The case of Savana Redding, a young girl who was forced to strip for Arizona school officials who were looking for a little ibuprofen in 2003, has finally been ruled on by the Supreme Court.
Only 13-years old, and an honor student in the 8th grade, Savana had been forced to take off her clothing, because the school's vice principle found one over-the-counter naproxen pill, and a few 400-milligram ibuprofen pills (equal to 2 over-the-counter pills each) in the pocket of another student. The school officials didn't even feel the need to bother calling her mother.
Of course, no drugs were found.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court ruled that the school administrators violated Savana Redding's rights. Writing about this story of Big-Brother's Assualt on an Innocent Child last August, I asked the question:
Are these "drug warriors" anything more than child molesters in this case?
Justice David H. Souter seems to agree with me, writing in his opinion (emphasis added):
The meaning of such a search, and the degradation its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific suspicions.
Justice Clarence Thomas however, the lone dissenter on the case, wrote:
Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment ... Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments, nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school.
For a Supreme Court Justice that I generally believe gets it right, he's way out of line on this one!
Justice Thomas' opinion here, is radical, bizarre and dangerous. It is the very type of thought that has our country in the situation it is today. If we're going to "share" our parenting responsibilities with the State, allowing them free-range to humiliate our children as they please, make no mistake about it, freedom is unquestionably doomed.
First of all, the judges were not deciding "the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment." I'm not a judge, nor even a lawyer, and I can figure that out. And let me be straight-up here ... while I do believe that generally parents should take the teacher/administrators side (it's how we learn), but if this had been one of my little nieces or nephews ... there would have been an entirely different case being tried. I would have personally went and kicked the principal's ass!
Oh, cry me a river over your "vigilante justice" mantras as well. The state was the violator in this case, so they certainly weren't about to "serve and protect." These school officials are child molesters in my book. So any amount of trouble for me, would be a small price to pay, for doing what is right by protecting them.
"We the people" either have rights or we don't. There is no middle ground. Justice Thomas seems to feel "we the people" have no rights, outside the arbitrary political-constructs of law. With an economy on the verge of collapse and a government on the verge of default, the people of this country better start taking their natural rights seriously and know who they belong to, if we wish to pass freedom on, to future generations.
In the case of Savana Redding, Justice Souter wrote that what was missing in the case, "was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear."
Yet in spite of this fact, that there was no "probable cause," Justice Thomas would prefer to let deviant school administrators keep strip-searching children! Every American should be outraged.
It's Put-Up or Shut-Up Time America!
Do you want freedom? Or doesn't it really matter to you anymore? As long as "our team" wins, that's all that matters. Right?
A Christian Perspective:
"Spare the rod, spoil the child." You've heard that before, right? It's from the Bible, right?
Um, no ... the Bible doesn't say that at all. The statement is nothing but a poor translation of Proverbs 13:24, which actually says:
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
Unfortunately, we "modern wonders of humanity," have perverted this beautiful and sentimental statement, just like we've done with most everything else.
A good shepherd does not beat his sheep with the rod, but he uses it instead, to guide them with a gentle touch. His rod is not used for "punishment." You teach a child with love, and inspire discipline in a child with gentle, consistent guidance. Just as a shepherd guides his flock.
Jesus did not teach you to use force against anyone, let alone your child. So when you advocate for (support/sit on your hands, etc.) the State to use force, not only do you violate His word, but you also place the State above Him, making it your god. In fact, any time you sanction the State to do what Jesus would not, you are guilty of the practice of idolatry.
