Check Your Rights At The Door, Please!

It amazes me. We send our children to schools and the officials at the school, quite often, act as if the constitution and due process was left outside the door and one may pick it up again as you exit the school. Common sense, the rule of law and fairness give way to iron-fisted, tyrannical rule with no compassion, no common sense and no rights.

I read an article today that caused me to sit back and wonder what has led us to the day when we can teach children about the constitution on the one hand, then on the other hand throw them in jail for a minor infraction. The article in question was about a 12 year old girl that scribbled a note on her desk, put a smiley face on it, then wrote a note stating her love for her two friends. Wow! What a criminal! Destroying property! Right?

Wrong! The scribblings were all written in a washable marker. That didn't matter to the tyrants that run our schools. Nope. They marched the girl off to the safety officer who promptly searched her, called the police and demanded her arrest. The police were no better. They arrived on scene and promptly arrested the girl. That will teach her! The judge in the case was no better. He sentenced the girl to community service and writing an essay about what she had learned from the experience.

I have a few suggestions for her. The first lesson is that the constitution only applies to grown people. Once one enters a public school the constitution is only a document that is to be discussed and certainly not applied.

The second lesson is that common sense is for out there. In our public schools we will not tolerate the slightest deviation from our rules. In our public schools tolerance is preached but not practiced. You can not even have a picture of a gun, even a crude drawing of one, or your run afoul of the no tolerance ban on guns. I don't know how students have learned about the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the Gulf War. Wait, maybe they are learning none of that. That would require pictures of men carrying guns.

The third lesson would be that nobody, from the teacher to the judge would recognize the fact that it was a washable marker. The punishment, if any was really required, might have been to give the kid a bottle of 409 and a paper towel and have her wash her misdeeds away. The problem would have been solved.

We must demand more from our public schools. We must demand safety for our children. Carting them off to jail for minor infractions can lead to all sorts of harm. It teaches them that tyranny is the norm and that they are powerless against the powers that are in control - Total control!