Cry Freedom (& Dictators Be Damned)

At least 11 students at a Catholic high school northwest of Toronto have been suspended after what officials call "cyber-bullying'' of a principal.
Students at Robert F. Hall Catholic Secondary School in Caledon East started to vent about their principal Edward McMahon on the popular networking website Facebook.com, calling him a "Grinch of School Spirit.''
But a school board spokesperson said the posted comments then became vulgar, derogatory, demeaning and sexually explicit, according to the Toronto Star.
As a result, 11 male and female students, which included a student council member and a top school athlete, were suspended last week for up to eight days.

(Click on the link to read the whole article.)

I have to say that I’m absolutely stunned reading this. We live in a country where Jewish lawyers will defend those who deny the holocaust happened because they believe in free speech….

But teenagers who question their principal are suspended?

As one of the suspended teens says in the article:

"Some did go over the top, but some of us didn't say a whole lot and we're out," said one student.
"I wasn't saying he was an idiot, I said he acted like an idiot and that's my right, and the fact that they suspended me for saying he acted a certain way is a little over the edge."
Another student said she was suspended after responding to a posting made by a male student who mentioned inciting a riot to fight the ban on electronic devices. She said she was opposed to the riot but supported lifting the ban.

You know, I had this fun experience at LCC, because I knew there was someone who would be there I have absolutely no respect for at all. Zero. Why?

Because I used to be on the board, as an elected official of a group that allegedly operated with bylaws and procedures, with her. Until I disagreed. God help you if you didn’t agree with something.

And you know what the issues were? Members had made complaints about our meeting location, because it was in the not-so-savoury part of the city and some members had been approached after meetings when they had to walk to their cars in the dark. There were knifings and the local trade is in drugs and sex.

Uh, gee, yeah, you think some people aren’t crazy about the location?

But there was a refusal to even consider change of venue.

And this person made an announcement that I had resigned and was leaving the group and then ordered me to turn over all my materials.

Yeah, bloody fucking wondrous democracy. You think I respect people like this? Not one bit.

Of course I didn’t just let them kick me. Blogged about it. Talked to several people – perfectly willing to answer questions to anyone who asked. I know others who left the group.

And so they should have, if they didn’t feel the group was being run properly or meetings held in a safe location, or being run by the principles set forth in the bylaws.

It’s the number 1 reason I have issues with a certain political figure, beyond the war, beyond anything else. It’s the way people were made to fear to speak up. If you spoke against anything the government did you were practically a traitor.

Whatever happened to free speech?

Whatever happened to democracy?

What happened to the very principles America was founded on?

Any time I see organizations that clamp down on people with the legitimate right to express a difference of opinion, any time I see them run like a dictatorship with minimal or no accountability to their members, I’m going to think about these kids (the ones who legitimately questioned the policies) getting suspended from school.

And hope that these kids are the leaders of tomorrow – those who do not blindly accept policy but actually use their brains to question it, to think it through and make up their own minds about what they think.

Three cheers for those who are more than sheep.

Maybe if there were more people like that in the world, some of the worst atrocities would never have happened, for people wouldn’t have stayed silent to protect themselves, their job, their reputation or whatever else they thought they had to lose – they just would have stood up on the side of what was right.