UnifiED is not who they say they are.
UnifiED is not for education – rather it is a well-constructed, political machine that flipped the Hamilton County Board of Education to a progressive agenda. UnifiED is now is in the process of flipping the Hamilton County Commission, which will potentially bring the citizens of Hamilton County a huge, wasteful tax increase.
Consider that UnifiED has received over $2 million in funding from local foundations since 2014, now has 9 full-time staff and has established chapters in most of Hamilton County’s local schools. And what would you think is learned in those school chapters? Community organization 101? What would you think is UnifiED’s textbook? Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”? And what is their 2019 club project? Canvassing door-to-door harassing occupants into demanding their respective county commissioner vote in favor of the $43 million tax increase. And what will that tax increase do? The tax increase will be used to support UnifiED’s manifesto, the APEX report, that demands their leftist goals be funded.
UnifiED has assured the nonprofit community of Chattanooga that the political machine they have created will deliver commission votes that will approve the tax increase.
Commissioners, say “No” to an unjustified tax increase.
Tom Decosimo, Signal Mountain
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Bob Corker needed in public service
About 11 years ago, while living in Pennsylvania, I watched in amazement as a junior senator from Tennessee took on the CEOs and union of the three major auto manufacturers. He told them what they would have to do to recover from their slump and stay in business.
Within two years they each did what he told them. Look at them today. That senator was Bob Corker.
He went on to become known outside of Tennessee from his dealings as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2015 to 2019, and was one of the few people who, always with respect, spoke up to President Trump.
I’ve never met or seen Sen. Corker in person, but I think it is safe to say not only people in Tennessee, but the United States, were sad to see Sen. Corker decide not to run for another term in 2018.
Tennessee and especially the United States cannot afford to lose a forward-thinker such as Sen. Corker. We need him. I’d like to see a movement to get him back on the world stage in 2020. The United States needs him, so let’s “Bring back Bob Corker” (BBBC).
John J. Horn Jr., Hixson
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Truth unconstrained by politics, religion
The recent Free Press editorial entitled “Dems Say Buh-Bye to God” concludes with the sentence, “No God, no conscience, then no need for truth.” It clearly reflects the prejudicially and demonstrably false belief that those without religious faith necessarily lack moral conscience or conviction.
Plato in the dialogue “Euthyphro” describes how Socrates convincingly demonstrated that belief to be unfounded. Socrates, himself, exemplified moral integrity independent of religious belief. He did so by accepting the death penalty imposed upon him by political powers rather than either recant his opinions or simply flee Athens.
More currently, behavioral scientists such as Michael Tomasello (see his “A Natural History of Human Morality”) convincingly hypothesizes from both human and animal experimental data a secular account of the evolution of reciprocal cooperation and morality as key to the success of our species.
Political differences are best addressed by extending to those with whom we differ the basic assumption that they value truth, honesty and other virtues as much as we do. Both sides of the political spectrum, as well as both religious and non-religious, display an ironic lack of empathetic virtue when making dubious claim of moral superiority over those of other opinion or belief.
Patrick Lavin, Hixson