13 Comments

This is what happens when men go to watered down churches…. They become soft. There I said it, I don’t care, it’s true.

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Spot on, brother!

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi

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Powerful piece. Whomever gets “offended” by this needs internal reflection. What alter or idol is in a life that pushes the welfare of a child & his innocence out of the way…or disregards him altogether? It’s hard to face the boogie-man of consequences for doing the right thing; but it’s not the boogie-man of societal opinion we all need to answer to.

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Right on Chris........people in Sioux Falls weather you have children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews need to know what's going on in the classrooms, schools, school board meetings and what books are put in the school libraries and public libraries. We can't let Mayor Paul, the City Council and other RINOS voice their opinion and not challenge them. WE NEED TO SPEAK UP LOUDLY to protect the "innocense of our children". As with other issues we are dealing with (Voter Fraud), it all comes down to MONEY!! Note Mayor Pauls comment "ROI - Return of investment". I think it's worth investing in our children. I pray for God's guidance and leading in this effort. We need to get these people in positions of power OUT OF OFFICE and make it clear to them, WE CAN VOTE THEM OUT!!!

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Sad and extremely disappointed about the place we reached. Extremely happy that people are demanding change.

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Excellent article, Chris. Thank you!

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For years, I have made an attempt to serve God, and help produce a strong sense of "Good Parenting", highlighting the fact that in order to guide society forward instilling a strong sense of Morals, Values, and Self Discipline, it all begins with good, strong parenting establishing within the parental unit, a 'sense of being good role models' for young children. It all begins in the home.

As I have said for years, we need to turn back the clock, slow down our wheels, and allow for people to enshrine "good parenting skills" to which promotes a sense of role modeling for young children. Even if you don't have children of your own, you want to set the example for future generations to learn by.

One way to accomplish this, is becoming awesome adults, focused on "Good Parenting Skills" to the degree, that we instill in our young children ages 1 to age 12, our most precious, and most innocent years of our lives those morals, values, Christian beliefs, enough so, we give to them a sense of self discipline. While, at the same time, we provide to those children quality life lessons, and a strong education system teaching them writing, reading, math, science, and history. Giving to them all, a sense of understanding, and skill sets, enough to enable them to become good stewards in the years ahead. By the time they reach their "young adults years" age 13 to age 19, they begin to earn the respect of not only their parents, but of others allowing them to gain the privilege, the right to begin employment (age 13), drive on public roads (age 14-15), and to begin to establish adult-like relationships (age 16-17) to which they showcase all those life lessons they learned during their childhood years.

By doing so, we begin to change society for the better, leading to better role models, teachers, business owners, and of course, our future public leadership skills in the years ahead.

When I was young, it was most important to go to school, learn basic skills, while learning our history, all while focusing on strong Christian principles, After all, America was founded on those principles, we in fact had created a Mosaic Form of Government, that exists even today, however, we have allowed for those Christian principles to leave our government, leading to bad policies.

I recall, from kindergarten to 6th grade, I spent most my days learning basic academic skills, from 7th to 9th grades, my junior high years, I began adapting as a teenager, becoming a respectful, young adults, transitioning from childhood to adulthood, learning to interact with the public, while simultenously, with my grandmothers support, I attended Confirmation classes to learn of our Christian principles and the lessons of Jesus, taking the apostles Creed, which paved the way to molding the person I have become today - Strong Willed, Responsible, being that Role Model for Young Children, as well as becoming that businessman that I have come to be today. By 10th, 11th, and 12th Grades, I started becoming a quality adult, which allowed me earn all of my natural rights.

As we look back up on our past, most of us can see what made us the persons we became today. For most us, we lead a life of showcasing our skills, in a way to set a positive example, while to those others, we can see why some in our society turned down a dark pathway today, due to lack of good parenting, let alone being taught by bad teachers who chose a 'identity' path to teaching.

In my school years, we never thought much about trans-genderism, or this culture identity, we simply lived our lives to the fullest, learning from our mistakes, while improving ourselves. We woke up at 4 am to watch the Rocky Bullwinkle show, while staying up, playing outside roaming the neighborhoods until the street lights came on, before being called to bed. We were freer, more responsible, and cared less about what others thought of us, not one thought of what others thought of us, or our choices in life. And unlike today, everyone is taught to care more about self identity, to focus on political correctness, and to follow our leaders as if they are "God".

I do not know the best way to address this political culture war we are in today. I do not even know if the legislature is the best way to resolve this problem today, but what I do know, is that, we need Representatives - mayors, county commissions, legislators, grass roots activists to begin setting a positive example of how to guide our young children today. Do that, and we change our culture.

We got to get away from labeling people, both private persons and public persons. All that does is divide us as we refer to some as RINOS, or refer to thers as Liberal, or Conservative, or whatever. Stop labeling people period, begin by setting the example of showcasing your talents, rather than attacking people for their thoughts, opinions, or their self identity. Do that, and we fix America.

We have allowed ourselves as a community to travel down a pathway to become less Christian like, however, the only true way to fix it, is not through the legislature, but by becoming better 'christian-like' positive role models', enabling us to society forward in the years ahead.

Our South Dakota Constitution says about legislative power, "legislative power of the state shall be vested in a Legislature, but the people expressly reserve to themselves the right to propose measures and requires any law to which the Legislature may enact, shall be submitted to a vote of the electors of the state, before going into effect. To which, that all persons as treated equally, shall have inherent rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring and protecting property, of which the people have the right to agree or disagree based on their right to consent to be governed as such, to which all blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

The fact that the City of Sioux Falls has roughly 8 Districts, the People of Sioux Falls make up 16 of the 70 S.D House Seats 22.9% of the overall state opinion, whereas in the S.D Senate, the People of Sioux Falls have 22.9% of the collective voice out of 35 Senators for a total 24 of 105 total votes cast in the Legislature. We by far have the largest, biggest voice in the "state". But ultimately, our voices are drowned out across the statewide spectrum of creating public policy.

Where most landowners in Sioux Falls care more about Economic Development, maximizing the most of their tax dollars for road projects, city services, and infrastructure, to the people outside of of the city, the most important matter is the conservative, political culture of the overall state, where the most important concepts are - life, liberty, property rights, and prosperity. Therefore, people outside of Sioux Falls are more interested in protecting women rights, the common belief that marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman, and that children ages 1-12 must be protected at all times.The legislature has to find that balance between common beliefs between urban centers v rural centers. And I think across the 'state' the common belief is to protect our conservative political culture.

While Mayor Paul Tenhaken has the natural right to form his own opinions, and agenda as he is elected by the majority of voters of the city, he is just once voice within the "state" itself. Rather get all mad at the mayors comments, take from them, what you can, in order to guide your own lives forward, showcasing your inner talents, past lessons, on how to set the example forward.

For that, we owe Mayor Paul great respect, for he called attention to who we are as "free people" - we are American, we are Citizens of a Free State, one of which governs all people equally.

Sincerely,

Mike Zitterich

Citizens of South Dakota

Resident of Sioux Falls.

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You used a lot of words to say "It DOESN'T take a village so just mind your own family's business."

"Good parenting skills" are defined by what? Friends of the Satanic Temple South Dakota (yes, there is such a thing https://www.facebook.com/groups/SatanicSouthDakota/) will likely have a very different idea than yours about what that entails. The culture in which we raise our children matters, and letting our moral guidelines be written by those who shrug them off as unimportant leads to communities where no kid can safely explore and grow wings without a helicopter parent guarding them from abominable influences.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that in predominantly Democrat states, gender-bending garbage is a mandated public school subject in the very low grades. In New Jersey, for example, “performance expectations” for second graders include teaching students to identify “the range of ways people express their gender and how gender role stereotypes may limit behavior.” Sample lessons distributed as “resources” in some school districts encourage teachers to tell first-graders that you can have “boy parts” and be a girl, and vice versa.

In a purple-leaning-blue city like Sioux Falls with the SDEA that considers LGBTQ books necessary for student education (https://www.sdea.org/resource-library/freedom-read), a city that has a "pride" parade and regular drag events at Gastro Pub and Club David, and public libraries that provide explicit books on abnormal sex in the children's section, and Levitt at the Falls promoting a "girls and trans" songwriting workshop -- only the very naive or those intentionally promoting this departure from normal wholesomeness think there is no need for community push back against powerful adults targeting vulnerable kids.

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Knowing the 'question" that was asked of Mayor Paul Tenhaken, I don't see his response as anything but, knowing his role as Mayor of the largest Urban City in South Dakota. Again, as I stated above, 'we' do not ever have to agree with each others opinions. I simply wrote my own response above to tone down the rhetoric.

All in response to these comments, by Mayor Paul;

“That's a great question. The question is, what's one thing the city as a whole really needs from the Legislature this year. You know, I will say, this is going to be more of a platitudinal statement. I need the Legislature to stay out of culture war issues and focus on the core needs of delivering services to the city and the state, right?"

The Mayor went on to say, "So I think there's going to be a lot of culture wars that we're going to see. And I just, I get why those happen, but sometimes it forces us to take our eye off the core job we have of delivering services to our residents at the city level."

Mayor Paul Tenhaken simply replied to a question made to him by Patrick Lalley of Sioux Falls Live:

"For what it’s worth – about the one thing the Legislature could do that would best help the City of Sioux Falls."

The question to the mayor was a direct response to Kristi Noem's budget address, made days prior.

Hardly a bad response made by the Mayor whos job it is to manage and operate the City Government.

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The mayor said, "I need the Legislature to stay out of culture war issues and focus on the core needs of delivering services to the city and the state, right?" Core needs of the city and the state are tethered to core beliefs of its citizens.

As Rep. Bethany Soye wrote: "What truly divides and angers people is telling them that their concerns don’t matter and that they should simply be happy with efficient traffic flow.” More money extracted from SD taxpayers to build politicians' ego projects cannot take precedence over honoring the culture in which that takes place. https://www.rushmorerepublican.com/2024/12/11/the-greatest-return-on-investment-by-representative-bethany-soye/

The need to protect children from publicly provided pornographic and gender-bending materials is not just an "opinion." It is a core value. And it must not be pushed aside for "more efficient traffic flow."

I hope you have a blessed Christmas.

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Again, the question asked of the Mayor was such:

"For what it’s worth – about the one thing the Legislature could do that would best help the City of Sioux Falls." - Patrick Lalley.

This is being blow way out of proportion. The mayor never said he did not want the legislature to not speak on culture war issues. He gets it, he cannot stop it. He was answering the 'question two-fold" - as Mayor of the largest city of the state, he represents the greater interests of the community, led by the landowners, property holders, developers, businesses. He simply said, rather wanting to see the legislature spend so much time on culture war issues, he wants to see more time spent discussing Public Roads, Water Projects, Infrastructure Projects, and all the "Services" that the residents of the largest city depend on to live, work, and transact business in the city.

What is not said in Chris's article above, is that Mayor Paul admitted as to why these culture war issues exist, and the fact the people have the right to engage in such discussion. You got to see the mayor's comments from a business point of view, not a personal one.

Like others before him, Chris did a fantastic job at making the comments much worse than they are. I basically brought the mayors comments back in proper meaning, based on what I believe the mayor was trying to say.

You people are attacking a Mayor that has played a major role in the community in highlighting the fact, that Children need "Role Models" . He constantly meets with children every day, in order to help promoting ways to involve yourself as a community activist for promoting moral and values as they relate to children.

The Mayor is not dumb, he understand that the culture in Sioux Falls is very diverse. While he initiated a proclamation creating Pride Days, he has never actually took part in the ceramonies, in fact, he spends time with family, friends, and other christians, showcasing a better mode of culture.

Have a Blessed Christmas in Return,

Mike Zitterich

Resident of Sioux Falls,

www.siouxfallscommunitychronicle.com

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Bravo Mike........Great Commentary........You're right on. God bless you for speaking up!

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Thank You. I am proud of the fact that even as a Republican, I often call myself a Anti-Federalist, someone that opposes the current state of the National government. But even I can look at something from both sides of the picture. I oppose the establishment, but I also know you do not win the war by calling names, or attacking them. You see, at the same time as you are trying to take back control of government, you also have to counter every move of the established group of people. It is a transition. The mayor had told me once at a previous council meeting, "Mike, I appreciate the way you talk before the council, you are respectful in making your comments, and even if I don't agree with you, we remain respectful." That shown me that even the current mayor is passionate and thoughtful in his role as Mayor. I get it, people want change, they want to speak their mind, but we got to remember, how the media can twist comments around to make them look as if they say something different. What I said above, and you get it, and I thank you, is read the entire 'text' to understand what the mayor is saying, ,He was honest, he provided a two-folded answer. One hand, he was blunt as to what he wants the legislature to do, but on the other hand, he admitted, these culture conversations will persist in the legislature cause that seems to be what the people wish to talk about. He admitted, you cannot stop it.

I have spoke up against the Mayors agenda related to the Delbridge Museum, and attempted to find some resolve on how to fix the issue, and I have also defended the Mayor in relation to the renaming of the 6th Street Bridge. We can agree and disagree at the same time, and still lead in a positive manner. But trying to divide people on things the mayor or our Representatives say or don't say, is that not what the media does to Donald Trump...

I respect Chris, he is a great writer, but I had to voice my thoughts on this issue cause I felt the meaning of the mayors words were being twisted just a bit...

I started my website @ SIOUX FALLS COMMUNITY CHRONICLE to be dedicated to the People of Sioux Falls, the Citizens of South Dakota, to help educate, inform them of our history, our political culture, and to help teach and inform them of what their State Constitution says, the city charter says, etc. Please visit my website in the future, and provide feedback. IF you have any interesting stories, either history or current events or politics, feel free to email me, and I will publish it on my website. My contact info is on the site.

Again, Thank You for the Support,

Mike Zitterich

Minnehaha County,

Precinct Committee 5-18

www.siouxfallscommunitychronicle.com

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