> Dozens of police officers and civilian volunteers occupied the
> junior/senior High School in Highland, Indiana to search for
> drugs.
> Exits were blocked and all 2,780 students were "summarily ordered
> to sit with their books and purses and bags between their feet and
> their hands on their desks in plain view."  The police had no search
> warrant, and no students were ever advised of their rights.
> During the three-hour raid, sixteen drug-sniffing dogs examined
> every student. "Four junior high school students -- all girls -- were
> removed from their classes, stripped nude, and interrogated. Not one
> of them was found to possess any illicit material." [Source: The Great
> Drug War by Arnold Trebach, Macmillan Publishing, 1987, pp. 221-222.]
I'm going to bail you out, David, in that your message likely strains
the topic, overall.  Let's see if I can help you swing it back.  :)
If stripping four junior high school students and conducting this
type of an interrogation isn't an abuse of children, what is?
This is a prime example of the sheer power of hysteria. Citizens in
the form of "civilian volunteers", most significantly, took part in
this debacle, rising to the status of a civilian militia aiding its
government in its War on Drugs.  The casualties included four young
women, presumably innocent of wrongdoing.
Similarly, the government wages its War against Child Abuse, having
left behind many casualties of that War, this conference serving to
demonstrate that.
In each instance, the rules of evidence seem to have been suspended,
with probable cause being relegated to the role of an administrative
nuisance.
And now, our government had declared a Grand New War, one targeting
terrorism.  A Grand New War which critics suggest will serve only to
further erode our remaining Civil Liberties, and that it, too, shall
inevitably fail to counter its target by any significant measure.
But it is such a grand and noble cause.  Surely we can countenance
some minor erosion of our liberties, if it protects us against the
evils of terrorism.
Drugs.  Child Abuse.  Crime.  Terrorism.
Isn't the elimination of these evils from our society, in all
instances, a just and noble cause?  Is it only coincidence that in
each of these Wars we wage the public is first primed with fear, and
then slowly driven to a point of near hysteria?  Is it merely by
chance that each of these Wars we wage results primarily in further
erosion of our liberties, while each fails substantially in reducing
the actual threat it seeks to eliminate?
I am reminded of the frightened young faces of some students in third
world nations, as the TV cameras captured the event of armed soldiers
kicking in the classroom door.  These horrific images were beamed
over via satellite, broadcast into our homes, and they were branded
as terrorism.
Yet a modern army backed by citizen militia perpetrates acts of
abuse against children in America today, stripping them naked,
striking terror in their hearts.  And the public sits idle, for
America is at War, and we have all been taught that during Wartime
there are innocent casualties.
In one instance, the hysteria driven by the War on Drugs results in
an act of state terrorism against young children. While in another,
the hysteria driven by wholly unsubstantiated rumors of incredible
proportions has an entire community in a frenzy, digging with their
bare hands to find underground chambers rumored to have harbored all
manner of satanic ritual abuse against children.
And in the wake of the latest wave of hysteria we elect judges
running on activist platforms.  Judges that promise to be "Tough on
Crime", or judges who promise to bring each perpetrator of child
abuse to justice, even if this should mean that Due Process and the
Presumption of Innocence prior to guilt established go flying out
the window.
After all, we all know that the phrase "Civil Liberties" is really
just a shield behind which the Drug Pusher, Terrorist, Criminal and
Child Abuser hides.  That is, we all know that until we are branded
as among them, innocent or not.
--- FMail/386 1.0g
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