Lee Dresselhaus / L’Observateur / May 30, 2000

So’..it’s getting just a bit scary out there, folks. I understand the paranoia in the schools and in our communities in general when it comes to the issue of violence. We’ve certainly seen enough of theaftermath of some junior psycho running rampant through our schools with a gun. We’ve looked for the reasons that a kid from a nice family and agreat background would just go to school and start shooting, and we’ve looked everywhere, and cast blame about like Tinker Bell scattering fairy dust. We’ve looked at parents and peers. We’ve looked at music andHollywood. We’ve looked at gun laws and juvenile law. We’ve looked atdrugs and gangs. We’ve looked at – and blamed – everything from peerpressure to atmospheric pressure. And, ya know what? Nobody really has an answer. Or, rather, everyone seems to have ananswer. If you talk to 15 people about this issue, you’ll get 15 answers.The problem is that nobody seems to have found a viable solution. So,people being what they are, do the next best thing. They start looking for away to prevent things like this.

Nothing wrong with that. Right? Right. Unless you start taking it to the level a school in Holland, Mich. hastaken it. Apparently this particular elementary school decided to pass outpledges for their students to read and sign. Included in the pledge was thepromise to “report rumors” and “never hit back.” A straight-A sixth gradestudent named Derek Loutzenhiser (no, I didn’t make up that name) refused to sign the pledge. Now here’s where it gets fun and a bit scary. School officials decided that his refusal to sign constituted “danger signals” so they started watching him. Apparently there was a classroomdiscussion about such things shortly after that in which the kid expressed the opinion that he would feel safer if the adults in the schools carried guns so they could defend the students if something like Columbine were to start. Well, that did it. The kid was then labeled a violence risk and puton a list of other students whom they felt needed careful watching who were also assumed to be violence risks.

Okay, not so bad so far, right? Well, then the school officials decided that he should be separated from the other students and enter a “Mentor” program in which he would be watched closely by an adult and his thought processes would be studied.

Yikes.

Folks, George Orwell couldn’t have written a better scenario for a nightmare future in which everyone must, MUST not deviate from the pack in expression of opinion or thought. If you do, you will be put on a “list,”watched closely, then separated and “mentored” until you come around to the party line.

“Freedom of Speech” is a quaint little term, isn’t it? In this McCarthyistic society of ours it’s becoming as rare as genuine ethics in the Clinton Administration. Even the media, the so called guardians of democracy, areco-conspirators in the plot to stifle dissent. The news media for instance,including television, radio, and print news, are by their very nature PG-13.

They gleefully report murders, rapes, horrible accidents and natural disasters in which people are mangled, crippled and killed. And they reportthese things every day and in great detail. Yet if someone utters anythingthat is now deemed socially unacceptable or politically incorrect the media throw their collective hands over their eyes and squeal like a school girl at her first all-male review. Some politically correct pinheadwill do their very best to crush anything he or she sees as possibly offensive.

That particular bit of hypocrisy is, to me, incredible.

What’s even worse is how they’ll pounce on anyone who makes the mistake of deviating from the party line. Just ask John Rocker. Putting our kids on lists, or making them enter “mentor” programs is right up there with some of the scariest stuff around. Like I said earlier,they’re looking for a way to prevent bad things from happening. Okay, Iunderstand that. But I think the “mentoring” thing sounds just a bit toomuch like the government organized youth groups in places like China, Cuba, and Russia. They’re taught to report rumors, too, remember? Thosesocieties became homogenous, obedient, and subservient to their governments through the “mentoring” of their youth, and through the removal of individual identities. Hitler Youth comes to mind as well. Don’tbelieve it can happen here? Nice school uniforms they wear in those places, don’t you think? And one final thing. Anyone who asks a kid to sign a pledge not to “hitback” is an idiot. Bullies rarely listen to reason or logic, and pleading withthem to leave you alone only makes the situation worse. After a certainpoint and when all else has failed a punch in the nose in self defense is a universal form of communication that even a bully can understand. Wait,though. It isn’t politically correct to say that, is it? Maybe I should sign apledge.

Yeah. Right.

LEE DRESSELHAUS writes this column each Wednesday for L’Observateur

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