Please provide cites for this. Otherwise I will have to conclude that you are talking out of your ass.
And as has been pointed out already, you are light years from being right. Please try to put together reasonable arguments that advance your cause. Otherwise, I will have to conclude…
And how, pray tell, do you equate making sixth graders pee in a cup with “criminals own(ing) the rest of the streets”? You have made some serious leaps here, boychik. From not seeing what’s wrong with forcing children to submit to drug tests, to warrantless searches in, what, 4 posts?
An even better way around this problem is to refuse to allow the school district to force drug tests on my kid. Which I most assuredly would.
Well, thank you so very much! It’s good to know that your opinion is the mean against which all others should be measured. Hell, I don’t like the idea of DARE telling kids who is or is not using drugs, let alone the district mandating tests for those same children.
This one has got me scratchin’. Because I would be raising holy hell about a policy as boneheaded as this. Maybe they are afraid that they will be seen as condoning drug use if they don’t agree to it. Maybe they believe all of the nonsense about drugs destroying the Amurrican way of life.
Well, no. But your certainly welcome to keep trying.
And, Poly, I thought about your point after posting that. But I figured that no one would notice, and I would slip by unnoticed. Curse your perceptive eyes.
Actually, the only times it has passed Supreme Court approval were in situations in which the testee’s were in sensitive positions. Federal employees are not subject unless in a sensitive position, but corporations are free to institute policies with more stringent requirements.
I read a report recently that claimed that American businesses were charged only for the positive results, it would average $3,600 per test. Can you even imagine how much money is being wasted on this?
I almost always knew which of the employees I was responsible for did drugs or drank, and always knew if they did it on the job. I think that is true of any good supervisor. If I didn’t know, it obviously didn’t affect their work performance.
Drug testing is too invasive, too expensive, and too often unreliable. Impairment testing would be much more appropriate. It’s cheaper, more effective, and a hell of a lot easier too justify.
If you won’t question what you think, why call it thinking?
Dude… I will fully admit that the body cavity search thing was an extreme. But it’s on all fours with the point I tried to make. While it’s the extreme of which mandatory school drug tests is a moderate case, both are legally identical – the assumption that drug use (or any other crime) is so widespread and dangerous that one’s Constitutional rights may be set aside in this one case. As Melin has been pointing out, those kids are American citizens with all the rights pertinent to citizenship and commensurate with their age. There is no clear line between forcing them to take these tests and forcing you to submit to a body cavity search. Either is legal if there is some probable cause to suspect significant crime; neither is legal in any other case. Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating; I know quite well I am, and taking a thesis to an extreme in order to disprove it is an accepted process in the schools of logic I subscribe to. Granted, I no more want sixth-grade druggies hanging out with good kids and not being identified and weaned away from drugs than you do. I’m not prepared to submit the good kids to that kind of legally sanctioned harassment to get there. Maybe you are, but you’d better contact your congressman and get the Fourth Amendment repealed or amended first. And be prepared for a storm of protest from anyone who believes in the Bill of Rights in the process.
Glitch’s post is fairly mellow and on target as to the legalities of searches. Would you care to comment as to that?
BTW, “It’s been approved. It’s in place and going now. So obviously it’s legal.”
Well, no. An assortment of examples: For decades, you could not vote or use “whites-only” public facilities in the South if you were black. Women were not permitted to own property (sometimes with the exception of widows). And, right on target, police were permitted to do a thorough search whenever they had any suspicion of illegal materials without first obtaining a warrant. These were all approved. They were all in place and going then. And they were all illegal.
“Impairment testing would be much more appropriate. It’s cheaper, more effective, and a hell of a lot easier too justify.”
—Wolf
Right On!!!
A system that could actually improve safety, regardless of the cause of impairment.
Imagine a workplace where an employee in a safety sensitive job (Forklift driver, for example) could go to his/her supervisor and explain that they had gotten only two hours of sleep the night before. This worker could be sent home or placed in a less dangerous situation for the day, without penalty. The cause of the impairment is not an issue, the safety of the co-workers is.
Dream on, huh.
Peace,
mangeorge
First off, let me state that I think that this situation is idiotic. This amounts to an illegal search and seizure, since there is no probable cause that every student in the school may have used drugs.
However, I resent the implication that something like this could only happen in Texas, what with being a Texan and all. Idiocy (is that a word?) is not unique to this state.
Here are some facts for y’all:
Lockney is a small town (pop. 2300) in the heart of the ranching and farming region of West Texas, probably the most conservative area in the state. This might explain why only one family has spoken up against this. You know how small towns are. However, in an article in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper, the father said that “he has had a lot of moral support from other parents.”
The cost of each test is $18. With approximately 500 people to test (including teachers), the total cost comes to about $9,000. Not a lot of money, but still a big waste for something that is unnecessary and illegal IMO.
Brady Tannahill is being represented by an ACLU attorney who has threatened legal action if the school district doesn’t drop the testing policy.
If you want to read more on this from a local perspective, go to www.lubbockonline.com and do a search using the keywords “Lockney” and “drug”.
Boy, Mangeorge, it’s not considered appropriate on this board to advance blue-sky solutions that never stand a chance of being put in place in real life. Whaddaya think, people are reasonable?
A person who tests falsely positive on a drug test is much more likely to test falsely positive on subsequent drug tests. Some peoples’ body chemistries predispose them to test positove. Therefore, retesting will only serve to reinforce undeserved guilt.
It’s always OK to trample on liberty if it’s something YOU believe in, right? But never OK when it’s something you don’t.
Take child porn. It is illegal even if I do a free-hand sketch from my imagination, to have child porn. Why? Who does it hurt?
Well, I have the answer. It hurts US, society. It is sick and must be stopped. And most people agree with me. But there are people who claim they have a Bill of Rights RIGHT to view such sick material. They don’t, but that doesn’t stop them from arguing and even believing it.
Now about drugs: its the same situation, only a lot more of the sickos are out of the closet so to speak, and proclaim that they love drugs. And they will do whatever it takes to get their filthy habit legalaized. A lot more people are COLLABORATORS. They don’t understand that by standing up for the druggies, they think they are helping keep the country strong, but they are hurting it.
If a criminal takes off running when he sees a cop the cop can’t even do anything about it. No “probable cause”. But any moron knows that a guy who takes off running when he sees a cop is a troublemaker. He is running for a reason. The cop should be able to stop him and search him. Maybe he’d find my car stereo that was stolen last month. But oh, no, the crooks have the right to run away, but I don’t have the right to a car with a stereo. Screw it, I should let them steal the whole car, maybe then they will get stopped and let off on another technicality.
It all comes down to this: you are so afraid that if anyone touches these sacred “rights” it will be the end. Well guess what? For years the cops could search someone if they needed to, and did this country collapse? No, it started as a pissant British possession and became the greatest country in the world. How did that happen? By coddling thieves and druggies? NO! By understanding that people earn rights, and we should all have common sense.
Everyone in Texas that supports this idea understands that. They know that each person has to give up a little tiny bit of liberty so that our country will not be swept under by drugs.
Nobody on this board understands that, though. All you people believe that its better to let a few druggies keep working so your precious “rights” aren’t “infringed”.
Please. You all make me sick. Wake up! People are dying from these drugs! They are being shot for street corner selling spots, they are ODing, they are selling their bodies on the streetcorners to get $5 for another rock. It is a disease.
Let me ask you, if a terorist released anthrax into a city, should we quarrentine that city, or would the infected people have a “right” to free travel, like it says in the Constitution? I pray to God above that you people are never in charge in that situation, because I am sure you’ll fall all over yourselves giving them their rights. Me, I would use some common sense. No one knew about drugs in 1776, you know.
There is no crime called “Refusal To Answer An Honest Question.” Either the cops have probable cause to arrest him, or they don’t.
There is a limited detention possible, that isn’t an arrest. This is called a Terry stop, from the Supreme Court case that spawned the standard. In order to detain someone and investigate further, the police must have a reasonable suspicion that a crme was committed and that the person they’ve detained did it. They could ask him questions (which, of course, he’s free to disreagrd and not answer.) But before they can arrest him, they must have probable cause he committed the crime.
I don’t recall saying anything of the sort. Perhaps if you could point out to me where I did?
Again, you’ve lept the chasm. No one is talking about those who steal to support their habit, just the idiots in the school district who decided that the best thing to do was to make schoolchildren give urine samples. That, despite what you may think to the contrary, is a despicable thing to do. Unconstitutional, too, IMO.
Where, oh where, do you live?
And maybe his reason has to do with a legitimate fear of the cops? I’ll bet you that Abner Louima will probably never trust the police again.
Oh! So you live in Nazi Germany. Okay, that clears a lot of things up.
Y’know, I sense a lot of rage, here.
So there! Damned fools who wrote the DoI shoulda known better!
Nothing to add here. . .just wanted this to stand alone.
And people are also dying from congestive heart failure brought on by too much cholesterol. Let’s make sure that they are only eating healthy foods! Pfah!
Also, I don’t recall which part of the Constitution guarantees a right to free travel. Could you point it out to me, please?
And I imagine that a fair amount of knowledge existed about drugs in 1776. You might want to check, y’know, just to be sure, though.
But Melin, I will say this: you ARE “neglecting and overprotecting” your kids. I know you think it’s funny, but guess what? You overprotect them if you shield them from the real world and responsibilities. If you hide them and support there “right” to not be drug tested, that is overprotecting. And it’s also very damn neglectful because as a parent you owe them 100% guidance on how to be good and law-abaiding, not how to cheat there way out on a technicality.
I hope your kids survive your “lesson” without getting screwed up, it would be a shame for them to end up drug users because Mom protected there rights.
“And people are also dying from congestive heart failure brought on by too much cholesterol. Let’s make sure that they are only eating healthy foods! Pfah!”
—GLWasteful
Believe it or not, GL, people like AvenueB-dude are even willing to curtail this right.
Just last night I heard, on the news, a portion of a story about a plan to put an extra tax on fast food. As a penalty for unhealthy eating.
Here come the “What’s wrong with that”'s.
Peace,
mangeorge
What is overprotecting in a parent stating that what their child is subjected to is up to them AS PARENTS? You are essentially stating that there are no rights of parents and the only right is the school to force a kid to pee in a cup and be forced into proving that he/she is not taking drugs.
This is not cheating, if I choose not to take a pee test as an adult to get a job, then that is my decision and I therefore wont get employment from that employer. Hey, cool with me because I find the whole process incredibly invasive to my private life. I may be on medication for depression, which although not practice can be included in these tests and none of the business of anyone except me and my physician. I should not have to divulge that information to my employer in any way shape or form.
Saying that a parent is “cheating” or teaching “cheating” is so wrong I spit fire at this statement. Since when is it up to you to decide what is right for my kid? That statment is a socialist statement to an extreme…Where in God’s name do you come up with “cheating” or the assumption that this goes against an law? If anything it goes against the rights I outlined in my first posting…
It’s statements like these that make want to scream at the top of my lungs…(daring self to say what I want to say but keeping this out because it’s a Pit thing)
Thank God there were some people in Nazi Germany that were not good and law-abiding citizans, or more jews would have been killed.
Like I said before, I don’t want my kids to be sheep. Just because an authority figure says it is right doesn’t mean it is. I want my children to know that when they see a gross invasion of their rights, they should FIGHT!
“The large print givith, and the small print taketh away.”
Tom Waites, “Step Right Up”
I almost never post here ( you guys scare me !), but I have to get in on this one.
I live in Texas. I am also know as a strict parent.
But there is no way I would allow my son to be drug tested, nor searched at school.
I am a law abiding person. I no adult criminal record. Not even a traffic ticket. And what was on my juvenile record was running away from home.
I do not believe in letting kids run wild.
However I do believe that my son and everyone else should be free from unreasonable laws and /or rules.
I have always taught my son that if he is ever questioned by the police , school personnel, ect… he is to call myself and his father and refuse to answer any questions with us, or an attorney present.
Does that make us bad parents ? I don’t think so . I believe it makes us parents who want to make sure our son knows he has rights and that it is ok to stand up for himself using those rights.
My son graduates this year, he has never been in trouble. But if any school had ever tried to make him take a drug test, they would have found themselves talking to my attorney .
[All quotes from I’m-above-the-Constitution-and-everyone-had-better-do-what-I-tell-them-or-our-country-will-fall-apart-dude]
posted 02-18-2000 07:14 AM
I’m not arguing for drug use; I’m arguing against drug testing. There’s a difference, a fact that everyone but you seem to have grasped. I don’t like domestic violence, but that doesn’t mean that I want the police to install cameras in every home to catch wifebeaters.
posted 02-18-2000 02:53 PM
What a bunch of baloney. You have just as many rights as criminals. There’s nothing in the Bill of Rights that says that law abiding citizens are to be deprived of their rights. If you choose to give up your rights, if you choose to allow illegal searches without any protest, that’s your choice. Don’t whine to me about your own choices.
Do you really think that simply declaring yourself to be right is going to convince anyone?
posted 02-18-2000 06:52 PM
Can you name a single person who has said this in this thread?
Perhaps I shouldn’t have sarcastically thanked you in my first post for sharing your ignorance; you seem to have taken that at face value, and now seem determined to exhibit your ignorance in its full glory. Courts have upheld fleeing from the cops as probable cause.
There’s a biiig difference between the right to have a car with a stereo and the right to deprive everyone else of their liberty just so that you can make sure your stereo is safe. You have the former; you do not have the latter. What could fill someone with such egoism to think that they have the latter is beyond me.
And for decades slavery was legal, and the country didn’t collapse. Does that make it right?
That statement is a load of crap, you know.
posted 02-18-2000 08:20 PM
You are SUCH a hypocrite! The Constitution CLEARLY states that this sort of thing is illegal. And yet you claim the right to ignore the Constitution whenever it suits you, and then you have the audacity to call your opponents “cheaters”. Excuse me? YOU’RE the one blatantly ignoring the law. YOU’RE the one trying to get away with it by making all sorts of wild claims about how the USA is going to crumble if some sixth grader doesn’t pee in a cup. YOU’RE the “cheater”. What sort of lesson does it teach children for their elders to ignore rules whenever it suits them? The Bill of Rights is NOT a technicality; it is the foundation of our basic rights. If you think so little of the principles under which our country was founded, please go find some other country to live in and quit imposing your fascism on the rest of us.
AvenueB…check the Pit…I had a major rant with you, rather than mess up this thread go check it out…
Look around you, you are dealing with a majority of people that disagree with you. Not a few but a lot OF PEOPLE…
Your statements are hardly founded. You spew things that you have little knowledge on, which is obvious.
I will quote you here, and refute what you say.
I have nothing to hide, I am drug free thank you very much. I take my Constitutional rights very seriously. This means me and my family are free from searches that have no basis.
If you’d like a history lesson on prohibiting or outlawing a “drug” please review your history text book and the problems that prohibition brought. Once the law was repealed people began a more civilized means by which to deal with alcohol. Not to say that alcoholism isn’t a problem with people, but it sure is a lot better than giving a part of society a reason to kill hurt and maime one another…
Libertarian said:
Thank you my dear…I like you more and more every day < smooch >
Back to Avenue:
So this is thinking that it is never in anyone’s right to question a law or a rule? That the politicians inherantly KNOW better than we do so therefore we must follow like a pack of sheep to the slaughter house? If that’s what you want, fine, you can go there, but if it violates my Constitutional rights or even less than Constitutional rights I therefore will speak my mind and ensure that we don’t live in a fascist state. Oh…aka Dictatorship…
It’s a fundemental principle that one does not give in to a whim based on some arbitrary rule that a person throws at you. Yeah, most people will help in a criminal investigation, but why is it neccesary to force people into taking a test if there is no means by which suspect the person? Would you like to be accused and strip searched if you were to cross the borders of our nation every time you came home? This is no different than submitting to a pee test for drugs. Simply it is an invasion of privacy and the means by which to say you are guilty before assumed innocent.
I beg to differ on this statement. Specifically on the cavity search, it may not be as intrusive to you, but to me it is highly intrusive. Like I said before I may be on some medication that can be detected and I have to divulge this information to my employer or in this case to the schoool, because this could become an issue if it shows up. What medications I am on is between me and my doc not me and my employer or school. BTW, you are only opening up doors for more searches based on this approval of testing for drugs.
There’s never an easy answer to this situation, there are many situations where a child has been photographed or sketched with no problem, it’s the context with with a photograph or sketch is done…it’s a fine line but if it’s obvious kiddie porn, most people understand that. What gets me about that statement you made is, it you assume it’s automatically kiddie porn, no matter what and potentially it’s a picture drawn by a mother or father that genuinely sees the beauty in their child, not out of some sick sense of sexual meaning but out of adoration for their sweet child. You may even have seen your three year old neice in her bathtub and sketched a picture for her and her parents to remember for a lifetime…you know and I know this isn’t perverted unless you make obvious sexual context within this and advance to higher forms when she is older.
I am not a sicko, I don’t like drugs, although I happen to like my beer. If it’s a non-violent “crime” then why is it a problem? It only becomes violent when the thing becomes illegal and in the true sense of human nature, if it’s bad it must be fun. I don’t know how else to explain this, but it’s true. If a drug, like alcohol is considered legal, how come you don’t see an outcropping of violent crime because of it? Because it’s legal. There is a world of people that will get sucked into the drug thing no matter what you do to stifle it. In this case, illegal drugs only have created a violent underground that can’t be considered civil because it’s underground. If legalized, and prohibition is your lesson here, it becomes less an evil and more something that people can contend with on a rational level.
mangeorge - I wouldn’t worry too much about the fast food tax; your link was to an op-ed piece dated 1997. It seems to have sunk without a trace, as is appropriate.
How about the parents who post to this board?
Sorry, but I guess I’m living in a dream world.
That many illegal drugs are bad for you is unquestionable. That some, notably marijuana, aren’t noticeably worse than legal drugs such as alcohol or tobacco seems pretty clear too. That others, such as heroin, PCP, and crack cocaine, are genuinely dangerous, seems pretty clear too.
Still, it also seems clear that most of the damage involved with drugs these days is the consequence of the War on Drugs, not the drugs themselves. If people are shooting each other over prime vending spots on street corners, is this due to the badness of drugs, or their price? It’s the price, stupid. And why is the price of drugs high enough to merit such violence? Because their illegality artificially inflates their price. The violence associated with the drug trade is, IMO, wholly attributable to the War on Drugs, rather than to the drugs themselves.
And then there’s the other side effects of the WoD: the ever-increasing prison population, the decimation of the black male population of this country, the consumption of gazillions of dollars of our taxes, and the willingness of our leaders to undermine the Fourth Amendment to the extent of trampling on the rights of sixth-graders and their parents out of sheer hysteria.
Unlike some of the more libertarian types here, I’m not an advocate of widespread legalization of illegal drugs. But I think the country would be far better off with that, than with the current state of affairs.
