They say that we are under attack because the enemy hates our freedoms. In response to this threat they limit our freedoms to protect them. They say the enemy wants to change our way of life, but I only see those we trust to protect us changing it. They say we are fighting them over there so we don’t have to here, yet it is here we are suspending habeas corpus, spying on civilians, and wiretapping in this country. What I find so interesting is that these solutions are the same ones they claimed to need to fight drugs.
I have noticed a steady erosion of our basic rights over the last two decades. Do not think I am blaming any one President or party for this. It is a joint venture to say the least. It has been a steady path for the last two decades at least and it starts with the children as all changes must.
When I was in school they could not open my locker without me being there and knowing what they were looking for. I knew my rights. The war on drugs allowed them to open without telling me what they were looking for, but I still had to be there. It also allowed them to search my car if it was on campus. It was a minor intrusion on my rights, but they always start that way.
Education slowly started shifting around this time. Standardized testing became the “best” way to compare students’ progress across the country and find the weak spots. Since school funding was in the balance, schools began focusing on teaching the test over the standard curriculum. Social studies, arts, and P.E. fell to the sidelines and children slowly forgot how to think. They were also lacking the basic lessons of what makes America special: our rights.
Article comments
1 - Maurice
Brad - you are wrong. I am 50 years old and remember being told that my locker was the property of the school and could be inspected at any time. I also remember taking the Iowa Standard Tests which began in 1942. I see neither of these as an erosion of my rights. The things you have listed are intrusions on your convenient lifestyle - not your rights.
You still have the rights that people died to give you. Namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
2 - Donnie Marler
I'd respectfully disagree, Maurice. I remember it much as Brad does, the school could search my locker only after they told me what they were looking for. They don't need to do that now.
I'm not a Democrat, I'm an independent with strong Conservative leanings but I can't help but feel we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater with these "intrusions on a convenient lifestyle."
Brad's right. A lot of these tactics were used in the war on drugs. We all know what a rousing success that's been.
I don't blame the current President or the Democrats. I blame the apathy of thinking people of all political stripes for allowing this to proceed as it has. In a misguided effort to protect everyone from everything we've given up anything worth protecting to begin with.
3 - Maurice
Are metal detectors in the school an intrusion or a protection?
4 - Donnie Marler
Obviously they were intended as protection. I'll go out on a limb here, and state that if we weren't so stupidly overprotective of children to the point of prohibiting physical play in elementary schools for fear of one child feeling like a failure we wouldn't need metal detectors.
The policies in place for the last several years have neutered natural emotional growth in our children.
We've created a generation of helpless drones through politically correct bullshit.
Like it or not, "no child left behind" is a joke. It's wrecking the educational system by setting the standards from the bottom. Can't have little Johnny with an IQ of 85 feeling left out can we?
5 - brad schader
Metal detectors are protection...random locker searches are intrusion.
Maurice,
Your locker and my locker were always school property, but the lock on it was my property as were the contents of the locker. They could not break my lock nor look through my property without my being there. The locker was like an apartment- your landlord owns your apartment, but it is still yours as well and rights are rights. The kids today know nothing of the 1st, 4th, or 10th amendments. To them the current Bill or Rights does not apply to them and they will grow up with this point of view.
6 - Taloran
Thanks for the prod, Brad. Regardless of whether standardized tests or school locker searches are a violation of our children's Rights, I want my kids to know what protections the Constitution offers them, and why that document is so important. I'm going to order the book linked above and a few others from Amazon today. I hope to find several books with no political slant, or at least differing slants, to help my 10 and 15 year old children gain an understanding of the matters at hand.
I think we often forget what the schools are failing to teach our kids, and this was a good reminder to help me be a better parent.
7 - Jet in Columbus
Absofuckinlootly Brad... Nice Job
8 - brad Schader
Thank you guys. It fills me with hope that we might be able to turn this giant before we crash.
9 - Maurice
You guys might have missed my point. Or not...
The premise in the article appeared to be that the present generation is growing up not knowing what freedoms were being taken away because so many freedoms were being taken away in school.
To that I politely say bullshit. The trivial inconveniences that schools are putting students through are a reaction to violence that HAS happened in schools. When I was in High School (35 years ago) we had many MORE restrictions than what my teenagers have right now. Plus back then they could violate my personal rights by swatting my butt - without calling my parents.
BTW the lockers in my school had built in locks.
10 - Lee Richards
Courts have ruled, I believe, that school officials don't have to meet a 'probable cause' standard to search a student's locker, backpack, coat or purse. Their standard is 'reasonable suspicion' that a student has brought something illegal or dangerous to school. They have the right to act 'in place of parents'--that is, as a parent might act-- in that situation. Students should most certainly be treated fairly and learn about constitutional rights and exercising them RESPONSIBLY, but the concept that some 13-year-olds' rights are being violated if he can't wear a tee-shirt with a vulgar slogan he likes, or is asked to empty his pockets because he smells like weed, doesn't contribute to his maturation or to the best interests of society, in my opinion.
11 - Kassie Conway
I am a student in the 8th grade at Buckingham County Middle School in Buckingham County Virginia. I was asked by my english teacher to write an essay on why I think we should or shouldn't have random locker and backpack searches. Reading what you have writen about the subject broke my heart. Realizing that we live in such a corupted nation is unreal. No one can fully understand how terribly our country has become. I feel tears coming to my eyes because of everything that has happen in this country. Freedom and liberty, are these not what the USA supposed to be all about? Yet we, us student, do not know our rights.
Kassie Conway
age 13
Buckingham, Va
12 - Brad Schader
Kassie,
Thank you for reading this. It is important to me that the kids of today fully understand that they have rights. Children who grow up not understanding this become adults who do not understand this and then the rights are gone. A law is only a law if enforced, same thing with rights. Don't cry about it; get pissed off. Read the Constitution and teach yourself if no one is willing. Then, teach others if no one is willing.
Please write back after you write your essay. I would love to know what you said, what side you took, and how your teacher responded.
Thank you again,
Brad