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10 Year Old Strip Searched by School Official Over Lunch RuckusActivism, Healthy Living, Healthy Pregnancy, Baby & Child
Out of control, bullying public school officials continue their deplorable acts of violation against young children over incidents that puzzlingly seem to typically originate in the school lunchroom.
Recall the recent story of a boy who was suspended from school for five days after being interrogated in the Vice Principal's office for hours on end, told he was carrying an "illegal" substance, threatened with transfer to another school and warned that he would be enrolled in a teen alcoholics support group after being called out by the lunch police for bringing a simple bottle of kombucha in his lunchbox packed by his own Mother!
Then there was the story earlier this year of a preschooler at West Hoke Elementary in North Carolina who was given a highly processed, cafeteria lunch containing pink slime chicken nuggets because the lunch police inspecting her lunchbox decided that the turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice her mother packed were not nutritious enough.
Apparently, North Carolina school officials did not learn their lesson from the huge negative publicity and backlash from that stunt because an even worse lunchroom incident has been revealed in a recent lawsuit by The Rutherford Institute.
According to the complaint Cox v the Sampson County Board of Education filed on December 6, 2012, Union Elementary School Assistant Principal Teresa Holmes allegedly strip searched 10 year old J.C. Cox as a result of the chivalrous act of helping a classmate retrieve her dropped coins from under the lunchroom table.
A press release by The Rutherford Institute on the matter describes in detail how the lunchroom incident went down all without a parent or guardian present at any time:
… on Friday, June 12, 2012, J.C. Cox, a fifth-grader attending Union Elementary School in Clinton, N.C., was in the school cafeteria eating lunch when a female classmate dropped money onto the floor.
J.C. went under the table, retrieved the coins and returned them to the girl. Upon approaching J.C.'s table, Assistant Principal Teresa Holmes, who was also in the cafeteria at the time, was informed that someone had dropped $20 on the floor, that the money was missing, and that J.C. had gone under the table in search of the missing money.
Holmes asked J.C. if he had the money and told him that unless he returned it, she would have to search him. J.C. told Holmes he did not have the money.
Holmes then ordered J.C. to come with her to her office. Holmes also called a school custodian and asked him to meet her at the office. Once there, Holmes again asked J.C. if he had the money and again, he told her "no." J.C. even pulled out his pockets to show that he had no money.
The assistant principal then told J.C. she had no choice but to search him, and that she was within her legal right to do so. Holmes allegedly ordered J.C. to remove his shoes, socks, pants and shirt.
With J.C. stripped to his underwear, Holmes ran her finger around the waistband of his undershorts.
Holmes did not find any money on J.C. While in Holmes' office, another teacher arrived to report that the $20 had been found on the cafeteria floor.
When J.C.'s mother later contacted the school to voice her concerns about the strip search, she was reportedly told that school personnel have the right to perform strip searches and that the assistant principal was within her rights in doing so.
Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute accuse Ms. Holmes of violating J.C.'s Fourth Amendment rights when he was inexplicably strip searched for stooping down to help out a classmate. In addition, they cite the 2009 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Safford Unif. Sch. Dist. # 1 v. Redding which ruled that school officials such as Ms. Holmes absolutely do not have the right or authority to strip search a student unless there is evidence that the child is in possession of a dangerous item.
These frequent acts of violation against children and flagrant ignoring of parental rights by public school officials must stop and hopefully with this lawsuit, The Rutherford Institute can make some positive headway in this area.
The lunchroom has clearly become a warzone in many public schools instead of a healthy environment for eating and sharing with classmates that it is intended to be.
Do you have an act of lunchtime bullying by school officials to share? Please chime in with a comment.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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Comments (179)
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Mina, I just have one question: would you talk to anyone in person that way, just because you disagree with her? With sneering contempt? It felt like buckets of shit were being dumped on me. Would you tolerate someone else talking to someone that way in front of you? Just wondering.
I'll just say again, that I don't know you, but I'd for damn sure object strenuously if I saw someone bullying you like this. I wonder what you teach your children.
Sorry my all-caps post bothered you. I thought it was clear I used that as a way to separate my response to his specific accusations. It was not yelling. Not sure why you'd find that offensive.
My post absolutely WAS about schooling. I objected to the global demonization of teachers and administrators. Turns out I was correct. What a sad way to have it demonstrated.
Some of the early posts brought up the false propaganda about the UN treaty. I did a little research and posted a link to video of comments by the only quadraplegic Member of Congress. Was that a useful contribution? Or are you only looking to have your current views reinforced? Ah! Now I get it. Sorry to have wasted your time.
Very sad to see that no one here, including Sarah, says/does anything about bullying. You know you'd be passionately writing in if it happened to someone YOU care about. When it's going on in front of you, but you don't know the person being attacked, well ho hum. Sad.
What bullying are you referencing Melinda?
I'm referring to Tucci78's hate filled, racist rants with their personal attacks. I may agree or disagree with people here, but I'm pretty civil about it. It's unfortunate to be treated with literal contempt. I'm an accomplished, intelligent person and I'm used to a certain measure of respect, or at least civility. His attacks are not just political disagreement. They are vicious and personal (I assume it's a man. It sounds/feels like a man bullying a woman to me.) I don't "…deserve anything but contempt"? Really? Because you don't like my political views?
I would have objected strongly if I'd seen someone else attacked like that. But that's just me.
I guess I learned whatever I needed to know about the people "here" when NO ONE who had been hysterically ranting against teachers and administrators on Thursday had the courage to say they were sorry about it after Friday. If it were me, I'd be mortified.
No one was bullied here. Melinda, you are a victim-badge-wearing glutton for punishment, that "punishment" having your positions properly trounced, and that is why no one has stood up for you. You claim that people here have been "hysterically ranting" but we should feel sorry for you, who prefers to whip out the all-caps posts and self-victimizations. You can't even keep it about schooling or policy, you have to make it about you. If it were me, I'd be mortified.
la la la la la la la … did someone say something? (something worth reading?)
No? la la la la la ….
And the regression is complete.
Guess I should have been clearer for those who are slow to understand. I was hoping for an a p o l o g y from some of the reasonable people here. Not more ranting
Melinda whines: " I was hoping for an a p o l o g y from some of the reasonable people here."
Sorry, but the "reasonable people here" have concluded that you don't d e s e r v e anything but expressions of contempt.
Considering the news, I'm wondering who here that posted hysterical rants against "all" teachers and administrators ("thugs" and "armed thugs", for example) might want to take a deep breath and apologize.
The principal in the CT school ran TOWARDS the shooter to try to stop him from harming her children. Teachers put their bodies between their children and the bullets, and some died. If I had written any of the anti-teacher rants in this discussion, I'd be very embarrassed.
Writes Melinda: "The principal in the CT school ran TOWARDS the shooter to try to stop him from harming her children. Teachers put their bodies between their children and the bullets, and some died. If I had written any of the anti-teacher rants in this discussion, I'd be very embarrassed."
Yeah, and those teachers were statutorily disarmed (forbidden by law the exercise of their unalienable right to keep and bear arms) under the wonderfully insane premise that firearms themselves were an intrinsically "evil-bad-awful-horrible" category of things with magical qualities such that little children should be preserved from their influence by prohibition.
The individual schoolteacher – apart from being an apparatchik of the government "education" systems and therefore complicit in the whole hideous edifice of abuse and waste that comprises the politicized pork programs these educationalist gulags actually are – is to some extent just another victim of what John Taylor Gatto terms "the meatgrinder classroom," and the comportment of the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, while valiant, was made largely futile by the administrative policies of the politicians who ordained the rules and laws under which those pedagogues were obliged to operate.
It isn't the teacher in the classroom who should bear even the greatest part of the condemnation due our government "education" systems, but there is no hope for even the best of these front-line teachers to achieve what we all know they can achieve for their pupils as long as they must operate in the coercively-funded, politically-curriculum'd, compulsorily-attended bureaucracies responsible for imposing upon America's children the mind-ruining stultification propounded and practiced by our educationalists.
Would these same teachers be able to perform as well – or better – in schools established as private-sector alternatives to the government Eloi factories?
Not much doubt about that, is there?
Okay, so why the hell don't we shut down the public "schools" and free the teachers to teach?
Melinda – you comment on there being a "nasty" rant, and then you go on to name call yourself – "you self righteous rightwingnuts"……seriously the best defense for your argument?
Christina, you are correct. I should not have used the term "rightwingnut." However, I wonder just what exactly IS an acceptable level of outrage we can express after viewing blatant racism?
I would assume the correct response would be…to ignore it. Seeing as this is the internet and usually when people jump into arguments that are wayyyyyhayhay in over their heads they usually end up making the point they are standing for look idiotic. The bigger person would simply laugh at what they consider to be ignorance and, if they are the type of person, pray for the ignorance, and be on their merry way.
Or they can allow themselves to become riled up whilst having no chance of winning a completely meaningless argument.
Oh wait, was that a rhetorical question?
Lala, maybe you should ask a person of color if they think it's fine to laugh off or ignore racist remarks. Or a gay person if homophobic slurs are OK. What do you think their answer will be? What category of hateful behavior is serious enough to merit your objection? So, yes, it was rhetorical in the sense that I assume most people are troubled by racism, especially as overt as this is.
Ignoring bad behavior encourages more bad behavior, don't you think? I mean, there are a couple of perfect examples of that right above your post …
Writes the running-for-her-life Melinda: "I mean, there are a couple of perfect examples of that right above your post …"
You mean the comments about your beloved Illegal-Alien-in-Chief? The "examples" presenting observations of plain fact that an utterly hammered libtard like you simply can't confront?
Run away, Melinda. Run like hell. Reality isn't anything you can handle, that's for sure.
Lol. Melinda. As an over-achieving stay at home christian submissive wife soon to be homeschooling mother of young age I'm fairly certain I hear my fair share of "unfair" and rude remarks. And yes, I laugh it off, because engaging in ridiculous arguments encourages such behaviour. It's called….reaction. No, I don't think ignoring bad behaviour encourages more. I think that is the stupidest remark I've ever heard. If my kid decides to push my buttons to get a reaction, and I ignore the acting out, he stops. Adults are like children. If people make fun of me, offhand remarks about the way I cook or raise my child, what I believe and what-not, yes, I laugh at them and ignore them. And I am much happier. Being troubled by racism has nothing to do with avoiding arguments like a grown adult. Especially on the internet. Just sharing something I have learned, 'cause you sound like you could use some advice. And I have to agree, you are not being bullied. You are encouraging an argument. Trying to uphold your point of view. Give it up, it will be okay.
To Tucci78 who wrote: "…neither does anything else worth a damn nor really resorts to any other method in ramming down peaceable citizens' throats the commands of the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the rest of the goons on the government payroll – "
I have no dog in this fight over schools, although I think there's a lot of hysteria and ignorance being voiced here. But anyone who thinks government is "not worth a damn" should visit NJ and NY and CT and ask them where they'd be after hurricane Sandy WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT. You may be confused because typically Republican administrations are both inefficient and useless at helping citizens in an emergency, but Democrats are committed to the idea that government can AND SHOULD be helpful and responsive, and we run a FEMA that works.
Don't know if you're old enough to remember the mid 1990s when Republicans worked hard to persuade Americans that government was not only useless, but their enemy – as you seem to think. Then the government shut down and people got to see how much they relied on things like the passport office, and post office, and veterans affairs, etc. The attitude in the country changed pretty darn quickly. It is a shame to see these tired and erroneous old attitudes still being peddled to people.
@Melida: "…visit NJ and NY and CT and ask them where they'd be after hurricane Sandy WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT…."
I live in New Jersey. I was present throughout "superstorm" Sandy (it wasn't a hurricane when it made landfall), and I watched the barrier island towns take the usual pounding we get every ten years or so. We've had worse. The ways in which local, state, and federal government regulations have induced building where no genuine – i.e., unsubsidized – insurance could or would be underwritten very effectively set up the people on the coastlines both above and below New York Harbor for the damages they suffered, and its less a question of what government-as-Santa-Claus has been doing in the wake of tropical storm Sandy and more appropriate to ask what government-as-real-estate-developer had done before this entirely anticipated autumnal storm smashed into homes and businesses constructed like a sparrow's nest in a rainspout.
Crediting the National Socialist Democrat American Party (I can't bring myself to call them "democratic" since in 2010 they enacted Obamacare over the vociferous opposition of majorities among their own core constituencies) for a better response to Sandy in the Mid-Atlantic states as opposed to the goat-rope the city government of New Orleans made of the emergency response to Katrina in 2005 blurs the realities of these two situations.
In 2005, for example, the local government in Mississippi – hit much harder by Katrina than New Orleans had been – responded swiftly and effectively, whereas Ray Nagin's corrupt and incompetent "Chocolate City" administration foundered, fouled-up, and generally proved itself abjectly "Liberal" in a crisis.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2005 was operating under rules which subordinated federal resources to local control, on the premise that local and state and regional governments will have a more proximal appreciation of vulnerabilities and priorities. Dubbya' administration deferred to the people on the Gulf Coast, and everywhere else in Katrina's path, and except in Mr. Nagin's Crescent City, that worked out pretty well.
How was FEMA supposed to know that the legally elected government of New Orleans was so utterly and completely diddled?
Fast forward to 2012 with tropical storm Sandy, and we get to see the Noo Yawkuhs screwing up by the numbers (much as expected) while down in Delaware and West Jersey – where the storm actually made landfall – we responded, adapted, and overcame.
If the administration of your Indonesian-in-Chief is so much better in dealing with acts of Allah than Dubbya's boys, how come he didn't get those execrable Mets fans all tidied up and tickety-boo as quickly as we managed the job a few dozen miles south?
Answer (of course) is that response in these kinds of emergencies depends far more on local expertise than you abject drooling Obamaphiles would like to peddle the notion. Your Messiah ain't the Messiah. He ain't even the Mahdi.
Happens that New Jersey had a Republican governor in Drumthwacket when Sandy struck, and little though I like him, he was able to get his hands on the resources and coordinate the response to the damage more effectively than would have been the case if we were still stuck with the MF Global embezzler Corzine when this mess happened.
Noo Yawk? Well, not so effective. But, hey, they're Mets fans. Diminished capacity defense.
As for the federal government "shut downs" in late 1995 and '96, for all the rucken and mucken (and I was witness to that gaudy demonstration of bipartisan bluster, too), are you mistaking me for a Republican? For a fan of Newt Gingrich?
Perish forfend! In the words of writer L. Neil Smith:
"If there were a generic one-word expression for 'one whose fear of the uncertainties of success moves him to surrender at the very moment of victory', it would be 'Republican'."
Your posting is a nasty, racist rant, and unfortunately that drowns out any argument you might be making.
For people like you it's never enough to just disagree with someone's policies or politics. You have destroyed political discourse by deciding that if you disagree with us it's not just because our ideas are wrong. No, you've decided our ideas are EVIL and therefore not worth considering, much less compromising with. You self righteous rightwingnuts are the ONLY Patriotic Americans. The rest of us are not just WRONG, but we HATE AMERICA. After all, the (black and therefore "different") President is not even AMERICAN! Well, look around you and see the government that has created in DC – happy?
@Melinda: "Your posting is a nasty, racist rant, and unfortunately that drowns out any argument you might be making."
Translation of Melinda: "I can't possibly respond to the fact that because the effectiveness of emergency response depends far more upon the competence of local government than it does on any federal administration, and it's baldly obvious that New Orleans' clustercopulation in 2005 was the proximal responsibility of Ray Nagin and his preponderantly Black, totally National Socialist, spectacularly incompetent political regime, I'm gonna squeal 'Racist!' and refuse to address this glaring, uncomfortable aspect of reality!"
And of course I've " destroyed political discourse" for people like you, Melinda. I related the facts. "Liberals" like you don't handle facts, don't have "ideas" which correlate with reality, and can't do anything but scream and jump up and down in a tantrum when disputants are conscientious about keeping focus on the consequences of political gormlessness like yours.
Of course, no acknowledgement by Melinda of the ways in which responses to Hurricane Katrina were handled competently by local governments in much harder-hit areas beyond the political control of Mayor Nagin, or how sound emergency management in New Jersey enabled mitigation of damages and more rapid recovery than in Noo Yawk and Lun Guylann. .
Of course, the ethnic mix in Noo Yawk is about the same as in New Jersey, but there's gotta be something "racist" to carp about, right? It's the only card a "Liberal" can play these days.
The "acceptable level of outrage we can express" when confronted by a dead-from-the-neck-up statist like you is simply to observe that you're both unwilling and incompetent to attempt a supported argument in the face of informed opinion to the contrary (hey, you brought up emergency management; I was talking about the intrinsic and inescapable inappropriateness of having government goons running schools) and are therefore to be regarded only with contempt.
OK, let's start with your first rant:
"With it understood that government is the agency in our society to which we entrust the exercise of our inalienable right to defend our lives, our liberties, and our property with deadly force — that government is in the business of "breaking things WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?
and killing people," and neither does anything else worth a damn SAYS WHO? MILLIONS OF YOUR FELLOW CITIZENS ADAMANTLY DISAGREE WITH YOU, SO I'D BE CAREFUL IF I WERE YOU, OF MAKING ABSURD CLAIMS LIKE THIS. ASK AN OLDER PERSON IF SHE LIKES SOCIAL SECURITY KEEPING HER OUT OF POVERTY. ASK HER IF SHE LIKES BEING ABLE TO SEE A DOCTOR. ASK SOMEONE WHOSE CHILD IS ON MEDICAID THE SAME THINGS. CHANCES ARE THEY VIEW THESE THINGS AS BEING "worth a damn", REGARDLESS OF YOUR SWEEPING – AND ABSURD -GENERALIZATIONS.
nor really resorts to any other method in ramming down peaceable citizens' throats the commands of the politicians, WHO ARE ELECTED EVERY COUPLE OF YEARS. YOU DON'T LIKE THEIR POLICIES, VOTE THEM OUT! THEY'RE NOT IN OFFICE FOR LIFE!
the bureaucrats, WHO ARE YOUR NEIGHBORS, THE PEOPLE IN YOUR CHURCH AND WHO YOU SEE AT YOUR KIDS' SCHOOLS. ARE THEY HIDING HORNS UNDER THEIR HAIR AND A TAIL UNDER THEIR PANTS? DEMONIZING THEM IS A VERY FOOLISH ARGUMENT. THE SCHOOL BUREAUCRAT IN THIS STORY DID A VERY STUPID THING, BUT TO EXTRAPOLATE FROM THEM ABOUT ALL OTHERS IS ILLOGICAL.
and the rest of the goons on the government payroll NICE WAY TO REFER TO YOUR NEIGHBORS AND THOSE YOU ELECTED!
— just why the hell are these armed thugs imposing any kind of educational system on our children and adolescents? WHAT "ARMED THUGS" ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? IF ONLY THERE HAD BEEN "ARMED THUGS" IN THE FORM OF POLICE OFFICERS AT SANDY HOOK TODAY, THERE'D BE 25 PEOPLE ALIVE NOW. PLEASE TELL US HOW "ARMED THUGS" ARE "IMPOSING … EDU. SYSTEM?" THIS IS ABSURD.
Any kind at all?
If we can't engage them in open combat, THIS IS THE KIND OF UNWARRANTED, HYSTERICAL RHETORIC THAT CREATES TRAGEDIES LIKE THE ONE TODAY. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.
let us at least deny them even the illusion of legitimacy, and treat them as an occupying enemy power.
They're not us. We're not them. They harm our children. We know it.
What do they deserve from us?
Let's deliver.
And as to your second,
ranslation of Melinda: "I can't possibly respond to the fact that because the effectiveness of emergency response depends far more upon the competence of local government than it does on any federal administration, SAYS WHO? PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR CREDENTIALS OF EXPERTISE (OTHER THAN SIMPLY INHABITING A PLACE)
and it's baldly obvious that New Orleans' clustercopulation in 2005 was the proximal responsibility of Ray Nagin and his preponderantly Black, totally National Socialist, spectacularly incompetent political regime, I'm gonna squeal 'Racist!' and refuse to address this glaring, uncomfortable aspect of reality!" PLEASE TELL US HOW MAYOR NAGIN AND HIS REGIME CONTROLLED THE FAILURE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT UNDER W TO DROP MEALS, WATER AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES TO FRANTIC PEOPLE SUFFERING AND DYING IN THE NO CONVENTION CENTER, WHILE THE WORLD WATCHED. THEY WERE DROPPING THEM IN FREAKIN' IRAQ, SO FORGIVE US FOR THINKING OUR GOVERNMENT MIGHT ACTUALLY USE THOSE SKILLS TO HELP ITS OWN CITIZENS. SINCE YOU CAN'T DEFEND THIS, THE USE OF THE WORD "RACIST" TO DESCRIBE YOUR COMMENTS IS APPROPRIATE AND BASED ON REASON AND LOGIC.
And of course I've " destroyed political discourse" for people like you, Melinda. I related the facts. "Liberals" like you don't handle facts, don't have "ideas" which correlate with reality, and can't do anything but scream and jump up and down in a tantrum when disputants are conscientious about keeping focus on the consequences of political gormlessness like yours. I BELIEVE THIS PARAGRAPH COMPLETELY MAKES MY POINT. YOU DON'T JUST DISAGREE WITH ME, YOU HEAP INSULTS ALONG WITH YOUR DIATRIBE. DO YOU THINK THIS PROMOTES "POLITICAL DISCOURSE"?
Of course, no acknowledgement by Melinda of the ways in which responses to Hurricane Katrina were handled competently by local governments in much harder-hit areas beyond the political control of Mayor Nagin, or how sound emergency management in New Jersey enabled mitigation of damages and more rapid recovery than in Noo Yawk and Lun Guylann. . REGARDING KATRINA, WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT THE GOVERNOR OF MISSISSIPPI WAS A POLITICAL CRONY OF W, AND THE REPUBLICAN SENATORS FROM THERE WERE POWERFUL MEN WHO EXERTED PRESSURE ON THEIR COHORTS IN GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE MORE FUNDS AND MORE RESOURCES TO THEIR STATE THAN OTHERS.
Of course, the ethnic mix in Noo Yawk is about the same as in New Jersey, but there's gotta be something "racist" to carp about, right? It's the only card a "Liberal" can play these days. I SAID NOTHING ABOUT THE RESPONSE TO SANDY, OR THAT IT MIGHT BE RACIST. YOU'RE DELUSIONAL. WHAT I FOUND RACIST WAS THE DISRESPECTFUL AND ABSURD WAYS YOU REFERRED TO THE PRESIDENT (not even American!) I FOUND THIS VERY OFFENSIVE, AND I BELIEVE OTHERS DID AS WELL.
The "acceptable level of outrage we can express" when confronted by a dead-from-the-neck-up statist like you is simply to observe that you're both unwilling and incompetent to attempt a supported argument in the face of informed opinion to the contrary (hey, you brought up emergency management; I was talking about the intrinsic and inescapable inappropriateness of having government goons running schools) and are therefore to be regarded only with contempt. THERE YOU GO AGAIN, WITH THE HYSTERIA, INSULTS AND DERISION. PATHETIC. TAKE A LOOK AT THE NEWS TODAY AND ASK YOURSELF HOW ATTITUDES AND ACCUSATIONS LIKE YOURS FEED THE LUNACY THAT DOES US SO MUCH HARM.
Rather than writing a coherent post (something akin to "getting it in one sack), Melinda goes "ALL CAPS" without much of an attempt to voice something that can charitably be called an argument. But what the hell. You work with what such critters give you, right?
Yet another of those aspects of reality with which "Liberals" aren't capable of consciously or purposefully coping is the fact that (in the words of Mao Zedong) "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." This is one of those inescapable truisms so baldly, obviously correct that no matter what else one says about murdering statist monsters on the political left, you've got to cede them points for making themselves so plainly understood that only a "Liberal" is willfully stupid enough to deny their evil.
Now, with it understood that governments – even when their minions and machinators give the illusion that they're nice, churchgoing, community-minded, cuddly public servants – rely first and last upon legal usages which confer upon them a functional monopoly upon the use of deadly force to compel from their neighbors obedience to these government thugs' orders.
And thugs they most certainly are. When they're fulfilling their roles as George Orwell's "rough men" who stand ready to do retaliatory violence to protect the individual human rights of their employers – the members of the public at large – these government officers are engaged under strict rule of law in an arguably necessary function. They pose a deterrent against aggressive violations of the rights of the human being to life, to liberty, and to property.
That's the "breaking things and killing people" business. Any honest cop, every thoughtful military serviceman, understands this. It's part of the job they contract to do, why they swear their respective oaths of commitment to these deadly purposes under the clearly articulated constraints of regulations and laws structuring their authorities and responsibilities not as citizens with rights but as servants with duties.
It doesn't matter how these "public servants" got into the roles they actively sought – to gain the power of life and death (and that's meant literally) over their neighbors – or how "nice" a hapless idiot (like Melinda) might want to assume they are. Their ostensible intentions, stated objectives, smarming protestations of bonhomie, patriotism, charitable warmth, or high-mindedness matter not at all. What's confronting you, like it or not, is that these people want the power to point deadly weapons at their neighbors, to make those neighbors helpless in the face of violent force, and to command those neighbors to obey.
This is one of the rude facts about the institution of civil government which "Liberals" (and almost all "social" conservatives) emphatically do not want to confront.
Whether these armed thugs get their access to power by passing a civil service exam, through nepotism, or by winning a popularity contest (those "elections" in which nose-counters vest some sort of sanctification), they rely upon aggressively threatening the lives, the liberties, and the properties of their fellow citizens in order to serve their personal purposes, whatever they might in fact be.
Maintaining focus upon this underlying foundation of deadly violence as the essential quality of all government is what keeps attention upon the inescapable dangers of these agencies escaping the controls necessary to prevent an ugly but arguably necessary "servant" from becoming a hideously destructive "master."
The average political "Liberal," enamored of the allegedly neat stuff he can do if only his stubborn neighbors can be persuaded – at gunpoint – to obey the will of the enlightened, good, and all-around swell social sensibilities of the "Liberal" authoritarian.
Heck, you "Liberals" only want to do it to us (against our better judgement, in spite of our will to the contrary, and facing the explicit refusal of our consent) for our own good, don'tcha? And you'll be the judges of what's good, of course.
In the imposition of school systems by government fiat, we see exemplification of the authoritarian impulse pervasive through all civil government. The little tinpot tyrannies of the schools give us the very model of the total state. That's what it was designed to do when Horace Mann and his correspondents set out their agenda more than a century and a half ago.
Now we've got a massacre in yet another "gun-free school zone," this time in Connecticut, and the "Liberals" are predictably squealing for increased levels of victim disarmament (as if the advertisement of the government schools as target-rich environments weren't enough). Jeez, didn't writer William Burroughs put it perfectly?
"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it."
Another of the aspects of reality that "Liberals" don't handle at all well is the fact that the armed goons of government can't be everywhere at all times. Their function is retaliatory, remember, and their purpose is deterrence.
By definition, deterrence after the fact doesn't work against suicidal psychopaths intent upon massacre, and slaughters such as this one cannot be prevented by the sorts of pre-emptive legislation inflicted upon the polity by "Liberal" magical thinking. The initiative is always with the aggressor, including choice of weapons, and even a "Liberal" can't be stupid enough to claim that "There Oughtta Be A Law!" can make all death-dealing implements magically disappear.
The exercise of the law-abiding private citizen's right to keep and bear those weapons which suit his or her personal self-protection (and the protection of those around them) is the only real counterforce capable of quick response to attacks such as took place in that "gun-free school zone" at the Sandy Hook Elementary School earlier today.
In this case we have a glaring example of how government thugs FAILED in their essential "breaking things and killing people" function, while at the same time they imposed upon the people of that community in Connecticut impairments to the exercise of the citizen's own due diligence in providing for the defense of that school and the children inside it, removing from the malefactor's consideration even the supposition that he might meet armed opposition in his course of action.
Yours is a kind of psychotic hoplophobia widespread among "Liberals," compounded by your never quite consciously acknowledged understanding that you have much to fear from your law-abiding fellow citizens who, in exercising their rights to take up protective measures for the preservation of their persons and property, make of them both psychologically and materially the sorts of "hard targets" neither you nor any other coercively-minded authoritarian can move against with impunity.
At 9:20 PM on 14 December, Melinda continues sputtering incoherently. Well, you can't be a "Liberal" unless you're incompetent, evil, and/or insane. Bets can be taken on all three characteristics when it comes to Melinda.
For instance, now she's showing incompetence in debate by demanding a disputant's "CREDENTIALS OF EXPERTISE (OTHER THAN SIMPLY INHABITING A PLACE)"
which is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. That's simply an attack upon the person voicing an observation or opinion rather than on the facts he has advanced and/or the conclusions he's drawn from those facts.
Yes, I know. You're a "Liberal," you've never engaged in referee'd debate, you have no education whatsoever in logic, and you think that argumentum ad hominem is nothing but a fancy-schmancy Latin synonym for "nasty." In this – as in so much else – you're wrong. But pointing that out won't help you to educate yourself, will it? Heck, you wouldn't be a "Liberal" were that not the case.
Little hint, Melinda: you can use limited hypertext markup coding in these comments boxe, including "boldface," "italics," and the "blockquote" function, so your "ALL CAPS" idiocy is not only inappropriate but profoundly demonstrative of your failure to understand the tool of expression available to you.
Ray Nagin and his National Socialist corruptocrats masquerading as a legitimate city government in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina had legal jurisdiction in the Crescent City, with specific controlling authority over city and parish resources which could not, in law, be usurped by the state government in Baton Rouge or by the federal government in Washington.
This isn't the place to discuss the fact that the FEMA operating model isn't the best means of coordinating large-scale responses to major emergencies. I recommend instead writer Jerry Pournelle's comments on the Katrina response overall, uttered in media res during and shortly after Katrina, and which can be found online. Pournelle had some considerable experience in California state government emergency planning, and applied that to his consideration of what went right, what went wrong, and how it could have been done better in the Gulf Coast region before, during, and after Katrina.
Suffice it to say that had Dubbya's federal bureaucrats acted (for instance) "TO DROP MEALS, WATER AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES TO FRANTIC PEOPLE SUFFERING AND DYING IN THE [New Orleans] CONVENTION CENTER," they would have had to take such actions without coordinating with whatever in hell it was that Nagin's hapless idiots on the city payroll were doing.
And, remember, those hapless idiots of Nagin's were not only the local authorities, they were also the people supposedly with the special knowledge of what was happening and what measures had to be undertaken to meet those challenges. Savvy "jurisdiction," Melinda? No? Well, that's not surprising.
As I've observed, where FEMA moved in accord with its operational model to support the local governments in Louisiana, east Texas, and Mississippi outside of New Orleans and the National Socialist satrapy run by Ray Nagin, the federal efforts worked about as well as bureaucracy ever does. It coulda been done better, but we're dealing with politicians here, and their only real expertise is in winning popularity contests. Competence in a crunch comes way down the list of priorities.
Speaking of military operations in Iraq (not that I'm defending Dubbya's playtime in the Sandbox), consider that those responses to the "emergency" that is warfare were in 2005 being carried out under painstakingly explicit rules of engagement by officers and officials in a well-defined chain of command.
It's in "chain of command" that Ray Nagin and his deer-in-the-headlamps New Orleans city administration screwed the pooch during and after Katrina. Chain of command is why a federal government emergency response guy doesn't simply shoulder an incompetent schmuck like Ray Nagin aside and preemptively take over.
Had FEMA done that in "Chocolate City" when Katrina was on its way to landfall, you "Liberals" would have howled "RACIST!" at the tops of your screeching voices, wouldnt'cha?
Ray Nagin and his affirmative action political machine – high in melanin content, low in real ability – had to hit the wall before their failures were proven. The private citizens screwed by Nagin's inadequate planning, poor implementation, and blazing lack of common sense had to suffer for it.
First, understand that there's nothing magical about government – and much that is sordid, disgraceful, and catastrophically bad, no matter what level you're looking at. Second, though I abjure the concept of "collective responsibility," the people of New Orleans had acted politically to ensure that they got Nagin and his ilk in control of their city and parish government.
They didn't want good government. They wanted Ray Nagin and his buddies. Ray Nagin – and the spectacle of failure in emergency response – is what they got.
To quote Jerry Pournelle in another context, "Think of it as evolution in action."
Oh, yeah. You don't like "INSULTS" (more precisely, assessments of your wonderfully "Liberal" idiocy). Jeez, that's tough. Try practicing lucidly reasoned thought, expressing it in your online posts, and – above all else – renounce your leftie-luzer approach to life, the universe, and everything. Who knows? You might learn something about reality which will help you to become less of a burden to your fellow citizens, if only by shutting your yap once you've realized that you're just digging yourself deeper into a hole.
As for our POTUS-With-An-Asterisk (the guy who couldn't pass a security background check for a low-level job at the Federal Emergency Management Agency with the documentation he's presented as proof of identity thus far), that is a sore point with you Obamaphiles, isn't it?
It's "DISRESPECTFUL" to observe these plain facts about Michelle's Metrosexual Meatpuppet? Just what the hell is supposed to sanctify this Cook County corruptocrat, anyway? His track record is sketchy, what there is of it is odious, and to the extent that trained, experienced forensic evidence examiners have been able to get access to the critter's documentation (blocked by the National Socialists at great expense, including the sweaty shystering of the law firm of Perkins Coie, who have collected millions of bucks from your Messiah's campaign funds after the elections of 2008 were concluded) there's ample support for a full-bore criminal investigation that could not only see this guy stripped of public office – permanently – but spending the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary.
Pursuing nothing more his alleged 1980 (actually a "2008" date stamp clumsily carved in half and inverted to read "80–") Selective Service registration would be enough to march Stanley Ann's little red diaper baby out of the White House and off the federal payroll for the rest of his life.
Observing these plain facts is supposed somehow to be "DISRESPECTFUL"?
Melinda, he's a politician. Moreover, he's a product of the Cook County machine, and dirty even by the standards of Illinois. The fact that he's got a cutaneous albedo about the same as that of the average Sicilian doesn't put him beyond examination as yet another specimen of crook, simply because you "Liberals" are consumed by incoherent guilt over matters for which you bear no responsibility.
And I've got news for you. Neither do those of your Caucasian neighbors who think that Barry Soebarkah (or whatever in hell his legal name actually is) really ought to be bounced out of the White House and into the Big House until his multiple consecutive sentences "max out" some time in 2217 A.D.
Since we all seem concerned about the well being of young children, I posted this on over here to ask each person to pray for all these families involved in this event today. I know this will be a terrifying & tragic day that will be remembered by this community for a long time.
Government is the police power in society.
Correctly attributed to George Washington or not, there is no denying that "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."
With it understood that government is the agency in our society to which we entrust the exercise of our inalienable right to defend our lives, our liberties, and our property with deadly force – that government is in the business of "breaking things and killing people," and neither does anything else worth a damn nor really resorts to any other method in ramming down peaceable citizens' throats the commands of the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the rest of the goons on the government payroll – just why the hell are these armed thugs imposing any kind of educational system on our children and adolescents?
Any kind at all?
Government schooling has proven over the past half-century to be the hog trough of career politicians, their "campaign contributors," and their fellow authoritarians, and the quality of "public" education in America has suffered to the extent that if a foreign country were to settle such a hateful regime upon our children much at gunpoint as our own politicians have done, we'd consider it an act of war.
So why not consider it an act of war?
The politicians shafting us with the government school systems have proven themselves to be the enemies of the American people.
If we can't engage them in open combat, let us at least deny them even the illusion of legitimacy, and treat them as an occupying enemy power.
They're not us. We're not them. They harm our children. We know it.
What do they deserve from us?
Let's deliver.
The public school system will be stripped of its appearance of legitimacy when majority of school-age children are removed from the system. If 25% were pulled out, the per-student $ allotments for the local schools would shrink drastically. That would lead to programs being cut as a result, teachers, amenities, even school days (the move to 4-day school weeks is already happening in some districts). Districts would deflect more of the operating costs to parents. More parents will question this system, and they will pull more students out. The cycle will repeat, then you will have a majority of school-age students who are not in the State(ist) program, thus de-ligitimizing it.
Home schooling is ridiculously cheap once you have a computer and decent internet access. Google books, Gutenberg project, Khan Academy and a hundred online sites will give you free resources, only an Google search away. If you have a library and local home school group (for material swaps), so much the better. Every year the resources get better and access gets better.
Making the adjustment will be hard, but is completely do-able even on low incomes. Maybe one parent will have to give up their job, and they'll have to rent out their underwater-mortgage home to move into a smaller home, to save money. It can be done. Maybe mom and dad can get jobs w/ alternating shifts or tele-commute so one parent is always home. Maybe mom can tag-team w/ a neighbor who needs help w/ the kids due to her part-time job. It is worth it. We go at our own pace: fast when the material comes easily, slow when it's hard. No pre-programmed pace. We go to museums on the discounted days, or during the week when no one's there. Sometimes we get to take vacations that we otherwise wouldn't get to because we can go in the off-season (this applies to fancy vacations or cheap trips to the nearest beach). We stop for jumping jacks or a trip to the park (w/ other home school kids) when we're hyper and nap if we're cranky, and no one says the kids are bad or have "behavior problems" or need medication. It's lovely.
@Mina: "Home schooling is ridiculously cheap once you have a computer and decent internet access. Google books, Gutenberg project, Khan Academy and a hundred online sites will give you free resources, only an Google search away. If you have a library and local home school group (for material swaps), so much the better. Every year the resources get better and access gets better."
I've had increasing exposure to homeschooling over the past several decades, and I have to go along with you. Having had a role in the lives of my grandchildren, I've taken note of the ways in which the Internet and other information technology assets can be leveraged, and one of the interesting aspects of the grandfathering made me responsible for getting my oldest granddaughter to most of her Tae Kwan Do training sessions from the age of 5 through high school.
The school became a local center for homeschoolers, many of whom were looking for healthy structured childhood instruction in physical exercise (in which our Sensei excelled), and I got to know homeschooling families – children as well as adults – quite well.
The kids were uniformly bright, confident, and extremey well-"socialized" (the carpings of the government educrats notwithstanding). If anything, they fitted more comfortably and humanely into the company of their age-peers, their elders, and – perhaps most importantly – younger children.
I've never seen a homeschooled kid comport himself abusively in the company of a younger or smaller kid. Might have been the effect of the school's discipline, but as I've looked further into the subject I've found confirmation of the reports that homeschooled kids are actually – if anything – better "socialized" than are the victims of the government educationalist gulags.
According to the homeschooling parents with whom I've interacted, achieving good outcomes with homeschooling is far less difficult than one might surmise. With the establishment of even moderately structured routines, the inculcation of skills moves far more quickly and effectively than in the classroom environment, which is by turns noisy and distracting and stultifying.
All it really takes is a respect for learning and a liking for your offspring as human beings.
Tucci78, thank you for sharing your observations of home schoolers. What an asset you've been to your family! I hope that in many of those drives you were able to chat w/ you granddaughter about politics and libertarian ideals. I wish I'd been more exposed to them in my teens.
Terry D'Ostroph
I know a bright, friendly boy, eleven years old, who never heard of David and Goliath. He has never been to church or Sunday school. But he does know that "Communism has a lot of good ideas," because his unionized teachers in public school have taughthim so. He also knows a lot about zombies and snipers, learned from video games; and he knows whatever else he's picked up from movies and TV.
No one has ever read to him from the Bible. He doesn't pray. His father took off when the boy was born. His mother lives in a fog of self-absorption. She hasn't taught him anything.
That's funny. My unionized teachers never taught me that "Communism has a lot of good ideas." Oh, and my parents are still married even though they don't regularly read from the Bible and never enrolled me in Sunday school.
It seems to me you live in a fog of self-absorption.
I apologize for going off topic, but I don't think I'm the only one.
What happened to this little boy is unacceptable and horrifying.
A number of responses here that comment on public schools in general are troubling. As a teacher, I am proud of the work I see happening in school every day. The people I work with are dedicated professionals who are constantly working to help kids. We work nights and weekends trying to better ourselves so we can better support our students' learning while raising our own families as well.
One of the things that makes this country great is that every child has a right to an education, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or disability. That is a huge commitment on the part of our country, one that is not always backed up with the resources required.
To generalize an awful incident like this as the norm across the country in public schools is insulting. Teacher bashing is a big part of the zeitgeist in the country right now, and the only purpose it serves is demoralizing the people who are trying to make the next generation of leaders capable of taking on that mantle. One of the things I teach my kids is the importance of objective judgement and looking at subjects from different perspectives in order to gain a fuller understanding. Many of the one-sided comments here have served only to make me feel unwelcome in this community. The tone keeps thoughtful meaning and dialogue from emerging.
Roxie Curtis via Facebook
I get that they were suspicious about the boy who was really trying to help her find the money but why did the little girl's parents send her to school with that money without teaching her how to take care of it. Why did she have $20 in the cafeteria? If I send my kids to school with ANY money, I put it in an envelope with their name on it and what it's for and then I put it in their folder for their teacher to receive. If I sent my kid with $20 and they lost it, I would never want a child to go through that even if they did take it. We would just have to take it as a loss. These "teachers" had an opportunity to teach these kids a valuble life lesson about being responsible with money and to be grateful to someone helping them try to find it. Instead, they blew it on all levels. Maddening!
Mary De Luca via Facebook
And yes,,I totally get abuse occurs and they were proper in being suspicious, but the way they did it was all wrong!
Mary De Luca via Facebook
Roxie,,years ago this happened to me and I lost it so bad, I swear I didn't even have control over what I did! In my case, my son had a bruise on his cheek, which he told the teacher what happened. He wasn't even home when it happened. They stript him to see if their were marks on his body! I called the cops, social services and many school officials! The County actually said I had a case against them! It was terrifying what my son was subjected to!
Only in a politically correct society gone amuck would you see a young boy falsely accused, humiliated and degraded for doing something good. The message they are sending to these children is if you try and help someone else or be kind instead of mean, we will punish you. This individual needs to be terminated immediately and given a job sweeping the floor somewhere, but only where there are no innocent children around. I would be angry to the ninth degree if this were my child…! Shame on the school systems for letting ignorant people like this be in charge of impressionable little children.
the school is a war zone. poor kids, school sucks.
Louise Baker
Thank you for sharing this, Sarah. It's really important for us all to be reminded that blind trust in any institution is foolish. Most schools and educators are wonderful, but as parents we need to be aware of what's really going on, and listen to our kids when they tell us that something's not right.
Corporate Entity
Yes I have been battling sons school for some time on the Fluoride tablets/treatments they continue pushing along with there constant highly suggesting he get vaccinated if he wants to continue being indoctr I mean educated there. Now the RFID program is in full swing with these Rothschild/Rockefeller owned Institutions. Where does it end? I have school docs that comabat their BS if anyone wants them. Email me http://www.Nvnc.org
Zenee Miller
This is beyond ridiculous! I hope they win this lawsuit!
This is sad what happened and definitely NOT right!
But to blame the entire public school system for one school officials wrong doing is extreme and prejudges thousands or maybe millions of workers who are doing a good job trying to create a safe learning environment for the public. Especially for kids who don't have the possibility at home, maybe because their parents work too many hours to give them the time, or maybe these kid's parents just don't care enough to give them the time at home. This is the reality of a kid who does not grow up with money or in a loving family.
What I hear from a lot of you commenting sounds a lot like this… "A black man stole from a store yesterday, so that's why I never let a black man into my store!" Seriously?
Since when did one person's wrong carry the weight for a whole group of people's actions?
Both of my parents are retired public school teachers and they NEVER did something like this. My Dad receives thank you letters from students 20 years later telling him how much he changed their life! My sister is a public school teacher now, and I know from growing up around public teachers that a lot of them care and would never do such a thing! I'm not saying that this sort of thing would never happen… and of course the school system contains people who don't care and want to milk it or abuse it, or abuse kids! Who the hell knows. The world is a messed up place, and it's not just the public schools. Private schools, churches, malls, police officers, busses, I don't know… you name it. What the hell doesn't have someone messed up in it!? Does that make it all bad???
And no, I don't agree with the way the entire school system is run, I don't want a "police state" system, even though that seems to be where we are headed in general. I wish people were teaching sustainability, gardening, practical tools, understanding mind body phenomenon… but I you what I don't blame every person in the system for it's problems. Some are bringing good stuff to the schools. Some people care and are truly helping to make a difference. I know some who are angels, probably treating the kids in their classes better than some of their parents would.
One persons wrong doing is not everyones wrong doing. Let's come back to our senses now, and place blame only where it is due. No need to throw it around like a flame thrower all willy nilly!
I would like to know why a child can't take meals to school? my granddaughter tells us that lots of times when she gets to the server they may not have the main course they were serving and come up with a snack if any thing at all. She tells me they can't take meals to school, so when she gets home she is usually starving for something to eat. i don't see this is fair when we have to pay for her meals.
If her parents haven't checked into this, I would recommend that they do. It could very well be she didn't understand the rules/system about lunch. If her parents can't get to the school see if you can check on this…some schools will let a grandparent fill in for the parents, some won't. If they let you, see why they don't have enough food (I find that strange….all schools my kids were in had leftovers everyday…I worked the lunchroom and ate at school) or why they won't let her bring lunch.
I'm not saying anything against your granddaughter, but something is not adding up.
The "zero tolerance" public school laws were designed by right-wing fascists in order to prepare the new generation for a lifetime of police state living and total surveillance.
Schools are nothing more than training grounds to create future prison inmates.
Just to demonstrate what an 8th grade education was a century ago. How many of you public school grads could pass this test?
NONE, even professors of today can't!
Charlotte Oliver
Homeschooling is the best way to go when raising children.
If the school officials (throughout the entire USA) were really concerned about what children are eating, they should just ban kids from bringing anything from home and let the school serve "food". This isn't about a lunchbox and what's in it, this is about harrassment, pure and simple. Because they can.
This is actually happening in some areas. No home packed lunches allowed.
Tracy Mason
My 17-year old son recently had an incident with the lunch tyrants at his school. In a nutshell, he was essentially protesting this new "law" about needing to have a certain number of fruits and veggies on his tray. He didn't want any fruit and told them so. They tried to force him to take an apple and he turned his back and walked away. Of course, the vice principal came and talked to him after that. It didn't progress any further than that, although I would have relished them calling me about it and told him next time to make sure they do. It is really so absolutely absurd. They don't care if the stuff gets thrown in the trash, as long as it's on their trays. What an absolute waste of resources that could be used towards improving the lunches rather than trying to police the amount of items there. Just a small, minor story but I am unbelievably proud of him for standing his ground.
If every parent made sure to be a part of the school in one way or another even if
they do lunch room once a week, the children would be treated better. Get involved parents, get to know the principle extremely well as well as the teachers and other students. I worked and helped out at the school, it was exhausting but my kids were worth it. The principle was and is a good friend of mine. I voiced my concerns to her many times and worked with her to make things better. I co-chaired and chaired events, seminars etc.
The only way to change things is to be the change yourself and that simply means getting involved and caring about the school, the staff and the kids! The other option is to home school, if you can run your business from home,or work from home you can home school. The internet also provides many, many options. The key is to protect your children and know and have input into the content of what they are learning both academically wise, socially, athletically and of course what they are being taught about their rights as a person and as an American in the Great Republic of these United States. I did it and helped lots of others! You can too, your kids are worth it!
Deborah Chisholm via Facebook
Oh for God's sake, people! This has NOTHING to do with unions, "indoctrination", public schools, government or any other ignorant, paranoid nonsense that has been encouraged by corporations (yes, the enemy you all hate has most of you duped on this subject because they rely on your naiveté in these matters!). This was a stupid woman who exercised outrageously bad judgement and who works in a district who makes it possible to abuse its authority. Legislation to allow this sort of thing passes when people don't care enough to get involved in the laws that will affect them because they are too self-absorbed to realize that the world is only your enemy if you allow it, and none of us live in own little universe, isolated from being part of a society, no matter how much we wish it were so. Honestly.
Thank you!
Annie Atkin Rasmussen
@Deborah, you are so right! Thank you for posting!
Yes, thank you Deborah! Thank goodness for our legal system, which will hopefully provide redress for this student and his family.
It seems we've lost the ability to get along with people we don't agree with. Who can I blame??
Rob c
Sarah, have you written about the case where the middle schooler was strip searched in front of his peers after he was accused of having marijuana? I can't remember if I read about it on your site or Natural News or Drudge Report. The boy didn't want it done in front of the other students because he was wearing Superman underwear that day. They did it anyway, found no pot, and now he gets teased about the underwear he was wearing that day. I mention the underwear because that should help you find the article via Google.
Jacqueline Markovic-Kuraica via Facebook
This is hard to digest! Unfortunately, the school staff is protected by the unions and they are not going anywhere. Poor kid, having to go through all that!
Where was the boy's father? Why didn't he get his butt down to that school and read the riot act to that worthless piece of trash masquerading as an assistant principal? My god – if that had happened to me as a child, my father would have had have had her by the neck.
People – listen up. If you allow this crap to happen to your kids – then you're just a culpable as the slime who do it. Why isn't that harpy being charged with child molestation? Suppose a male administrator stripped a 10 year old girl – how far do you think he'd get before he saw the wrong end of a room full of steel bars?
Take charge of your own – because no one else will.
Heather McClure via Facebook
one of the endless reasons we have chosen to homeschool, even at a big financial loss for our household.
Look into after school programings snacks….an apple is considered water & to cut costs supplies like cups are not to be used to supply the children with drinks in a 3 hour period your told to let them use the water fountain….I always encouraged mine to bring their own water bottle.
Mary Dunn
As a school teacher I feel a strong need to reply to this post. At first I was angry by the hate I felt being poured onto this page. But as we know, anger always covers a deeper emotion. For me the emotion I realize I'm feeling as I reread this post and the comments that follow it is pure sadness. Yes, obviously strip searching a child is mind boggling. It's hard to fathom any sane reason that would justifiably lead to this. Undeniably it needs to be looked in to and dealt with. But to lump all public schools into this demonized category does nothing to help the millions of children who walk through those doors every day. Our society provides a free education for all children. Not all parents have the luxury to stay home and homeschool their children. Some wish they did and some want nothing to do with that. Either way, the public school is there for all children. I love teaching. I love children, all children, the children who are whole and the children who are broken. Let me say that more and more children come to school broken. Their hearts and spirits have been broken by poverty, parental substance abuse, domestic violence, and/or mental illness (their own and/or their parents). We provide a free education to all children, even those who are broken and who have behavior that does not allow them to settle into the routine of caring learning communities. Yes I agree, there are teachers who should not be teaching. But there are also amazing teachers who give their hearts and souls to the children that they teach. Imagining that some children come to school full of hate and anger is almost impossible unless you work in the schools. Please, before you lump all public schools and those that work in them into the "most horrid place on Earth" category, visit them, volunteer in them, become part of the solution of making them a better place for your community's children instead of standing by the proverbial fence bashing them. That truly does nothing for all the children that enter those doors everyday. Thank you for listening to my view.
Wow, what a great way to address such a difficult issue. I too know many people who teach and who have dedicated their lives to helping kids. I also know parents who have been through terrible divorces, who have had teachers care enough about their kids to help them blossom and gain self confidence where they had been struggling prior.
This is a serious issue and we do need to address it, but I agree that there should be more focus on solutions rather than distrust and anger if we are going to prevent this from happening to someone else.I think homeschooling has many benefits and can be great for many families, but if we have the time and patience to homeschool our own kids, maybe we could use our time and talents in a way that could bless the lives of the kids who's parents are not able to do so. Things like volunteering in the classrooms, being hall monitors, being a part of the PTA etc. Whatever gets you into the school and involved in the way the kids are treated as well as keeping you closer to your kids will have a huge impact on preventing these kinds of situations.
I'm with Sarah in how indignant I feel about these situations, but I also agree that we need to be a part of the solution and figure out how we can help these kids!
Ursula Stouffer
Actually, public schooling is not free, it is paid for by every working American, via government extorted tax dollars.
I agree that there are some amazing teachers. But the problem is, that the public school system is broken beyond repair (and in fact, it was from the very beginning), and a few fabulous teachers don't fix it.
Schools are about separating children from their parents, and indoctrinating them into tools of the state, godless, mindless and doing whatever they're told.
Here in Canada the government sends 'Public Health Nurses' to vaccinate children behind their parent's backs, no consent needed if they're over twelve. I just found out that a girl that has been deathly ill for three years actually had the Gardasil vaccine given to her in school two months before getting so sick, and her parents never knew she even had the vaccine!
Kids are being taught that 'whatever feels right is right'. Teachers ridicule kids in front of their peers if they're Christians. One of my children had her pencil taken away from her that had a Bible verse written on it, because it was 'inappropriate' to bring that to school.
One extremely dedicated teacher (she came to school at six in the morning, and often didn't leave until six pm to prepare) 'taught' only the whole word method, which is what she had been taught in teacher's college…… apparently my daughter 'read' really well….. in fact, she had memorized about 100 books (she had an amazing memory). But when I covered up the pictures, she couldn't even read simple words like 'the'. I confronted the teacher, saying that memorizing and reading are two different things. The teacher claimed that it was the same thing, and that my daughter could actually read.
I took her out of school and taught her myself….. she could actually read perfectly within a month. That teacher had from September to March to teach her and failed. But her dedication was awesome!
Mary Dun, you've got one thing wrong, that education isn't free..at least for those of us who aren't holding our hands out to the government.
I home school and I am so incredibly glad I do. Many people could afford it if that is what they wanted to do. I have 3 children, we live in a small house that is paid for and we drive used vehicles we paid for with cash. We could easily finance a 3000 sq foot house and drive brand new cars and go eat fancy dinners and put nice vacations on credit cards. But we only have ONE chance to raise our children. Those cars and houses and vacations are simply nothing compared to the well being of our children. I am sorry but most public school systems are terrible, horrific prison like environments. With more teachers who hate teaching because their classrooms are full of out of control little brats who's parents don't give a darn and the teachers can't do anything about it. So we are loosing all the good teachers as they are retiring as soon as they can. Any young teachers who do care are ran off and only the ones who can't get a job anywhere else stick around. I don't blame the teachers but the ridiculous rules and regulations put on the schools that ultimately run off all the good teachers and decent parents. So yes, they are one of the worst places on earth for those of us who do care and don't want our gigantic government controlling every aspect of our lives. I'll be danged if they are going to control what my children do and don't eat and crush their spirit with their prison like tactics.
Also, that principle should get fired. I have a little boy and I am just infuriated thinking of anyone stripping him down in such a manner. I hope these are parents who give a darn and make that woman's life a living hell until she is ran off. Maybe if parents started making women like this an example, pedophiles and weirdos wouldn't look for teaching jobs as an easy way to find victims.
Mary- my mom was a single mother with 5 children. She stayed at home and taught us at home. The child support my biological father paid was barely enough to cover our rent. Food, clothing, utilities, car repairs, and our school books were covered by my mom. She did day care, got up at 3:30 in the morning to deliver newspapers and bake bread to sell at our local health food co-op. She almost worked herself to death trying to provide for us and keep us at home where she felt we would receive the best education. My mom didn't do it because it was a luxury. She did it because she knew it was best, even though we were living well below the poverty line. I have many friends who are in the public education system and they all express frustration with the way their hands are tied when it comes to their students. Most families that home school make numerous sacrifices to keep their children at home. For us it is not a luxury, but a necessity for the safety and well being of our children, not to mention their education.
Annie Atkin Rasmussen
Opting out of the system and homeschooling may be great for individuals (it's on the table at my house), but we are trying to create a society in which our children's children will want to live, and that involves preserving an educated electorate. Creating and protecting a free nation takes a whole-society effort and I am honored to pay my dues into that system that will make good neighbors for my children.
What "dues" are you referring to?
Iowa girl
@Mary Dunn I am grateful for the honest, loving good teachers out there. What has happened in our country over the last 50 years was planned. Once LBJ had his perfect society our country has gone downhill. The welfare system has taken the father out of the home. So the government steps in in increments. First it was to help the widowed moms, then the single moms. Divorce became much easier. Americans became used to the government taking over and making the decisions for our children. The fact that the government provides breakfast, lunch and snacks to low income children is awful. This lets the parents off the hook for being responsible for the welfare of their children. Once the government is more and more responsible for the welfare of children, parents can continue to do drugs, not work and have more out of wedlock babies. Parents need to be more responsible and quite depending on the government for money, food, schools. America is one of the last countries that a person can be almost anything you want. You just have to want it. Unions have hurt our schools. Schools need to more local control and parents being involved.
Charlotte Oliver
Amen!!!! So true.
"The fact that the government provides breakfast, lunch and snacks to low income children is awful. This lets the parents off the hook for being responsible for the welfare of their children."
Actually whats awful is that you want children to go hungry.
I agree with Will. Do you really think it's better for children to go hungry?
iowa Girl
@ Will and Melinda. No I do not want the children to go hungry. I want the government out of our school lunch programs. I want parents to take responsability for their children that they brought into this world!!! Other people should not have to pay higher taxes so that lazy, irresponsible parents don't do their jobs. The sad thing is our childrent are fed the crappiest food possible in the school lunch programs.
"Other people should not have to pay higher taxes so that lazy, irresponsible parents don't do their jobs."
Iowa girl, what about single moms who WORK FULL TIME to provide for their children, but don't quite make enough? Many of them work harder than most people who work full time, and go above and beyond, but still need a little extra help.
We do agree that "our childrent are fed the crappiest food possible in the school lunch programs". The real issue is getting QUALITY, nutrient dense food into the school lunch progran. Not demonizing other parents as "lazy, irresponsible parents" who "don't do their jobs", when you have no idea what the truth of their lives are like. Letting innocent children go hungry is exactly what you mean, despite you protests to the contrary, when you say ignorant things like, "Other people should not have to pay higher taxes so that lazy, irresponsible parents don't do their jobs."
I would just like to mention that in order for these kids to get any food from schools in the first place, the parents have to fill out forms (most of the time). There are parents who are so irresponsible, they can't even manage that, so some children are starving despite the school food programs, as lacking as they may be.
The real issue is both things. Parental responsibility and better quality school fare should not be mutually exclusive. Both issues must be addressed.
Rachel, I do agree with you. I'm not saying there aren't any irresponsible parents. I'm just sick of sweeping, ignorant statements like iowa Girl made, that lump all parents who depend on the school lunch program into one category. In her eyes, and many others, that category is "lazy and irresponsible". They view "those people" as taking money out of their pocket. It's just not true.
It's personal to me, because my sister is a single mom who gets very little help from her ex. She works full time at a low income job, and believe me she works hard. She is not lazy or irresponsible, and there are a LOT of parents out there just like her. They are the majority. Not the parents who take advantage, or can't even manage to fill out the paperwork when their children do qualify.
Ironically enough, my sister has been packing my two young nephew's lunches this year, because the shool food is so atrocious that they don't want to eat it. She is responsive to the needs of her sons, even though they definitely qualify for the free school lunch.
People who think like iowa Girl should be thankful that they haven't ever been in a situation where they truly couldn't provide everything their children need, instead of calling other parents names. What is the saying? There, but for the grace of God, go I.
While I appreciate your point of view, I am extremely tired of hearing how I (and other homeschool parents) have "the luxury to stay home and homeschool their children." I can assure you that "luxury" has nothing to do with our decision. My husband and I have worked hard to be in the financial position to have one parent home with our son. We have sacrificed wants so that we can provide for our family's needs, Christian education being one of those needs. There is no "luxury" at our house. Just the prioritizing of what is most important.
Brian Skory
People were doing just fine learning how to read the bible at home prior to the adoption of the public educational school system. From what I've read, Andrew Carnegie imported that model of education from Germany as a means of educating in a fashion that would ensure a "factory-worker-mentality" workforce (don't question what you are taught, don't question authority, etc. etc.) which he so passionately believed was needed to staff his ever-growing steelworks. Prior to this model of public education, visitors to this new country were quite amazed at the level of literacy and philosophical wherewithal of this group of "country bumpkin farmers" who were mostly taught at home.
Karen Kaup Paschkes via Facebook
that's outrageous!
Blanca Villanueva Perez via Facebook
Parents should take to the streets to protest and take their rights back. This is appalling!
Katrina Clough via Facebook
for those that say this is what happens in public schools etc, private can be just as bad. i hate the idea of children being fed by the school and lunch rooms am very glad we don't do that here in nz.
I can't help but say GET YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!!!! The home is the environment that children will learn best in. It is not the governments responsibility to teach our children what they need to know. Let's use the freedom that we have while it is legal to homeschool and teach our children at home where God intended them to be nurtured.
As Larry The Cable Guy says, "what the hell is this, Russia?". And the sad answer is it certainly appears to be pretty darned close.
Holly Anne Jorgensen via Facebook
Everyone is saying the solution is to homeschool. But, everyone cannot do this and this should NOT be permitted to go on in schools either!
This is beyond belief! I hope that poor family wins big! I am usually against lawsuits, but this is unthinkable! What an embarrassing, humiliating experience for that boy! It just makes the hair on my neck stand up to hear such abuse being held up as justifiable! Where does it end? Homeschooling is a wonderful option for those who are considering a change of environment for their children. THANK YOU RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE for protecting the honest citizens of this nation! God bless you!
Michele Fairman via Facebook
we actually hear it all the time. it starts with a statistic telling us what percentage of parents can't or don't do this or that well enough for "our children" and then proceeds to tell us what the government can to do help the problem.
So thankful that God places it upon my heart to homeschool. I am so thankful my kids have never been in the public school and hopefully never will!
Interesting that the public school system–which was established so that the American citizenry would be able to read the Bible for themselves–has become a place where the power hungry lord themselves over children.
If that principal really believed that the child had taken someones money–she should have called the parents before doing anything else.
Julie in WA
Yes! Why are such actions taken without parental notification? It should be school policy that parents are called before questionable or innappropriate actions are taken against any child within school boundaries.
Brian Skory
People were doing just fine learning how to read the bible at home prior to the adoption of the public educational school system. From what I've read, Andrew Carnegie imported that model of education from Germany as a means of educating in a fashion that would ensure a "factory-worker-mentality" workforce (don't question what you are taught, don't question authority, etc. etc.) which he so passionately believed was needed to staff his ever growing steelworks. Prior to this model of public education, visitors to this new country were quite amazed at the level of literacy and philosophical wherewithal of this group of "country bumpkin farmers" who were mostly taught at home.
Ursula Stouffer
You're right, Brian. Public schools have never been about education, they have been about indoctrination all along.
Before public schools, the literacy rate in America was around 90%. Now kids are 'graduating' from high schools who can't read well enough to fill out a job application without help……. at least 50% of graduates are functionally illiterate.
And I do believe that is completely intentional… it is much easier to control people who are uninformed than people who can do their own research.
Andrew Carnagie had nothing to do with establishing public education in the US. His interests were LIBRARIES and PEACE. He did provide generous endowments for some universities, like Tuskeegee. Public education in the US long preceeds this late 19th century philanthropist.
If you haven't, research John Taylor Gatto & Charlotte Iserbyt (author of 'The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America'). Mindblowing about the American public school system!
Hear Hear Joyce! What an eye opener John Taylor Gattos work is. The podcast 'School Sucks' is another great resource for parents wanting to know the truth about the Prussian school system in place all over the world with America being in the lead. We have no real meaningful rights left in this US Corporation nation using legal-ese; a version of English where most of the basic definitions of word "spells" are used against us in every area of life. God given rights are what we need to be fighting for; it is too late for the government and their so-called criminal justice system of opression. Will the masses of sheeple wake up in time?
No doubt we will see the Union protecting this principal's job security. Perhaps that is why we are not seeing it in the media … they are busy paying off media and politicians with hush money.
Julie Quan via Facebook
No, not all schools, teachers or school officials do these things but when my child walks through that school door I loose my rights as a parent to protect and parent my child. for a "free" education I agree to let them parent my child, make plans for my child and decisions for my child's future. No thank you! I am William's parent and will retain the right to protect, parent and plan for him! This includes things that pertain to health (filter drinking water, food & snacks, air quality, shots, doctor visit schedules, medicine given to him, etc.), curriculum content, daily schedule, scope and sequence, timing of learning skills (he is an active 6 yr old boy – we don't spend a lot of time doing seat work, force early reading or writing – they aren't ready yet!), decide what behavior is appropriate (yes, he moves around alot and no he doesn't need meds – he is a healthy, active all American boy!) and all else pertaining to my child. Sorry for the long list but this is a hot button issue. I didn't have the child to hand over to someone else to parent!
Stanley Fishman
Julie, you are one heck of a mom!
I admire the way you have taken responsibility for your son.
Look through the reams of dead trees the school has sent home with your kid over the years (or maybe they do this online nowadays, so parents don't actually get a copy?) and chances are you'll eventually find the phrase "in loco parentis". Loosely translated from the Latin (don't get me started about our laws being written in a "foreign" language), it means that the school system claims parental status of your child.
The whole concept gives me the creeps. They should have no more rights than a babysitter or nanny at the most. Anything requiring more than the most minimal intervention should require parental permission unless it is a life-and-death emergency.
I hate what our country is becoming.
Thanks for shining a light in these dark corners, Sarah!
As we are getting ready to have our first child I am seriously considering home schooling
Go for it Michelle!! You will be richly rewarded!
Laura Blair via Facebook
but, amy, children shouldn't be mass grouped. they are human beings, not cattle.
Reason number 15,389 that we homeschool!
It's things like this that make me thankful my children are grown. I feel for the families that due to issues beyond their control or capabilities are not able to home school. We may go back to the neighborhood small schools of yesteryear. It's a sad day when a parent is afraid to send their child to school for fear of what may conspire.
Brenda Martaindale McKillip Basinger via Facebook
imagine that. Another horror story. When will people wake up?? I did over 20 yrs ago and it is definitely a lot worse now than then.
Amy Wilson via Facebook
It's because the lunchroom is monitored by non-professionals who are ill equipped to deal with the mass of conflicts that arise constantly among American youth and children. Parents can help by volunteering their time or teaching their own children how to handle and negotiate conflict in non-violent ways. But if parents volunteer…. We still have the problem of having non-professionals monitoring our young ones in a mass grouping.
Marie Gagnon via Facebook
After talking about this article to my son, he directed me to this video about "solitary confinement" in schools. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1xnC2hifsg
Rebecca Flannery via Facebook
And just one more reason we need the Parental Rights Amendment.
Nancy Hutchinson Hughes via Facebook
yet another reason for homeschooling.
I am disgusted every time I read articles like this. It would seem parents have no rights anymore. It is too bad not everyone can pull their children out of school.
I am so thankful for places like the Rutherford Institute headed by John Whitehead…a decent and good man, who fights this kind of insanity. He and RI continue to fight in arenas where many will not go. For those that pray, pls keep him and RI in their prayers.
I don't think it's necessary to pull all children out of school, but it's probably necessary for ALL adults to fight and support actions to protect ALL children from these kinds of tactics.
I regularly read this blog and invariable I see a lot of "thankfully I" etc., but this blog is consistenlty talking about issues that could affect anybody and we all should be working to raise awareness and support efforts to end over-reach of power. Shouldn't we??
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
Yes, I agree. If we let it slide at school it will start happening elsewhere too. Avoiding the problem is not the answer. We must face it head on and stop these attacks on our freedoms.
Absolutely Tawanda! I personally know a LOT of homeschool parents who share these stories to help educate their PS friends, and even those who do not yet have children. Many of us also write and/or call the schools and districts when things like this happen to express that we find it unacceptable. However, that doesn't change the fact that we are grateful that our own children will never be put in such a position
Rebecca Flannery via Facebook
@Iyesa: actually, you were designed to be creative and imaginative with freedom. Unfortunately, the school system "trained" us to conform. It IS possible to break that training, but it takes diligence on our part. I went to PS but am now homeschooling, eating traditionally, and breaking away from the government mindset more every day.
Sarah Couture Pope via Facebook
I can imagine my 10 year old son doing something nice like this boy did … helping a classmate pick up dropped coins. Very very sad that an act of kindness can result in heinous violation like what this Vice Principal did.
Sarah Couture Pope via Facebook
Kimberly Steinert Duffy That is a very good point. I hadn't even thought about that.
Kimberly Steinert Duffy via Facebook
And can you imagine the outrage if it were a male principal and female child?
Don't you think that's why she called the custodian?
Brittany Blankenship via Facebook
My children will never step foot inside a public school. I have no intentions of ever sending them to a private school either. This poor child. My heart goes out to the family.
Alicia Peckham via Facebook
This is infuriating and outrageous!
Anne Chase Sternquist via Facebook
I hope this family owns this school. The intrusive attitude, the complete lack of appropriate boundaries, the disgusting assumption of authority where none exists. God help our children, our Nation and God help the teachers who still enter the profession with noble intentions.
Anne Chase Sternquist via Facebook
I hope this family owns this school. The intrusive attitude, the complete lack of appropriate boundaries, the disgusting assumption of authority where none exists. God help our children, our Nation and God help the teachers who still enter the profession with noble intentions.
Tina Parman
Wow! I live in Sampson county. Another reason my children do not go to school here. We home school! My older daughter tried school here for a couple of months and I have nothing nice to say. If they did this to my child it would not go well for the school.
Another reason we homeschool. That is a disgusting way to treat a child. I can't believe that teacher still has a job.
She isn't a teacher. She's an administrator. In my experience as a former classroom teacher, the teachers that don't do well in the classroom, for whatever reason, aren't dismissed they are promoted to administrative positions. In all fairness, that's not how all administrators get their jobs. There are many out there that are very talented, do their jobs well and have students' best interests in mind. This just isn't an example of one of them obviously.
BTW, we homeschool all of ours. We will graduate our oldest this year. They are so much better equipped to face the world with a clear knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and not so worn down and desensitized that they accept everything that comes their way and cave on important issues/values because they are so exhausted from swimming upstream alone. They may not know all the current slang terms, the obscene lyrics to the latest songs or dress like they are 22 by the time they are 10 but they are sweet children that are eager to learn and go the extra mile to find out more, motivated to serve others from lots of opportunities to practice doing it and most of all happy.
This is another reason I am so blessed to be able to homeschool! Yikes! Sad and infuriating article.
Melissa Dennis via Facebook
Poor kid. I bet he will think twice before he helps someone at school again.
Iyisa Gardner via Facebook
how does one with a spirit broken by conformity provide the alternate to their children? i was designed to do it they way they did….arrggghhh!
Catherine Hansen
Educate yourself and allow your children to see you doing it. We can still think. We just were not encouraged to develop that confidence to do so.
Also, read A Thomas Jefferson Education. It is very inspiring.
I have just a few minutes and did a quick Google search. Why is this not all over the media!!!
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist
Good question! That's why I blog.
Sarah Reddick via Facebook
Billy Reddick
Amber Moon via Facebook
They are nothing but servitude indoctrination camps.. THAT IS WHAT THEY WERE DESIGNED TO BE.. it was never about "education" just breaking the human spirit, pumping out broken people who don't know how to live or think who think their state is their savior.
"The system is designed to take away their ability to think for themselves" – High school teacher
"What I see is human suffering, everyday. 100 kids a day for 60 it's pretty miserable, herded around like sheep, judged by their peers, beaten up, low level harassment by adults, getting screamed at, eating horrible food, being treated like an animal"… by a high school teacher..
Paula Tan via Facebook
Kimberly Steinert Duffy via Facebook
People worry about child bullies but the adult ones are worse! My children are home schooled and their "principal" would never strip search them
Kelly Conrad via Facebook
I just decided to homeschool. Thank you!
Charlotte Lee via Facebook
SO inappropriate. And yes, absolutely a part of the reason we are homeschooling despite lots of wayward glances.
Dawn Lane via Facebook
Bullying by other kids is bad enough, but by the adults they trust to protect them? Ridiculous!
Angela Miller via Facebook
Prison training . . .
Michelle Valdes via Facebook
And this is why I homeschool…so crazy and scary!!!
Chris Woolridge via Facebook
This is why I would be reluctant to hand my child over to the state…which is what you are doing when you enroll them in public schools.
This type of abuse will only increase unless parental rights are upheld legally in a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. HSLDA is spear-heading such a movement in response to imminent erosion of said rights through two hotly contested UN treaties, the RIghts of the Child and the Rights of Person's with Disabilities. Lovely sounding, but misleading titles to treaties that would uphold acts (rightly) mentioned as abuses in Sarah's article.
no! this is not a parent's rights issue! this type of abuse will increase unless the rights we already have are upheld. people are protected from illegal search and seizure via the 4th amendment but people don't see children as real people so they don't care.
according to the hslda, parents have the right to hit their children. people are protected from being hit via the 4th amendment but people (including the hslda) do not see children as real people so they don't care.
the hslda are no better than the woman who strip searched this child.
HSLDA protects the right of parents to properly discipline their children, which includes a proper spanking. That is not hitting! Spanking has been practiced throughout the United States and all over the world throughout time, and even "corporal punishment" was practiced in the schools by teachers and principals (and probably still is in some schools). Abuse should definitely been punished (sexual abuse, punching/leaving bruises), but an appropriate spanking should not be called abuse. Some people have visions of angry parents, screaming and chasing a child through the house, then violently beating them…..this is very different from a controlled spanking applied to the backside for the child's benefit, administered by a loving parent. A school should not be allowed to strip search a child without the permission of the parent!
i don't think you understand. parents do not have the right to decided whether or not the constitutional rights of a human being may or may not be applied to their child.
constitutional rights are the rights of every american.
children that are americans have the constitutional right to not be hit/"spanked"/strip searched by ANYONE including their parents. the same way i do not have the right to hit/spank/strip search you because i think it will be for your benefit.
Silver Creek Doug
LB, how do you propose the courts balance the "constitutional rights" of children to not be spanked with the "constitutional rights" of parents to raise their children? Seems to me those two things are in direct opposition to each other.
And don't forget that these kids are minors under the law and, as such, don't have all the right as privileges that adults have.
i'm not sure why you put quotation marks around constitutional rights. we all have them. there is no age limit. someone under 18 has the same rights to not be hit/illegally searched as someone over 18.
why do you think they don't have the same rights? of course, they do! no where in the constitution does it say "these rights apply to everyone, except kids. they don't count."
i do not have the right to hit/take the cloths off of my children if they tell me they don't want it to be done. my rights as a parent end where their rights as a human being begin.
you do not have the constitutional right to raise your children. if you did, cps wouldn't be snatching up kids left and right they way they do.
To begin with 'we' do not have "Constitutional" rights. We have GOD given rights enumerated by the Constitution. We just do not have the balls to fight for them as did our forefathers. But to be more specific, if you have a marriage license and/or Birth Certificate for your child the State owns them and can do whatever they decide. Now before you start ranting about what you know nothing about look up what is a "Marriage" license as opposed to Holy Matrimony. A Marriage license is a 3 party contract between you, your spouse and the State, the State having final say over ALL ISSUES from said Marriage, ISSUES being CHILDREN! And yes, proper spanking has been around since God made man. Peace.
what the heck are you talking about? children exist whether the parents are married or not.
also, if the state has the last say in all issues and the state says you can not hit other people (as it does)…. then your point is moot.
It's not that children don't count, of course they count. But they are NOT adults. You must train them to become adults. Responsibility and respect for authority are not naturally occurring traits. Therefore they do not need the same 'rights' as adults. They still have rights, the rights to be loved enough to be disciplined so that they can become successful adults.
Sigh. So very thankful my parents loved me enough to spanking me.
I understand what you are trying to say, but spanking was disciplinary act even more so at the time when constitution was followed and respected. Do you scream at adults? That is not right? But every parent screamed at their children at least few times. What about striping down your child? Did not you ever undress your child? Of course if you have one. Don't every parent take their kids diapers off? So, what you say does not seam applicable. Or we all should be in jail for molesting and abusing our children. Children are real people. No one argues this point. There is also something called being a parent. It is a role where you are responsible for little people who are totally irresponsible yet and you are responsible to teach them to become and to grow in to responsible adult people. I hope you see the difference. That is why we as parents have rights to apply disciplinary act, with love, of course. This is not violation of constitutional rights, but it is unconstitutional to do anything above without parent's knowledge and agreement.
The 4th amendment protects you from governmental search and seizures – how does that have anything to do with parent/child spanking?
Agree. Spanking is not abuse. SInce the decline of spanking it seems there has also been a decline in morals and values in our society.
Salem Thorup
I agree that spanking is not abuse. I don't think the state should have the authority to punish a parent for controlled spanking. I do, however, think that we should all consider better methods than spanking. My parents spanked me & I don't think it was abusive. Defining spanking as abuse could be a slippery slope, but then again so can spanking become a slippery slope for some people. With the amount of mental illness we all deal with, we are best off promoting other methods of guidance & discipline. Should mere controlled disciplinary/controlled spanking give the state grounds to punish parents or remove children from a home? Never. Is spanking something that should be a defended right? Probably not. We might not all agree on this subject, but I'd hope that most (if not all) of us would agree that parental roles are not very well supported by our society & certainly not by government or public schools. Big Brother likes to be a constant threat to the role & duties of every parent. When he can't soothe parents out of their responsibilities, then he bullies them out of it.
Spanking is hitting. At least to me as someone who was 'spanked' by both parents. I have chosen to parent differently. There are better ways to guide and discipline your children. Parents make their own choices and many will say "Well, *I* was spanked and came out fine." is also illogical. There are ramifications whether or not people want to acknowledge them are not. I completely agree with LB. Peace.
I would really like to hear you explain how the Rights of Person's with Disabilities is a treaty that would uphold acts of abuse against children. SERIOUSLY?!
personally, i am against it because it would require people with disabilities to register with the state.
like you can only truly be disabled if the government says you are.
also, all disabled children will be required to go to public school. homeschooling will no longer be an option. and we've already seen what public schools do to kids (disabled and typical). actually, that may be what she is referring to.
Go to youtube and search for "slavery by consent", here let me help you.
Your comment would be hysterically funny if it weren't so ignorant and sad. The US led the way with Americans with Disabilities Act, signed by the first Pres. Bush. Did that act take away any control you might have over a child? No? Didn't think so. Then we pushed other countries to adopt these standards that would greatly improve the lives of disabled people in THEIR countries. It was/is a completely WONDERFUL thing. Only morons on the right (are you listening in OK?) could have objected to this or found these bizarre and totally fabricated "reasons" to oppose it. You will notice the rightwingnut Senators who voted "no" had to walk past their former colleague, Bob Dole, sitting before them in a WHEELCHAIR and asking for their support. Really, hysterical if it were not so depressing …
Thanks, Melinda. My thoughts exactly. It sounds a whole lot like extreme right wing spin and fear mongering, and I've heard a lot of it. By the way, I'm so happy to see a more liberal real foodie here. I love the real food movement, but I feel really sad reading a lot of the comments when things get political. We're definitely in the minority.
wait… are you talking about me? i am not republican. far from it. in fact, i think they are crazy people.
Wow Melinda, what a completely belligerent and attacking comment.
So you are saying that it is moronic to oppose an outside 3rd party having the right and ability to trump our own laws? Moronic to oppose giving an outside 3rd party say over our governmental budget? Moronic not to want to turn over the control of our children to the whims of an outside 3rd party? Moronic not to want some uninvolved government bureaucrat to have more say in what is in the "best interests" of the child than the people who know him/her the best? After all, everyone wants strangers to make decisions for their life… right?
So do you really mean that you want our rights, laws, and children turned over to the UN and international governing bodies… or is the real issue that you have listened to media and social media blips about this and not done any real research on it to find out the fall out of ratifying such a treaty? And I don't ask this to be scathing, I ask it with great sincerity. I find that when people make comments along the vein of yours that it often stems from their ignorance of the issue. You can have a great heart, and the best of intentions, but if you do not know what the implications are of such an act of domestic compliance then you can inadvertently encourage acts that are harmful to Americans.
The treaty with the U.N. was a wrong deal, because it gave them control over what care for your children would get. If you're for there control over children with disabilities, you must like the fact that in Europe, they take babies and leave them in rooms by them selves, without water or food for ten days to die. You better watch what you wish for.we need to get out of the U.N., they will only drain our country, if Obama doesn't do it first. Go to the U.N. web site and see what their agenda is.
Salem Thorup
I know it seems like a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories, but this stuff has been done before. It's not like fairytale stuff. People that oppose this stuff are just concerned about what it leads to. They are concerned about it because they know & understand history in more depth than most people. You can laugh at it or judge it, but when it really happens (& it already has- you just don't hear about it from the mega liberal media) & happens to your family or friends then you'll understand what the "right wing nut jobs" are talking about. I hope you don't ever experience stuff like that, but it sounds like that's the only way you'll ever see it. So sad that so many people, such as yourself, won't see it coming til it's in their face.
I see how that comment can seem hilarious, sad & far fetched- even after watching the video. However, even things like the ADA are tools that the elite use to advance their agenda. I'm not necessarily opposed to the ADA &, frankly, I've never read it myself. But, I wouldn't be surprised if they slipped things into it (as they do into pretty much every bill) that threaten our freedoms. These threats to our freedom are not done ignorantly or unintentionally- at least not all the time. I hope you will look into it further. It doesn't take too much digging to see that these "crazy conspiracy theorists" (as many people see them) are not so crazy & the conspiracies that speak of are not too far from the truth. Have you ever heard of the Bilderberg Group? They used to be so "hush-hush" that no one would admit to going to any of their secret meetings. Now, they don't even hide it. If you think there aren't secret & powerful combinations in the world then, sorry to say it like this, but you are ignorant.
I admit that I'm a little out of the loop, since my severly disabled daughter died at the age of 7 in 1997. However, I do know at that time that the ADA allowed for disabled children to be schooled in the "least restrictive environment". For my daughter, that meant HOME. Yes, the school district paid for and sent a teacher, and an Occupation Therapist to our HOME every week. No cost to us. We, along with our in-home pediactric nursing specialist (who was there 40 hours/week) also did various homeschooling activities with her.
I'm definitely going to research this issue, because my gut is screaming BS at your claim that "all disabled children will be required to go to public schools. homeschooling will no longer be an option." Under the ADA, the school district must pay for and provide schooling in your home, if it is determined to be the least restrictive environment for the child. It allowed us to say that our daughter was not able to go to public school, and still receive the skilled nursing care she required.
This treaty is modeled after the ADA, passed 22 years ago in this country. It is written to encourage the rest of the world to follow what we have already done in America. I don't believe for a second that "it would require people with disabilities to register with the state". Again, I will actually go and read the text of the propsed treaty. Have you personally read it?
These comment sound like a lot of extreme right wing spin and fear mongering to me. I KNOW what the ADA is all about. I've used it to provide the best schooling I could for my disabled child. Have any of you? Do you even have disabled children? I personally think it is shameful that republican senators discraced themselves by voting down this treaty.
i had only heard rumors earlier but i read it today before commenting as to not provide false information. i am not republican in any way. my son and i both have aspergers.
article 24 -2.a
"Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability, and that children with disabilities are not excluded from free and compulsory primary education, or from secondary education, on the basis of disability;"
says nothing about the least restrictive environment.
article 31 – 1
"States Parties undertake to collect appropriate information, including statistical and research data"
Jen, thank you for sharing your experience with us. It was very enlightening. I am very sorry for your loss.
Jen you said " I personally think it is shameful that republican senators discraced themselves by voting down this treaty." However, you also implied that you haven't read or researched this treaty. May I ask how you determined it is shameful for anyone to vote against it if you don't even know what it is? Are you aware that this treaty would supplant ADA as international treaties trump domestic law? Therefore, Americans with disabilities would NOT have the same protections and assistance as you experienced. Instead, they would have whatever the 3rd party international body deemed was in compliance with the treaty NOT pre existing US law.
The treaty would become a higher law in our land than the ADA. (per the constitution, ratified treaties become supreme law) The treaty has written in it that the state would be in charge of making the decision THEY think is best for your child in the way they receive education.
Someone explain to me why we would need a treaty when the ADA already exists and we lead every other nation in the world with our treatment of those with disabilities?
I have a disabled child! We were terrified that this insane treaty would pass! The government DOES NOT KNOW what is best for MY child or any other child!!! They don't know her. How can you think that giving control over your child to COMPLETE idiots is a good thing? Do some research on Hitler and see the similarities between how he slowly took over and what our government is doing to us. It's time to wake up and realize our government is against us and our freedoms.
for Sandy:
In which Rep. Langevin, the only quadreplegic in Congress, debunks the foolish idea that this treaty would "trump US law." As I said, the objections to ratifying this treaty were based on falsehoods. Don't you think we all make better decisions when we're working from truth and reality? Or, at least defensible decisions?
Marilu Martinez-Vargas via Facebook
And people still ask us why we homeschool?
I'm so happy I've decided to homeschool my 2-year-old.
Salem Thorup
I usually just get comments (or excuses) as to why they don't homeschool their kids. Stuff like "that's just too much for me" or "I could never handle that". I try not to judge, but I sometimes wonder "what do they think homeschooling is nowadays?" Technically, my daughter is in a public charter school (online), but this just makes the curriculum simpler for us. However, I'm considering just pulling her out altogether. I was so annoyed they made me sign a paper officially opting out of immunizations for my child that doesn't go to school outside of our home!!! Ridiculous! If my kids went to public school, I'd have to spend all my time making sure they weren't being given crap food or treats on top of supplementing the awful dumbed down curriculum. It's easier to home school, I think. At least for parents who are as particular as I am about my kid's nutrition & learning.