I was vacationing on Mackinac Island in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, having a nice ice cream with my grandchildren as a horse and buggy strolled by, the scene looking like a Norman Rockwell painting from a century ago when my peeps from my home district of Lakota were ringing up my phone with new information on the superintendent problems we were having there. The report was that I was going to be sued by that very progressive public employee and that I had big legal trouble on my hands. A group stoking the flames was “Rinos for Lakota,” who were throwing my name around as a blowhard who had it all coming. They hoped the superintendent would sue me into oblivion, destroying me once and for all. The people telling me all this were obviously people who cared for me and wanted to give me a heads-up. At the same time, my granddaughter wanted to show me a cool picture of a horse she had just drawn on the ice cream store napkin. I noted the information and quickly resumed enjoying my family and the island itself. It was a world away, and I was enjoying it. I pushed down my anger for that moment and would deal with the trouble when I returned home. And as is always my practice, I never forgive a transgression. Even if it takes decades, when someone shows ill will toward me, I make it my mission in life to make a footstool off their metaphorical carcass. But I also never let those ill intentions ruin my life. At this point, I’ve heard all this before; I am very used to ill intentions. But like most things in life, intentions and execution are different things, and a lesson that should be learned by now, especially at Lakota, is that ill intent pushed in my direction doesn’t go well for them. And that would undoubtedly be the case with this very political situation in 2022.

When I returned, I had good memories of that ice cream with my grandchildren and was in a good mood. Then, of course, history tells the rest of the story and for all those people who wished bad intentions on me, to see me destroyed in court and have my life turned upside down because they decided to move into my neighborhood, then bring with them all these dumb, liberal ideas from all the garbage dumps they moved from, and expected to change me. Well, life has dealt them some much-deserved blows. I don’t get upset about those kinds of legal threats or the postings of a bunch of RINOs because we have this little thing called the Constitution that I know holds up very well in court. And so long as you follow the Constitution, you will win your court cases. People who don’t understand the Constitution, the Bill of Rights specifically, make dumb statements like those in the Rinos (Conservatives) for Lakota had been making regarding the devastating situation that Matt Miller had put himself in as a public figure, paid for with taxpayer money to perform a very public role. We have a First Amendment to provide a check on power and the abuses that often happen. It’s critical to the maintenance of good government, and clearly, Lakota had bet everything on a public relations-controlled show that was not rooted in sound legal merits, which is why they get sued a lot themselves, and they lose or settle those cases. They assume that the rest of the world is as legally ignorant as they are, so they think that threats like what was made to me might have some impact. For me, I didn’t even pause in eating my ice cream. The news was as worthless as the ice cream I was eating, as it would soon be melted and at the bottom of my stomach. The only good thing to come from the ice cream was in the joy of me eating it. And as it would turn out, because of their ill intentions toward me, all the bad news that has happened to Lakota and continues to happen is a joy for me, just as consuming that ice cream was.
My kids are grown, and my grandkids are being homeschooled. The only reason I care about Lakota is because they are an institution of liberalism that is paid for with my property taxes. It disgusts me that I have to give one dollar to them. I would just as soon give that dollar to a homeless person shooting up drugs on a street corner. I don’t see anything good coming out of public schools, especially Lakota. I warned them years ago about the Chinese exchange program they had by sending teachers and administrators to China to “learn” from a communist country. They didn’t listen, of course, because they thought they knew better. And here we are in 2023 with the entire government school and all their ignorant supporters assuming that the media can be controlled just as they do in China. And they hate that a pesky blogger is reporting on the bad things they do, and that I likely know more about the law than most of the lawyers they could hire. But all of them have forgotten that “they” are not in charge. They never were in charge. And they owe the public openness so we can see what they are wasting our hard-earned money on. And what exactly they are teaching these kids in our community, and why. What they are learning now, too late, is that the courts support such positions. Just because the government schools and their loser supporters assume a reality to be something, it doesn’t mean that it is.
This is not China, America will never be China, free speech will continue to be protected, and all the methods that the government school of Lakota has used to attempt to intimidate people into submission were illegal, just as they are going to learn in the coming months as they try to use public forum debates as a way to limit opposition opinion and shape for public relations a fake community dialogue. When they hire bad employees who bring bad values to our community and intend to teach bad things to our young people, that’s on them. Then to hope that some kind of social peer pressure by very stupid people will alter the course of public life in the district is an assumption built on ignorance. It might work in communist China but not in freedom-loving Liberty Township. And I was in Liberty Township before anybody was in this debate. And I think knowing all that is more attractive to new residents than a deterrent. The Rinos of Lakota can all pack up and leave and take all their Latte Sipping Prostitutes with Asses the Size of Car Tires and Diamond Rings to Match with them, and Liberty Township will still sell its half-a-million-dollar homes to people fleeing broken, liberal areas seeking refuge. The truth of the matter, a lesson they are learning now, is that they are a small minority. This upcoming election will show them the truth, just as it did when Darby Boddy was voted in. They may have won over Isaac, which made them think everyone lacked resolve equally. But all it’s done is strengthen the opposition’s determination, which wasn’t a very smart idea on their behalf. They brought all this on themselves.
Rich Hoffman
