Nation of Overreaction
The following is a news blurb from this morning's Washington Posts Express newspaper (they hand these babies out for free at the Metro). I was pleased to see that the story was appropriately placed in the section for humorous and often absurd news stories, but at the same time was disturbed by the actual story itself. Here is the news blurb as it was run:
Talks With Feds Not Part of a "Perfect Day"
A West Warwick, RI seventh-grader who wrote an essay saying his perfect day would involve violence against President Bush is being investigated by the Secret Service. The essay was turned in on Jan. 31, and his teacher alerted school officials.
The assignment was to write about what he would do on a perfect day, and the student—who has since been suspended—wrote that would include, in addition to attacking the president, killing Oprah Winfrey and hurting executives at Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart. "His perfect day would be to see the destruction of these people," schools superintendent David Raiche said. (AP)
This is one of the most ridiculous cases of over-reaction I have seen in ages. OK yes it's disturbing that a 7th grader wants to harm the president but can you honestly blame him!?! There are plenty of adults who want to do the same thing! Prejudice Bush is the WORST and most criminal president we have had since the inception of the institution. And the last time I checked we as a nation still had free speech.
But really the main point here is that this is a 7th grader we're talking about here not some terrorist. The kid's what 11, 12? Kids are notorious for saying outlandish shit, especially to garner attention. If anything he probably got a lot of his opinions from watching TV.
As for wanting to see the destruction of Oprah, Coke, and Wal-Mart I disagree with him on the first two points. Wal-Mart, while it serves many a useful function, is a huge mega-corporation that is responsible for the death of fair trade and competition in many small towns and other isolated regions of the country. I'm not so sure I'd want to see Wal-Mart's total destruction (as that would mean a lot of people would be left unemployed) but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing its operations restructured for the benefit of small industry.
But I digress. The bottom line here is that this story and the reaction to it is utterly asinine and ridiculous. It makes me sick. As a nation are we really this stupid and reactionary?! I blame the school in this case. This is a harmless incident that should have been handled between the school administration and the parents NOT the Secret Service. Our Secret Service is in place to protect the president from terrorists and other groups of crazy zealots, NOT 12 year old kids talking trash! God forbid a dog takes a piss on a candidate's signage next election. I'm sure they'll have the entire military out in full force to investigate it!
And you better believe that somewhere hard earned American tax dollars are being wasted on this. It really boils my blood. There is not a day that doesn't go by that i don't become embarrassed to be an American. We all aren't ignorant, close-minded, reactionary hicks! Some of us have brains and broad open-minded worldviews. Why is it that the worse citizens always get public recognition and attention while the good ones go unnoticed!?
