Kenders' Musings

For those of you that have children, what I am about to say is going to hit home.

My son is still relatively young, and so far reasonably obedient. Who am I kidding? My kid's great.....he is smart as a whip (and before you ask about that saying have you ever been hit with a whip? It smarts!!!), keeps his room pretty clean, never talks back in a bad way and is actually pretty funny sometimes. But like every parent, I know that someday he's gonna change. He won't want to get out of bed anymore....he'll start to smell funny, keep odd hours and suddenly acquire strange looking friends. In short, he'll become a teenager.

That's fine. I know it's coming, so I can prepare for it, or rather, I can be prepared to not be prepared for it, if that makes sense. I expect the kids that I think dress odd and the not wanting to get out of bed and everything else that goes along with a teenager, but the one thing I won't put up with is if he suddenly becomes stupid, especially if he gets a friend that tells him that he doesn't have to listen or follow the rules.

That is what the ACLU does.

Linked in the title is the story of one young man that is acting stupidly (IMO) and the aid he received from the ACLU.

MONTEBELLO - Before delving into organizing student walkouts at his high school, Guillermo Tejeda made two prudent phone calls.

One was to the National Lawyers' Guild, the other was to the American Civil Liberties Union. (snip) From the ACLU, Tejeda and other student organizers received thousands of pocket-sized guides that spelled out exactly what their rights are - and what to do if they were arrested or disciplined.

Never mind that this kid is calling the NLG and the ACLU to basically ask "How can I get around the rules?", (if my son ever calls the NLG he'd better be prank calling), one of the major problems is that the ACLU is actually answering him. If a kid comes to you and says "I wanna do this" and what he wants to do is against the rules, the correct answer is NOT "here's how you stay out of trouble if you get caught." The correct answer is "I don't think that's a good idea AND since you aren't my child I suggest you ask your parents."

Not the ACLU. They jump on the wagon and start handing out little pamphlets advising the kids of their rights and what to do if they are arrested or disciplined. I wonder if anyone at the ACLU once thought "If these kids stay in school we wouldn't have to be telling them what to do if they get arrested or disciplined."

Probably not.

By accounts from his teachers, his father and his fellow students, Tejeda stands out among his peers for his political activism. While still a sophomore, he organized protests against campus military recruiters and was active in several social justice groups.

I see this kid and the ACLU are going to have a long relationship. Personally if this was my son and he started running with this crowd he would be off to military boarding school before you could say Che.

"He is well-read," said Gilbert Gomez, Tejeda's teacher in advance-placement government class. "He does make an attempt to inform and is sincere in what he's trying to accomplish."

Did you catch that? He is "sincere in what he's trying to accomplish". The problem? He may be sincere but he is wrong, and the ACLU is aiding and abetting delinquency.

While Gomez said he admires the students for becoming more aware of the immigration issue, he believes the school walkouts "missed the point." The point, he said, is that schools "educate everyone here, even those who don't speak English."

Tejeda sees it differently. He believes the walkouts were necessary to call attention to the plight of illegal immigrants and their families. And he balks at critics who say students were merely trying to skip school.

We need a new word. "Plight" should be saved for when you are in a situation that you couldn't help being in, not when the situation you are in is of your own doing, and being an "illegal" (I prefer criminal) alien is solely the fault of the person in that situation. It's not as if they woke up in another country illegally, (although I am sure that booze and stupidity have caused that to happen once or twice) or were brought here against their will. Even the girls that are occasionally found in sex-slave rings aren't brought here against their will.

Even so, he believes some students went too far when, during a rally in front of Montebello High, they removed the American flag from its pole, hung it upside down and raised a Mexican flag above it.

He called the tactic "unnecessarily divisive."

"I've participated in the desecration of many flags, but that just distracted people from our message," Tejeda said. "Let's turn this page. This is about thinking differently about the border."

Now why am I not surprised to find out that one of the kids involved in the attack on our flag in Montebello had help from the ACLU?

Tejeda said he and a couple of his friends managed to prevent students from repeating the flag incident at Garfield High School later that day.

How much will you wager that by the time it rolled around to Garfield High that Guillermo has been informed that the actions of those kids with the flag was illegal?

It is tough enough to raise a kid today, I don't think the ACLU actively helping them to screw up their future and break the rules is a good thing.

Do you?