Doesn't it feel good to have a Big Brother watching out for you?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

A friend of mine has a brother in high school. That brother is a little weird, but who isn’t? That brother also thinks, which is much more rare than oddity.

The brother in question is also a poet. Desiring to show a topic from another perspective, he wrote this poem. The poem in question identifies, to a degree, with school shooters, much like–though less overtly–this thread.

The difference is, Jeremy’s Evil Twin has yet to be pursued by authority figures. Sean was only barely not expelled for writing this poem. The poem is not connected in any way to any school-related site, but yea, the school district saw fit to suspend him for four days for . . . thinking.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the government, people think! I know it’s an incredibly difficult concept for many of you to comprehend, but there are indeed people who can make full use of their mental faculties!

Oh, now I wish I hadn’t said that, because you politicians adhere to the Neanderthal theory of negotiation: that is, if it doesn’t do what I want, hit it with something heavy.

Take, for instance, the student from Reedley High who was wronged to a degree by a fellow student and mentioned, in passing, to a friend, “well, he’s on the hit list.” For using a figure of speech, this kid was arrested for “making terrorist threats.” Did they find an actual list? Of course not. But because he said the words, he was arrested. (For confirmation, check this site. It’s not the main story, but is mentioned in passing toward the bottom. Best I could find for you.)

So, powers that be, I confess. I am guilty. There are people I don’t like. I know that this should send me to the firing squad, but so be it.

Oddly enough, the same friend’s other brother got suspended a couple of years ago–right after Columbine–because he mentioned the fact that it’s possible to find out how to make a bomb on the internet. They searched his locker–“Constitution, schmonstitution”–and threatened him with various other forms of punishment, including expulsion.

I may be out of place for saying it, but WHAT THE BLOODY HECK IS GOING ON HERE??? If this was a government of any other country acting in this way toward its subjects, we’d be outraged. The President would be appaled at the blatant denial of human rights, and would probably make some sort of a speech, and possibly send troops. Maybe not, but somebody’d be up in arms.

But no, since it’s our own school system, which for some reason believes itself to have the right to act in loco parentis, everything’s friggin’ dandy. Never mind that there are parents present to act in loco parentis, they don’t get to do their own job. We have to police the thoughts of our youth. Because if we’re not careful, they’ll be getting Ideas, and we simply can’t be having with that.

I should go. At this point, there’re probably several strike forces on the way to my house.

2

I’m still trying to figure out how the fuck a “paper gun” equals “terrorist threats”.

Yup. Stuff’s fucked up. And I blame hasty kneejerk reactionaries who hear the word “Gun” and immediately piss their pants.

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3

Mysphyt,
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. I read the poem and it does seem vaguely disconcerting. We have to face facts here. We live in an age where guns are only a short waiting period away. Where any kid can get nearly any gun if he’s determined enough. Where school shootings do happen on a regular basis. And where phrases like “we heard him make threats, but we thought he was just joking…” are thrown around after each shooting.
Schools have an enourmous pressure put on them to make sure the kids actually come home at the end of the day. When people are killed everyone looks towards the administrators, teachers, and councelors to see just how they screwed up. Even if they didn’t actually screw up, they will be viewed as having screwed up. If only they had known…
Here we have proof of someone who is thinking like a killer. Is that a bad thing? Most of the time, probably not. But if your friend’s brother does, in fact, go through with the actions described in the poem, you and I can both see the shit hitting the fan as the press sees in black and white that they knew he had violent tendencies and did nothing.
I’m not saying the suspension was the right decision. Heck, taking him out of school for four days solves diddly squat. I’m certainly not advocating the violation of our constitutional rights to free speech. But there are limits. Write a poem on sending a bomb onto an airplane, and that’s one less person that will take my aisle seat.

4

Ender… you should read some of my poetry sometime…

5

Wow, I read through the poem and noticed that it was full of… teen angst.
Good poem by the way, I was transported back into my high school years. ::shudder::

6

Ender–

Paraphrase, but “He who would sacrifice a little freedom for a little security deserves neither.” – Benjamin Franklin.

7

It’s not just the press. Can you imagine the lawsuits from the victims’ families if that happened? IANAL, but if they could prove that the school administrators saw that and did nothing, the school would probably be in deep shit. Sean’s punishment looks like a CYA measure more than anything else to me. What’s the proper solution? How should the school deal with situations like that? I don’t know.
And I’m going to have to agree with Ender, the poem was vaguely disconcerting to me too.

8

Unfortunately for that train of thought, your constitution requires you (as does ours) to put up with thought and artistic expression, no matter how disconcerting.

9

The problem, I think, is that schools are under tremendous pressure from parents and others to “DO SOMETHING!” but are not given sufficient resources to adequately deal with the problem. There is also a tendency among some in our society to treat all “abnormal” behavior as criminal (e.g. jailing people for drug addiction rather than providing treatment) rather than attempt to take the more difficult but ultimately more rewarding course of helping people. Lots of kids are troubled but only a very few will actually become violent. I think that punishing kids for expressing their thoughts is only going to make the problem worse. If I were a troubled teen–and in many ways I was–I’m sure I would interpret a suspension for writing a poem about what was going on in my head as confirmation that I was just a bad person, and figure, well, I might as well act on it. BUT, to provide proper evaluation and help for these kids would require a great deal of money and time that the schools just don’t have. And apparently, many of the parents don’t want to see that their kids are screwed up becasue that might imply that they are not doing their job as parents. Sigh.

10

Now, who could possibly read these word and see an implied threat of violence? Hmmmmmmmm.

This, if published, is, IS a threat of violence. Whether the kid actually plans to kill or not, that message comes through plain as day. This in not a free speech issue. Terroristic threats are not covered by the 1st Amendment.

The irony is, being expelled and villified is just what the little puke wanted.

11

not entirely true Matt_mcl,

the constitution does not give us blanket rights over freedom of speech. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theatre. The constitution does not give us blanket rights over freedom of the press. High school papers can and have been censored by principals who feel certain topics aren’t appropriate. This isn’t about an editor overruling the writer, this is an outside authority figure imposing his or her will over 1st amendment…and it’s supported by law. For better or for worse (and in most cases I do feel it’s worse), minors do not have the same rights as adults.

mysphyt,
“He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.”
Benjamin Franklin

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I’d also have to disagree, Matt. I can’t speak to Canadian law but it’s well established that minors do not have the same freedom of speech and action that adults do in the United States.

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And of course, we can’t have poetry dealing with violent themes. You might end up with something like this:
http://www.contemplator.com/folk2/battle.html

or this:
http://www.uv.es/~pla/red.net/intaoter.html

God knows that’s not appropriate!

14

Christ, inor was banned for threats against people he had never seen.

Say you’re at work, and you’re a network programmer. Someone from another department in your company writes a poem which includes lines ‘One day soon, one of the programmers will feel the wrath, reality will soon spell their death’.

Would you feel a little nervous walking to the parking lot after work? Would you consider that the expressing of an idea, or a threat against your life?

15

You really don’t see a difference? I’m rather curious as to what is so violent in the lyrics of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” anyway. Sure, it was written during a war and sung by soldiers, but where are the violent themes? It’s mostly about the righteousness of God. Do you mean, “He hath loosed the fateful lightning / Of His terrible swift sword”? How about “Let the Hero born of woman / Crush the serpent with His heel, / Since God is marching on.”? That’s all the violence there is, God’s sword and crushing serpents. I don’t see how that’s the same as the lines quoted by spooje’s first post, unless you think Julia Ward Howe either believed she was God or really, really hated snakes.

16

Just because it has been done doesn’t mean it ought to be done. This particular issue also gets me riled up.

According to TubaDiva,

Emphasis mine. The primary issue was the fact that inor defied the will of the mods, which is unacceptable.

You’re right, but I think they’re doing the wrong things. Esp. in this sort of a case, where somebody’s taking actions which can be interpreted as threats. Let’s kick him out of our school, so that he’ll be even angrier. Let’s remove him from contact with the people he has problems with, so he’s free to dehumanize them even more. The punishment totally doesn’t fit the crime, esp. suspension.

As to what can be done, there are actions that could be taken that would, I believe, almost completely eliminate this phenomenon without cost. The problem is that it would require the school districts to be responsible for themselves, acknowledge a problem in the system, and have the dignity to deal with it[sup]1[/sup].

The worst part of it is that he was encouraged to write this poem by several of his teachers. Only one of them’s owning up now.

[sub][sup]1[/sup]Psychologist Elliot Aronson claims, in THe Human Animal, the traditional model of education fosters competition, dislike, and tension between students even at an elementary level. I am of the opinion that this is the main cause for the incidents we’ve seen. I mean–I know we’ve seen the occasional isolated incident–we haven’t seen this big a streak of mall shootings, or city hall shootings. But it’s so much easier for the districts to blame Marilyn Manson.[/sub]

17

Spooje,
First of all, the guy wrote the poem on his own time, and posted it on a site not related to the school. It was intended as a poem, and also not directed against any individual. I mean, if I wrote a poem titled “Spooje must die and here is how I will kill him”, that’s one thing, but the kid didn’t do that. He wrote (an admittedly bad) poem not directed against any specific individual…just the “people passing in the hall”

Poetry often uses violent imagery to make its point. Unless the school had some evidence that the kid was a danger to himself or others (other than the poem), their actions were inappropriate.

18

To a limit. If I were to write a letter about murdering a group of people and then publish it on the internet, I’d be in big trouble. Putting those thoughts in rhyming verse doesn’t magically make it okay.

19

Mostly, my comments to matt_mcl apply here too. You can’t say anything in poetry you couldn’t legally say in prose. Just because he doesn’t mention specific names doesn’t mean it doesn’t mention who the threat is against, namely, his classmates. If you replace “people passing in the hall” with “blacks” or “Jews” or “homosexuals” or whatever group you want, you can more clearly see why mentioning that you want to kill unspecified members of an explicitly mentioned group is still wrong.

20

How about, say, Eminem? He’s more or less making a living by threatening people, even individuals, in a very public forum.

How about Malcolm X? His constant appeals to violence created great leaps forward in the civil rights movement. Admittedly, it got him killed, but that’s not really what you’re addressing.

Ah, so it’s now illegal to say “People at school treat me poorly, if something isn’t done, I’ll have no recourse but to fight back?” I admit, the addition of arbitrary line breaks doesn’t make something more legal, but I don’t think the content is illegal in the first place.