By Mark David Blum, Esq.

Class, today’s lesson is all about the “Freedom to Speaking” here in the United States. It involves truth, integrity, fantasy, and liars infecting today’s schools.

I have set today’s agenda because in the midst of a heated discussion of her plans to attend a New Years Eve party, my youngest said she had the “right to speaking” and to her opinion. Shocked, I asked her what she meant by that; wanting to tease out what she really knew. She said she only knew that in America, in the Constitution, she had to right to speak freely. You can imagine her shock when I made it clear her constitutional rights to speak were limited by my ability to duct tape her mouth shut and lock her in her room for a year.

It must suck to have a lawyer for a father because lawyers just can’t make our point in two or three sentences. Why say it in two words when you can say it in two hundred? I suggested she take note of another 14 year old female student in a high school here in the United States who argued she had the right to freedom of speaking. That girl wrote an essay in her English class and is now under arrest. She was asked to write an essay on a new federal holiday she would like to see Congress pass. It was just a writing exercise.

Imagine … we declared a Federal Holiday that one day a year, you get a free pass to kill one person. How many of us would be alive next year? Perhaps we could have this day on the day after Xmas … so we can give out t-shirts with a bulls-eye printed on it to our favorite target. From Hallmark: “Roses are Red, and so is your blood. Violets are blue, and you are dead, motherfucker.” Seriously … such a day could, nay dare I say WOULD, change our relationships to each other. I bet we would all find ways to be very nice to each other, not screw each other in business, not harm or annoy our neighbors. Life would be very edgy at times. I would rather face Santa’s naughty list than be in someone’s Killer Day shopping cart.

There would obviously not be a requirement that you killed someone on Killer Day. Not many of us celebrate our Veterans on Veterans Day or the trees on Arbor Day. So you do not have to kill. Would we all be on vacation that day and hiding deep in a bunker somewhere? Could you even trust your own spouse or children or parents? Would there be exemptions? How about a two-for-one sale?

OK, enough of that.

What irks me so about this whole event is how this young girl, in a place of learning and socialization, following the instructions of her teacher, wrote what is obviously a tongue in cheek essay and is now under federal indictment. While her essay may have been age appropriate misbehavior, it was not criminal. Even if her humor was over the top, it was not criminal. If her topic or attitude is warped, then that is the place for learning. If she needs better social skills, a school is the place for that training. These are not children but rather adults-in-training. They are supposed to make mistakes, errors in judgment, wrong calls, associate with the wrong people, and do stupid things. That is how they learn. ‘Tis better they learn now in school than later when the penalties and risks are far more severe.

When you ask a child in school to follow instructions and the child performs, you do not prosecute that child. Engaging in content based scrutiny on an open subject writing assignment reeks of censorship of the worst order.

It only gets worse as educators continue to lie to our children. While discussing the NYE party and young females at parties, the subject of alcohol and drugs and other naughties has to come up. I would be remiss as a father if I did not force the discussion.

As a general rule, we don’t drink here. Perhaps a bottle of wine now and then or at a party (or when I spend Sunday mornings with a local high school football coach); for the most part however, ours is a mostly alcohol-free life. I do not oppose drinking it is just that at 47 years old, the pain and suffering of the aftermath just is not worth dancing naked on the tabletops anymore.

During this conversation, her mother mentions her own intentions to drink at dinner. My kid suddenly gets very upset and insists her mom not drink at all. Visibly afraid, my daughter is lecturing us on how alcohol will kill you and that she is afraid for her mother’s safety. She tells us that even one drink can hurt you and that if you lay down after drinking, you may never get up again.

Asking where this information comes from, she fights and resists but ultimately confesses that it was her teachers and police / school resource officer who told her these things. I have heard this before and I know where it is coming from. It is the prohibitionist argument: All things immoral will kill you. They believe scaring children as a means of social control. Ask Steven Corsello how well that theory works.

Benjamin Franklin once said that “beer is proof that God loves mankind.” I told my child that human beings have been consuming alcohol and drugs for thousands of years. It is part of the human condition to want to alter their minds. Whether it is a runner’s high or a smoker’s high, a religious high, or a beer buzz, there is something about human beings … not all humans, but overall something innate to the human condition to desire to be stoned.

I told my kid to take a look around her … this community and every village Middlesex and farm she has ever visited. How many bars are there? Every market sells beer. Nearly every restaurant she will visit serves alcohol. The primary libation for any party is alcohol. Churches use alcohol in their celebrations. We drink champagne when we celebrate. Alcohol is a major part of our society.

She was then told that alcohol is also poisonous. I called it one of the most dangerous substances known to man. I explained that you have to wait until you are an adult to learn how much you can drink and how to handle it. If you do it wrong, you will indeed die. If you do it right, you can have a wonderful time.

I explained however, that one drink is not a drunk. Being drunk is not a death sentence. Handling alcohol takes practice and experience.

But I assured her and reassured her that drinking is safe.

The moment I dreaded had finally come.

I had to tell her that her teachers lied to her. I had to explain that the police / school resource officer lied to her. I explained that they were trying to scare her because they felt that was the only way to stop her from trying alcohol. What they told her was not true.

I just wish teachers and educators could be honest. Now my child will have doubt and has lost a sense of trust she had with her school. Abstinence only education just does not work. Childhood innocence is moreso lost through abstinence-only policy than through reasoned enlightenment.

I call upon my government and upon the police to tell the truth … at least when talking to my child. Do you really want to raise an adult who mistrusts both institutions?