Im sure youve heard about the Sudanese Muslim immigrant kid in Texas who was arrested for bringing his home made electronic clock to school where Islamophobes worried that it was a time bomb beeping in his backpack. The President bestirred himself from his narcissistic reveries to note that the northeast African looked a lot like him at that age and invited him to the White House, much to the satisfaction of Salon readers.
But a reader points out that the kids dad is a publicity hound who routinely returns to Sudan to run for President and engages in other PR stunts like debating the Rev. Terry Jones over the holiness of the Koran. From the Dallas News:
He just wants to invent good things for mankind, said Ahmeds father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and occasionally returns there to run for president. But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.
Mohamed is familiar with anti-Islamic politics. He once made national headlines for debating a Florida pastor who burned a Quran.
IMHO,the thing was a setup to get the kid arrested so they could get publicity from the arrest and that would lead to fame and money.
WTF builds an alarm clock at home and takes it to school? WTF even builds an alarm clock at home when you can buy one of the damn things cheaper than you can buy the materials to make one?
On top of that,a teacher had seen it and told him to put it away,and then nothing more happened until it was brought forward again. Seems like the kid was determined to get arrested.
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
After the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, and the D.C. bomb squad finish examining it, it will be allowed into the White House where Obama will say, "See? It's harmless".
No different than the elites with their armed bodyguards saying the rest of us don't need guns.
So now what? Does this mean other kids will be allowed to bring their electronics projects to school in briefcases? Or just Muslim students?
The problem is that the American authorities were brain-dead stupid.
Perhaps it was a provocative act by the kid and his father, but once the thing was shown, looked at, and seen for what it was, the answer was to send the kid home with it at days end and have a conference with the parents telling them not to do it again.
Where things went berserk, to the embarrassment of officialdom, was when no common sense was applied and the kid was put in handcuffs and booked into jail.
THAT was where the authorities stepped in a pile of shit and set up the media fiasco.
If the authorities behave stupidly, they're end up being smacked down.
You notice that when cases like these erupt, the schools or other government organization always tries to stand its ground, but usually finds it cannot, and then never does it again.
Applying common sense from the start is the better way.
"Perhaps it was a provocative act by the kid and his father, but once the thing was shown, looked at, and seen for what it was, the answer was to send the kid home with it at days end and have a conference with the parents telling them not to do it again."
What if it was a dry run for the real thing? Wait. I know. Then you'll sit safely in your home and post that you were wrong: "Oops. Sorry 20 kids were blown up. My bad."
Kids are suspended for simply drawing pictures of a gun. But Mohammed here, son of a Muslim fanatic, brings in what looks exactly like a functional briefcase bomb, complete with battery and active display, should get a mere talking-to.
Our law is not based on "What if" and deranged paranoid suspicion.
People in authority are expected to be intelligent adults who apply common sense, and every case is judged on its facts.
In this case, a teacher reacted with concern to something she didn't understand. That's fine.
So the kid was called to the office with the thing, and it was looked at. That's fine.
The authorities were called, and they came. If the science teachers at the school weren't sure of what they were looking at, it's fine if they needed the bomb squad to look.
Once the bomb squad came to look, and verified that this was, in fact, exactly what the child said it was all along, the school officials should have kept the thing in the office, sent Mohammed home with it at the end of the day, and then informed all parents: please don't bring things that look odd to school, because we have to treat it seriously.
That's all fine.
But that's where our officials go off the rails. The kid is handcuffed, dragged down the hall in front of everybody else, and booked into jail. For a clock, which the authorities should have determined on the spot at the school.
So, now we have school officials and police officials all acting without reason, in rigid, abusive and stupid manner. They all should have their careers destroyed - not the teacher who brought it up, or the office crew - but everybody involved in the decision making process once it went nuts.
Zero tolerance for out of control officials, or for officials who are too stupid or too lacking in common sense to discern the obvious once it is obvious. Destroy them all professionally: we cannot afford to have jackasses in power. Let them collect welfare, and put more rational people in those jobs.
But that's where our officials go off the rails. The kid is handcuffed, dragged down the hall in front of everybody else, and booked into jail.
What's the sense of lusting after authority if you can't abuse it once you get it?
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)