...But I defend to the Death Your Right to say it.
Hey, did anybody else notice how the Supreme Court has just ruled that Students have no rights?
A student created (and according to school officials and the courts, "distributed") an AOL Instant Messenger "Buddy Icon" of a character firing a bullet through the head of another, with a message suggesting the murder of a local English teacher.
(By "Distribution", we assume the Courts mean "Make accessible for viewing when engaged in conversation", because all the student did was assign it as his Icon. He did not send it via email or any other format to any other students, he never showed it to teachers, he never downloaded or logged into AIM while on school grounds. This was a decidedly extra-curricular "activity".)
However, much like "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", the student was suspended for an entire semester: While police investigators and psychologists called the icon a joke, made in decidedly poor tasted, school administrations called it a threat and cracked down on him.
The case made it to the Supreme Court, that bastion of civil rights and free speech, defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who concurred with the school. Ruling that students activities, nay, their very opinions, expressed outside of school, might cause a disruption to "the work and discipline of a school," and as such cases allow for, and in fact are supported by current law in regards to the suppression of free speech, having ideas is a justifiable reason for suspension or other punishment, by rule of the Courts.
What a crock of crap! Beyond the very real danger of the stripping of an entire quarter of the population of the United States of their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, (As much as the combined total of "Black", Hispanic, Asian, and Amerindian populations in the same area!) how far does one allow this suppression to extend? Would Catholics be punished for expressing a belief that a kind and loving G*d created the Universe, contrary to the theory taught in most schools? Would humanitarian students be punished for wearing black armbands in feeble protest to the genocides that regularly occur in the African continent? Should a teenager who becomes pregnant be punished for disrupting the attention of her peers? What about for disrupting the studies of the father, who presumably would have been studying, had she not been such a hussy?
This ruling, along with several others the Supreme Court has made in the last few years, are further evidence that the Powerful of this country are doing their very best to eradicate self-determination and any hint of rebelliousness in the youth today, the future of tomorrow. One can only assume that their goal here is to weaken the People, providing more power for themselves; a weakened People will never rise up in revolt against a tyrannical government.
To allow the Supreme Court to do this is to ourselves court disaster for our nation. Such a ruling will not free the schools to return to their task of educating children; rather, it will cow them into a submission, convince them that their futures are not in their own hands, and destroy any hope they might have of becoming more than they are, for simple fear that even the Government of the United States of America feels they should sit down, and shut up.
Fuck You, Supreme Court.
Sincerely,
Praecognomen
A student created (and according to school officials and the courts, "distributed") an AOL Instant Messenger "Buddy Icon" of a character firing a bullet through the head of another, with a message suggesting the murder of a local English teacher.
(By "Distribution", we assume the Courts mean "Make accessible for viewing when engaged in conversation", because all the student did was assign it as his Icon. He did not send it via email or any other format to any other students, he never showed it to teachers, he never downloaded or logged into AIM while on school grounds. This was a decidedly extra-curricular "activity".)
However, much like "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", the student was suspended for an entire semester: While police investigators and psychologists called the icon a joke, made in decidedly poor tasted, school administrations called it a threat and cracked down on him.
The case made it to the Supreme Court, that bastion of civil rights and free speech, defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who concurred with the school. Ruling that students activities, nay, their very opinions, expressed outside of school, might cause a disruption to "the work and discipline of a school," and as such cases allow for, and in fact are supported by current law in regards to the suppression of free speech, having ideas is a justifiable reason for suspension or other punishment, by rule of the Courts.
What a crock of crap! Beyond the very real danger of the stripping of an entire quarter of the population of the United States of their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, (As much as the combined total of "Black", Hispanic, Asian, and Amerindian populations in the same area!) how far does one allow this suppression to extend? Would Catholics be punished for expressing a belief that a kind and loving G*d created the Universe, contrary to the theory taught in most schools? Would humanitarian students be punished for wearing black armbands in feeble protest to the genocides that regularly occur in the African continent? Should a teenager who becomes pregnant be punished for disrupting the attention of her peers? What about for disrupting the studies of the father, who presumably would have been studying, had she not been such a hussy?
This ruling, along with several others the Supreme Court has made in the last few years, are further evidence that the Powerful of this country are doing their very best to eradicate self-determination and any hint of rebelliousness in the youth today, the future of tomorrow. One can only assume that their goal here is to weaken the People, providing more power for themselves; a weakened People will never rise up in revolt against a tyrannical government.
To allow the Supreme Court to do this is to ourselves court disaster for our nation. Such a ruling will not free the schools to return to their task of educating children; rather, it will cow them into a submission, convince them that their futures are not in their own hands, and destroy any hope they might have of becoming more than they are, for simple fear that even the Government of the United States of America feels they should sit down, and shut up.
Fuck You, Supreme Court.
Sincerely,
Praecognomen