The Bureaucracy's War on Children
Summer has passed and public safety officials in Iowa, Maryland, Georgia and Wisconsin are no longer stamping out the threat of small children operating dangerously unregulated curbside lemonade stands.
That's about the extent of the good news.
Unfortunately, fall means children are back in school; back in the tender embrace of the education bureaucracy, meaning that all manner of zero-tolerance nonsense is emanating from schools across the fruited plain.
Case in point: The principal of a Gastonia, North Carolina elementary school suspended a 9-year-old boy when "a substitute teacher overheard him tell another student a teacher was cute." This is defined as "inappropriate behavior" and making "inappropriate statements."
Chiquita Lockett said her 9-year-old son, Emanyea, spent the last two days at home.
Lockett said the principal of Brookside Elementary called her Wednesday to say the incident was a form of “sexual harassment.”
Lest you think this crackdown is an isolated incident, another is in the news, this time in Boston:
The news of the North Carolina boy’s suspension comes as a Massachusetts elementary school is investigating a first-grader for sexual harassment after the boy struck another boy his age in the groin.
The mother of the accused 7-year-old tells the Boston Globe that her son was fending off another child, who had choked him in an altercation on the school bus on Nov. 22.
Let's recap on the raging and heretofore unnoticed epidemic of pre-pubescent sexual harassment: complimenting a teacher in a private conversation is verboten, at least if you're a boy. And 7-year-olds can't have a non-sexual schoolyard tussle--the real infraction is sexual harassment on the part of the first-grader administering a groin punch, but not on the part of the child delivering the choke hold. Got that?
I suppose the silver lining is that at least the choke-hold isn't yet considered some form of bdsm move.
I see two problems here: 1) the sexualization by certain adults of practically everything; and 2) bureaucratization replacing common sense. And there is perhaps a larger problem: the citizenry putting up with this sort of petty tyranny.
- Comment (11)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments:
May '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
Laws that should be specific are intentionally vague (Obamacare), giving the state vast powers to create an administrative tyranny, while rules that should provide flexibility (as in these news stories) are so rigid as to preclude case-by-case judgment and common sense.
Liberals are nuts.
Aug '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
When life gives you lemonade, make lemons, I guess.
Aug '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
George Savage:
I suppose the silver lining is that at least the choke-hold isn't yet considered some form of bdsm move.
Just wait.
George Savage:
I see two problems here: 1) the sexualization by certain adults of practically everything...
Which children quickly pick up on, BTW. Already in my day I remember bullies accusing their victims of sexual harassment for simply fighting back. No privates need have been involved. Simply having touched the bully anywhere was enough.
Children are innocent only in the sense that they haven't had as much time to be corrupted as adults have. They are just as easily corruptible.
Edited on December 5, 2011 at 4:02amOct '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
George Savage:
I suppose the silver lining is that at least the choke-hold isn't yet considered some form of bdsm move.
Just wait.
George Savage:
I see two problems here: 1) the sexualization by certain adults of practically everything...
Which children quickly pick up on, BTW. Already in my day I remember bullies accusing their victims of sexual harassment for simply fighting back. No privates need have been involved. Simply having touched the bully anywhere was enough.
Children are innocent only in the sense that they haven't had as much time to be corrupted as adults have. They are just as easily corruptible. · Dec 4 at 6:59pm
Edited on Dec 04 at 07:02 pm
Now this will date me in a way. When confronted by a bully, stand your ground, always let said bully throw the first punch. The act of self defence and breaking the bullies nose is hardly an act of sexual assault.
We are now seeing the fruits of P.C ideology play out in schools, the real dilema is that has been used as a sheild so that teachers and administrators need not involve themselves in reality.
Jul '11
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
I actually have taught all my kids to deal with bullies with aggression up to and including the dreaded nut kick. Funny how bullying ends when confronted.
Petty tyranny is a good way to describe the above issues and when we all start realizing just who runs the monkey house the better we can be equipped to battle the socialist regime's indoctrination strategies.
Cervantes warned of petty dictators. As the size and scope of our government increases the number of these tyrannosaurs does as well.
My 9 year old had some form of crush on his teacher recently. She directly discussed it with us and him thereby ending the issue. God Bless the woman for I realized not she was saving us from suspension, child protective services, sensitivity training and forced psychology evaluations.
Sep '11
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
Both my kids take brazilian jiu jitsu. Nothing sexual about snapping some bully's arm.
As to the encroaching tyranny, what can you really do? The Tea Party has had a big impact on local and state elections so maybe that will eventually pay off.
Oct '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
The silver lining is the US debt situation. In the near future, let's say the next 5 years, the bureaucratic state will collapse from loss of nutrition, aka; money.
Hopefully one of the first to collapse will be the government school system. Once the model third payer system, government education (an oxymoron?) rots out, we might again be responsible for our own kids education, either by teaching your own kids, or paying someone you trust to be their teacher.
Dec '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
Scott Reusser: Laws that should be specific are intentionally vague (Obamacare), giving the state vast powers to create an administrative tyranny, while rules that should provide flexibility (as in these news stories) are so rigid as to preclude case-by-case judgment and common sense.
Liberals are nuts. · Dec 4 at 6:46pm
I wish liberals were just nuts. Nuts, we could deal with.
Unfortunately for us, they're unconsciously inclined toward totalitarianism. They believe in perfecting the world through human agency, specifically theirs. And this makes perfect sense to them because they're so kind and good and compassionate, unlike us conservatives. After all, they recycle(!), and support same-sex marriage(!), and believe in a woman's right to abort her baby(!), and desire to give other people's money to the poor!
They're not nuts. They're dangerous. And we've got a whole bevy of them running the country at all levels. God help us.
Aug '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
Some person with some sense ought to put down the metrics of our surrender.
Is it lightbulbs ? ( 1/1/12 ). Is it hate crime ? ( my murder was worse than yours because I'm ______ ! )
Was it affirmative action ? We have been getting rolled for awhile. Sebelius and Napolitano have in store for you is new legislative behavior mod that should enhance the empowered electorate to keep on voting themselves goodies, as long as the nomenklatura is maintained.
Another subterfuge will be the anti-bullying laws they are eyeing. They are not thinking of the Farkus kid in the Christmas story, they are thinking about gay rights legislation that will empower a sub category of the donating class and further sexualize every last thing in our lives. Including trying to guide your children to lead a productive and fruitful (read heterosexual ) lives. I can't think it is for any other reason than payback and further undermining of the family unit in favor of a collectivist, secular state.
This is a religious war , our ways of devotion, traditions, and societal constructs versus their monostatist , atheist , utopia . Washington DC as Ur ? or Eldorado ?
May '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
We homeschool, and the only time I regret that decision is when I hear about this kind of stuff, because I can't run down to the school and yank my kids out.
Aug '10
Re: The Bureaucracy's War on Children
The logic behind sexual harassment law is that it prohibits doing something undesirable to one sex only, because that's "discrimination". Technically, it's not sexual harassment to rudely proposition an employee of the opposite sex if you're equally willing to rudely proposition an employee of the same sex. So this sounds like an application of that same twisted logic: it's not sexual harassment to choke someone, because everyone has a neck, but it is sexual harassment to disable someone with a blow to the cojones because girls don't have any.