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Student Arrested for Writing Essay
mcgrew writes "The Chicago Tribune reports that an eighteen year old straight-A High School student was arrested for writing an essay that 'disturbed' his teacher. Even though no threats were made to a specific person, 18 year-old Allen Lee's English teacher convened a panel to discuss the work. As a result of that discussion, the police were called in. 'The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now. Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.'"
Need to be shot at dawn.
On the off chance the kid is a nut job I guess you need to check him out. I'm not sure you need to arrest him....
This
I think the various over-reactions to the VaTech tragedy are sad. For example, this and also Yale banning stage weapons. I wonder what was in the essay that made the teacher go bonkers. I guess she should have told her students just to write about fluffy clouds and easter bunny.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I've been following this case for a couple of days now, but can't seem to find anyone who has posted the essay anywhere. So I appeal to the /.ers -- anyone know of a copy?
Without seeing the essay in question, we can't know whether there were substantiable threats being made, or whether this clearly is a free speech issue. From all accounts, it appear to be the latter, but I would like to have all doubts removed.
High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct.
"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said the teen's father, Albert Lee, referring to last week's massacre of 32 students by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. "I understand the situation."
But he added: "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."
Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.
The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now.
Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.
"I'm not going to lie. I signed the petition," said senior James Gitzinger. "But I can understand where the administration is coming from. I think I would react the same way if I was a teacher."
Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.
But a civil rights advocate said the teacher's reaction to an essay shouldn't make it a crime.
"One of the elements is that some sort of disorder or disruption is created," said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "When something is done in private--when a paper is handed in to a teacher--there isn't a disruption."
The "key outcomes" this month for the Creative English class was for students to identify and utilize poetic conventions to communicate ideas and emotions. With that in mind, teachers reminded students that if they read something that posed a threat to self or others, the school could take action, said High School District 155 Supt. Jill Hawk.
The English teacher read the essay and reported it to a supervisor and the principal. A round-table discussion with district officials conveyed, with lively debate, and they decided to report it to the police.
"Our staff is very familiar with adolescent behavior. We're very well versed with types of creativity put into writing. We know the standards of adolescent behavior that are acceptable and that there is a range," Hawk said.
"There can certainly be writing that conveys concern for us even though it does not name names location or date," he said.
The charge against Lee comes as schools across the country wrestle with how to react in the wake of the shootings at the Virginia Tech campus at Blacksburg, Va.
Bomb threats at high schools in Schaumburg and Country Club Hills have caused evacuations, and extra police were on duty at a Palos Hills high school this week because of a threatening note found in the bathroom of a McDonald's restaurant a half-mile away.
Experts say the charge against Lee is troubling because it was over an essay that even police say contained no direct threats against anyone at the school. However, Virginia Tech's actions toward Cho came under heavy scrutiny after the killings because of the "disturbing" plays and essays teachers say he had written for classes.
Simmie Baer, an attorney with the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern Univer
In the aftermath of recent events, such paranoia can be understandable. But then again, even in normal circumstances, I wouldn't expect anything more from the public school system.
It sounds like a pretty scary catch-all if it includes writing essays. what else is considered "disorderly conduct" under US law?
Also, doesn't the US have a constitution which makes freedom of expression an absolute right?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
FTA:
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said
If this is true, then the disorderly conduct statute should be declared unconstitutional. If writing something that could disturb any random individual (without directly threatening that individual) is an arrestable offense, then the very idea of free speech is pretty much out the window. After all, if the First Amendment isn't there to protect possibly disturbing speech, what is it there for?
It would be a lot easier to know whether the reactions to the essay are over the top if we could actually read the essay. I didn't see a link in the article to the essay text...
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
First it was video games to the geeks were look at as possible threats, now it is the people who write good essays. What is next a person who is good with Music. But yet they let gang members in the school, wearing Gang Colors, sports that incorage kids to be agressive, and drinking is OK. These people are the ones that schools need to work harder to understand but the kids who do good in school who may do something that is uncool or perhaps a bit depressing are the real danger.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Write a "disturbing story" -> arrest
Write a "dissenting article" -> arrest
Write a "criticism of a politician" -> arrest
Write to expose high crimes of those in power -> arrest
--
Side topic:
By the way, ever notice the people's solution to every problem is always arrest?
You know, having a sample of the actual text might help in allowing readers to see what the hell is going on. Without that, it's hard to judge, but I'd say there probably isn't a chance in hell these charges stick at trial, and pretty much certainly not at appeal assuming it made it that far.
I don't know about you, but I'm dying to read this essay. I couldn't even find a summary or excerpts. Anyone else have anything?
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
Not the incident, the ridiculous over-reaction during the aftermath.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
He was arrested for writing something in particular. We still don't know what he wrote. Perhaps we shouldn't rush to judgment (I know this is Slashdot.. stop laughing) until we know more about what he wrote.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Since when is a 1st amendment issue referred to the local police? Don't you call the FBI or something?
This is just bizarre. I've been following this story since it broke yesterday, and this is just blatant intimidation. It is not even close to "overreaction" or whatever some apologists for these teachers and police might say.
Probably 90% of the student body owns music that contains worse lyrics than what this kid wrote. Arrest them!
I hope this kid was just baiting them, because he caught a whopper here in terms of potential legal settlements against both the school and the police.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Student writes essay, arrested by police
By Jeff Long and Carolyn Starks
Tribune staff reporters
April 26, 2007
High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct.
"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said the teen's father, Albert Lee, referring to last week's massacre of 32 students by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. "I understand the situation."
But he added: "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."
Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.
The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now.
Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.
"I'm not going to lie. I signed the petition," said senior James Gitzinger. "But I can understand where the administration is coming from. I think I would react the same way if I was a teacher."
Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.
But a civil rights advocate said the teacher's reaction to an essay shouldn't make it a crime.
"One of the elements is that some sort of disorder or disruption is created," said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "When something is done in private--when a paper is handed in to a teacher--there isn't a disruption."
The "key outcomes" this month for the Creative English class was for students to identify and utilize poetic conventions to communicate ideas and emotions. With that in mind, teachers reminded students that if they read something that posed a threat to self or others, the school could take action, said High School District 155 Supt. Jill Hawk.
The English teacher read the essay and reported it to a supervisor and the principal. A round-table discussion with district officials conveyed, with lively debate, and they decided to report it to the police.
"Our staff is very familiar with adolescent behavior. We're very well versed with types of creativity put into writing. We know the standards of adolescent behavior that are acceptable and that there is a range," Hawk said.
"There can certainly be writing that conveys concern for us even though it does not name names location or date," he said.
The charge against Lee comes as schools across the country wrestle with how to react in the wake of the shootings at the Virginia Tech campus at Blacksburg, Va.
Bomb threats at high schools in Schaumburg and Country Club Hills have caused evacuations, and extra police were on duty at a Palos Hills high school this week because of a threatening note found in the bathroom of a McDonald's restaurant a half-mile away.
Experts say the charge against Lee is troubling because it was over an essay that even police say contained no direct threats against anyone at the school. However, Virginia Tech's actions toward Cho came under heavy scrutiny after the killings because of the "disturbing" plays and essays teachers say he had written for classes.
This is posted under the heading "Your Rights Online". I RTFA, but I didn't see anything about this being an online event. Did I miss something?
Read any good sonnets lately?
I have a BA in English...This sort of BS really makes me angry. The student had every right to express his feelings in writing. To write something doesn't mean you are going to do it.
I'm curious what they're calling this, if not suspension or expulsion.
What is up with your sig? You do know there is a world outside of that city?
I mean seriously, Shakespeare kills fucking EVERYONE in that play. Brutally. But for some reason all my professors love it. A friend of mine (fellow English major) wrote a short story about robot turkeys on thanksgiving taking out their revenge. Obviously he was disturbed, lets save him and boot him out of school.
This is all coming about because of Virginia Tech and the usual small minded teachers who over react to everything out of some self righteous and overly developed sense of importance. If anyone needs the boot it's the teachers who can't tell which students ACTUALLY NEED THEIR FUCKING HELP.
How many times in school did you see all the teachers fawning over the A students while all the kids who actually needed their attention got left behind? We have a serious problem in education now where teachers want to be popular more than they want to be professional. Someone really needs to clean house in this country.
I was referred to the school psychologist by my physics teacher due to a "disturbing" lab report I wrote. It was supposed to be funny. My results were really far off from accepted values of the index of refraction fro the material we were testing. So I blamed it on microscopic blackholes warping spacetime to create a gravatic lens. I blamed my result on that or " possibly a covert attempt by the Clintons to cover up the "suicide" of Vince Foster"
Apparently, he though that meant I was suicidal.
Maybe his was more disturbing. Its difficult to say what to do in each situation. It seems like some people overreact, and others under react. I think my case was clearly an attempt at humor, but recommending a visit tot he school shrink for further evaluation is probably the best first step.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Geez!! How can they arrest someone just for writing a non-threatening but disturbing essay?? that's a little HARSH cause, by this dude's name, he surely does not sound Korean!! I mean THAT would be a different story! :-)
Somehow we have come to expect a society free of risk. When a tragedy such as the Virginia Tech shooting occurs, we indulge in endless hand wringing and self examination, pining away for some abstract utopia where everybody walks around with happy faces. And out of that irrational, and ultimately un-achievable, desire for a perfectly safe universe comes actions such as arresting a straight-A student for writing a violent and disturbing essay. We are attempting to cure physical violence with "violence" against expressions of thought. Ultimately, we will gain neither physical safety nor intellectual honesty.
The story points to them being a "straight A student". What does this have to do with anything? Are they implying that a persons GPA is an indicator of their abilities to shoot others at school?
Just what was the point of that?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
... that administrators across the country have been given orders to cull undesirable speech as they see fit. There were a couple of similar stories moving along the firehose recently.
http://www.d155.org/contact/index.html has the contact form for the district of which Jill Hawk is Superintendent (High School District 155.) Have your say; try to keep profanity out of it. Be sure to mention that the constitution wasn't meant to apply only to so-called adults. :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
----------
Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
All the students of the class should write similarly disturbing but non-threatening letters for their next essay.
On the off chance the kid is a nut job I guess you need to check him out
Allen Lee - is that like Stan Lee or Bruce Lee? Just wondering if we have a teacher running in fear of young asian men.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Either allow teachers to exercise a degree of common sense in advising authorities when they feel that a student is 'disturbed' OR accept that occasionally there are going to be VT incidents.
You can't have it both ways - you cannot constantly second-guess teachers and authorities for trying to anticipate problems and head them off early, AND at the same time criticize them for 'not doing enough' to prevent massacres like happened at VT.
Well, I suppose you CAN if you're just an anonymous intarweb poster verbally flagellating for attention.
-Styopa
(Northwest Herald) CARY, Ill. In addition to telling his teacher she could inspire the first shooting at Cary-Grove High School, Allen Lee also wrote about stabbing, drug use and a dream about a shooting spree in an essay for his English class, records show.
... None of it was meant to be threatening or harmful to anyone."
But Lee said Thursday night that the excerpts were taken out of context in an assignment that explicitly instructed students not to judge or censor their writing.
Lee said a friend planned to distribute the complete essay and assignment to Cary-Grove students today to provide context to a story that has gained national attention.
"It's not the full [essay], or with the assignment," Lee said of a criminal complaint in which prosecutors charged him with disorderly conduct Thursday. "People are already judging this without seeing the assignment.
Louis Bianchi, McHenry County state's attorney, said Thursday he would prosecute Lee on the misdemeanor charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
"I think the teacher did the appropriate thing," Bianchi said. "Now, it's going to be brought to the attention of the courts."
Cary Police arrested Lee, 18, near his home Tuesday morning on disorderly conduct charges after Cary-Grove Principal Susan Popp called police.
Lee, who plans to enter boot camp for the Marines in October, said teacher Nora Capron told the class to write about whatever they wanted.
A copy of the assignment obtained Thursday night included the following guidelines for a "free writing" exercise:
"Write nonstop for a set period of time."
"Do not make corrections as you write."
"Keep writing, even if you have to write something like, 'I don't know what to write.' "
"Write whatever comes into your mind."
"Do not judge or censor what you are writing."
The assignment included additional guidelines such as, "If your free writing is neat and coherent, you probably haven't loosened up enough."
The Lee family met with representatives of High School District 155 Thursday to discuss potential disciplinary measures, said Dane Loizzo, whose law firm is representing Lee.
"We're attempting to get Allen back into the school with his friends and peers as quickly and judiciously as possible," said Loizzo, of the Woodstock-based Law Offices of Loizzo and Loizzo.
Messages left with district Superintendent Jill Hawk and district spokesman Jeff Puma were not immediately returned Thursday night.
Criminal Charges
School officials allege that in an essay for his ninth-period English class on Monday, Lee wrote about a dream where he went into a building, started shooting people with guns, had sex with the dead bodies. He then retracted it saying, "but it would be funny if I did."
A person can be charged with disorderly conduct if their actions are alarming or disturbing to others.
The district responded to another threat made last week at Crystal Lake Central High School. About half the students at Central stayed home Friday and police presence at the school was increased after threatening graffiti was found on a bathroom wall. The graffiti was determined to be a prank, officials have said.
Capron read Lee's essay Monday night and called her department chair, who then spoke with Cary-Grove Principal Susan Popp.
Popp called police and signed the disorderly conduct complaint shortly afterward, prosecutors said, and Lee was arrested Tuesday morning.
Attorney Thomas Loizzo said the student complied with the assignment.
"How is the student supposed to know where the line is between creativity and censorship?" he said. "The assignment didn't specify that if you wrote something that the teacher thought would be offensive, that you could then be prosecuted criminally."
Attorney Dane Loizzo agreed.
Read any good sonnets lately?
The pen is mightier than the sword. Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
According to a Chicago Tribune Article today, the assignment directions were to write stream of consciousness and to not judge or filter your writing.
Seems to me this was a smart kid playing games with a stupid touchy feely assignment for a blow-off class his senior year.
Should the kid have been referred to a counselor? Sure.
Should the kids parents been contacted? Absolutely.
Arrested because his thoughts are disturbing? No.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
The kid was under a whole lot of pressure and when given the opportunity to let a little steam off, "disturbed" his teacher. It's one of the big downsides to students who do well. They get extra attention and some external expectations that can get a little burdensome if the parents aren't paying attention. If the kid writes well, then it just makes matters worse.
It's wrong to accuse the school system and law enforcement in this case. Anyone that does that is in denial about the usual benign neglect that nearly all students receive. Right now everyone is very aware of the systematic neglect that we all perpetuate. In a few months it will go back to normal.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
...it only gives the police power to arrest anyone in any situation, because at every moment in time you're bound to be violating something.
Arrested for disorderly conduct. Right. Doesn't anyone find that at least slightly ridiculous? Disorderly conduct is not writing. Running around in public waiving a gun and threatening to shoot people IS. Learn the f**king difference.
"Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
The writings of (insert whatever political figure I disagree with) disturbs me. Looks like I just found a new tool to shut them up. Don't worry though, me and Police Chief Delelio are the good guys who know what's best, and we promise not to abuse this law.
Whoever put this law on the books really needs to have it used on his/her arrest warrant.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
One of my friends spent a fair amount of time in juvenile hall after his school dean had him arrested for destruction of property with malicious intent.
What actually happened was that he snapped another student's pencil.
the USA's legal system is broken beyond repair.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
/.) that high school and college teachers see tons of crappy, violent writing from people. I'm not sure how they're supposed to tell the deranged from the stupid.
Kind of off topic, but I think too much was made of the "plays" that the Virginia shooter wrote. They were stupid, juvenile, and oh-so-very-terrible from a writing point of view, but nothing about them screamed "School shooter here! Pay attention! Yoo Hoo! Stop me before I kill!" I suspect (without any evidence, but then - hey, this is
Life needs more saving throws.
True story.
Several years ago, post-Columbine, my brother-in-law, a high-school senior at the time, had a bb-gun, a pistol in a bag in the back seat of his car. After school, he was going to give a few of his friends a ride, and a couple sat in the back. One of them opened the bag, saw the gun, and took it out. They were still in the parking lot of the school. Another student that was walking by saw the gun and told school officials.
The upshot of this was that all the students in the car were suspended, and my brother-in-law was expelled. After much lawyering and many hearings, he was allowed to receive his diploma, but was not allowed back to his original school. For the final three months of high school, he attended the "juvenile offenders" school.
In our current climate, I think he got off lucky.
Best Windows Freeware
At no point should an arrest have been made whatsoever and the student "made to attend classes elsewhere." Lee should sue the school, the teacher and the arresting officers. What if the essay by chance was a cry for help? Do they think arresting him and kicking him out of the school was going to be the solution? Hell, that would just piss me off more and reaffirm my loss of faith in society. Perhaps, and I'm going out on a limb here without access to the essay, in the off chance that this was the darkest, most morbid, profane, violent thing that the teacher had ever encountered, then a professional therapist should have been consulted and made available. Perhaps. But moving directly to an arrest is a constitutional violation of his rights. At most, his parents should have been made aware of the situation, the teachers concern for the student, and everyone envolved should have had a nice sit down.
Walk with Music;
1. Kid needs somebody to talk this stuff out with. I bet he gets it now.
2. Kid gets 15 mins of fame, sues *STUPID* police agency, gets $ and famous.
3. People read this, spit coffee all over their laptop.
4? Cops clean their shit off the constitution.
his books disturb me.
everything is under control.
we are here for your protection.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Conduct is conduct.
This is inevitable given hate speech, virtual bullying and stalking, cybersex and other thoughtcrimes that are being applied in more and more places. All the good things these laws are supposed to accomplish don't mean shit if we have to give up our civil rights to get them.
It is also an inevitable that clueless administrators would react this way post-VT.
We can see own PC future in the European model that many liberals want applied in our republic. Speech is speech. Conduct is conduct. The solution to speech we find repugnant is more speech. Not a new law.
We, as Americans, have this knee jerk reaction that feeds the fear and the terror. I can understand if the kid was making a direct threat. What ever happened to counseling, what ever happened to looking at the issue? what ever happened to paxil? Everybody wants to stop copy cats, i understand. There needs to be more emphasis on finding out what someone's issues are instead of calling the cops when they turn in your homework
some people are a "glass half empty" some are "glass half full" i'm a "there is something in the glass be happy" person
Bang, Bang You're Dead!
What?
"Begun, the thought wars have"
... jihad (death) (the Three Js). We've become that which we fear, totalitarian.
Look, I'm all for making sure people like this get attention, but arresting him is just stupid. There is no crime in putting pencil (pen) to paper. It has HARMED nobody.
This goes back to one of my earlier rants about the pussification of the West, where "feelings" are worthy of losing jobs, jail, and even
We are so screwed.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Student Arrested Over Manuscript
Updated 5:07 PM ET December 23, 2000
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) - A teen-age boy has been arrested and
accused of distributing a manuscript that included passages about
killing faculty and students.
The 17-year-old student at Roxbury High School was charged with
false public alarm. His name was not disclosed.
His parents have said the boy, arrested at his home early Friday,
uses his writing to express his troubles at school.
"He's not a violent person," his mother said Friday during a court
hearing. "His outlet is his writing."
Police said they learned that at least two students had copies of
the manuscript, but would not say how they became aware of it. The
boy's mother said some of the material had been shown to his
guidance counselor.
The writings begin: "I'm a product of today's violence."
Superior Court Judge Salem Ahto said the boy should remain in
juvenile detention pending a psychological evaluation.
%%%
Secret Service accused of threatening free speech
By Associated Press, 2/16/2001 20:48
NEW YORK (AP) The Secret Service has been accused of trampling on the free
speech rights of a college student who wrote a satirical editorial asking
Jesus to ''smite'' President Bush.
The letter was published last week in the Stony Brook Press at the State
University of New York campus in Stony Brook. It was written by Glenn
Given, 22 the paper's managing editor.
Titled ''Editorial: Dear Jesus Christ, King of all Kings, All I ask is
that you smite George W. Bush.'' It also asked Jesus to strike down Bush,
his cabinet and MTV personality Carson Daly.
A faculty member apparently contacted authorities.
Given said two Secret Service agents and a campus police officer showed up
Wednesday to interrogate him.
They had him sign waivers authorizing them to check his medical records,
threatened to charge him with a crime and searched his apartment,
according to a letter of protest sent to the Secret Service by the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
''The editorial was clearly a form of satire and political hyperbole'' in
response to Bush's well-publicized devotion to Christianity, the letter
said. ''We believe it is inappropriate to harass a journalist, editor,
writer or citizen for exercising his or her right to free speech.''
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
police put out a warrant for Trent Reznor's arrest? WTF?
If the student's work indicates that he might need counseling, give it to him. Talk with him, don't make a national incident over it. When you deem yourself appropriate as thought police, you are in need of counseling yourselves.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
My friend had a similar situation happen to him after the Columbine High School shooting. He made up a death-list and talked about it to friends and other students in school PRIOR to Columbine. After Columbine, he was picked up by the school administrators and police and spent several days in consoling until they decided that he wasn't serious.
hear hear! mod parent up.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
It doesn't matter what the essay says; he couldv'e written about plucking his teacher's eyes out for all I care. He did what the teacher asked him to do, and nobody - NOBODY should be arrested for writing an essay, no matter inflamatory or disturbing it might be.
There are other courses of action to deal with it when someone is obviously disturbed, but really, no matter what he wrote, no matter how vile or stomach turning, it doesn't prove he's even unstable - it only proves he knows how to write to nauseate people.
I mean, have you seen Resevoir Dogs? Would you have had Quentin Tarantino's teacher's put him in a padded cell?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Emotional outlets like creative writing can serve to provide early indication of a troubled soul. Charging a kid with a crime is not the best way to respond to this type of situation. The student may need counseling or a psychological examination, but this rough handling will only serve to alienate him. We're not supposed to be afraid of our children, we're supposed to be afraid for them.
Every time a troubled youth acts out in a destructive way, society suffers, not only in grief but in shame and guilt - we're supposed to help our fellow humans, especially the young ones. Every student murder-suicide report should count the perpetrator as a victim - we failed to notice the warning signs & help that individual, and it resulted in their demise.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
...shouldn't be school teachers. I remember the time when a good friend of mine was supposed to write an essay. The essay should have something to do with kids, but otherwise he was free to pick the subject. I knew from his stories that the teachers at his school were touchy-feely humanistic crybabies, and when I heard of this I was struck by an evil idea... and wrote an 8-page essay on how to achieve world domination through clever utilization of child labor. My friend thought the essay was hilarious, and turned it in as his own. So, like I said. People who have no backbone should not be teachers. :-)
Oh, How did the whole thing turn out? Well, my friend almost got expelled, but pinned the blame on me (which was perfectly fine, because I didn't attend that school, and didn't know anyone there but him) and was allowed to graduate after turning in a serious essay.
There is a difference between arresting somebody for writing this sort of paper and questioning the student outside of the judicial process to see if there is a threat.
I'm wondering if this kid's Asian anscestry has anything to do with his arrest, considering the guy from Virginia was Asian, too.
He guy looks pretty nerdy, I wonder what his slashdot name is?
-mcgrew (aka sm62704 aka "three eyes")
(BTW, the "geezer" reference, for those of you who don't know me, has to do with my gray goatee. Some might think this submission would have come from a high school kid rather than a guy looking toward retirement.)
Considering the essay didn't name names, locations, or dates, it sounds like it was not disturbing, as in any sort of threat, but rather disturbing, as in 1984 or Lord of the Flies.
So, without having read the essay, it sounds precisely like he was arrested for writing an essay.
In other words, an expose on the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal might be disturbing to teachers in a Catholic school. Is that grounds to call the police on a student?
"Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing."
What the hell? someone fire that ass.
It was not approprate at all. Unless someone is incitng a riot directly through their writing, there is NO reason to call the police at all, much less make an arrest.
If the writing was disturbing, what is needed is an independent opinion, and counceling.
Now they juast created an atmosphere where no studentr will write there emotions. SO there is NO chance for a child to get coucelling.
Councling may just be a 30 minute discussion about the paper. Not that it was 'wrong' but to see if it is 'I was just writing it to pull someones chain' or 'Yeah, I really feel I need to act violently against someone"
really, some of the crap I wrote specifically to yank someones chain in high school was pretty bad. In fact, someone probably should ahve talked to me about it just to be sure. But arrested? never.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
To which particular Monday Morning quarterback are you referring? Without that piece of information your indictment makes no sense.
There is no collective mind running things and voicing opinions, FOX NEWS and Bill O'Reilly just makes it seem that way.
Personally, I tend to think armed teachers with a license to kill would go a long way - plus it may finally pull our math scores up to par with the Chinese.
Oh... and Run, Imus, Run !!
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
This is another example of public outrage due to an unlikely but highly visible risk. I wonder what the statistics are for students whose essays contains violence and violent crimes committed by those students? I don't know the answer, but I suspect that society has many more crimes committed by the student who either didn't write very well, didn't turn it in, or didn't show up for class.
In this case we can't judge anything about the actions because we don't know several important factors such as:
1. The overall behavior of the student
2. The details of the essay
3. Past writings leading up to the essay
What if we find that the student has a history of isolation, angry outbursts, or extreme mood swings? What if this is in a long line of violent writings coming to a head? I didn't feel that the article answered any of these questions. While it is tempting to side with the student, we should not automatically lock in our votes before we know the whole story.
The USA has been there, done that. Don't think the "omg, think of the children!!!" bullshit started with video games. It was first comics ("omg, Batman and Robin are teaching children to be homosexual and antisocial"), and they got gutted into becoming a niche hobby, from something that outsold newspapers by a comfortable margin. Then it was music. Yeah, all those satanistic/violent/antisocial lyrics in rock music. Quite a stirr in the Congress and Senate and the media that was. Then a few other things before it got to video games.
So, well, sad to disappoint you there, but music has already been done to death already.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...Let the stereotyping begin.
Seriously though, thanks for the article.
It's fine for teachers to be vigilant and all following the VT massacre, but the principal and his/her underlings could have at least spoken to the kid about the essay (if you can call it that) to get the straight story.
And herein lies one of those traps that these "educators" can set up for themselves: a free-form assignment, unfettered by structure, unrestricted in content, heck, turn it in on toilet paper if you want, combine that with the ethnicity of the writer, and it gets used as evidence of a threat and an arrest.
The arrest is a clear case of going overboard. If this does not get corrected, well I guess we've found a new way of wrecking a young man's future.
Full disclosure: I are an Asian male... not young tho.
Science never settles, never rests.
It's not "plagairism (sic.)" at all. He didn't claim to be the author. There is no misattribution here. It's a really big accusation to make. You should at least look it up to know what it means before you accuse someone of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
Kids, listen up... Sure, early on, your teachers taught you when you were young that few things are more precious and valuable than your thoughts and the ability to speak out. However, they neglected to tell you one thing: Nobody trusts you, and trust and respect must be earned.
When you grow up to be a strapping young high school student, and you decide to show up to class decked out in black from head to toe, just remember that when it comes time to right that essay about killing your classmates by assaulting them with dead crows, know this: They will lock you up and start treating you for mental illness. Guess what... you would deserve it. Unless you have a whopping body of literary work that shows how well you understand everything about life and soceity and the need to put your righteous misanthrope tendencies in check in deference to self-preservation, you have two choices: Keep it to yourself, eat pizza and get over it... Or go ahead and release your unreadable junk. Hopefully, someone will be appaled enough to take the steps that lead to treatment and recovery, where you realize that just because everybody else stinks doesn't mean that you have to punish them for it. Sometimes, unfortunately, that doesn't work, and you'll take silence for acceptance and escalate, like the idiot at Virignia Tech did.
Paranoia is the new national passtime.
"Today a 18 years old student described as a loner mimicked a gun with his hands saying BANG! BANG! to his friends in class. Luckily a teacher nearby was fast enough to call the police. A SWAT team arrived shortly and shot dead the student before he could kill someone. The president gave a speech to congratulate the police for their fast response and because no innocents were injured."
It's only we have an entire nation of criminals will anyone perk up their ears to address the stupidity of it all.
Allen Lee is also Asian and due to the fact that the VT student was also asian and had disturbed writing the teachers probably got scared. I'm really not surprised, most teachers/principals are incompetent when it comes to profiling criminals. They get scared easily be quiet nerdy types in the first place this was too much for these people to handle.
Unless, this kid has no friends and also gets along with very little if any people in the skill while ignored and or harrased like the other school shooters there was no reason to go this far. Maybe ask him to see a psychiatriest (or ask his parents to get him to).
Hmmm... Pie...
Sadly, actions really don't really speak louder than words where Special Interest Politics are concerned, and so the San Francisco status quo can continue to market itself with terms like "compassion, tolerance, respect". But I would remind those people that it's not really tolerance if you agree with the people you're Tolerating. And, to bring the discussion back to the article, it's not really free speech if you can't write disturbing, mean, or hateful things.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I wonder what they'd make of Bret Easton Ellis if he were in grade school today. Presumably, we'd be robbed of a great talent for fear that he'd go postal.
like getting them arrested. Without a sample of the essay it's hard to say what was "disturbing" about it, so when I say 'troubled student' I mean it as maybe the kid was just a bit depressed or felt trapped. That sort of thing happens in your teens, we've mostly all been there. Things get better, but a kid who's in a bad place for a time needs some understanding and someone to talk to, not legal costs and the fear of prison time or a criminal record that will bascially ruin their future. Schools have got to get back to a middle ground where problems are dealt with instead of simply calling the cops for everything. There's a reason that 18 is the age of majority in the law, so why are we holding these kids accountable to the strictest standards of the law when we (US society) openly admit that they are too imature to fully comprehend their own actions? I'm NOT saying when you're under 18 you're immune to the law, or we should let anything slide. But since we make the distinction already, it's a double standard to say "you're not 100% legally in charge of yourself in the eyes of the law yet, but we're going to treat you as if you were." WTF?
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
As over-reactions go, this isn't too bad - after all George W. Bush started a war as an over-reaction to 9/11...
"Also, doesn't the US have a constitution which makes freedom of expression an absolute right?"
Guess that explains why slashdot doesn't have moderation.
Also, doesn't the US have a constitution which makes freedom of expression an absolute right? "or abridging the freedom of speech" is from the first amendment. The US Constitution doesn't "make" freedom of expression a right, it ASSUMES that it is ALREADY a right that we already have and then protects it. There's a difference.
Before that day a new record was set by a young man. By a young a man who had submitted stories and plays that disturbed his teachers but who took no action.
What if they had?
Well, off course if they had then the shooting would not have happened so those teachers would have been totally out of order for doing something.
The job of the police is to stop crime. No it isn't. The job of the police is to arrest people AFTER they committed a crime. As Terry Pratchett put in a recent Discworld novel "we caught the guy that done it" sounds a lot better then "we caught the guy that looked like he was going to do it" especially if they say "prove it".
BUT that doesn't help much when you got 30 dead.
Saying that those people paid the price of freedom is NOT going to win you any friends.
One /.er posted a link with a small segment of the essay. It seems to me like the typical emo/teenage kid rant. Personally I think hanging is to good for them but sadly I am not the judge.
The point is however that this happened right after a tragedy wich might have been prevented. Do you want to be the person who ignores the warning signs next time? In the the U Sue of All (man that would have my english teacher calling in the special forces)?
But we don't know the whole essay. Most police officers are rather down to earth, they KNOW the world. For them to make an arrest and for it not to be all settled easily alarms me. Slashdot happily tells us that this guy is a straight-A student. That is great because we all know straight-A students do NOT flip out. What I want to know is this, did the police check him out and what the fuck did they find?
Why doesn't slashdot reportd exactly how many guns this person owns (whatever the number may be and remember, zero is an important number) and how many kilo's of ammo he has stockpiled (again remember the humble zero).
Freedom and the prevention of crime do NOT mix. Since most want both, you are going to have conflicts.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the mid-80's, I wrote a short story about a group of terrorist who seized a building and ended up killing many people in their quest.
Not only did I not get into trouble, I was rewarded with an excerpt reading in class and a free trip to a gifted writers' workshop where I won awards and accolades.
If I did that today, I'd be sent away pretty quickly, I'd imagine.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
wtf?! writing essay news on slashdot
I remember writing short stories in 11th grade (many a year ago) using words from the week's vocabulary list in preparation for SATs. One of them was sort of Salem witch trials thing, with a haunted town with missing people and dead bodies. There were some others that were not my typical writing but because it was a "creative writing" and "expressive writing" assignment I decided to explore. At the time I was contemplating becoming a writer, and I thought the best way to do that was to write different stories on different subject even if it wasnt my typical stuff. Playing with words and putting it into a short story has always been fun for me. Some of the stories I wrote could potentially make me look disturbed, but even though I was quite shy in high school I've had a good family background, and common sense in me.
Attitudes like these probably mean the rocker, goth, emo, etc subcultures among teens trying to express themselves or find out who they really are, may find themselves target for "re-education" if someone deems their writing 'disturbing' when it simply may not be.
I'm really concerned about this type of attitude and I hope that politicians do not take advantage of the unfortunate incident in VT to pass legislation that makes everything ever written by our students archived and available as evidence in the future if someone is accused of a crime. Could you imagine someone pulling out your old essay from that bad day you had which you turned in?
.... ... }
int main (void) {
Sounds like he's contemplating writing a horror book/film to me.
I wonder how Steven King would have faired these days if he wrote some early drafts of his work in school.
And of course, not surprisingly given the news from VA Tech, disturbing things were on his mind.
If a teacher does not know his or her students well enough to deal with whatever comes out of a free association exercise, that teacher has no business giving that kind of assignment. And as far as the state attorney bringing charges, hasnt Florida had enough political embarassment this decade?
The other thing I don't understand is why the teacher read the assignment. Is she this kid's psychoanalyst? Yeah, you do free association as a creative exercise, to loosen up your mental censor so you can find material you wouldn't have found. You then pick over whatever you find to get ideas to write about. You're not supposed to turn in this stuff. It's an invasion of privacy. Nobody has any right to demand an inspection of whatever is in another person's head.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
So if a student writes an essay about there being no God, and the teacher is heavy into his/her religion and is disturbed by the essay, then according to the law, the teacher can have the student arrested for disorderly conduct?
United States of America,
You're fucked.
Signed
The rest of the World.
I'd like to see exactly what this guy is charged with writing.
The US as far as I know has never been a free country. Certainly it hasn't in the last 70 years.
Why can the government tell me who or how many people I can marry?
Why can the government tell me what plants I can grow?
Why can the government tell me what substances I can own?
Why can the government tell me how (or if) I should dress?
Why can the government tell two consenting adults what they can do together, or whether they can charge one another for it?
Why can the government tell me what countries I can visit?
I don't know of anywhere that I would really call free, and I am thankful for the freedoms I have. I am also watchful of the freedoms that are guaranteed to me but seem to be slipping. But I would love to see someplace that was really free.
Another 'offtopic' moderation coming my way, I'm sure...
I'm guessing the sig on which you are commenting was referring to the Republican panic that Speaker Pelosi would try to bring "San Francisco values" to Washington.
Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
"otherwise Tom Clancy is in serious trouble"
Paging Dr. Gonzo... paging Dr. Gonzo...
Need Mercedes parts ?
Stephen King was arrested today after complaints from a reader about "disturbing content" in a recent book. The complainant , Marla Milquetoast was quite upset "Hokey Smokes! He had stuff about death in that book! I was sure disturbed!" Police captain Rob Roughup is quoted as saying "The guy clearly has a sick mind. It's unknown if Mr. King is planning any kind of mass killing, or terrorist plots. But we're investigating that possibility".
AccountKiller
What a great idea. Everyone should keep all of their angst and emotion to themselves. Pent up rage has never resulted in anything detrimental.
Besides that, the jist of your post seems to be, "Just be normal! And if you can't force yourself (i.e. dumb yourself down enough) to think like the masses, just act like you do anyway. Waste your life away being a passive "me-too"-er who never questions the status-quo or gets emotional about anything. It's fun to try to fit in! The majority of America does it, so you might as well do it too, right?"
If you really believe that line of bullshit, then there's not much anyone can do for you. Just go turn your television back on, get another beer, and stop trying to think.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
So face it, this isn't a case of some bored kid writing a war story and a teacher being upset, or a kid writing about how he got even with bullies by beating them to a pulp after a lifetime of being pulped himself.
This is a kid who's basically threatened to shoot the school up. Even if he really wouldn't (like probably [insert made-up statistic here]% of the kids who may write such drivel), he's putting himself up as a threat. Just like if you mail a letter to the prez that you're out to get him (even an unspecific threat like that, "out to get him"), you can and should expect some serious attention to be paid to you.
Go get 'im.
Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Brian Keene, you're all under arrest.
This is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. You have one group that will claim his freedom of speech is being trampled upon. The other side will claim to be protecting the children.
the one in Miami? or the one back home in Mexico?
If this is successful in being proven and the student is convicted, say hello to a world of lemmings and autonomous people who cannot think for themselves.
I dearly hope some of her subsequent students start doing freewriting that looks like:
"I'm boring. I don't say anything dangerous. I just write boring safe stuff. This is safe. So is this. Here's another safe sentence. I sure hope I don't get kicked out of school for writing this. Oh, look, another safe sentence."
Okay, so I was a misfit in school, but I can imagine a dozen students doing four pages each of this on a sufficiently regular and annoying basis to qualify as disruptive conduct. How cool would that be? especially inasmuch as it would be saying something very important, without ever saying anything. Here's to hoping other students there are creative.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Mod the parent up. Well, the kid learned a valuable lesson - people don't always want the truth.
I work for a very large federal agency and I occasionally teach sexual harassment refresher courses for my employer. I volunteer for this duty because I am one of the few people I know who will openly admit that I've been placed formally on warning for sexual harassment. I use my experience to illustrate the change in standards.
25 years ago, when my agency first started paying attention to the topic, the standard was "reasonableness." If a sexual advance or reference would not be found to be a problem by a reasonable person, then it wasn't punished. If *any* activity was found to be a problem by *any* person and that person made such known, then no reasonable person would repeat the activity. See what I'm getting at?
Do something outrageous; get punished.
Do something questionable and no one complains; nothing happens.
Do something questionable and someone lets you know they have a problem with it; now you know that it is unreasonable to repeat that action because someone finds it objectionable.
The bottom line was that everyone got one mistake. If you did something stupid, you could be told so and as long as you didn't do it again, you were OK. That standard worked fine.
I was placed formally on warning for sexual harassment when I stepped into an elevator with two women, one a secretary and one a high-powered exec. I said hello and the exec said "How are you today?" I answered "Lessee, I'm about to get off work on a beautiful Friday afternoon and in the meantime I'm locked in a small room with two beautiful women. How could I be any better?"
The exec put me on warning. The secretary was shocked that anyone could take offense. I got away with it because under a standard of reasonableness, I could not be expected to anticipate the reaction of the exec and could therefore not be held accountable. However, I now understood her rather low standard for getting offended and it would be unreasonable for me to violate it in the future; thus, if I were to make another such witty remark to that exec, I would be suspended or fired. I stopped speaking to her and everything worked out fine. The "reasonableness" criteria was a good one and quite workable.
Nowadays, the standard has changed. I stress to my classes that my very first comment in that elevator would have resulted in severe disciplinary action under our new standard where sexual harassment is now defined, essentially, as anything the victim decides to characterize as sexual harassment. My classes find the example sobering, as well they should.
Yeah, and why can the government tell me how old the people I marry have to be?
And why can they tell me what animals I can own? What's wrong with having a tiger on a leash right beside a schoolyard?
And I totally hear you on the substances thing. Storing highly radioactive material in your garage should SO be legal.
And why should the government stop two consenting adults from murdering someone? What's wrong with a bit of mindless homicide every now and then?
Sheesh. What tyrants they are.
People who would MOD me as troll, are Exactly the same type of people
who would have a child arrested for a 'disturbing' paper.
Many of the framers of the U.S. Constitution wrote 'disturbing' papers.
Such MOdders are the exact reason people take the law into their own hands.
Must have been a teacher.
This story definitely reminds me of when I was in High School, I made a few violent drawings in my math class (we were learning about logic and we were told to illustrate our examples). At the time nobody said anything to me about my violent pictures, everyone just praised my artistic ability. Well, it just so happens that a few weeks later the shootings at Columbine occured and everyone was scared around the country. A different teacher that I never had class with and therefore didn't know me, found my pictures I drew earlier in the year and began to take action. I had just come back from Spring Break when my math teacher hands me photocopies of my pictures and tells me that out of fear the school suggests that I get psychologicaly evaluated. Well I had nothing to hide and I definitely wasn't going to shoot anyone so I agreed. I spoke to the school psychologist once and that was that (I could sense his bordom with me as I was talking to him). Anyway, I just wanted to share that bit of story because I don't think the student who was arrested meant any harm. I know from personal experiance what he might have been thinking when writting such an essay and in no way was it sinister. Oh yeah, and years later when I was in my guidence councelor's office, I took a peak at my file and in it were the original pictures I drew with a note stapled that read in big red letters "SANE"
One thing that concerns me is that this kid wants to go into the Marines. I'm not worried about him going "Full Metal Jacket" or something, but, rather, that with this mark against him, and the - nowadays - automatically implied "mentally unstable" tag that goes with writing dark material - what would we do to Edgar Allen Poe? - will the Marines even let him into the service? Ok, given that our armed forces are hard-up for bodies, they might. But, still. Will they put him through extra evaluations? Will he be on double-secret probation, or some-such? Jackass, over-reacting teacher and administration. Duh, what did she expect? The stuff this kid wrote about is what we see on TV all the time. Well, except the sex with dead bodies part. At least not the TV _I_ watch. I hope the administration sanctions the teacher for encouraging disruptive behavior. Of course, they won't.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
The happened to me, but this would never happen in the totally f***-up public school I went to, where they had real problems such as students seducing teachers, violence and drugs in class with teachers. When writing a report about how the educational system should be setup, I suggested tiers with the lowest tier being "the student cadavers".
For a creative writing assignment, I had written a suicide note as a character sketch. It was completely within the boundaries of the assignment. I turned it into my teach who simply told me, "I can't accept this as a valid assignment, and if you want to turn it in anyways, I'll have to contact the principal." So I wrote a new one.
On a similar note, my little brother wrote a strikingly similar piece of work for his creative writing class. It was all about drugs, sex, killing people, prostitution, etc. No one seemed to care at all. He was a rebel and everyone knew it. The teacher, who had been my mentor, called our parents to inform them. My parents were really cool about it. Turns out he was just reading a lot of Chuck Palahniuk and was simply immitating his favorite author.
Nihilism means nothing to the dancing peasants
The article unfortunately does not say precisely what happened to the essay. If the author only submitted it to the school (which is what it sounds like) and did not publicize any of it, then there's nothing disorderly about *his* conduct. And the teacher can't claim to be 'disturbed' by the submission since it's what they asked for.
What I find troubling is that they apparently had no process at all for dealing with the situation, and went straight to calling in the police, not for the benefit or safety of the author and other students, but because the teacher felt like a victim. (And if you're squeamish about the fact that some high school students are not always happy, then you are in the wrong profession.) It never occurred to them to *talk* to the student about his essay?
I also find myself wondering why the article is exposing the student's identity to the world for following orders but not mentioning the name of the teacher who appears to have exercised seriously poor judgment.
Refer the kid to counseling to see if the paper reflects his real feelings or is just an academic exercise.
If he really does feel that way, insist he stay in counseling as a condition of being allowed back in school. Then welcome him back.
If it was an academic exercise, it was beyond the scope of the assignment, and he knew it was likely to cause a disruption, then maybe disorderly conduct charges might be in order.
Here's an analogy:
If an art teacher told him to do a painting that reflected his political beliefs, and he painted Hitler in a pro-Nazi stance, as a teacher you would want to know why. Was he really a Nazi? If so, is he willing to obey the rules of American society and the schools' rules? If he's not a Nazi, did he draw it to deliberately freak out the teacher?
If he's a Nazi who can follow the law, then there's not much the school or police should do about it.
If he is not a Nazi and didn't intend to do harm, then there's not much the school or police should do about it.
If he is a Nazi who will likely break the rules in the future, then let him go but keep an eye on him.
If he's not a Nazi and intended to do harm, then sanction him.
Oh, if he was a Nazi and intended to freak out the art teacher, well, he gets away with it because was following her instructions.
Note to teachers:
Be careful what you ask your students to do, they just might do it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Jack Kerouac
It is sad that something like this is not surprising. Here you have a high school with good grades that wrote an essay that is disturbing to someone either because he has issues and needs help or to test the boundary's.
It seems that no thought was put into what really should have happened here.
Should there be an investigation into the essay and student? Sure, but not a criminal investigation. If they go by the reasoning for arresting him, they could arrest 90% of the authors of all books ever written.
Sometimes authority figures like teachers, principles, etc, really just need to step back, breath, count to 10, etc. and try to figure out a proper way to deal with the potential issue. Not just have a knee jerk reaction.
This could have serious repercussions on this young man's future. What if it keeps him from going into the Marines? What if he has an issue and instead of helping him and having him arrested pushes him further down that path.
I am really tired of people looking out for themselves. Sure you can argue they were trying to do the right thing to protect the school. However they could have accomplished the same thing with outgoing down this type of path. I am all for some suspension or temporary off campus schooling why they try to find out what was really going on, but as far as I am concerned the teacher and principle have done far more damage than a "private" essay could have done.
I find it sad that I find us (Americans) becoming so paranoid that being imprisoned for thoughts, cry for helps, etc. is becoming a possibility.
Sorry I will step down from the podium now...
No, I think it's very much on topic, and I agree 100%. The U.S. is not once the place it was; too bad too few people are sentient enough to see it happening. You must have taken the red pill.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Back in the days of People's Republic of Poland, people were arrested for things more trivial than an essay.
I know some people that've been there and seen it.
Guess it takes one to know one.
Remember to take your pills, okay.
He's advocated violent action for years. Oh, but he's not a student in a school.
Blar.
Ah, the irony. Mr. Lee is arrested for writing about shooting and stabbing people, which the government now disapproves of. And a few months from now, he'll be trained to do precisely that, and then sent to Iraq or Afghanistant to actually do it, with the government's blessings.
Imagine, if his attitude were to be more prevalent.
HP Lovecraft? Get over your stupid demons, stfu, and get a job.
Hawthorne? Get over your alienation, stfu, and eat your pizza.
I saw Planet Terror a couple of weeks back. I love the zombie movie. If it weren't for Lovecraft, Hawthorne, Poe, and others seeding modern horror and surrealism with the concept of alienation in the midst of a crowd, revulsion of humanity, etc, we wouldn't have vast swaths of modern horror. When you understand the zombie movie, you'll see even an homage to bad zombie movies as terribly interesting and full of merit.
Of course, people like him would do nothing edifying. I would not want to live in a world where that mindset dictates creativity.
Right, a fuckin nut job. Ever listened to 7 year olds play cops and robbers? Ever take a moment to listen to your inner monologue in a traffic jam? Ever stop to consider that possibly more people would be writing escapist fiction if there was no reprisal for do so in the first place? He's not a fuckin nut job. He's a regular kid.
Don't be so quick to judge
Nihilism means nothing to the dancing peasants
A bit from the essay
"Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s...t...a...b..., puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P 90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did."
I did the same exorcise in grade 12 english. The idea is to write down what your brain was doing that particular second. No boundaries no holding back. THAT was the assignment. We saw some pretty weird shit as a result. The gay guys one was kinda extreme. Anyways, how the hell can you dual hand an SMG like a p90 anyways. I have had stranger dreams than what this guy is describing, key word DREAM.
Necrophilia is always funny, ALWAYS. Anyone ever tea-bag fallen foes on counterstrike? yeah your under arrest for being nuts.
Schools need to simmer the fuck down and work on addressing the concerns of the students themselves, after all, they don't work for the teachers. Taxpayers pay the teachers to work for the students, they should start acting that way.
If I was lee I would sue the school board and the police department for wrongfully pressing charges causing defamation of his character.
Although many Hollywood writers should be arrested for the crap they put on the screens, I don't see anyone getting upset about all PG & R rated stuff.
Would this school would arrest Shakespeare and Stephen King if they were students?
In high school, I was mostly a loner...sure I had my close friends, but for the most part I was considered one of the "freaks"
Personally, I used to embrace it...whenever people would give me an odd look or anything like that, I would just give it right back to them...if they asked why I was looking at them weird, my answer was thus:
"Sorry...I was just trying to make sure you realized how fucking stupid you looked with that smirk on your face"
It's amazing how many people in high school are all talk.
Living With a Nerd
To repeat myself: so it's the same as before then?
Because comics too were accused of just that: causing juvenile delinquency. That little Johnny will read all that supposed "filth", then go mug, rape and kill as a result. The concern wasn't that little Johnny will just run around in a cape and spandex, but, yes, that a lot of people will be mugged or killed because little Johnny reads comics.
So was rock music. The accusation was outright that listening to all those violent lyrics, will cause kids to do all sorts of stupidly violent thing, ranging from "just" suicide to killing a few others.
Etc.
Basically, it's just a case of "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It's repeating _verbatim_. The anti-games scare isn't original at all. It's a verbatim rehash of something that happened before. What ever you can think of as "yeah, but this time they're also saying X", chances are that a variant of X has been said in the previous scares too.
Even the "yeah, but this time the games are so realistic that people lose track of where game ends and reality starts"... funnily enough they said the same about comics, movies, rock music, D&D, etc. Little Johnny (is so stupid that he) will forget RL isn't a comic, and go do what he sees in those comics.
Seriously. Nothing is new. You may think that this is the bullshit war to end all bullshit wars, and the most important/insidious/brutal/etc bullshit war in history, just because you're dragged into it. Rest assured that it's just _a_ bullshit war, in a long line of nearly identical bullshit wars.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What an idiotic response. I listed a bunch of things that harm no one, that are clearly just the government restricting your behavior to make everyone the same.
You write a strawman left-field list of harmful activities that the government restricts as a rebuttal.
One has nothing to do with the other.
... laugh at the US. I feel like a moron for being in the US anyway, all my friends think I'm dense or something to have accepted that job. I'm beginning to think I should be going back home sometime soon.
On a side note, Romans thought it's best for people to have bread and circuses. In the US people have plenty of bread, but circuses (i.e. entertainment, creativity, etc.) is being outlawed little by little (DMCA, etc). That's really clever, way to go... not!
I didn't know a lot about what happened at Virginia Tech until I got my issue of Time this week, but from what it said, Cho had been referred to counseling and all that. NOT that I think what they did here was right, but obviously in Cho's case the counseling failed; and after something like that happens, it is to be expected that somewhere, someone is going to just want to skip a step and go straight to the authorities. I remember in my freshmen year of high school, there were a group of us (honor roll student kids) who all got sent off to see the counselor, because we showed up to school with cuts on our arms, but we all just went, bs'd our way through 30 minutes with this lady, and left. Of course, nothing ever came of us having experimented a little, but I imagine it'd be pretty easy to go through counseling without ever saying a word about what was actually wrong. (Good Will Hunting, anyone?)
...if you read the excerpts from his writing and the assignment description, is that this is the type of thing they are doing in a senior level English class, and that he was a straight A student.
If Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont were in high school today, he would probably be jailed. And countless other precocious writers who are now considered to have written some of the best literature.
I don't see how a criminal charge against him for a non-directed threatening essay doesn't violate his freedom of speech. If that was the case, everybody shouting at a protest would get charged for disorderly conduct no matter what.
And do they really think that 'charging' him rather than seeing if he needs help is the best way to go about this. Charging him with a crime won't do crap. If he needs help, this does nothing. It's like hitting your kid for being bad without understanding why he was bad or teaching him why he shouldn't do it.
-Tony
What a wonderful idea for an essay, the same week as a rampage, by an Asian loner kid.
He needs a boot in the ass for being so goddamn stupid.
Then again, with millions of highschool kids in this country, at least one had to be dumb enough to write an essay like this so soon.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
It's people like you that are the problem. You advocate this kid deserves any punishment meted out before investigating the facts. He was instructed to write anything that came to his mind - not to censor anything. This wasn't some essay he wrote at home and had a chance to toss out before he came to school "decked out in black from head to toe".
I hope like hell you don't live in the US, and if you do that you don't vote or serve on juries or live anywhere near me. Your advocation of action based on conclusions derived from the absolute minimum number of synapses needed to fire in order to construct a coherent thought is a danger to anyone even remotely connected to you. You are a stain on society. You don't fit in a society that truly values freedom. Please investigate why you and the society in which you live are incompatible and take steps to remove yourself from it if you find the differences insurmountable.
Its comical, like Flanders wife in Simpsons. Because, just because some student guns down some people because hes batshit crazy, and happened to also write something down on paper, that you'd have to arrest some poor kid for writing something down on paper aswell. What has society descended into? And I find the comments from the EU hatespeech laws thats been proposed a few days ironic compared to this incident. Some poster said free speech was alive and well in America, well my dear friend.. Not anymore apparently. FUD Is alive and well however, how can people live in a perpetual state of fear? Jesus effing christ, how can we arrest people for writing things, even if its batshit crazy stuff like Manson/Son of Sam shit, thats hardly a reason to be genuinely concerned. Its highly unlikely the next logical step is to bring a gun to the school? Right.. Right?
People keep saying "nut job". I don't think you understand what that means.
I find it funny that society considers authors who write essays such as this one in the wrong, yet directors, writers, singers, and other artists don't seem to be questioned for creating disturbing movies, books, and other art (one example would be Saw). I agree that events such as VA Tech and 9/11 are terrible tradgedies, but if people insist on trading their freedoms for security, then would this really be a country worth living in?
They're only "straw men" in your mind, and because you don't like them. Had you bothered to look closely, you'd realize that his points are quite valid, albeit intentionally absurd. But they most certainly relate to your points, which are also valid, and only slightly less absurd.
Freedom as you describe it cannot exist in concert with civilization as we know it. That is not because of your points, but because of the ease with which the freedoms you pontificate about are extended to their extreme.
And please do not even attempt to say it wouldn't happen.
You can't believe how correct you are except it may not be 50 years. I was around 50 years ago and remember what "freedom" was.
And we won't lose it but just give it away for a bit of security. There is a quote about this but do not remember it exactly.
Looks like "what's his face" [b i n l a d e n] is winning.
I'd say I was in a similar situation throughout school. I was fairly open with my parents about my feelings towards school and they were supportive in telling me what real life is like out of school and that it's what you do /after/ high school that's important. Unlike so many of my classmates, I never got caught up in the campus social network and instead stayed with a relatively isolated group of very close friends. It's too bad high school is structured in such a way that some 4.0-5.0 GPA students can't even manage to get through a communications degree from a state college. 'Cool' does not pay bills or do homework for you.
:)
Being cool during high school may be fun for four years, but being a fry cook for the next forty isn't.
For supporting him, and telling everyone - he ain't no Cho, he a Lee! :-D
Best regards to a future Devil Dog!
Science never settles, never rests.
Well if this kid can be arrested for writing 'disturbing' material, I think Quentin Tarantino can definitely be sent to jail. George Lucas can go with him since the beheading of a Sith Lord in his last film is obviously a disturbing reference to events in Iraq.
I'm not sure anyone who has written a screenplay for a porn movie is safe either.
I'm re-evaluating my attitude towards Alien and Aliens - which contain very disturbing material.
Shouldn't we also make a stance against the current Govenor of California - Arnold Schwarzenegger? First of all he's a forigner, and not only has he been associated with mass-shooting fantasies but there is photographic evidence that he has acted out these fantasies. Very disturbing.
What we need is a form of police for the mind, I know: "Thought Police", we could call them. They could make sure our citizens have the right attitude, and we could throw disruptive elements into jail. We should also rewrite troublesome sections in history books and in the media. It will only provoke violence to describe death tolls from various world wars - if indeed they took place. (Privately, we could call this work 'atrocity denial' organized through, say, a Ministry of Disinformation). By denying that atrocities and holocausts ever took place we can build a much better society free from violence.
So there we have it - a blueprint for a new society! The future is going to be fantastic, and arresting this troublesome schoolkid is the catalyst, the start of a new tomorrow.
Here's the full story. Friggin registration system.
http://stashbox.org/18923/story.pdf
OK, let me spell it out:
I don't think any government bigger than a community government should restrict anything that doesn't harm anyone (or have potential for very significant harm... building a nuke in your garage doesn't harm anyone, but the potential's pretty significant). I don't think any government, period, should restrict anything that happens inside your home, with the same caveat as above.
I do think that a community gov't should be able to have dress codes, marriage codes, etc. Having those things on a state or national level is just mindless conformity, though.
His points (with the exception of the one on radiation) are clearly in a different category than mine. I didn't think I needed to spell out exactly what I meant, given the examples, but obviously I did.
I don't know about this specifically being an issue of an Orwellian state of fear, but it does tell you about an interesting byproduct of our legal system.
:).
Let's face it... this isn't so much a fear that this kid is gonna come into class and start shooting up the place and then having sex with the dead bodies. Though that is mildly disturbing, it isn't too different from stories I wrote as a teenager either (I would have known the difficulty of wielding 2 P90's though
No, this is a response to the fear of the kid shooting up the school - the press finding out that such a paper had been written by the shooter - and then people losing their jobs over NOT having done anything. Hell, while the VTech incident was occurring all the media did was criticize the school administration for their lack of omnipotence about what was going on. You know someone is going to find some random ass note in the margin of a test paper that implies he wasn't all together, meaning a scapegoat will lose their treasured tenured position.
We don't have a police state because people are fascist. We have paranoid state that does nothing but cover it's own ass. We deserve the society that we create...
This is why
Thomas Galvin
+1-847-639-3825 is the schools listed number. Has a phone ever been /.ed? They don't have much to say about it, but you can always c all Jeff Puma, the school districts spokesperson at +1-815-455-8500. That is the number give to me by the principals office.
When I was in high school in S. Florida (class of '82) my friends and I would build rockets and pipe-bombs for fun and blow up stuff in the junkyard; by the time we were 18 we all owned semi-auto guns. One of us had Finnish parents; his dad encouraged us, as his grandparents had fought against the Soviet army in the 1940s. He used to chuckle at the bombs, calling it "kid stuff".
Our freshman year science teacher used to regularly demonstrate things like what happens when you put sodium in water, and one time brought in part of his gun collection to show off in class. One time my friends and I were out shooting long guns in a remote area when a cop car pulled up and gave us some friendly advice about gun safety. I graduated near the top of my class and no one ever got hurt from our experiments.
One of my college roomates from rural New Jersey used to do similar stuff, and once blew up a telephone or power line transformer (forget which); the FBI showed up at his house and give him a stern lecture set him straight. He's now a physics professor.
If we did this stuff as teens today no doubt our lives would be ruined. Of course, the fact that we were all white probably helped a lot. That's progress, I suppose.
Seriously...
I think that this was a severe overreaction by people who should've known better. According to TFA he didn't mention a specific threat against a person of place, so there is no reason that he should have even been singled out, let alone reported to the thought police.
A lot of writing is disturbing; some classic literature is disturbing, journalistic writing (think about accounts of the holocaust and life in Nazi Germany) is disturbing at times. Ifr anythink it shows that the kid's writing style is effective.
Being 18 and living in a country that is in transition from a semi-corrupt republic to a full-fleged surviellance/police state - with all of the inherent disconnects between what America is presented as in our history books and in the complicit/controlled/corrupted mainstream media, and what the day to day reality is can be difficult.
A creative writing class should be a safe place for a student (especialy a straight A student) to express whatever emotions or thoughts they have in writing, whether it's fiction, non-fiction, journaling, whatever - as long as it's not outright threats of violence against specific people or places.
The charge - disorderly conduct? Do I even have to address this? If he had actually threatened anybody they would have charged him with a real charge like "making terroristic threats." What bullshit.
I saw this coming. Time to persecute anyone that is 'different'. It will also open the flood gates for harassment and discrimination.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...the governmental system was a Microsoft product!
"Pent up rage has never resulted in anything detrimental."
It usually doesn't... Emotions fade, including rage. It gets worse if one is actively determined to make it worse.
If someone can't see that their hatred for others is dangerous and needs to be kept in check, perhaps they need to relax with TV and a beer. Somewhere along the way, hopefully they'll realize that no matter how painfully conformist it seems, they really aren't all that different than everybody else.
I guess that means we should be putting people like Steven King in prison too, he must be a threat because he writes weird things.
Just because you are weird by someone else's definition doesn't make you dangerous. Grrrr!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I would like to know what has happened to the first amendment of out constitution?
A stright "A" student with no noticeable behavior problems is given a writing assignment and completes it and then is arrested for it because it disturbed some people.
If that's all it takes to get you arrested then every writer of any slasher movie ever made should be arrested too because I think a lot of people would find them disturbing.
The atmosphere is starting to feel like the Salem witch trials. When fear alone without the use of common sense starts to dictate our actions then we have a problem.
I am not saying some precautions shouldn't have been taken. Maybe a conference with the student and his parents should have been held to see if there were issues at school that needed to be addressed. But arrest should have been the last resort. Not the first.
In the current topic I think, it is the freedom of expression. I think it is the basic fundamental foundation of democracy.
"I didn't think I needed to spell out exactly what I meant, given the examples, but obviously I did."
And thank you for doing so, because it made my point quite nicely. MY point was that the freedoms you list are easily, if somewhat absurdly, extended to his points. You seem to think that your ability to see the absurdity somehow prevents this from happening, while you totally ignore the ability of the population at large to completely fail to notice the absurdity.
Again, thank you for demonstrating my point for me.
And that tendency you have to get angry and antagonistic? It doesn't make you any more right or make your point any more cogent, it simply makes you look like an asshole.
Yes, why can't you have a dozen 13 year old wives rolling you joints while you shoot heroin in the nude with a transvestite prostitute you smuggled out of Somalia?
Cause thankfully there are laws against people like that being in my society.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-07042 6student-essay,1,6366371.story?coll=chi-news-hed
I don't know what would be.
Write your thoughts, as requested by authority.
Your written thoughts get you arrested by that same authority.
Where the hell did the constitution go here?
It don't get much clearer than that. Don't anyone read "Farenheit 451" or watch "THX 1138" anymore?
I can only hope the teacher, the school and the LEO agency involved get the wholy ba-jeebies sued out of 'em.
Senior NCO in the fight against entropy. I've seen things, man. Things no one should have to see.....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-07042 6student-essay,1,6366371.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Blood sex and Booze. Drugs Drugs Drugs are fun. Stab, Stab, Stab, S...t...a...b..., poke. "So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone..., then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did." Umm, yeah, what to wright about...... I'm leaving to join the Marines and I really don't give a (obscenity) about my academics, so why does the only class that's complete Bull Shit, happen to be the only required class...enough said. The model citizen would stay around to vote in new board member to change the 4 years of English policy, but no one really stays around to vote for that kind of local crap, so whoever gets there name on the Ballet with a pretty face gets to do what the (obscenity) ever they want with local ordinance. A person is smart, but people are dumb selfish animals. We can't make rules for ourselves so we vote others to do it for us, but we can't even do that right, I meen seriously, Bush for President? And our other option was John Kerry who claimed to parktake in Vietnam Special Forces missions that haven't been declassified....(obscenity) Bull Shit. So Power Flower Super Mario. Pudge, hook, rot, dismember "Fresh Meat." Mostly new/young teachers are laid back, and cooperative with students as feedback and input into the curriculum and atmosphere. My current English teacher is a control freak intent on setting a gap between herself and her students like a 63 year old white male fortune 500 company CEO, and a illegal immigrant. If CG was a private catholic school, I could understand, but wtf is her problem. And baking brownies and rice crispies does not make up for it, way to try and justify yourself as a good teacher while underhandedly looking for complements on your cooking. No quarrel on you qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting.
Authors Note: This production of writing is done in the most accurate manner I can depict of the original writing. Grammar and spelling mistakes are included at the best accuracy possible. The first phrase in questions is in fact a Green Day song. The second reference to drugs is in relation to the schools history of drug problems. I am personally clean of all controlled substances. The statement in quotes is done so as a non personal statement as I would have done in reference to a character for a story. The reference to the gun P90 is from a video game, combined with a reference to necrophilia as a comment regarding a seriously messed up situation. A situation such as the rape of villagers during a raid by U.S. troops in Vietnam. I really do not care too much about by continuing academia as in relation to grades. I do however believe on continuing my personal education, and I am actually still working for my classes. My views on the graduation requirements explain themselves. The reference to Mario and Pudge( a DOTA character) are completely random as is this essay. The reference to a person being smart and people being dumb is based on a quote from "Men in Black." I generally do believe the public opinion is best. The rest of the essay is rather self explanatory, the main statement in question I have already released a comment online about. I request that all information I have released is read together, and nothing given separately or as an excerpt as the administration has seen fit to do.
On an additional note, I have completed the MEPS (Military Entry Processing Station) examinations, and yes a psychiatric evaluation is included in the process. If I'm qualified to defend the country, I believe I'm qualified to attend school.
Man, why you gotta dis my lifestyle?
OK. It remind me of the hate law in the EU. People were screaming that such things would not happen in the US, censorship, calling blood on the EU.
And now I elarn today that you can be arrested if you write something which is troubling somebody, and promptly a 18 old was arrested for doing so.
So... Who is the more fucked up ? One country which arrest people which want to cremate/kill/genocide other folk, or police which arrest student for writing an essay calling for killing having sex with body and drug ?
Sound as bad each other IMHO. At least here in Europe we do not have the ILLUSION of having free speech, whereas on the other side of the atlantic, beside free speech being written on a piece of paper, you are as bad or as good off as us...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Basically the dude was aiming to piss his teacher off apparently, from the content. I suppose a case could be made that the last line was a threat. Either way - guess it worked. Teacher was pissed - right?
2 6student-essay,1,6366371.story?coll=chi-news-hed
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704
Blood sex and Booze. Drugs Drugs Drugs are fun. Stab, Stab, Stab, S...t...a...b..., poke. "So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone..., then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did." Umm, yeah, what to wright about...... I'm leaving to join the Marines and I really don't give a (obscenity) about my academics, so why does the only class that's complete Bull Shit, happen to be the only required class...enough said. The model citizen would stay around to vote in new board member to change the 4 years of English policy, but no one really stays around to vote for that kind of local crap, so whoever gets there name on the Ballet with a pretty face gets to do what the (obscenity) ever they want with local ordinance. A person is smart, but people are dumb selfish animals. We can't make rules for ourselves so we vote others to do it for us, but we can't even do that right, I meen seriously, Bush for President? And our other option was John Kerry who claimed to parktake in Vietnam Special Forces missions that haven't been declassified....(obscenity) Bull Shit. So Power Flower Super Mario. Pudge, hook, rot, dismember "Fresh Meat." Mostly new/young teachers are laid back, and cooperative with students as feedback and input into the curriculum and atmosphere. My current English teacher is a control freak intent on setting a gap between herself and her students like a 63 year old white male fortune 500 company CEO, and a illegal immigrant. If CG was a private catholic school, I could understand, but wtf is her problem. And baking brownies and rice crispies does not make up for it, way to try and justify yourself as a good teacher while underhandedly looking for complements on your cooking. No quarrel on you qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting.
(The following is Lee's explanation of the essay above, given to the media by his lawyer.)
Authors Note: This production of writing is done in the most accurate manner I can depict of the original writing. Grammar and spelling mistakes are included at the best accuracy possible. The first phrase in questions is in fact a Green Day song. The second reference to drugs is in relation to the schools history of drug problems. I am personally clean of all controlled substances. The statement in quotes is done so as a non personal statement as I would have done in reference to a character for a story. The reference to the gun P90 is from a video game, combined with a reference to necrophilia as a comment regarding a seriously messed up situation. A situation such as the rape of villagers during a raid by U.S. troops in Vietnam. I really do not care too much about by continuing academia as in relation to grades. I do however believe on continuing my personal education, and I am actually still working for my classes. My views on the graduation requirements explain themselves. The reference to Mario and Pudge( a DOTA character) are completely random as is this essay. The reference to a person being smart and people being dumb is based on a quote from "Men in Black." I generally do believe the public opinion is best. The rest of the essay is rather self explanatory, the main statement in question I have already released a comment online about. I request that all information I have released is read together, and nothing given separately or as an excerpt as the administration has seen fit to do.
On an additional note, I have completed the MEPS (Military Entry Processing Station) examinations, and yes a psychiatric evaluation is included in the process. If I'm qualified to defend the country, I believe I'm qualified to attend school.
Are we to take it that you are a perverted drug taking pot growing crossdressing bigamist, who wants to go wierd places for holidays?
Darwin Hawking Blackmore
It's interesting how on one hand, teachers are roundly criticized for poor student performance and then they are criticized for attempting to maintain discipline in the classroom. Here are some excerpts from Lee's essay: "Blood, sex and booze," according to the complaint. "Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s ... t ... a ... b ..., puke."
"So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P 90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did."
I disagree (on constitutional grounds) that he should be prosecuted, but at the very least he should have been expelled.
False dichotomy, ten yards penalty.
If a student turns in a disturbing paper, it is reasonable to talk to that student or parents, refer the student to a counsellor, keep an eye on that student, whatever. It is not reasonable to arrest the student. That isn't going to stop anything, unless the student was ready to start shooting (and hence armed), and the arrest could cause further problems down the line.
The teacher did have the opportunity to exercise common sense, and failed miserably.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"MY generation wasn't a bunch of pussies."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is exactly that. A knee-jerk reaction to what happened at Virginia Tech. And I suppose it was to be expected. I sympathize with the teacher who ended up making this call, but that does not make it right.
In the US, we are a society which is uniquely defined by civil liberties, and freedom of expression is a particular example which is protected well beyond where it is elsewhere in the world. Here, if someone publishes an essay and professes to have a desire to "kill the niggers," while the police would be within their rights to launch an investigation to see whether actual plans and preparations were being made, the mere advocation of the idea would never be criminal (Brandenburg is still the ruling precedent, iirc, but IANAL). In most European countries, the line is drawn elsewhere (see the recent attempts to push for hate-speech laws in the EU Parliament).
One of the thoughts I had in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy was that this was going to put a lot of pressure on public schools and universities (which are agencies of the state) to restrict speech well beyond what has been acceptable before. Obviously private schools are less bound by this as they are not agents of the state (though perhaps with tuition vouchers, maybe they should be held to the same constitutional frameworks).
In Virginia Tech, more could have been done to reduce (or possibly even prevent) the tragedy. I am not saying that there are not lessons to be learned, just that we are learning the wrong ones. Better lessons would have been:
1) More involvement with parents and family of troubled students.
2) If someone is a serious and persistant problem (stalking, for example), expulsion may be appropriate. It does not seem like this was the case here.
3) If a violent crime occurs on campus, it is reasonable to request a police presence on that campus until the criminal is aprehended. It is also a good idea to keep everyone informed in real time that there has been a crime, and the type/location of the crime (investigational details need not be given).
As with terrorism, people are willing to give up the civil liberties of others for safety not realizing they are giving up their own liberties as well.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Man, you really need that seminar!
I wasn't angry. I certainly was antagonistic, but it was in response to baseless antagonism (not yours, the gp's).
My points were not easily extended to his points. His points were about restricting behavior that harms other people. My points, I think quite obviously, were about restricting behavior that doesn't harm other people.
And remember, when I wrote that post I had no idea it would be modded, so I didn't enumerate everything in mind-numbing detail.
In fact, though, you are often better off saying something controversial and then refining it. How many people would have read that post if it were five pages long listing all of the do's & don't's of my personal political beliefs? But if you say something punchy, you get people's attention and have the opportunity to refine it.
The chances of retarded offspring from close relatives marrying are small. And with genetic counseling it would even be smaller. Plus, you don't have to have children to be married.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2007/04/27/news/l ocal/doc46323cf53fd2a594795423.txt
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And people wonder why we would rather drop out and get a job than stay in school. Had this student done what I did, he would get to live a normal life, now they will ruin any chance he ever had, flush all the kids hard work to be an A student down the toilet to make themselves comfortable.
Ben Smith
Drop Out
Heavy Industrial Machinist, making a little over 60k a year doing it.
"Because six-year-olds don't have the mental capacity to understand what marriage really means"
Says who? Adults? How do adults get to determine what constitutes appropriate "mental capacity" based on an arbitrary measurement like age? Age does not equal mental capacity, any more than height or weight do.
"I would guess that the restricted substances being referred to are things like alcohol and marijuana. Drugs that have the potential to directly harm only yourself are slightly different from materials that can be an immediate danger to everyone in a 10-mile radius."
Substance is substance is substance. Who gets to make this determination, and what are the criteria? Do drugs that cause impairment sufficient to increase the potential for harm (i.e. drunk/stoned driving) to others? At what point does the potential for harming exceed an acceptable threshold, and who makes that decision? What if I disagree with them? More importantly, you advocate for restricting activities based on mental capacity, then in your very next point, advocate for activities which diminish mental capacity.
I hope you see the glaring holes in your logic. Perhaps you're simply not old enough to know better, or maybe you're stoned.
Maybe it was just written with a bunch of text-speak in it because the guy had forgotten how to write English grammer and the teacher just couldn't understand what he was saying? ;)
I'm not advocating anything except that kids know what they are getting into whenever they do an essay like this and turn it in to a public school teacher... I'm not saying it's right at all. I am saying that they'd better get smart and realize that the "You are a special ray of sunshine" line is nothing but a lie in their eyes, and that they will get called on for being "different".
How exactly does that make me a stain on society? I truly value freedom, and think that anyone dumb enough to turn in a paper like that shouldn't be such a wuss and go crying to the media when they get arrested. It shows how intellectually pathetic they are. If anything, they should wear those charges like a badge of honor, knowing that they took a stand for and got arrested because of what they believe in.
I'm just arguing that kids take the blinders off and realize that when a teacher asks for unlimited creativity, they are only trying to motivate... They dont' really want what they are asking for, but it'll work 99% of the time.
One has nothing to do with the other.
But at least now you know the answer to your original Why question: Because the person who responded to your post can't tell the difference but he can still vote.
On your first point of who you can marry (this comes from wikipedia)" Massachusetts has recognized same-sex marriage since 2004. Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey and California have created legal unions that, while not called marriages, are explicitly defined as offering all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law to same-sex couples. Maine, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and Washington have created legal unions for same-sex couples that offer varying subsets of the rights and responsibilities of marriage under the laws of those jurisdictions."
;) talk more on that later.
The united states are not stopping you from same sex marriage your state is.
On your second point the coca plant can make cocain so your saying it should be un regulated. Now your probably talking about marijuana, this is highly debatable topic. marijuana is thought be used for medical treatment, but it is also a drug. Drugs in general have to go through testing and FDA approval before they can be sold. Now there are alot of people that will not alow that to happen but i'll talk more on this point later.
on your third point I'm assuming this is directly related to point 2 so I'm guessing you like some substance that comes from plants
On your third point of dress, I have seen some skimpy dress so I wouldn't say its a matter of how you dress unless its your work or your school which you have the freedom to quit and go somewhere else. Now to if you should wear cloths at all. It is true that you could get a fine or worse if you go naked down the street. This is because as well as your own freedom other people shouldn't have to suffer from seing your naked body go down the street. As well as being a free country the US is also a country based on religion(though religion and state shouldn't be mixed they are) and it is known that this should be wrong. I'll get more to this later as well when I talk about freedom and country.
Onto point five this like your first point is actually legal in some countys of Nevada. Meaning its not a US thing its a state thing. In Rhode Island it is not illegal to take money for sex as long as its not solicitated at a brothel or on the street(taken from wiki as well). So this point is invalid when stating the country wouldn't let you do that. Your state just follows the norm.
As for your last point on travel, theres not much I can say there. Your country is arguing with theirs so they won't let you go directly. On that note they aren't going to arrest you if you have traveled there and came back. They won't deny you to go to cuba you just can't leave from the US to get there. It is completely legal for you(if your an american well or anybody) to go to Cuba. Also you may be permited to go to cuba is you have a special license that you obtain. As far as I know(I only know of cuba) this is the case with most countries.
Now onto my point of freedom. Freedom is a term used with the united states I'm going to break everything that I have said and say that the United States is not a free country. No country is completly free. Free of rules laws that would be just crazy. Your free to talk about those rules and laws. To bring them to your government and get them changed. You want to walk around naked take it up with your congresmen. Tell them I believe that I am being injusticed by this. This is how laws are made in the states. You can run for congres you can vote differently in the next election. The truth is though your country is as free as the person beside you lets it be. A country can't have a rule that will hard its population thats just not sane. If the majority disagree whole heartily about something it will most likely eventually be changed. If you country was not free in the term that its used in. There would be no avenue for change except revolution, which by the constitution it seems to be an option as well. The truth is that you need to have people in government that understands the people and that is usually
The profiling that is going on, according to various groups, political/media/family etc kids have/are:
- Currently engaging in unsafe sexual practises, rife with disease
- Raping and pillaging The Music and Movie industry blind
- Attention Deficit Disorder, hyperactive , under educated scholastic failures
- Zero self control, obese drug addicts
- Young psychos liable to snap from 1 too many Halo Missions and go Columbine
I'd hate to be a teen growing up now.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
You hit the nail on the head. Arresting someone for an essay crosses all lines, and I cannot believe it is even being debated here. I'm disgusted at the people involved in this case. Calling the POLICE after reading an essay? And the police actually arrest this kid? I hope the ACLU annihilates these people, if for no other reason than their misunderstanding and ignorance of their own damn jobs.
Actually, I am an outwardly normal (except for my aversion to watching sports) father of three (husband of one). I have some beliefs that are outside the societal norm, but nothing that is obvious to the casual observer. I have never used any drugs outside of one or two incidents (in my life) with pot.
I just don't think we should mandate nationally that everyone live like me.
And I agree that close relatives should be restricted from breeding. It's harmful to a third party (the kids).
No, but they are what a student should expect if they suffer from self pity and bad writing. A student should not completely trust public school teachers in the US, nor should they place so much importance on what they think nor the value of their thoughts. Most US students these days would benefit from a bit of manual labor and poverty to put things in perspctive... They are writing from a position that is almost completely artificial when you consider the history of the world. The works of those like Edgar Allen Poe should come from those who have actually lived a hard life, not namby-pamby suburban pansies. :)
Pretty soon they'll be arresting kids for listening to Marilyn Manson.
You're just a party pooper.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Let's all write essays within parameters of the assignment.
---
Fuck the bunny, silly racket flying peaches mother relax, kill the Malasian president. Kill the Claimation dude. In the computer. 99 beers on the wall, red. Distribution of evenly spaced bulets across the intersection area of the brain, insane. Delay No More, fuck the people, kill them all, spill their guts and put their brains on a stick, spit on the stick, shit on the stick, seat on the stick, fuck Bush. 32 dead mothefuckers is nothing it is nothing, nothing. Moonwalk. Many dead, all will die, who gives a shit?
--
Is it disturbing yet?
You can't handle the truth.
I don't think any government bigger than a community government should restrict anything that doesn't harm anyone (or have potential for very significant harm... building a nuke in your garage doesn't harm anyone, but the potential's pretty significant). I don't think any government, period, should restrict anything that happens inside your home, with the same caveat as above.
So you're still not letting people do what they want, if you're stopping them from building a nuke in their basement. You're still drawing a line, saying "you can do this, but you can't do that".
So you agree that certain actions should not be allowed. You can no longer argue that people should be free to do what they want, because you don't want to allow that. You're basically back to arguing for each individual action whether it should or should not be allowed.
Several of your original examples easily fall under your "potential for very significant harm". It is only if you do not bother to follow the larger consequences of actions on a societal level that you would not see that.
Hmm. You're backpeddling and elitist too. Before you said he deserves incarceration, not just that he can expect it. A woman who goes to a hair stylist in Saudi Arabia can expect to be executed (on TV no less) if she's caught, but that's separate from deserving it. As for needing to have suffered before you can be allowed to write horror stories, all I can say is that I couldn't respect that point of view less. For one thing we'd never have any writers by your prescriptions, second of all suffering is not limited to the old or the poor. Everyone has their chance at loss, sickness, addiction, mental illness, or even just being too sensitive. Wealth makes some of those less probable, but even rich people die.
It doesn't take much talking about relevant issues to figure out there's a lot of people these days who feel angry, frustrated, upset, distraught, confused, and sometimes even feeling violent. That doesn't automatically mean they are going to do a single thing beyond feeling it. Since merely expressing these feelings now leads to concern about whether "someone is listening" and potential prosecution, more frustration and anger build into people, rather than capacity to get together and organize some coherent and intelligent response to the underlaying problems. Therefore, occasional violent incoherent explosions. Occasional powerful coherent explosions are possible as well, but less likely, as coherence usually requires calm and more thinking time.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Awesome... finally a story that gives /.ers an excuse to tell their sad "I was an outsider in high school!" stories.
Stephen King perspective on Mr Cho's writings:
....
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036014,00.html
Basically, what someone writes says little about their state of mind.
I agree 100% with Mr King and add that many people write in order to understand why people do the things they do. They want to see things through their eyes and live through the experiences that lead up to a "nut job end" so that ultimately they can become better more compassionate human beings or better able to see the warning signs when people start to get lost or just to form their own opinions instead of parroting the reaction they're "supposed to have".
The last thing we need to do is to discourage this sort of wisdom seeking. The world is already too full of superficial reactionaries that mindlessly see the world through safe "society approved"[TM] labels like "nut job", "terrorist", "communist", "capitalist", "fanatic", "cultist",
"My points were not easily extended to his points."
It seemed pretty easy for him. I thought it was easy. It seems we disagree, which again proves my point. What you cannot see/ choose not to see does not in any way change what I see, or what others see. What you find "obvious" is not obvious to me (I am playing devils advocate by the way, in case you were wondering) nor would it be "obvious" to the population at large.
Right here: http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=306827 Having read it, it looks like something I know many of my HS students would have written, meaning nothing and probably provoking the same reaction. This is a harmless, rational guy with nothing wrong with him other than a lack of sense in actually turning this in. My two cents.
In the US case, it was a few individuals acting like idiots and being oppressive against one kid. But it's over now, and the kid has legal recourse if he chooses to go that route because of basic concepts of rights embedded in our system.
In the EU, it's the entire government acting like an idiot, and the oppressed are in jail and pretty much fucked.
As imperfect as it may be, I'll stick with the US system.
You can even write off this event as fallout from the VTech shootings, although arresting the kid was still dumb. A simple meeting with the parents probably would have cleared up all concerns and been done with it. Whoever called the cops was the core idiot here. The cops arrest people. They are not social workers, nor should they be.
1. Judging from his writing ability, I do not believe he should be given a High School diploma.
2. I believe the US Marine Corps has a higher standard for literacy than what is indicated by the paper.
3. "No quarrel on you qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting."
That's close enough to a direct threat that I can fully understand why the police chose to get involved.
I don't quite follow how this justified an *arrest*, partly because the person is not a juvenile, and thus, must be dealt with as an adult for things like arrest and arraignment. The guy should insist on every single point of process, sign nothing, and force a judge and jury to hear the witnesses explain what exactly was illegal with the paper. I would indeed make a federal case out of it -- force a District Judge to rule that there is such a thing as an illegal essay -- and then you've got a doomed First Amendment appeal, because I can guarantee the Supreme Court will never rule that there is a compelling state interest that allows a public school to place a prior restraint on the writings of an adult. (It makes all the difference in the world that the defendant is over 18.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Not that small. For example most (75%) Pakistanis who live in Bradford in the UK are married to their own first cousins, and they have a high level of recessive genetic disorders as a result. In response to pressure from Ann Cryer MP, the UK has raised the age at which husbands/wives can be brought into the UK to 21 years, to discourage forced marriages.
I wrote many very disturbing things in high school, because that was my favorite style (think Tarantino meets Douglas Adams). And I was bored off my ass... completely, by a school that was far more into "discipline" and sports than education. I graduated before Columbine, but my younger brother attending that school the year after was told not to wear his trenchcoat (in freezing weather) by school staff, etc... I wore one for my last two years, frequently, without incident other than the occaisional compliment. When I wrote things that sufficiently weirded out teachers, I'd end up in the counselor's office (not with the damn police) and sometimes they'd recommend my parents take me to a phsycologist for evaluation (did once, doc said I was smart and bored).
As far as emotion and mental stability are concerned, I'm probably way ahead of 99% of humans... as laid back as can be. Figuring out which kids might go apeshit in school takes a lot more than reading their creative assignments. Unfortunately, right after Columbine, and continuously since then, it seems that school administrators are doing the exact opposite of what they need to to prevent such occurances. Someone with emotional issues who is prevented from expressing in his or her dress, writing, art, speech... well, they're going to feel more and more trapped. For those who can't look ahead to their futures and see the big picture (some huge percentage of everyone), these types of restrictions, and responses like that of this school will. directly. cause. more tragedy. Unfortunately, with school funding what it is, hiring intelligent, qualified people who get it is a bit difficult, so I only expect to see more and more such idiocy.
If you're an outsider and nerd in high school now and reading this, I can say this though: In college, and moreso even in the real world thereafter, you're gonna be doing much better than the rest... just zoom out your perspective some and you'll see this is a minor (albeit ridiculously frustrating) temporary inconvenience.
these teachers should be fired, every single one of them
You're absolutely right. I wasn't arguing that we should live in anarchy, just that we shouldn't be restricted from doing things that harm no one. (Although, I actually do think local communities should be able to establish a culture, i.e. restrict people from doing things that harm no one.)
My original examples were meant to provide a partial list of things that quite often harm no one (with the possible exception of the person performing the actions) but are illegal.
But you can... just look towards Africa. There are places in Africa where you can do ANYTHING you want as long as you can back it up.
I'm glad that Stephen King already graduated. I did not (of course) read TFA, but how many of todays big horror writers would actually write those (sometimes) disturbing stories if they were arrested for it in college?
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Well, that a problem with my POV, I can't help but think that anyone who recklessly flies in the face of Darwinism and Murphy's law generally deserve what's coming to them. When I said that those kids deserve incarceration, I seriously only meant that in a "They should definitely know better" way, not a laws in the "Land of the Free" way. :)
:)
And, yeah, I'd say the Saudi Arabian woman would deserve it, unless she really did not know the law of the land or was simply unable to cope with the standard of living imposed on women over there (entirely plausible, but far from the norm it seems), but that's another topic.
I'm also just saying that the kids writing these essays are completely out of their element most of the time and don't realize how good (or bad) they've got it.
I think it was about him criticizing his English teacher, and she used the "disturbing" content to get back at him.
OK, scratch my gp response. It is always easy to be misunderstood. I think I've clarified my points so that you, at least, don't misunderstand them any more.
;-)
I still think the reply to my original post in this thread was intentionally antagonistic, and I reserve the right to be an ass to someone who's asking for it
....the kid is probably a damned good writer. The best writing is usually disturbing.
Give him a book deal.
Your first two points are moot - this was not a formal writing assignment, but stream of conciousness - its supposed to look like unadulterated crap spewed out onto the page. When its done "right" (as per your typical high school english teacher) it should include mistyping, bad punctuation, incomplete thoughts, and rambling run-on sentences. As such it should not be the basis of judgement for his prose or literacy.
hey, I wus kidding. Actually I agree with the points you make. I'm just bored.
Darwin Hawking Blackmore
Sorry, I should say that I would love to see someplace where people were really free to do things that don't harm one another, and still restricted from doing things that do.
Damned pedants.
We all realized where this reaction came from but the articles states the student had to take classes elsewhere. No mention of trying to seek help for the student or anything of that nature...lets just chuck him elsewhere and hope he magically gets better. How do they know if the student even poses a treat to others or himself? Nah...they don't bother with any of silliness they choose to ignore problem (if there exist one).
Yeah, me too ;-)
High school kids should certainly be savvy enough to know better, to know what they are getting into whenever they turn in essays like that. These essays are often labeled as a "cry for help" because very, very few students would be so naive to think that there wouldn't be consquences for that... My fear is that high school students are indeed becoming more naive, so yeah, you might have a point... It's been well over a decade since I've been in school. :)
I believe that the problem comes from some sort of measure of the potential for any particular activity to cause harm, even if by itself it would not. A compromise between allowing people the freedom to do what they want and protecting the general public must always be found, and in the end where you might draw the line is no more valid than where someone else does (or no less, for that matter... the only difference being that they are in power to enforce their rules and you are not). Ignoring those rules just because we disagree with them, however, is not a solution. At least not while we desire to maintain a civilized society.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well... the quote from the essay says "
"Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s...t...a...b..., puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P 90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did.....He plans to enter the Marines after graduation." http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=306398
This is Sparta! He is failing in his programming to have blood drugs stab puke sex fun!
Well done centurions! Purge the weakling from the Dalek hordes!
Onward to the Rapture, Christian soldiers!
Seig Heil! Ole!
(Is this creative enuff to get me trolled?)
Strong suggestion: Go find and read
"How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World", by the late great Harry Browne.
Or at least check out the excerpts on Amazon.
He answered the question which you really need to ask - "How can I be free to live as I see fit, when so many others seem to want to control me?"
Heh... I actually agree with you to a large degree... fiscally conservative and socially liberal (vote Libertarian!)
The world is not broken. There are infrequent incidents that occur (that are widely reported) that are knee-jerk reactions to other infrequent incidents (that are widely reported) to which people put too much weight because CNN is their "window to the world".
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
I guess that an F just isn't punishment enough anymore for writing a bad paper...
I seriously doubt anyone in the US is in grave danger of having too much freedom.
I'm in between insightful sigs right now...
Your definition of 'harmful' is the key to all this. Take dress code: Say you remove all laws relating to exposure and decency regarding clothing. People can wear (or not wear) whatever they want, anywhere they want. You would have everything ranging from full public nudity to highly offensive clothing. (Say, racist slogans or something) Many people would not be comfortable in such an environment, even threatened. Is their right to live in an non-offensive/threatening environment less valid than your right to wear what you want? When do your personal choices trump someone elses religious beliefs?
There is no such thing as true freedom. The phrase I've heard is 'Your freedom ends where my freedom begins.' There is a balance that must be found. I'm not saying we've found it, mind you, but you can't have total freedom like you describe.
"1940's? He said 50 years.
s _Movement_(1955-1968)n _the_20th_century
The 1990's are over man, get over it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Liberation#I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war
Those should help you educate yourself. They fit nicely into your little timeline as well.
"And if you don't believe that some things have gotten worse, please tell me where you live."
The United States of America, where we understand that "freedom" is a continuum, not an absolute goal, and that there will always be losses in addition to gains. It is the nature of humanity. The fact that you are unable to admit this (or comprehend it) does not in any way change that fact. The fact that "some things" have "gotten worse" as you put it, does not mean that as a whole the United States is more free and more equitable now than ever before.
"If it's true, I may just move there."
Please don't.
Arresting someone for writing a non-threatening but anti-establishment essay is ludicrous.
There seems to be a whole new and dangerous Orwellian trend in the US of severely punishing anyone that doesn't act totally conformist (i.e hold strictly middle-class and strongly christian views) because they must be imminently about to launch a terrorist attack.
Replace the word 'communist' with 'terrorist' and its the McCarthy era all over again. Its funny that most Americans still truly think the US is the land of the free. How bad does it actually have to get before the majority start to realize something's wrong?
8-4-010 Disorderly conduct. A person commits disorderly conduct when he knowingly: (a) Does any act in such unreasonable manner as to provoke, make or aid in making a breach of peace; or (b) Does or make any unreasonable or offensive act, utterance, gesture or display which, under the circumstances, creates a clear and present danger of a breach of peace or imminent threat of violence; or (c) Refuses or fails to cease and desist any peaceful conduct or activity likely to produce a breach of peace where there is an imminent threat of violence, and where the police have made all reasonable efforts to protect the otherwise peaceful conduct and activity, and have requested that said conduct and activity be stopped and explained the request if there be time; or (d) Fails to obey a lawful order of dispersal by a person know by him to be a peace officer under circumstances where three or more persons are committing acts of disorderly conduct in the immediate vicinity, which acts are likely to cause substantial harm or serious inconvenience, annoyance or alarm; or (e) Assembles with three or more persons for the purpose of using force or violence to disturb the public peace; or (f) Goes about begging or soliciting funds on the public ways, except as provided in Chapter 10-8, Sections 10-8-110 through 10-8-170; or (g) Appears in any public place manifestly under the influence of alcohol, narcotics or other drug, not therapeutically administered, to the degree that he may endanger himself or other persons or property, or annoy persons in his vicinity; or (h) Carries in a threatening or menacing manner, without authority of law, any pistol, revolver, dagger, razor, dangerous knife, stiletto, knuckles, slingshot, an object containing noxious or deleterious liquid, gas or substance or other dangerous weapon, or conceals said weapon on or about the person or vehicle; or (i) Pickets or demonstrates on a public way within 150 feet of any primary or secondary school building while the school is in session and one-half hour before the school is in session and one-half hour after the school session has been concluded, provided that this subsection does not prohibit the peaceful picketing of any school involved in a labor dispute; or (j) Pickets or demonstrates on a public way within 150 feet of any church, temple, synagogue or other place of worship while services are being conducted and one-half hour before services are to be conducted and one-half hour after services have been concluded, provided that this subsection does not prohibit the peaceful picketing of any church, temple, synagogue or other place of worship involved in a labor dispute. A person convicted of disorderly conduct shall be fined not less than $5.00 nor more than $500.00 for each offense. (Prior code 193-1)
Crimes of Thought
i ?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:h1592ih.txt.pdf
Most of you 20-somethings (the ME Generation) Don't know much about what happened in this country in the early 50's with Joe McCarthy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
It's happening all over again here come the crimes of thought. Soon you won't be able to write or say anything that the government doesn't want you to say, they will call it terrorism.
HR1592
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cg
Welcome to 1984 The Ministry of Love will Take Care of YOU.
SueSue
Thanks; I'll look into it!
I refined my POV in several other posts - I think restrictions like this are OK at the community level. I don't think they're OK at a state or national level in a country that purports to be free.
As reported by the Chicago Tribune:2 6student-essay,1,6366371.story?coll=chi-news-hed
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704
Blood sex and Booze. Drugs Drugs Drugs are fun. Stab, Stab, Stab, S...t...a...b..., poke. "So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone..., then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did." Umm, yeah, what to wright about...... I'm leaving to join the Marines and I really don't give a (obscenity) about my academics, so why does the only class that's complete Bull Shit, happen to be the only required class...enough said. The model citizen would stay around to vote in new board member to change the 4 years of English policy, but no one really stays around to vote for that kind of local crap, so whoever gets there name on the Ballet with a pretty face gets to do what the (obscenity) ever they want with local ordinance. A person is smart, but people are dumb selfish animals. We can't make rules for ourselves so we vote others to do it for us, but we can't even do that right, I meen seriously, Bush for President? And our other option was John Kerry who claimed to parktake in Vietnam Special Forces missions that haven't been declassified....(obscenity) Bull Shit. So Power Flower Super Mario. Pudge, hook, rot, dismember "Fresh Meat." Mostly new/young teachers are laid back, and cooperative with students as feedback and input into the curriculum and atmosphere. My current English teacher is a control freak intent on setting a gap between herself and her students like a 63 year old white male fortune 500 company CEO, and a illegal immigrant. If CG was a private catholic school, I could understand, but wtf is her problem. And baking brownies and rice crispies does not make up for it, way to try and justify yourself as a good teacher while underhandedly looking for complements on your cooking. No quarrel on you qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting.
Troll? Most insightful post i've read all day.
Wtf. Is your post pro-pedophilia and anti-pot?
You need to sort your shit out, dude.
"The U.S. is not once the place it was..."
That is true. Women can vote, there's no more slavery, indentured servitude was abolished.
Get a friggin' grip. "too bad too few people are sentient enough" That after a slogan for a thought.
Hate replying to myself, but thought of a much better example.
Smoking
Person A likes smoking cigarettes.
Person B does not.
Person A and B end up in the same restaurant, in adjacent booths. Person A exercises his freedom to use whatever chemicals he chooses, and lights up. Obviously the smoke generated is not confined to Person A, and affects B as well. So now we have two freedoms that are mutually exclusive. Respecting A's freedom to smoke eliminates B's freedom to NOT smoke, and vice versa.
So what do you do? The only thing you can do: Compromise.
Contact the state attorney and tell him what you think of his brilliance. His web page is here: http://www.co.mchenry.il.us/Common/CountyDpt/StAtt ny/default.asp
Louis Bianchi, McHenry County state's attorney, said Thursday he would prosecute Lee on the misdemeanor charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
Well we still have the 2nd amendment to protect are 1st amendment rights... I'm not sure how much longer that's going to last though.
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power." -- Noah Webster.
If anyone knows how to contact Bill Maher or his producer(s) at HBO, they need to see this. It's depressing to see these semi-professional educational Nazis take a hard right at the First Amendment and drag some bright kid (with more brains than any SPEN) and his family through legal hell.
While I do agree with some points on your original list, all too often that kind of argument stems more from a lack of thought into larger consequences of laws and the wishes of other people than from any real insight into oppression.
To sum up the problem: How are you defining what "harm" is? Would other people agree with your definition?
Of course people should not be allowed to do what you propose above, but what about the following?
Yes, why can't you have a dozen 23 year old wives rolling you joints while you shoot heroin in the nude with a transvestite prostitute that is visiting from Somalia?
As long as you are not infringing on someone else rights shouldn't you be free to do what you like. Even if you and I find it disgusting.
Its basically a situation where the teacher asked of the students to commit to a relationship that requires openness which requires trust and confidentiality. Such as doctors or a shrinks doctor-patient confidentiality. Openness requires your info is going into a vault. The teacher couldn't or wouldn't guarantee that. And given schools tendencies nowadays to be knee-jerk reactionary's I would honestly have to say these students were complete fools for even participating. I'd have stood my ground. Demanded a new assignment topic or complete confidentiality unless she could guarantee no fiasco would ensue from her or her superiors overreaction to an assignment they shouldn't have read in the first place.
Cities, states, and nations are all communities of different scales. There are already variations from locality to locality. (The Death Penalty, for example, varies from state to state) However, to a degree some consistency throughout the nation is to be expected. If the standards of decency in Florida were significantly different from those in Alabama, problems would arise where the two populations mingle, and cooperation between the two states would be more difficult.
This should back you up.
There certainly are copies of the Bible and other religious texts in public school libraries. Sorry to burst your "I'm a poor oppressed religionist" bubble.
Blar.
It could work the other way, too - a very religious student writes an essay bringing God into an issue, and the teacher is a militant atheist who is offended and has the student arrested. In today's climate, I could see either happening./p
Heck, I submitted crazier stuff back in Creative Writing, when I was a high-school student. I even carried knives around with me, most of the time (we didn't have metal detectors by the doors, in those days). Not once did I attack anyone at school (unless you count pantsing, or [gently] stuffing freshmen into garbage cans...) well... not violently, or in anger, anyway. No one felt [seriously] threatened, no one was injured, no one was, in fact, in any real danger.
Teen aged kids, generally, have a lot of anxiety. They're going through a time where their lives are changing. Read some teenager's poetry, some time, and see if you don't gag on the angst. If you still have any poetry which you wrote, back in high school, read it, and see if you don't gag on the angst.
There is a danger, which I can see, here, however. If we (as a society) continue to freak out about things like this, we are sending these kids a message. The message is that we expect psychotic, antisocial, violent, behavior from them. We expect that, when they are feeling anxious, rejected, or put-upon, they will lash out, violently, perhaps with lethal intent.
Please, don't encourage this expectation, lest it become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
...that makes me wonder whether it really is unhinged kids who're responsible for the other shootings that have happened. I remember the footage I saw during Bowling for Columbine; some people reckon that the government hired a mercenary to do it, and then pin it on some kids so that they could use that as justification for removing people's right to own firearms entirely. If school administration staffs are as paranoid as TFA implies, do you really believe that armed kids manage to get past them in order to commit the shootings?
If you want to call me a tinfoil-hat wearing moonbat, then guilty as charged. I believe the Bush government was responsible for 9/11, and I'm also inclined to believe that the government has been responsible for at least a good number of the school shootings that have happened, as well. It's exactly the same with the inflation of the immigration issue. They'll whip people into a frenzy about that, and then use it as justification for opening the domestic network of concentration camps which they've been in the process of building for years.
Creating a dictatorship out of an earlier democratic system isn't something that you can do overnight, and the only way you can get people to willingly accept it is to keep them in a permanent state of being terrified out of their minds. The only way aspirant despots get *that* is by generating a constant stream of threats, terrorist incidents, and other upheavals. 9/11, school shootings, global warming, bird flu; it doesn't matter what it is. The only important thing is to keep the population in a constant state of apocalyptic hysteria, because that's the only way to get them to accept the increasingly fascist things such individuals want to do.
Start the camps running, Dick and George. Take your masks off. The preliminary stuff is getting old.
Every day that passes my joy of living somewhere other than America grows.
What's wrong with shooting heroin naked in your own home with a transvestite prostitute? And who cares where s/he came from? And 13 year old wives is a little effed up in my opinion but they're a year off being legal in Canada (iirc) and if they well and truly want it then that's up to them, not the government. Don't even think about bringing religion to the table either, not everyone believes in that.
I've recorded crummy raps that are that bad and thought nothing of it.. luckily I'm an anarchocapitalist so I have freedom of expression.
One problem with your comment is that nobody has the same definition of "Potential for very significant harm". Most people would agree on extremes, but very few people agree on where it becomes very significant. The potential for 5 people to die? 20? 100? 1000? Carrying my personal protection device (Beretta) has the potential to kill 15 people, is this significant harm? Yes? No carry/conceal permits. No? Then we should be allowed to carry them.
The other issue I have with your comment is that freedoms are freedoms. Either you have a right to do something or not. The level of government which allows/prohibits has nothing to do with the determination of whether I am free or not.
legal unions that, while not called marriages, are explicitly defined as offering all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law to same-sex couples [...] legal unions for same-sex couples that offer varying subsets of the rights and responsibilities of marriage under the laws of those jurisdictions
I learned back in high school that "separate but equal" doesn't work. Why is anybody still pretending it does?
On your second point the coca plant can make cocain so your saying it should be un regulated. Now your probably talking about marijuana, this is highly debatable topic. marijuana is thought be used for medical treatment, but it is also a drug. Drugs in general have to go through testing and FDA approval before they can be sold. Now there are alot of people that will not alow that to happen but i'll talk more on this point later.
Nobody said anything about selling it, or FDA approval. He only said "what plants he can grow".
A person in California growing cannabis on her own property for her own use was successfully prosecuted by the federal government under federal law. You know, because when the US Constitution refers to interstate commerce it also obviously applies to things which are neither "interstate" nor "commerce" -- despite the fact that the Founders were growing cannabis, and even drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.
They're only "straw men" in your mind, and because you don't like them. Had you bothered to look closely, you'd realize that his points are quite valid, albeit intentionally absurd. But they most certainly relate to your points, which are also valid, and only slightly less absurd.
Do I agree that banning pot is silly? Sure. Is it evidence that the US is a fascist dictatorship? Fuck no. You are arguing from absurdity - taken to it's logical conclusion, the only way that your complaints could be satisfied is by lifting ALL restrictions in our society. Otherwise there will always be some minority group somewhere, claiming to be oppressed because THEIR pet cause is currently illegal.
For instance, I'm sure that the members of NAMBLA would agree with your assessment, that the US "has never been a free country". Despite that, I somehow doubt that you'd be willing to go to bat for THEM.
A lot of government prohibitions and mandates simply reflect the predominant religious beleifs. If the majority of a population finds something offensive why should it surprise you that laws are passed to prohibit it. If the majority of a population think something should be just so why should it surprise you that laws are passed to enshrine that?
There are VERY FEW checks in the system that can prevent a law that has majority support from getting passed.
Even the US Constitution, or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be amended, abridged, or even discarded if enough people agree to it. The prohibition on slavery, the right of women to vote, freedom of speech etc, can all be erased if the population is behind it. Democracy, even when functioning perfectly, is amply capable of creating blatant injustice and inequity.
The rule of Democracy is simply 'majority rule' and is by no means accountable to concepts like 'fair', or 'just'.
Going down your list of "Why can..." the answer to most of them is simply: "because that is what most Americans want".
Most americans believe you should only marry single people of the opposite sex.
Most americans believe you shouldn't be naked in public.
Most americans believe drugs are bad. (mkay?)
And a lot of your 'why can...' questions touch on morality. Moral questions are tricky, because if one believes that say sodomy is -morally- wrong, than one is compelled to assert that no one should do it, because things that are immoral *should* be prohibited.
For example gay marriage I don't think is morally wrong, and even though I don't want to engage in it myself, I have no issue with someone else doing it.
Drugs on the other hand, I am torn by. I recognize that *I* can choose not to do them and that is enough for me, but when I examine the question morally, I find that I do think it is an immoral act to abuse substances to a point that it negatively affects one's own mind, and one's own life, particularly because due to the addictive and mind altering aspects of substance abuse the individual taking drugs can lose the ability to choose not to. I'm not sure that society allow people to do that to themselves, even if society at large isn't harmed.
(And that is itself an issue because substance abuse *does* harm society by raising crime, violence, medical costs, and so forth. So even if I accepted that it was ok for you to wilfully damage your own mind, I may not accept the burden that places on society.)
At the end of the day I know that a joint or two isn't going to ruin the world and I actually favor decriminalization. But its a slippery slope. People showing up to school and work stoned is definitely a real problem. And harder drugs are a much greater problem.
One student's killing spree and we look at this person writings and we all now could predict all human behavior.
Mr. Cho may have written in a disturbing way but there are many other people that have written more disturbing writings and they are famous and rich. A good example is Stephen King. I read many books from him and if it wasn't for his notoriety now we would have arrested him too. There are many writers that write "disturbing", creepy, and strange matters but does that make them killers?
However, we need to look at person's personality and character if they write any "unusual" things as to ascertain if they are really dangerous to society or just have an unusual, macabre, and creative outlet. Most of the people who write this stuff are just doing it for an "creative" outlet and are no harm to no one.
We should look at the person's personality and character and not what they write before we run to the authority and detain unreasonably.
If you learn, then you realize that school is about programming social control systems into young people. They are trying to train kids how to respect authority, even when it makes no sense; how to sit in rows and how to exist in a system where it is considered normal to ask permission before you can pee or eat or speak.
The more kids who pop and thrash out at the system, the more control systems are put in place. Drugs. Laws. Fear and heavier programming.
To leven the school system so that there remains a good argument to keep sending kids, school also teaches reading and arithmetic. Barely. The good teachers are pressured through a variety of ways to ensure that the learning experience as oppressive as possible. School is about dumbing kids down and making them obey.
The only two things valuable about the school system is that you get to interact with other kids and learn (hard) social lessons, and you get to see up close how societal controls function, and you get a chance to learn how to defeat them in a somewhat safe environment. Once you realize that your 'permanent record' only means something if you want to fit in and exist in a state of employment which reflects your school teachings, then you are free.
-FL
Outside of the "13 year old" and the "smuggled out" part, I don't really have a problem with any of the above, actually. What's wrong with having a dozen partners? What's wrong with rolling joints? What's wrong with shooting heroin (in a criminal sense, not as a medical condition that should be treated)? What's wrong with being in a nude? What's wrong with transvestites? What's wrong with prostitution, as long as it's voluntarily and nobody's forced to do anything they don't want to do (if people *are*, that's bad, of course, but in that case, it's bad no matter whether what they're forced to do is prostitute themselves or something else). And finally, what's wrong with people from Somalia?
As long as everyone involved is an adult and as long as everything's done with the informed consent of everyone involved, I frankly don't see why you should have a right to dictate what others can or can't do. I assume, based on your nickname, that you enjoy coffee. I'm also going to guess (without any basis) that you're heterosexual and not celibate (or that you wouldn't be if you had a girlfriend in case you don't have one). How would you feel if I came along and told you that in "my society", doing depraved things like drinking coffee and having missionary-style sex with your girlfriend are (or, at the very least, should be) illegal? Wouldn't you feel that this is an intrusion into your private matters - that as long as your girlfriend wants to have sex with you, there's no reason why the two of you shouldn't, and that whether you drink coffee or not is noone's business but your own?
Maybe you think that that's not the same, but if you do, you couldn't be more wrong. Freedom is always the freedom of others.
butter the donkey
But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
What a fucking moronic law. I'm guessing this guy ain't much of a reader, since Edward Lee, Brian Keene, and Richard Laymon remain free (and in Laymon's case, sorely missed). I find Delelio's statement disturbing and insulting, could we please get him arrested?
To be frank, I understand that Delelio's point of view stems not from any understanding of literature but an intense desire to cover his own ass. Better to censor this kid than be the guy who ignored the tell-tales of another Virginia Tech massacre, right? What REALLY irritates me is that we get the name of the kid who wrote the piece, but not the name of the dumbass English teacher who seems to have provoked the paper in question and then reported it! Here is a person that needs to consider accountability before ruining one of her student's lives (or vastly improving his sex life, as the case may be).
This all may be a misunderstanding. It might be that the kid is a sociopath and that his writing was a thinly veiled threat against some individuals... but all sides are admitting this does not appear to be the case, that this kid just managed to offend some chickenshit's delicate sensibilities.
I hear his 10 page essay was on evolution.
That's death by a thousand cuts. Next we'll be back to the fleas of a thousand camels. Hope they don't start arresting the kids with cooties.
You'd be the one to say that "Jews should've known better than to live in Nazi Germany." Wouldn't you.
Kids, this is a better advice: Change your jobs, life, marriage, your shoes, whatever, before you end up becoming cynical asinine personage like Rahga.
If this young man's attorney can establish a pattern of increased monitoring by the teachers and staff of the thoughts and words of the student body, then combined with the free-form, explicitly-stated nature of the assignment, this could be a slam dunk case of entrapment.
If the administration decided to enforce a regime of criminalized thought, driven either by personal problems or the events at Virginia Tech, and then that same administration was complicit in a student assignment soliciting any thoughts, no matter what they are, then they have created not only a double-standard, but an attempt to entrap students with a bogus "disorderly conduct" charge. Most high schools have liaisons with the local police departments; they may have been involved in an attempt to "rat out" students like Cho. The fact that this high school student is Korean also raises serious suspicions about the racial prejudices of the administration.
I read TFA and the kid's essay. This kid shouldn't have been arrested - obviously.
But isn't this just a predictable (and terribly unfortunate) overreaction to the VT killings? Instead of demonizing police and faculty, let's consider for a moment that they were all (like the rest of us) hypersensitized to this sort of thing.
Which would you rather be: the principal of a school that just had 50 of his kids killed by a crazy gunman, or the principal of a school who is now being reviled in the media (and on
I could live with the negative media opinions, but not with the blood of dead kids on my hands. Just try to consider where these administrators and cops are coming from, and what they're worried about.
--baboo
No, I'm simply saying that people should consider their environment before they take action, rather than pretending that they live in a perfect world where a choice they make would be of no consquence to others around them.
No, this is why.
The only things actually wrong with your scneario are the fact that the wives are 13 years old and someone was smuggled out of their country, since those things involve non-consenting persons (assuming 13 year olds should not be able to consent to that).
Well, that may be the case, but you can't even spell Marilyn Manson right, yet you were apparently wearing a shirt promoting him? Your inability to spell in this instance leads me to disbelieve your anecdote entirely. It's common knowledge that Manson was one of the attempted scapegoats after the Columbine shootings.
You failed to spell the name of a well-known artist right... And one that was identified with the Columbine shootings, if only tangentially. As it relates to your anecdote... Well (to me at least), it seems like you're trolling. I could be wrong, but either way, it shows the importance of reading over your post.
Sometimes I wonder if I think too much.
That's not true. They are absurd examples that leave out the point the original post made: "My freedom ends at your nose". Most of the points he made are clear examples of the government outlawing things that some people find immoral or distasteful, and not because they hurt or endanger anyone else.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Oh come on you fuckers - get a sense of humor. I love how someone says something completely inane and gets a "Funny" mod - I actually make a joke off of him insulting someone (which would ACTUALLY be a troll) and get modded a troll instead.
Even so the beauty about the way a democracy works is that laws can be changed you proved that. The law was created, mostly for the wrong reasons(in regards to hemp) but also because it harmed the populace. If a majority of people wanted it legalized, then it would probably be legal. The majority of people that vote you have to remember are seniors, they have been taught that its bad. Maybe in the next 20 years you will see reforms on this issue.
The sad part about any government is that they usually have lobbist that infuence change. This is a big problem for any democratic system, laws can be instituted without the peoples consent. This still doesn't take away from it being a free country because you still have the freedom to take the position in government and change those laws back. Of course this isn't always the option, but like I said a country is never free from all laws, anarchy is the result. Freedom is the ability to institute change, and even with the current government in the states I still believe that can be done.
P.S. I'm not an American.
I'm a student at Virginia Tech, so the source of this panic is still very much fresh for us. This situation is by far a severe reaction to something extremely mild. I remember in high school, we used to write about violence, sex, drugs, things like that all the time. Teachers didn't freak, they understood free expression. If there was something that required alarm, like a student talking about how they cut themselves, it would get reported.
Unfortunately, this is the perfect example of what mass media can do to a society. If any of you saw one of the newer episodes of House, they explored the idea of mass hysteria. This, while not a physical reaction, is still a great example. One person who wrote violent papers shoots his classmates. Therefore, all violent writers are going to shoot people. Jack Thompson tries to abuse this relationship as well, and it's sickening. Unfortunately, it's up to each individual person to not allow media to influence their thought process, and it more than likely won't change from a few people with common sense.
If you read what Seung-hui Cho wrote, compared to what this kid wrote, they are extremely different. Cho's writings were very violent, not just one mention of an act of violence. His control over his ideas and emotions seemed almost nonexistent, which was evident in how his media package was generally incoherent and mostly self-romanticized talk about his death. This kid in question, not only does his reference seem weak and spur of the moment, but his thought process is generally intact. His writing had a general idea behind each thought and he expressed interest in a future, even though he didn't like having to take a class to get it.
Why can the government...
Social contract.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Not one country exists where all these insane things are not true. The big mistake people in the West have made is deluding themselves into believing that, because there are worse places, they live in a truely free society.
This is exactly why we should rush to judgement, and arms. A violation of the right to free speech is unacceptable. Period. End of story.
So I take it you've got your AR-15 and a few thousand rounds and you're going to take care of business?
You do know that there is no such thing in American law as 100% free speech, right? Slander. Libel. Fraud via writings. Incitement. Fighting words. Restrictions on commercial speech. Limits on campaign donations. It is comforting to think that all speech should be protected by the 1st Amendment, but even at its inception, some speech was not considered worthy of protection.
Although you may think we should all be storming the barricades, the law already contains mechanisms for taking care of situations like this.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Let's say this guy is crazy. It's possible. Does anyone else think that it is a bad idea to piss him off? I mean, if I got in trouble, was arrested, and was forced to see a counselor and attend school elsewhere for writing an essay, I would be upset. If I was crazy-violent and upset, I might do a killing spree.
Maybe schools should just start treating every student with dignity and respect. The emotionally healthy students will feel good about that. And the psychopaths will be less likely to come to school with a gun.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Notmysig
You must be new here. The government calls such people "Terrorists".
Can you imagine the precedent this would set if some judge finds him guilty? I think the discussion here should be focused on whether or not these charges have a chance of sticking. Maybe I missed it, but I haven't seen anyone presenting the legal possibilities.
Disturbing the peace?! WTF.
There should be some law against retarded police officers throwing trumped up bullshit charges at innocent people.
Hey everybody, it's a slippery slope!
... think of the children? ;)
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
My entire point is that most Americans identify their country with freedom, an association it does little to deserve. What's more, most Americans (and I'm guessing based on your comment that you're included here) don't really want America to be free.
If you don't fit the bill and you don't even aspire to, you should choose another way of identifying yourself.
Read 1984. I don't think they've yet figured out a way to arrest someone for what they think. Just remember, never write anything down.
Ob-link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
We know that most of these tragic mass school killer types are ostracized loners, often picked on cruelly by other "upstanding" types. But the feeling I got was that this student -- no loner but with enough friends to mount some degree of protest -- was trying to pick on the creative writing teacher, and shove her into the role of the ostracized one. I think he seized upon the creative writing directions to deliberately be as upsetting to her as he could be. And that was what he was charged with. The key moment that made me switch my view as to who was the oppressed and who was the oppressor here was the attack on her for baking brownies for her students! I mean, come on, since when does baking brownies for people call for his kind of response? There may not have been a specific threat worded as "i'm going to do such and such to this specific teacher", but the essay is clearly a deliberate attack on this woman. Consider the possibility that the teacher is a kind sensitive soul, and that the student is just plain mean. I don't think he's a likely shoot-up-the-school type, just a deliberate bully who seems to have been quite accurately charged. Perhaps one of the other service branches will still take him, but bullying women who bake brownies with threatening talk of mass murder, necrophelia and (perhaps worst to a sensitive soul) being responsible for a mass killing at her own school, well, it doesn't exactly qualify as The Few, The Proud, The US Marines.
Hide all sigs: Click HELP+Prefs (top), VIEWING (last on right), DISABLE SIGS (3rd on left) and SAVE (hidden at bottom).
I'd feel like you're probably in Utah like I am.
As a republican I feel it my responsibity to manufacture criminals. People need punished!
Back in those days... people were willing to band together and fight against such things...
student was arrested for writing a program that 'disturbed' his teacher.
Although no threats were made to a specific person, 22 year old Wildchild
convened a panel to discuss the work. As a result of that discussion the
police called in. 'The youth's father said his son was not suspended or
expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere now. Today, Cary-Grove
students rallied back behind the arrested tween by organizing a petition
drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the
teacher in which she had encouraged students to play with objects with code...
This is a piece of the offending code, please do destroy after you have seen
since this code is a serious life threat for society !
#
# DISCLAIMER: None of this code should be used in mission critical
# systems; no people were harmed producing this code. Do not try this
# at home and be sure to have atleast a half liter of water ready. The
# author denies all responsibility for this code if objects should get
# horrified and majorly discombulated.
#
# Copyleft 2007 - Freaking Wildchild
#
#
my @them_all = ("oN", "eseht", "era", "ton", "lanoitnetni", "sllik");
my ($people, $bullets, $trigger) = 0; $|++;
while (++$shot) {
$people{$shot}=[ @people ]; $people[$shot]=[%people, $shot ]; print(reverse(@them_all[$bullets / 50]) . " ");
$bullets++ if (($trigger++) % 2); last if ($bullets >= 5 && $trigger > 1000) ;
}
Be cautious, this code will set your mind set into gore and killing mode! Use with caution!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Sounds like that sort of policy is just the type of thing to push a crazy student over the edge...
I'm Canadian, I remember that around here in the early post-Columbine days that people (both staff and students) were really nice to me. I didn't even know about what had happened in Columbine until somebody explains why most of the jerks who normally picked on me were suddenly acting so oddly..
(Emphasis added.) What he commanded them and what he commanded GP might differ. If you think exterminating or enslaving Amorites is a universal command for all christians, that is one interpretation, but not one that has any consistency with the rest of the Torah much less the rest of the Bible. What you call intellectual dishonesty others call coherence.
I'm not sure either. I guess we are not qualified to judge what happened next.
Look, I totally support your exercise of free speech here, and your freedom of conscience, and if you are an atheist, great, I salute you for having the huevos (literal or metaphorical) to take a stand on a metaphysical issue. But that's just crap you are talking now. All readings are interpretations and what you've just spouted here is very much an interpretation. Here a quote, food for thought, I thought relevant: (from "Analysis of the Poetic Text", Yury Lotman, Ardis, 1976, p.xv)
You are shortchanging yourself. When you look at these bibilical texts, you perceive in the horror of extermination of the Canaanites. You think it a grotesque outrage. Very well. But that seems to prove to you the evil behind (or of) the "god" portrayed there. Yet the clue you are ignoring is the horror that you feel, that the author (or authors) knows you feel -- that he is calling you to feel. You haven't outwitted him, you're just responding like he knew you would. The dissonance and repulsion you feel is an invitation to consider more deeply what is going on here: your disgust means the text is working. But you are just turning off, turning away saying, "That's disgusting!" These blot-them-out passages raise many questions, and even more if you consider them in the context of the entire work. Ask them and look for the answers. I can't tell you what will happen when you do, but I think then you won't emit this kind of puerile gassing:
Literature is not straightforward, because humanity is not straightforward, and if God exists he isn't either. Humanity is beautiful and murderous, full of love and frost, infinitely bewildering. Literature is no easier, it's challenging, more than a lover is, because literature is a mirror in which you can wrestle with yourself, and you will never be stronger than he or she is.
$META_SIG_JOKE
I hope he wins this. If he doesn't this sets a bad precedent about free speech.
Secondly I hope he is reimbursed for damages. Those being the his time wasted fighting this, cost of a lawyer, and lastly defamation of character.
I think the schools are taking a completely wrong approach to solve the problems they're having with school shootings, etc. They're basically censoring anything they don't like now as if that'll solve the problem. The same thing goes for the school that banned wikipedia. This is only limiting the students instead of teaching them to use resources wisely and express themselves.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
The apostle Peter in the New Testament says Lot was a righteous man: 2 Peter 2:7-8.
In the next chapter it is described how those who don't believe in his God will be punished with fire 2 Peter 3:7. So if there is a creator God, and he created some people to not believe in the supernatural (ghosts (holy or not), people rising from the dead...) but instead to see experiment as the best way to find the truth and value the truth over wishfull thinking; why does he punish them "where the fire never goes out" Mark 9:43?
See Isaiah 13:16-17 for another rape command (with a side order of infants dashed to pieces).
I've come to the conclusion that the term "knee jerk reaction" is totally appropriately named - it's for jerks. Here's a clue: look up General Semantics and find that simple but profound statement: the map is not the territory. All esle stems from there. Stop seeing connections where there aren't any unless you want to ensure you lose another piece of that increasingly scarce resource called "Freedom".
Ah, fear is such a good way to control the population, I can see why dictators use it as well. But at least they don't pretend to do this in name of "preserving your freedom", nor do they try to hide that they've placed themselves above the law (watch the video).
Oh yes, it's fun to NOT live in such a democracy..
...welcome to the new America.
okinawa japan
There are going to be VT incidents, whether teachers overreact to their students' homework or not. This sort of thing isn't going to prevent them, and may even spark more of them (showing the teachers to be the enemy, forcing students to hide their real feelings, generating a feeling of repression and cencorship)
So am I understanding the article correctly? Was this kid punished because the teachers had a slight suspision that he was behaving slightly similarly to the Virginia Tech shooter, and therefore was highly likely to cause VT2 at their school? That's how I understood the article. Did I missunderstand it, because that just sounds like complete bollocks. But then I've heard stupider things.
It started being a lot less free (as far as gov't intervention, but we NEVER should have had slavery to begin with anwyay) with Abe Lincoln, and FDR finished it off.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
I'm not talking in the civil rights sense. We still have a long ways to go before we're back in the bad old days, even though the recent backsliding IS troubling. I'm talking in a competitive sense. We're becoming way too fucking risk averse and the continual creep of this bullshit is going to paralyze our competitive edge (unless it's checked). Newsflash: creative people often come off as a bit unbalanced. So do psychos who will go on a killing spree. There is NOT a good way to separate the two, and barring some stunning advances in neurology probably never will be.
So which would we rather have: an open society where the occasional psycho slips through, but our creative "unbalanced" types aren't locked up for being different? OR a society where everyone who demonstrates the least indication of mental illness is locked up (for their own good), medicated to within an inch of their life, and otherwise punished for being different? That's not to say humanely helping genuinely troubled souls isn't an admirable goal, but this should take the form of VOLUNTARY treatment and de-stigmatizing mental illness so those who need help will seek it out. We in our elite expertise will never be able to identify everyone with a high risk for committing atrocities, and draconian schemes to "protect" us will just backfire in a bad way. Frankly, and I know I'm probably in the minority, I'd rather live in an open society with a slightly higher risk of coming to a tragic end than in a society where nanny-state bullshit meant to "protect" us from ourselves crushes the creative spark and ability to take risks that makes America such a damned good place to live!
My entire point is that most Americans identify their country with freedom, an association it does little to deserve.
You must be completely unfamiliar with the history of the world. When people refer to any modern democracy as "free", it is in relative terms. An absolute definition of "free" is the realm of philosophy, not reality.
You're arguing that the US is not a "free country" because it has laws that restrict some freedoms. Forgive me if I consider that an insight worthy of a freshman civics class.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
I just think it's really dangerous to yourself to answer in such a tone: to any political subject, you can similarly give a dozen radical counter-arguments and flaws. It's dangerous because on the long term you become a puppet to any good enough puppet-master, who will tell you all counterarguments that you previously missed, and you will happily respond with hate against said subject. Concerning freedoms, it's quite obvious the USA have lost a lot of these in the past 10 years, but it still is one the countries that has enough liberties as to be mentioned as a "free country", even if not all people in America are equally free. Political anarchism was a 19th century defeated ideology, and no one, even people we today label as "terrorist", even remember what it was all about.
If I wear a t-shirt that states "I want to kill all niggers" you don't think people should feel offended/threatened by me?
I don't think they should feel threatened by bluster on a T-shirt. Offended, sure. But no one has a right not to be offended.
You have a point, but do you have a better suggestion for making this determination?
Age is generally good enough to go on, if some people are ready before the legal age of marriage, well it is better that they just wait a while rather than allowing others who are not ready.
Taking drugs may reduce your mental capacity, but as long as you are capable of making the decision before hand on whether it is worth it, why not? If taking the drugs can potentially cause harm to other by drunk/stoned/whatever driving, then driving while under the influence of drink/drugs should be (and is) banned, but taking of drugs should not.
Why can the government tell me who or how many people I can marry?
Because marriage is nothing other than a recognition. And they choose to recognize only one at a time. Other than the recognition, it does not affect you.
Have you read my journal today?
"Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
I think not living in a threatening/offensive environment would be covered by the third.
It burns! Oh, the massive humanity, it burns!!!
Actually, it's not.The first part is accurate though. The embargo against Cuba includes indirectly benefitting the Cuban government through tourism profits. The embargo itself is largely just a grudge at this point, but that's why.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
They are also the ones that kill 30+ indefense people in a whim.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Where did I read that?
The destruction of Jericho?
Where did I read that?
And many others by courtesy of god himself.
A religion in which god has no qualms to obliterate entire towns is bound to have nutcases that can justify almost anything in the name of religion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
He just issued a couple of master directives that cover pretty much everything, unless your a a masochist, in which case other people may not necessarily feel pain the same way you do... or someting like that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most sect of Christianity (including the biggest one, Catholicism) recognize the Old testament as part of the Bilbe, their holly book.
Any fringe sects that have decided not to accesp the old testament are not representative (and just come to show how bad a communicator god is, but it is not his fault, since he does not exist).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The correct conclussion is that mainstream education systems are not suited to everybody.
You conclussion is ludicrous and lacks any logic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... are all creepy?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Extreme violence glamourazation should never be seen as a rebellous trait only, a trained person can and should (in a place as fucked up as the US in regards to weapons) check if such manifestation of gore is a real creative asset or a cry for help that, gone unanswered, could lead to more sinister outcomes.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... that wrote a book saying singel women over 35 can't find interesting single males.
:-)
I posit that many males are so scared of nonsense like the one above that prefer to remain celibate
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Declaration of Independence isn't a legal document. Besides, if offending you makes me happy, prohibiting offense interferes with my pursuit of happiness.
Which goes back to my original point. You can't have absolute freedom because so many things are mutually exclusive. My freedom ends where your freedom begins.
You mother and sister told you that, did she?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yeah, I love that mischaracterization of what people mean when they say the U.S. isn't once what it used to be, as if longer for more independence, standing up for ourselves, not being so thin-skinned, and not yearning for government to take care of our every whim and responsibilities must mean that I yearn to end sufrage and equal rights. Brilliant.
Stupid sexy Flanders.