The Frugal Libertarian

Government schools are now taking on cyber-bulling by punishing students for actions that occur outside of school.  I am adding that to the list of reasons my children will never set foot in a government school.

Recently, a father sued on behalf of his daughter after she was suspended for a video that she posted on YouTube.  The video depicts the girl and some of her friends making lewd comments about another student.  A judge ruled in favor of the father, not because the judge believed the school overstepped their boundaries, but because the school was able to pull the video from YouTube quickly, keeping the disruption to the school “minimal”.  Since the disruption was “minimal” the school was wrong to suspend the girl.  This ruling was based on the 1969 Supreme Court Decision Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent School District which stated that “When a student’s speech interferes substantially with the school’s educational mission, a school can impose discipline.”  So, according to the court, if the video was not pulled promptly, the school would have been justified in the suspension.

Now, I am in no way defending the students behavior.  I have no patience for bullies, whether they are teenagers or agents of the state.  But, government schools should have no authority to punish a student for actions that occur outside of school.  If we allowed government schools to have this type of authority, where would we draw the line?  Nutrition, television, video games, how much time spent reading, or an infinite number of other things can substantially interfere with the school’s “educational mission”.  Are we to have agents of the government schools in our homes monitoring these things?  Unfortunately, it may be just a matter of time before that is no longer a question formed in hyperbole.  It may someday be a reality in our ever increasing nanny state.

I am happy to announce that I will now also be blogging at CopBlock.org.  Check it out!

I guess a little public outrage can make the police behave a little better.  It turns out that I was not the only one that thought a jaywalking sting was ridiculous.  It seems many of the cities’ minority groups believe that jaywalking citations are just a pretext for harassing minorities.  I would agree that they are a pretext for harassing citizens and reminding the public who is in charge (a hint: the guys with the guns and tasers are in charge. For now anyway.), but I don’t know if that harassment is aimed at minorities.  It seems to me that cops misbehavior is nondiscriminatory.

Anyway, KC police have now decided to “change the enforcement focus and have officers help guide traffic and pedestrians downtown rather than trying to catch scofflaws.”  What a novel idea,  serving the public in order to promote public safety instead of focusing on writing citations and raising revenue.   We could be on to something.