I still stand by my retweet regardless.”
Was it really an issue for her? She later tweeted, "Please know that it is death to an America that was built on Indigenous genocide and the backs of Black slaves. If you’re worried about people in the service of the military, be mad at your government because my words shouldn’t make you this mad."
So what is her defense really based on? "She said among the reasons she wasn’t surprised by the backlash was because of this country’s history of condemning Black people and other people of color for speaking out." Because, of course, she is black. And by using the race card, she believes she is immune from criticism.
This is woke in a nutshell.
Good for Daniel Idfresne, his immunity to this madness will serve him well. He probably won't share my party affiliation once he's eligible to vote, as I'm a liberal. We differ, but I still appreciate his perspective and his voice. And I'll say this: woke isn't liberal, woke is madness.