Expel out-of-county students at NCT

Hernando County School Board members are elected to protect and preserve the integrity of the Hernando County school system. This is also to protect residents and taxpayers from excessive taxes or fraud.

To have been blind to allow "Tizzy" Schoelles to run a "fiefdom" under your very noses to the detriment of who knows how many deserving Hernando County students under the guise of better sports teams is fraud. And now to even be considering "waivers" for out-of-county students is insulting to those of us in Hernando County who abide by the rules and laws and have been forced to pay for these out-of-county residents at NCT for years.

Schoelles thinks herself above the system, has violated policy and, as an administrator, this should not be tolerated. I think maybe she is a little "dizzy" in thinking she can make the decisions she made and not be held accountable. Transferring her to another school sends the wrong message to employees that they are free to violate rules and regulations and state law and just keep raking in large salaries!

The board needs to discipline Schoelles, possibly demoting her to a position of no authority to make these decisions. And, personally, I think if our school board allows one out-of-county resident to remain at NCT, for whatever reason (every student knew they were violating the law when they entered the main doors at NCT), it will be a crime against Hernando County students and taxpayers.

If our board makes this policy, it will set precedence for others who want to attend the gem of our system for nothing and keep deserving county students out! Don't do it; send the 19 known students back to their legal school district and check to see how many others are attending county schools without paying tuition and costing the taxpayers of Hernando County money.

The bottom line is you accepted a position that pays well and now you need to earn those salaries and the trust of residents and expel any out-of-county students who should not be here.

Failure to do so will result in future problems for Hernando County and it taxpayers and the denial of a superior education to deserving county students.

David Parker

Spring Hill

Too smart to fall for socialism

I will continue to be amazed at how Brian Moore can continue to make the statement that socialism is more democratic than our form of government, which is a constitutional republic, but then I realized something - Moore wants to live under a "true democratic state."

Now, I wonder if Moore is familiar with "Plato's Republic." In that classic work, Plato states that a democratic state is "mob rule," the majority rules over the minority, and he placed it above a dictatorship as one of the worst forms of government.

Socialism is basically that, a form of mob rule. The majority rules, the minority has no say. You look at socialist states such as Cuba and Venezuela, is Moore implying that the people in these countries have more rights than we do?

Even as I write this letter, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is doing away with all opposition, taking control of all of what is left of private businesses. How is that for freedom? What you see in these countries is what Moore wants here, the state or community controls everything.

Our founding fathers were way smarter than the likes of Marx and Engel, and all the other so-called enlightened minds of the 19th and early 20th centuries. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and all the rest understood what freedom meant. Marx, Engel and the others had no clue what freedom is all about. They just wanted to replace the European monarchy system of the day with another form of oppressive government.

Moore can talk all he wants about how great socialism is, but we, the American people, are too smart to fall for that line.

Our country might not be perfect, but we will choose this form of government over others any time.

Peter Stathis

Spring Hill