Maggie Gets Antagonistic: Things That Should Be Legal

     Alright, listen up, fucks.  This is an opinion piece through-and-through, no writing stuff, except as far as anything and everything is related to writing.  It feels like the world is in shambles and I just have to talk about some shitty aspects of the law that DON'T have anything to do with our idiot-in-chief, or I am going to EXPLODE.

     ...  I'm sorry I called you a fuck, you're a beautiful person inside and out and I shouldn't have taken my aggression out on you like that.  That's on me, my bad.

     I mean, the heading says "Maggie Gets Antagonistic" for a reason, but it wasn't fair of me to hop out with that one without explaining what that means first.  Basically, I sometimes need to vent about stuff.  Sometimes very aggressively, such that even my friends would think I was mad at them, when in reality I'm just mad about the situation.

     I also think it's really funny when I'm reading an informative article with about as much professionalism as President Cheeto-Man, which is why I like Cracked.com and Chuck Wendig so much.  But I also feel bad when I do things like greet people with "Listen up, fucks," and I wouldn't want anyone to think I was trying to hurt them.  So when I decide I need to discard my professional candy coating and inject venom from my veins into yours, I'm gonna get antagonistic, and label my articles as such.

      Anyway.  It seems pretty ridiculous to me that we still criminalize

1.  Marijuana

     Okay okay okay okay alright alright alright alright alright alright I know way to be cliché, Coates, great job, why don't you write about how blue the sky is and how the grass is, it'd be the same amount of original, blah blah blah.

      "Also you already did this one," you add, and I sigh deeply because yes, I did.  A few weeks ago, in case you didn't catch it, I posted a rebuttal to my cousin's facebook post asking about marijuana.

     Those points still stand:  people have a right to dignity of risk, substances are safer and attract less crime when they're legal and can be taxed, tracked, inspected, and controlled, and legalization allows us to study its effects both positive and negative, to the benefit of science and mankind.

     Also, it's not as deadly or addictive as tobacco, it might help improve memory (when used in moderation), it has numerous medical applications that go well beyond pain control, and it's less dangerous to the public than alcohol consumption.  And if you don't believe me, remember that most people don't get into fist fights when they're high.  Most people don't even have the energy or motivation to do things like drive, I mean, when was the last time you heard about someone getting a DUI for pot?  When was the last time you heard about someone getting killed because they or someone else was high?

     It's just ridiculous that we allow these provably deadly substances to circulate, substances dangerous to the health not only of those that partake but those around them, and we draw the line when it comes to silly greens.

     The Federal Government allows arsenic to be used as a pesticide on tobacco, which then retains the poison in concentrations generally between 90 and 780 parts per billion, but sometimes reaching upwards of 2,000 ppb, with an average of 200-400 ppb in the US, our largest manufacturer putting out product with around 250 ppb, which, just fyi, means that at minimum we allow for arsenic levels 9 times higher than the federal maximum for arsenic contamination in drinking water, which is set at 10 ppb by the EPA.

Me, ranting about this same topic on Facebook

     If you think people deserve the dignity of risk inherent in a society in which alcohol and tobacco are legalized, but don't believe in allowing people the same dignity when it comes to something as innocuous as cannabis, you need to get off your high horse and stay out of the way.

     If you protest marijuana but don't have any problems with tobacco or alcohol, you're a hypocrite.  You don't care about safety or health or the good of society, you just care about enforcing your traditionalist values on people who have no interest in a traditionalist lifestyle, and I would be grateful if you stopped.

2.  Polygamy

     Who the hell is it hurting to let someone marry multiple partners?

     The only reasoning behind the law against bigamy is "God said so," which, first of all, isn't true, there's plenty of polygamy in the Bible, and second of all, is super Judeo-Christain-centric, because there are a bunch of religions--Islam, Pagan religions, *heavy sigh* traditional mormonism--that allow for or even encourage multiple partners.  We're not exactly separating church and state here, are we?

     And legally, what the fuck does a marriage do that can't be shared between three people instead of just two?  Joint filing, ability to visit in the hospital, ability to make important decisions for one another's care, automatic joint custody of any children conceived during the union--all the things that same-sex couples have been talking about for years, poly tribes are still being denied.

     If four people live together as, let's say, man and man and wife and wife, and they have a child, the birther automatically has full custody of the child.  If she's married to one of the others, they then also have parental rights, and one of the fathers can put his name on the birth certificate.  If they're savvy (which many people aren't), they'll have the person signing the birth certificate be a different person than the one she's married to.

     These four people provide a very loving home for the child, and it grows up very happily with two moms and two dads that love it to death.  But one day, three of the parents get into an accident; the remaining parental is married to none of them, and isn't allowed to make the tough decisions, maybe not even allowed to visit--the important decisions all go to the grandparents, who never cared for their children's lifestyle.

     And because the remaining parental isn't legally anyone's next of kin, if the four of them hadn't written up a legal document leaving care of the child to one another, and the remaining parent was never made a legal guardian, care of the child reverts back to the grandparents.

     It might be a little confusing, since the child legally had three families that could claim it, but the mother's family will usually win out.  And let's say the mother's family doesn't care for any of their daughter's decisions.  They can take the child back home with them and cut the remaining parental out of the picture completely, denying visits, hiding information, even calling the police if they feel like it, and the remaining parent likely has no legal recourse.  None that anyone will listen to--legally speaking, they were just a roommate, a live-in babysitter.

     And with there being no legal ties, our remaining member of the quad inherits nothing; they could even end up tossed out of their own home if their name isn't on the lease or the mortgage.

     And most people don't think far enough ahead to realize they need to do any paperwork, or list anyone on the birth certificate, or draw up legal documents--my oldest brother was even too daft to list himself on his son's birth certificate, so whenever his relationship with his girlfriend got rocky, everyone would cling to the sides of the boat and pray no one fell over, because if she took my nephew and ran, the law would absolutely 100% be on her side.  Unless he took a paternity test, of course, and while we're certain my nephew is his son, had the test come up negative he would've been out any chance at ever seeing his boy again, even though he raised him, clothed him, fed him; despite all he sacrificed to make sure he could provide for his family.

     Family is more than blood, and marriage is the way that we tell the government, "This person is my family and needs to be treated as such."  Some people believe in it, some people don't, some people go back and forth, but it can protect your ass when things go wrong, and the thing about life is, you never know what direction it's going to go wrong in.

     Polyamorous people deserve to be able to protect themselves against that just as much as monogamous folk do.

     The only halfway cogent argument I've heard against polygamy is that it's "oppressive to women," which is untrue.  Yeah, yeah, I see where you're coming from, in most countries where polygamy is legal it's only polygyny, and the women are sold into it more than they enter into it, but this isn't Saudi Arabia.  We can sing and dance and take off our shirts in public if we feel like it and no one can stop us!
   
      Why the fuck would we assume that in a USA where you can marry multiple people, men would suddenly be able to force women into marriage?  Do you think that's what men are already doing, but just to one woman at a time?

     Women aren't property, and legalizing polygamy won't make them property.  If anything, when you have polyamorous lesbian covens popping up all over the place, and marriages where the men outnumber the women, it'll be hard to see these women entering into an equal and consenting union as anything but their own.  Not to mention the gay harems that want nothing to do with any part of poly but andry.

     Damn it, if three people want to be able to share their lives together without worrying about paperwork or future calamities they should be able to go down to city hall like all the monogamuggles!


3.  Pretending to be married

     This.

     THIS.

     THIS PILE OF ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT if a cop wants to they could arrest u for calling ur boyfriend ur husband cAN U EVEN BELIEVE I mEaN rEaLlY

     Now listen here, cumslut, if I and my boyfriend and a third prospective mate ever decide to tie the knot and we perform a little backyard ceremony to become wife and husband and spouse in the eyes of our God that is our business and ours alone, and if we introduce ourselves as such to people the government has no right, NO RIGHT, to tell us we're committing a crime, I mean for fUCKS SAKE, was it a crime for me to call my brother's girlfriend my sister-in-law before they were actually married?  Was I violating the law that says you're not allowed to "impersonate a married couple?"

     This is the shit that shut down that Sister Wives show, because they were a polygamous gaggle that lived together and called themselves a married family unit and tHE LAW GOT PISSED AND RAN THEM THE FUCK OUTTA UTAH now u tell me, how the goddamn hell do you run someone outta UTAH for POLYGYNY it's the holy land of the mormons for crying out loud I mean JESUS.

     Look at me.  Look me in the eyes.  I mean it, look me in the eyes and tell me who it's hurting for me to call someone my spouse.  It's not like they're claiming it on their taxes, if somebody wants to call their partner their spouse they shouldn't have to get a peace of paper from the government to do it, that's like saying no one can call me Maggie unless I get my name legally changed from Meghan, it's R I D I C U L O U S and I feel so.  much.  hate.  

     i'M ON FIRE INSIDE

     IT IS BURNING ME ALIVE

     I WILL KILL A DUDE

     It's not illegal for me to say I'm gonna kill a dude, but it's illegal for me to use a word to refer to someone with whom I've not signed a legal document wELL FUCK YOU AMERICA, FUCK YOU VERY VERY MUCH, this is the kinda shit the government is supposed to protect against, not a problem it's supposed to cause fucking Republicans always trying to peek into my bedroom window, wELL GUESS WHAT

     SIT ON IT AND SPIN

     was it illegal for my parents to call themselves divorced when they were only legally separated

     was it illegal for my parents to call themselves separated before the paperwork went through

     is it against the law for my friend to call a kid his adopted son because he's neither his son nor adopted but just a kid he took under his wing

     is it against the law for me to call my boyfriend's parents my in-laws

     I just.  There's just,  Why.  There is so much Why.  Why is this even, who decided this was a good idea, why would it matter, I mean back in the olden days families had a little ceremony and the couple fucked three times and that was that, married in the eyes of the lord and everyone was happy, and I just

     HHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHA    N    G  E   RRRRRRRRRRRR

     Okay.  Alright,  Okay okay alright alright alright, let me just.  Breathe a second.

     Okay.

     There's no reason this should be an issue.  There's no reason for this law.  It's a stupid law, and everyone should be able to live their life without fear of suddenly being brought up on charges for something as innocuous as behaving like a married couple.

    Fuck these laws.  Fuck them hard in the ass without lube and don't let them finish, they are stupid and I am tired and I hope they die goodnight have a wonderful day, I love you you're beautiful never change Maggie out

*drops mic*

http://pmj.bmj.com/content/79/933/391
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj60pjp0sHUAhXBdT4KHXijDVsQFggsMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpmj.bmj.com%2Fcontent%2F79%2F933%2F391&usg=AFQjCNGghttp4miFE4dqDZ0lyC-6xxouyw&sig2=v6sV3fWggjwZ2kM-GP0Gew
https://books.google.com/books?id=ffatDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=arsenic+in+tobacco+ppb&source=bl&ots=H0S82j2LCX&sig=Q9ve7YQnQE9Smu7PouGK0j-6gZg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidtfbx9bnUAhXBdT4KHSmVB14Q6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=arsenic%20in%20tobacco%20ppb&f=false
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/massdep/water/drinking/arsenic-in-private-well-water-faqs.html

Maggie Responds: An Argument For Marijuana Legalization

     So a while back, I pop onto Facebook, whoop-die-doodly-doo, and I spot this little gem from my cousin:

     Of course, being who I am, I spent an hour concocting a response, and being as proud of it as I am, I decided to post it here for y'all to peruse and enjoy:

     If an adult with full cognition chooses with an informed mind to engage in a self-destructive behavior, I don't think it's the government's place to tell them they can't, the same way it isn't the government's place to ration our meals to prevent obesity, or pick a career for us to prevent us from falling flat on our faces when we pick something too lofty. We have a right to the dignity of risk. And fewer people start smoking every year; anti-drug propaganda has already been extremely effective, though I think the most effective methods of deterring use of harmful substances is 1) Honest, straight-forward education and information (lies, propaganda, and disinformation just sows the seeds of discontent and rebellion among the young), and 2) Dismantling the taboo. As [REDACTED] mentioned above, prohibition of a substance just encourages black market dealing, and it creates an instant market among rebels without a cause; it becomes "cool," because it's anti-establishment to partake. But when you legalize something like marijuana, it's no longer "cool," it's just a normal thing that happens. 

     In the first year of marijuana legalization in Colorado, teen use dropped .8%, and has since dropped another ~2.5% (depending on what study you draw from). 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/colorado-s-teen-marijuana-usage-dips-after-legalization/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/21/one-of-the-greatest-fears-about-legalizing-marijuana-has-so-far-failed-to-happen/?utm_term=.a76d27a614bc
https://www.thecannabist.co/2017/12/11/teen-marijuana-use-colorado-decline/94306/

     And now that everyone can get marijuana from legalized, regulated sources, Colorado and Washington no longer have need of shady dealers, which can get rid of so much related activity (debt-related shootings, for instance), and because the FDA sets standards for the quality of weed sold, you don't have the chance to get poisoned by poorly grown or stored batches, or having it laced with something you didn't order. Also, the guy at your local dispensary is much less likely to follow you home and try to steal your stuff than that dealer you met on the dark web.

     People trying to stay on the good side of the law also don't have to go to synthetic marijuana to get a buzz, either, which has a huge reputation for poisoning people, or eliciting bad reactions even when not tainted. 
(https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/K2-Mass-Overdoses-Brooklyn-Bedford-Stuyvesant-NYC-386499841.html
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Reported-Brawl-in-Gaslamp-District-Leaves-Two-Unconscious-352960091.html
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-terrifying-reasons-you-shouldnt-smoke-synthetic-weed/) 

     Basically, legalization reduces general (or at least, underage) consumption, and makes it a whole hell of a lot safer for the people who do continue usage, and I think that's the best defense for legalization of things like marijuana, or even tobacco or alcohol; people will find a way to get it whether you legalize it or not, so we should try to make it as safe as possible for the people who are willing to jump through whatever hoops the government sets up for them to get to it.

     Plus, the tax revenue contributes to schools and libraries and roads and other necessary infrastructure, and legalization of recreational weed in Colorado and Washington has allowed us to do SO MUCH VITAL RESEARCH on marijuana, both to determine how much it really affects the mind (because it's not been legal, we still have so many questions we haven't really been able to answer, like what exactly the link to cognitive functioning is long term, etc), and ESPECIALLY on how it can help medically--they've been able to do amazing things with medical marijuana, mitigating the effects of epilepsy, movement disorders, chronic pain, etc., and we'd never be able to do that kind of wide-spread experimentation, particularly with subjects as young as some of them have been, without the elimination of the roadblocks associated with testing illegal substances on human beings.

     There are lots of reasons not to smoke marijuana--studies have linked it to Alzheimer's, it can trigger mental health issues in people whose genetic code is so afflicted, it impacts immediate perspicacity--but people have a right to their dignity of risk, and if they're going to use, they're going to use. We might as well allow society as a whole to benefit from it, even if you think the people who use it are stupid for doing so.

The Allen Lee Affair: A Question of Justice

Maggie C

1/5/15

The Allen Lee Affair:  A Question of Justice

“For more than forty years, the United States courts have recognized that students do not check their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door.”

—Judge Michael Davis (Tim Cushing, 1)

Allen Lee, a straight-A student (NEWS SERVICES, 1) in Cary, Illinois, was arrested near his home on April 24th, 2007 (Long and Starks, 1) and charged with two counts of disorderly conduct.  The possible repercussions might be as high as thirty days of incarceration per charge and, together, fines of up to $3000.  As a result, the young athlete (Wendy, 1) was suspended indefinitely from school and notified by his recruiter that his marine enlistment was being nullified due to the misdemeanor charges.  What did Allen Lee do wrong?   

He turned in his homework.   

Shortly before the arrest was made, Allen Lee was asked by his creative writing teacher, Ms. Capron (Keeshan, 1), to turn in a free-writing assignment in which, according to Lawyer Thomas Loizzo, he was to “‘Be creative; there will be no judgment and no censorship.’” (Associated Press, 1)  However, in the wake of a college shooting in West Virginia, Allen’s work was determined to be not only inappropriate for school but, evidently, inappropriate for society.  

After turning in his assignment Ms. Capron took the paper to the principal and school psychologist who determined that Allen, in writing about drugs, shootings, alcohol, profanity, and necrophilia, was not just a trouble-maker but a criminal. (NEWS SERVICES, 1)

It makes sense, with the Virginia Tech Massacre only a week behind, that the school would be on high alert for any signs of mental or emotional disturbance in their students; under that kind of duress, responding with fear, anger, and worry is all perfectly natural and understandable.  What is not understandable is the arrest of a student for doing what he was told.

Many Americans don’t ponder their rights too deeply—growing up without making waves or causing a fuss, they feel safe and secure in the knowledge that, for their purposes, America’s protections are absolute.  Without paying attention to the world around them, they fail to understand just how brittle the system is and how much trouble every small infraction can cause.   

Historically speaking, it’s clear to see that the law favors a restriction of human rights while students are on campus, and in the eyes of many that seems relatively fair.  Still, the subject can leave a child—or even an adult!—feeling a touch ambivalent.  When you’re dealing with the futures of young adults, not just the shaping of their minds but, potentially, their ability to procure and keep a job, how much restriction is too much?

Because Allen Lee is a citizen of the United States of America, I posit that his incarceration was unjust, unconstitutional, and that the school was completely out of line in involving the police.  As citizens of the United States of America, children are entitled to protection under the first amendment of the bill of rights, which states that:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  (Congress, 1)

This amendment asserts that we as citizens of the United States are entitled to speak and write essentially whatever we please to.  To quote the adage, it’s a free country, and within the bounds of this country, Mr. Allen Lee wrote freely.

Allen insisted that he was encouraged to express himself freely, without censorship or stopping to think about what he was writing, which is, according to the Allyn and Bacon Guide to Reading, exactly how a free write is to be conducted (Ramage, Bean, and Johnson, 32–33).  The entire point is free association, allowing the mind to ramble so that you can figure out the directions you need to take in order to complete an assignment.  If she gave the class a free write assignment without a goal she shouldn’t be surprised at the results, since a teenaged free write without direction is bound to run a course straight through the teenage mind.

Even if Allen’s essay was without any academic merit and miles outside of the curriculum’s atmosphere, the matter should never have exceeded school level.  Allen did nothing but write whatever came to mind, which is, to be quite frank, the opposite of a crime.  Even the school’s claim of disorderly conduct can hardly be counted as more than a sham; while Allen Lee admitted to wanting to “rile” Ms. Capron (Keeshan, 1), his attempts don’t even count as an attempt to incite a riot, since to incite a riot one must actually desire a riot to occur and be joined by at least two more individuals (Matson, 1), and the charge, very specifically:

Shall not be deemed to mean the mere oral or written (1) advocacy of ideas or (2) expression of belief, not involving advocacy of any act or acts of violence or assertion of the rightness of, or the right to commit, any such act or acts (“Incite,” 1).

To all appearances, Allen’s essay included no advocacy of violence—according to his explanation of his essay, most of it is made up of song quotes, nonsense, and ramblings about his future military life and his dislike of his teacher (Poulsen, 1), none of which happens to be a crime.   

Being an honors student, Allen should have known better than to attempt to get a rise out of his teacher, but the police had no place in pressing charges for a juvenile attempt at a prank.  If the school actually cared about Allen Lee’s mental or emotional well-being, or even the safety of the rest of their students, they would have first asked Allen to explain his essay or speak with the school psychologist, not forced him out the door with his future crumbling in his hands.   

To have someone—anyone—arrested for what they’ve written creatively is an absolute travesty, going against the very founding principles of our nation.  If an adult were subject to the same treatment, the courts would find it completely impermissible; the police might not even bothering answering the call, and if they did then the case clearly would have been thrown out immediately as a violation of the first amendment.  

Schools, meant to assist students in their personal and public growth as human beings and future productive members of society, are put into a unique position of power that allows them to quite literally control the fates of their students—with a properly placed phone call or a misplaced email, a child’s dreams can be brilliantly and brutally pulverized.  Mr. Allen Lee stared down the barrel of that gun and watched the legal system quiver with their finger on the trigger, his military dreams in shambles until at last Ms. Capron and Mr. Thomas Lazzio came to an agreement and all charges were dropped, allowing Allen the chance to re-enlist for service in the marines.  (Keeshan, 1)

Ultimately, for Allen, things turned out okay—but they had the very real potential to not turn out okay.  Because someone else had committed a crime nearly seven hundred miles away a week before, Allen was treated like a rioteer for the sake of completing an assignment unsatisfactorily, all in the name of “safety”—not his safety or the safety of the other students either, since he who gives up freedom for safety is neither safe nor free, and allowing such a violent reaction to such an ambiguous paper would set a precedent of incarceration for any student who wrote something that a teacher felt was “inappropriate.”  

There are those who might believe that Allen’s punishment was just, supporting the decisions of the administrators due to such passages as, “So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone…, then had sex with the dead bodies” and “Blood sex and Booze. Drugs Drugs Drugs are fun. Stab, Stab, Stab,​ S…t…a…b…, poke” (Poulsen, 1) and the proximity of this event to the shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a young man took 32 lives and then his own (Associated Press, 1).  It is the fundamental belief of these individuals that safety comes before freedom, especially in the case of children in a school setting, and to some extent they’re correct.   

According to the 1985 case of New Jersey v. T.L.O., students can expect to experience reduced privacy and freedoms inside school grounds, but according to Tinker v. Des Moines, unless students cause a disturbance large enough to distract the class they continue to be protected by the first amendment.  A creative essay featuring violence, turned directly into the teacher without stirring up the student body, therefore violates no laws, and should not have exceeded the school’s reach if and when punishment became a concern.  If in fact, in Indiana, it is a law that “disturbing writing” is counted as disorderly conduct (Landmark, 1), Indiana is breaking the federal law, and this case could have easily gone through to the Supreme Court if pressed; as said by Judge Rosemary Pooler, “The protection of free speech cannot depend on a listener’s veto; if a listener or reader misinterprets a comment, that is not the speaker or the writer’s fault.”  (Hilden, 3)

Additionally, all individuals in America are to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, and the addition of a second charge in relation to the temporal proximity of the VT and CG cases (Associated Press, 1) assumes that, first of all, Allen was inspired by the VT killer, and second, that Allen was somehow involved in the VT killer’s case.  

Allen may have been inspired by the killer—when school shootings happen, they tend to worm their way into everyone’s minds, planting seeds in their subconscious—but he made no indication that he would be following in the boy’s footsteps, and threatened no one.  The one remark he made that could be really worrisome was “No quarrel on your qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don’t be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting,” (Poulsen, 1) but it was not, in and of itself, a threat, and thus was not illegal.   

There was also no evidence to support any claim that Allen could have been an accomplice to the killer, which is exactly what he’s being accused of when the killer’s actions are being used to heap more punishment upon Allen.  The actions of others are irrelevant when trying or arresting an individual—if a young woman smoked marijuana while her neighbor was being murdered and the police found out, she would be arrested for drug possession, not murder; if one purposeful car accident occurred a week after another, no one would assume that the second driver was “inspired” by the first.  How then does it make sense for Allen to be doubly charged for a single offense?  

“But he should have known better than to write that,” someone might say, “he deserves to be punished,” and I see where they may be coming from.  I concede that his actions were inconsistent with the moral code demanded of him by the school, the report being laced with profanity and such, and while I do hold that Ms. Capron’s insistence that the students were not to censor themselves should have exonerated him of the charges (you should not, after all, demand an absence of censure if you do not want an absence of censure), the school was well within its power to give him detention or ISS or any of the million-and-one such punishments they have in their repertoire.   

If the school was really concerned about Allen Lee’s mental health, they should have called his parents, had a talk with him, and possibly sent him to the school psychologist.  There are so many more paths they could have taken before asking law enforcement to step in.  If he posed a real threat to society, would he have passed his psychological entrance exams for the marines?  Would they not have been able to decide that he was too spitfire to be ranked among them before he was accepted?  

Some believe that all mentions of violence in writing point to a twisted and dangerous mind, but it may have been his inability to continue to express himself which could have caused him to snap.  My mother is a Master’s-level Psychologist working as a Behavioral Intervention Specialist for Pathways.  She’s worked in her field for more than a quarter of a century and she often has her clients keep private journals just so that they can get rid of the ideas bouncing around their heads; “You have to get it out,” Mary B. Coates once said, “and if you can’t talk about it, the only way is to write, draw, or act upon the impulse.”   

I myself have never seriously hurt another human being, yet I write about violence almost constantly.  Violence of all kinds, from a timid fistfight between brothers to bloody murders over trust funds, all the way to the horrors of necro, pedo, and all those other philias, are a part of everyday life.  Not a pleasant part, no, but a part nonetheless, and writing is about life, the truth both good and bad, ugly and euphoric.  To write about these things makes no one “evil” or “twisted” or “wrong.”  If it did, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Nabokov might have some explaining to do.

It seems to me that the biggest issue here is Allen’s vehemence toward his English teacher, which he expresses openly.  No, it’s not a nice thing to do, but what teacher alive never attempted to make one of their professors uncomfortable at some time or another?  Even the most respectful students I know have attempted to get a rise out of their teacher at some point or another. As valedictorian of my class, I once spent twenty minutes trying to convince my Trigonometry teacher that English was better than Mathematics, simply because I was better at English and I took pleasure in trying to gain the upper hand.   

Granted I liked that teacher, and I didn’t intend to hurt his feelings in any way, shape, or form, but if a student cannot express their dislike for a teacher, how are we to know if the teacher is doing wrong?  Does a student just stand by when a teacher bullies one of their fellows because they don’t want to get in trouble?  Should they be less passive-aggressive in their approach and confront the teacher directly?  Can there possibly be a right answer?   

It all comes down to this; the fact of the matter is that when Cary-Grove High had Allen Lee arrested, they broke the law.  In a single blow, without first trying to discover what was actually meant by Allen’s essay, they could have destroyed his entire future—sixty days in jail might have cost him his chance to graduate with his class, his marine enlistment, funding for college, the whole nine yards.   

One of the definitions of violence is “injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation” (“Violence,” 1), and in their neglect of US law and internal policy, the Cary-Grove school district injured Allen Lee and his future both by distortion and infringement.   

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez once said that “The systematic disregard for children’s basic constitutional rights by agencies with a duty to protect and serve these children betrays the public trust.”  (Mohr, 1)  I have a teacher who likes to say that if you don’t understand something, half the class is likely sitting there hoping you’ll ask the question they’re too afraid to, and it’s important to draw the connection.  The betrayal of the public is also a betrayal of the individual, and we cannot forget that the infringement of one child’s rights is indicative of hundreds, maybe thousands more, who either don’t know that they’re being infringed upon, or have been silenced by faculty, family, or officers of the law that don’t themselves understand the kind of harm they’re doing.   

Therefore the violence enacted against Allen Lee was violence enacted against mankind itself, for where one freedom flies, the rest fall with.  It was not Cary-Grove’s place to call for the  arrest of honors’ student Allen Lee; it was instead their place to protect him, and had they not pulled the charges, I’m certain that the courts would have agreed.   

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