I hate my school system It's things like this that really tick me off. The school system on this side of the pond is absolutely horrible. Never mind that there crippling our students. Never mind that there horribly ineffective. Never mind the fact that there teaching our students how to use calculators and take tests, and not how to do math and use the english language. NO, the important thing to focus on is a drawing a 15 year old made, which from the description sounds like a god damned political caricature!!! seriously, where is the threat in this? Damn, guess my high school wasn't as bad as i thought it was. They'd assume it was a terrorist boot camp if they heard some of the things my liberal english teacher said . glad that i got out of there when i did EDIT: okay, i just read the rest of the article, and with the descriptions of the other pictures i can say how they could be concerned with the violence, BUT if it was the level of violence they were concerned about it was his parents and a counselor that should have been called, not the freakin secret service
I hate the fact that everyone over the age of 25 think they are so much smarter than teenagers. Teenagers CAN in fact have an opinion on somthing and don't have to get it from their parents or peers. I'm only 16, yet I have my own opinion on this situation, the situation in Iraq, and Dubya. For one, the constitiutuion, somting that conservitives are supposed to support, says that I can say whatever I want (ya know, that whole first amendment thingy). That freedom of speech includes anything I draw. I can't believe that they take away our rights in order to "protect" our rights. I mean, if we take away all of our citizens rights to protect them from terrorists, we are just as bad as bin Laden. All the while, Bush and his buddies are getting rich of this oil 'shortage'. Humanity makes me sick.
All of your opinions are based on your environment (including parents and peers) - don't delude yourself thinking you come up with special and unique positions on topics. I knew everything when I was a teenager too. I guess people get dumber as they get older [/sarcasm] Sounds like I am by myself here - ahh well. I still give the benefit of the doubt to the police department in their decision. I am sure the parents were contacted. Gone too far? Sure in-hind sight after they found there was nothing to be concerned with it is simple to say they overreacted. Better to read this silly story than '15 year old goes on killing spree protesting war'.
You mean 15 year olds cannot cause harm or destruction? What country do you live in - I would like to move there. Frequently, yes - but not always. Because of their lack of life experience, that black/white view and multitude of other things - why doubt the police's decision? I can understand your position, but in your profession, surly you gather all the facts you can before you diagnose someone or recommend any steps. All I am saying is, given the very little info we have, I give the police department my support for their concern and action. If he wore a black trenchcoat, would people be singing a different tune? If he had a website with his pictures and views, would there be this outcry of 'injustice' against him? Freedom of speech does not give you freedom of responsibility. Depicting the president as dead at the hands of an enemy is not a smart move in the first place. You do something like that to make a point, expect reprecussions. You are free to make any statement you like, and those that are elected or in charge are just as free to make a restatement - like treating you as a potential threat. Make a real point - vote against Bush....don't draw pictures of his head on a stick.
Inmate: I'm sorry but that line of thinking, that teenagers don't know ****, is just completely wrong. Believe it or not, there are intelligent teenagers out there. Of course, anything I say about my own intelligence or maturity will be ignored or discredited, since of course, as a mere 17-year-old child, I can not possibly have my own thoughts aside from my parents'. I mean, God forbid, no child shall think for himself! I mean, so what if I'm 3/4ths the way through a BS in chemistry, I still must be a dumbs**t little kid who wants to harbor "would-be president-killers" and pinko commies.
Lee Malvo was only 19 when he started sniping people from the back of a car. 10 people dead, and essentially took the capitol hostage before being caught. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were 18 and 17 when they destroyed the lives of 13 families @ Columbine High School (History click here ) Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were 10, you folks in England know what I'm talking about there. The fact that the child was 15 is irrelevant. We live in a society today, globally, that "we are not allowed to overlook the slightest thing" for fear that it could turn much worse. The societies that we have bred due to the need for dual income in order to survive has left is bereft of family support and guidance. Kids being raised by computers, friends, streets, WHERE IS THE FAMILY??!?!?! I'll tell you where alot of them are... they are too damn busy trying to provide, and as such the familial unit crumbles into a shell. A home where parents dont even know what their own kids are doing. I guess my tired ranting is aimed thusly, the kid drew a picture, of a controversial subject in a very controversial light. Did they get put in jail, no. Did they get interviewed by law enforcement and the Secret Service - yes. And rightfully so. High School is *not*, and I repeat this... *not* a place for political grandstanding or displaying your political/ethical/moral beliefs. It is for EDUCATION. You form your views in there, you dont put them on art board and expect the school to adopt them. Good art, bad art.... don't matter folks. The rules have changed. Kids have decided that they want to grow up faster now. No problem with that, but get ready for more stuff like this to happen in the future. Adults have the responsibility, now more than ever, to keep a vigilant eye on EVERY - STINKIN - THING going on around them, and to intervene on a moments notice... else we end up with more tragedies like what I spoke of before. Take your head out of the sand, smell the beautiful air, and realize that this is no longer the Ward and June Cleaver neighborhood that we grew up in. Our world has turned into a domestic battlefront. And every parent, no matter how confident they are in their child's decisions... is scared of all of the senseless and random violence that has suddenly sprung up all over the world. You have to "read" into what you see everyday, else be afraid you might let something go that ends up hurting you later. It sucks, I hate it... but it is a product of our society. And until we get our family structures back into play, and make it easier for people to live, it is only going to get worse. Humans, for the most part, are a foul, combative life form. Evolution of our minds needs to continue in order to work our way through this mess.... If you've read this far, thanks. I hope I have not upset anyone too badly.
Intelligence I was talking about is not in a book and is not the intelligence you are talking about. Life experience is more what I am talking about - and you only get that one day at a time. Teenagers know facts like no other - what they lack is what those facts mean in the real world - since most have yet to really experience it.
Very nice reply. And I'm being geniuine when I write that. ps, sorry, I was really pissed when I wrote my response, so it was slightly (aka, very) over-emotional and defensive.
People need to remember what it was like when they were kids. They weren't idiots. They had ideas and opinions. Kids have thoughts. In the future, I hope I remeber this. I don't want to be the guy who treats kids like idiots because they're little.
It is this hunting, this constant scrutiny, and opression of opinion that can lead to things like this. If you'd actually read up on these three cases, i mean not just how terrible fox said it was, actually tried to find out why I think you'd find there is a massive difference betweeen a kid who draws a pen and ink drawing of a controvesial subject (as i have done many times, some of when I was that age, have i gone on a killing spree, no.) and someone having the mind-set to be able to shoot, mame and torture people. That's a good point, it's interesting to note that the school system is designed to be the polar opposite of the family support structure, a network. Kids are human beings, they are inclined to have opinions and views just like any adult has them. They go to the same place, day after day, it's where most of them socialise, to not expect them, or to restrict them in displaying, beliefs and opinions is not only unrealistic, but I think it's oppressive. Just because the guy doesn't like Bush doesn't mean he's a psycopath does it? Is Kerry a high school killer? So suddenly kids are born with a "i want to grow up fast gene"? Kids, like all of us, are a product of their environment. Society forces kids to grow up fast, hell my old primary school looks like my old seconday school now, there's hardly such a thing as childhood anymore. I don't think you can blame kids for that. Do that, and you'll end up with more tragedies, as you send more and more kids over the edge. Case study after case study shows the harm big brother style monitoring can have on people, bother mentally and physically. Schools, especially in America, are enough of a panopticon already. Until we change the way kids are treated in western society, we're just going to see more and more of these killings. People are afraid of getting thier hands dirty and actually talking to kids and scrutinising a school system which is hundreds of years old. Besides, even if we did go back to a "Ward and June Cleaver neighborhood" do you think that will stop people not liking president Bush!? Frankly, I'd rather witness a couple more school shootings, than kill everything that's good about all the kids in the western world through these over-reactive, ill thought out methods. What the hell's next, battle royale?
what would have happened if it was a 30 year old man who drew the picture and someone else saw it? does anybody call the cops and secret service on the people who draw political cartooons for the editorial pages of the local paper? exactly why did this student draw the picture in the first place? was it any good , as far as art goes? maybe it is comparable to picasso's guernica....
There is a very good reason 15 year olds cannot vote. Since they do not have that right to vote - why should they have the right to depict the president dead at the hands of an enemy with no reprecussions?
I know a multitude of people personally that do no tlike Bush - not one of them has drawn a picture of his head on a stick at the hands of an enemy. If they did, I would not be surprised of someone who did not know them took it like that police department did and reported it - and I would not fault them. How exactly does society force kids to grow up fast? We didn't lower the voting age...drinking age...smoking age...driving age...what was lowered that forces children to become adults? What is a child's responsibilities? No more or less than 50 years ago. We should treat all children like adults? I disagree. School system is as old as last year. Schools are constantly making changes every year to curriculum, policy, methods and rules. I am not sure what changes you are speaking of though. What questions should we ask kids when we talk to them that are not already being asked? It would stop people from throwing their arms in the air when a police department makes the decision to call the Secret Service on a 15 year old who drew more than one picture calling for/depicting the death of our current president.
Now we're getting there. Why does a 15-year old have no right to vote? That's right. They're what we call "minors": they're generally not old enough (i.e. life-experienced enough) yet to make valid and informed decisions. A such they don't yet get adult resonsibility, and therefore no adult powers (like voting, driving a car, drinking alcohol, smoking, deciding whether they WANT eductation etc.). Adults make such decisions for them, until they reach the age of maturity at which they can generally be expected to make such decisions validly, and informed. Of course there are always bright teenagers (Stanmanfoo), but as the statistics so nicely put it: 50% of the population is below average intelligence (don't forget that the teenagers who post on this particular sub-forum, generally belong to the top 25%. The other 75% don't have that same level of sophisticated reasoning and eloquence of expression, or the foresight to think of the consequences of their actions). Now the argument is: OK, so should we let an (irresponsible) kid draw such pictures of the President? Well, depends. If he drew Osama's head on a stick, would people worry? (I sort of would, but for different reasons.) If not, this is not about worrying about his mental state (and if it was, there were SO many better ways to ahndle this). Would people worry if the head on the stick was black, and white pointy caps were involved? I suspect they would, but I doubt the police would get called. His parents, yes. The school psychologist, yes. But Police? I gather people worry that his drawings are an expression or precursor of terrorist sentiments. But as Acrimoneous states, there's a difference between drawing a bunch of hostile cartoons and going out and actually killing people. What bothers me, is the freedom of speech issue. It's the basis for democracy. This incident is a thin wedge, and it's being pushed. I have a list of those... but I'll get back to that. Tired...
This is the line that kinda ruins there whole argument. If it was solely a matter of being worried about the depiction of violence, then it wasn't the police who should have been called, it was his parents and a psychologist. I will agree that we need to consider any indication of violent behavior a warning and treat it as such, but does that mean that because i draw a picture of bush being screwed by bin laden the secret service has to come interrogate me? Being worried about the boy is one thing, how they handled the situation is another entirely. I think the reason that this went this high, this fast, is because school's have very little power over there children anymore UNLESS it's something of this magnitude. The parent's don't do **** anymore, very few parent's will actually listen to the teachers anymore if it's something negative or requires any extra effort on there behalf (this is coming from someone with a teacher for a mother and a school secretary for a grandmother, so i hear about it quite a bit). When there's room for reasonable doubt threats of terrorism or violence afford school's much more power over how children are handled. However these routes are slippery slopes, and once they start they usually have to take it all the way to the highest level before it can be stopped.
It was not about the depiction of violence...it was about the depiction of violence against the president. That is actually breaking the law as it is considered a threat to his life. Think they are being silly? One in ten presidents are assassinated - I think they have every right to investigate any and all threats, especially those which the local police deemed important enough.
There are no laws against drawing pictures of Osama dead - there are laws against depicting our president dead. If it was Osama, they probably would have just called his parents of had him speak to a school official. If there were pointy hats and white sheets - the I suspect the police would have handled it. But it was none of those...it was the President of the United States - that is breaking the law. Police department is probably under some sort of mandate where they MUST call the Secret Service in a situation like this - regardless of any other circumstances.
