Comments (29)

• Hank

  Agreed! I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could justify strip searching a child over ibuprofren. Only a degenerate mind would be able to conceive such a need. You are right, the next fight won't be fought in the legal realm.

  Published: April 22, 2009 9:36 AM

• AC

  I'm no lawyer, but I thought the constitution was suppposed to protect against unreasonable search and seizure. You know, that whole bit about courts have to issue a search warrant before police can do a search, let alone school administrators. Why didn't the school just call the parents?

  I remember being 13. I also know that 13 year olds may sometimes use school officials for their own agendas. Don't people remember being in school, and one kid accusing another one of wrongdoing just to get the kid in trouble, not because anything happend at all?

  Perhaps Mr. Souter would like to protect against the risk of any other kids who just might have something "harmful" on their person too (but not accused) and strip search the whole school as they walk in the door. That way we'll make sure no children bring anything harmful into school.

  The parents in this school district could shut the place down tomorrow by a large overwhelming majority pulling their children out of school until every adminstrator and school official involved was fired.

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:06 AM

• Anon

  Do this to my daughter and its going to end badly for both of us

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:07 AM

• AC

  Forgot to mention. 13 year girls have enough difficulties at this time in their lives to be subjected to this garbage.

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:08 AM

• kmeisthax

  Again the state shows it's true colors: self-centered, excessively self-interested, and depraved. If this was a private school that administrator would be jailed and scarlet lettered.

  (Scarlet lettered refers to the sex offenders list and it's effects on anyone on it.)

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:09 AM

• Justin

  Thank you, US Govt., for making it abundantly clear that if I have children someday, they should attend private schools. Additionally, thank you for clarifying that if a government official takes advantage of my child, I should administer my own brand of justice rather than pursue the issue in court. I am glad we cleared that up.

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:31 AM

• Kevin

  If the decision on this case goes to the school, then I will be organizing a mass walkout in jefferson county Alabama unless the school systems here IMMEDIATELY implement a no-strip search policy. It will start with removing my two boys from school for the maximum length of time I can before I being jailed, I will take a leave of absence from my work and school and fight and raise a thunderous outcry.

  Published: April 22, 2009 11:01 AM

• David K. Meller

  Unfortunately, with the government--and school system--that we suffer under today sending your children to "private" school won't be any kind of defence for too much longer. It is only a matter of time until legislators on both the State and Federal level make strip searches, and other savage indignities, MANDATORY!

  Schooling is something that has probably been greatly overrated by the same degenerate elites over the past century or so that normal families could well do without. They have already perversely miseducated their charges in countless ways which are most detrimental to the patriarchal family. Indeed, no well-informed parent would send his or her child to such an institution. That is one reason why attendence has been made compulsory. As long as those "schools"--and governments--exist, I don't think it is possible for children to be safe.

  Start with a demand for REAL school choice. Demand an end to compulsory attendence laws. At least that way, parents will have a chance to protect their children!

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K. Meller

  Published: April 22, 2009 11:28 AM

• Jesse Broussard

  This is the problem with accepting governmental funding (which both public and private schools do, though they differ in the amount): the one that writes the checks writes the laws as well.

  Check out New Saint Andrews: it's the one college in the US that actually accepts no government funding, grants or handouts of any kind. It's also rated among the top universities in the nation. Tuition? Under ten grand per year.

  Published: April 22, 2009 12:03 PM

• prettyskin

  @ Anon

  The overtone notion that your daughter is better pedigree so all hell will break loose is nefariously unsettling. Hopefully, your outrage is for all daughters and just not your own. Every parent you see has a heart desire and it is mostly good just like yours.

  @ Kevin
  In Jefferson County Alabama your boys are safe. Don't you think? It's why your there with like minded thunderous parents.

  Published: April 22, 2009 12:04 PM

• Briggs Armstrong

  "the Supreme Court has just given you fair warning to pull your kids out of government institutions today"

  This is true. Gov schools are atrocious. But let no one think that they are hurting the gov by pulling their kids out of gov schools. If anything, they are helping it. After all they still get the tax revenue without the expense.

  Published: April 22, 2009 12:40 PM

• Anon Number 2

  @prettyskin: From your comments to Anon, I believe you shouldn't be unsettled. If I understand correctly, Anon would walk a dangerous path—a path that may end in death or prison—for a daughter. You cannot ask him carry this burden for each and every child that is molested. A man may give up his life for his children or his friends... but for strangers? For them, the words are written on a wall in Chateau D'If: "God will give me justice."

  These are terrible things we discuss—actions with terrible consequences. At some point, outraged letters and picket signs will not suffice.

  (Lord help me for the coward I am! I fear my government and sign anonymously for the first time.)

  Published: April 22, 2009 12:52 PM

• kate

  Why are we even surprised that a government that sanctions torture for detainees would hesitate to sanction - or even mandate - child abuse, especially using the age old excuse of "protecting the children"?

  As I see it, a parent today really only has two choices. Home school for as long as the government will allow it, then get yourself - and especially your children - out of the country.

  This is Germany in the 1930s. I had a hard time accepting it, too, but eventually it hits you over the head with a baseball bat.

  Published: April 22, 2009 1:06 PM

• Magnus

  Schools practice everything that statists envision for the rest of society, just one generation early.

  Everything is compulsory. There is no such thing as privacy. All tasks are assigned to you. You are sorted into groups based on state-measured capacity. Supervisors are professional bureaucrats, many layers deep, and their power is absolute. Unions decide how the prison-guards work. It's a statist playground!

  Schools are prisons. They are designed to be that way. The Progressives thought them up. Everything about them has been designed to demean, humiliate, control and indoctrinate children. The true purpose of schools is to psychologically train children to reflexively submit to the authority of the state.

  This was all laid out, and openly promoted as a good thing, in all of the original writings about forced schooling in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

  I suspect that the "supreme court" will rule in favor of allowing strip searching. After all, this kind of subjugation is the purpose of every other aspect of schooling, from forcing children to move around according to bells to pointless make-work assignments. They all teach the same thing -- to submit.

  If the court rules against allowing strip searching, it will only be because they don't want the fig leaf to come off and allow people to see the true nature of schooling.

  Published: April 22, 2009 1:48 PM

• Kevin Hall

  The Supreme Court proves once again it is: 1) utterly senseless 2) direlict in their duty to UPHOLD the US Constitution. With every day and every new attempt to degrade the Constitution, my contempt for Big Brother multiplies. The people who carried this search out and who allow it with insane court rulings need to be held accountable for the perverted animals they are.

  Published: April 22, 2009 4:04 PM

• gary c. stephenson

  stay with me on this. 1970, the first year the baby boomers entered the teaching trade. 1970, the first year public education recorded a quantitative and qualitive decline in progress. a slow but inexorable decline that continues today. baby boomers (no teacher left behind) have put what was once the eighth wonder of the world (public education) in the sewer. schools of education produce the lowest entrance examination scores for undergrad, the lowest entrance exam scores for grad, law, etc. on campus. when teachers are tested outside the trade they perform at about the clerical or trade level. the unions revel in all of this. any wonder why an action such as this is heard by the court. any court? help me out. what have i missed?

  Published: April 22, 2009 4:15 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  Divine Economy Ethics
  Wednesday, April 22, 2009

  U.S. Supreme Court Acts Like Ego-Driven Interpreters.
  
  The two most vile charlatans in these Dark Ages of economics are the ego-driven interventionists and the ego-driven interpreters.

  Regards the state of depravity of moral relativity:
  The ego-driven interpreters are without moral authority just like their counterpart the ego-driven interventionists.

  So instead of moral authority they have to become authoritarian, that is, totalitarian. It is only through oppression that they can attain their fantasy of authority. It is unnatural.

  In contrast, in a classical liberalism society operating under the rule of law - that can best be summarized as 'trust in God' - there is a natural ethics that constitutes the moral authority. At the very foundation of this ethics is the axiom that property rights are human rights and human rights are property rights.

  Published: April 22, 2009 6:15 PM

• matskralc

  Check out New Saint Andrews: it's the one college in the US that actually accepts no government funding, grants or handouts of any kind. It's also rated among the top universities in the nation. Tuition? Under ten grand per year.

  As far as I know, neither does my alma mater, Grove City College (tuition is about $13K/year). And they've also got a very Austrian economics department!

  Published: April 22, 2009 6:26 PM

• damocles

  Home run; for a society that yaps about being"for the children" , we do everything we can to harm them whenever some adult interest is at stake. We let sperm donors veto adoption. We can't even give them vouchers that would SAVE MONEY and get them out of these godawful schools because that would offend teachers unions. Now this.

  Published: April 22, 2009 8:51 PM

• M. Bakhama

  To Magnus:

  "Schools are prisons. They are designed to be that way. The Progressives thought them up. Everything about them has been designed to demean, humiliate, control and indoctrinate children. The true purpose of schools is to psychologically train children to reflexively submit to the authority of the state.

  This was all laid out, and openly promoted as a good thing, in all of the original writings about forced schooling in the late 1800s and early 1900s."

  Regarding the above statement of yours, I am not saying that I disagree with you, but could cite literature that backs this claim?

  I surmise that the ideas of John Dewey were instrumental in advancing this trend in American education. Do you know of any good books which provide a libertarian perspective on this topic? Or, conversely, is there primary source material from the statists that could enlighten us as to their ideology vis-a-vis education?

  Published: April 22, 2009 10:43 PM

• Alex

  A superb book on the american education system is John Taylor Gatto's "The Underground History of American Education" its even available to be read online at :

  http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this subject.

  Published: April 23, 2009 6:38 AM

• 2nd Amendment

  I was carrying Aspirin when I was 13 because of frequent headaches and I would have never distributed my precious medicine.

  The state is deprived not because of the "strip" search but because of controlling every details of our lives.

  Published: April 23, 2009 7:57 AM

• Magnus

  M. Bakhama,

  As Alex said, John Taylor Gatto is today's preeminent source of information on the history, purpose and nature of schooling.

  Published: April 23, 2009 10:18 AM

• Magnus

  There is also Murray Rothbard's pamphlet on the history of forced schooling.

  http://mises.org/daily/2226

  Published: April 23, 2009 10:22 AM

• Deefburger

  I home schooled my first daughter, and the others I have are mine by association. Almost college now.

  Pulling kids out of the classroom in a public school "en mass" is devastating to the school in question, especially if the pull out is for an extended length of time. Public schools are funded by attendance. If kids are missing, they don't get funded for those kids.

  I feel for some of the comments about when "legal means fail". Had this happened to one of my girls, I would probably have been jailed for my reaction, and rightly so, but the justice i would have metted out would have been felt directly by the SOB that did it to her, as it should be. I do not advocate the use of force or violence, but to use force and violence such as that against my little girl is grounds for retaliation.

  If the school thought my child was a danger to the school, then detention was all that was necessary to secure the threat. A strip search is unwarranted and unnecessary.

  Any judge who cannot see this fact is not fit to serve. Any school administrator who does not see detention as adequate to the task of protecting the safety of the other students is a danger to the whole student body.

  Published: April 23, 2009 4:39 PM

• Allan

  I think calling this pedophilia is a stretch ... you're just trying to inflame a little passion.

  Published: April 27, 2009 5:25 PM

• invisible

  I'm a pedophile and even I think this ruling is ludicrous and unfair to the students.

  Published: May 5, 2009 1:51 AM

• Don Cordell

  It worked in Germany, take children at age 8, teach them that the government must be obeyed, and they will follow as ordered. It is obvious, children are not citizens, they have no rights, or at least that's what our schools tell us and our children. Now teach the children that the government knows best and if the parents are doing something wrong, it's best for the community for the child to report this to the police.
  Right? Well you have submitted to everything else against our Constitution and Bill of Rights, aren't you going to surrender the rest of our Rights?
  Or are you ready to RESTORE not CHANGE America? It starts with our children, raise them to know their rights, not submit to authority blindly.

  Published: July 5, 2009 12:40 PM

• Ron

  The permanent solution for Sexual Predators and Pedophiles is castration. Better for them and better for society. This is a cost effective and humane solution.

  There is no need to keep these people in jail for years. A simple visit to a vet and the problem is solved. As a bonus you never have to worry about them returning to society or living in your neighborhood. Talk about a good deterrent..
  

  Published: September 18, 2009 5:30 PM