Civics Lesson

A student in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, as part of a class project on the Bill of Rights, created a poster by pinning a picture of Baby Doc to a wall with a thumbtack through his head and then holding the classic "thumbs down" pose with his own hand while he had someone take a picture of the whole thing.

It was supposed to be a poster that illustrated our right to dissent. So far so good, but he made the mistake of taking the film to his local Wal-Mart for developing, where an employee, a good citizen/Gestapo agent working in the photo department, saw the picture and called the local cops, who in turn called in the Secret Service.

Yes, the Secret Service. Who came to the high school where the student is a senior and took the offending poster into custody. Alternet has the complete story.

That kid got a lesson in the Bill of Rights, all right, but it wasn't the one the teacher wanted him to get.

And there's a lesson in it for all of us. I have argued in this space before that we are seeing one "isolated incident" after another of our Constitutional rights being trampled, abrogated, ignored or destroyed, with the sum total effect being one of subtle and not-so-subtle intimidation.

Well fuck 'em. I won't be silenced and I won't shut up on my own. We still have some rights left and I won't give them up without a fight. I advise you to do the same.

And don't shop at Wal-Mart. Like we needed another reason for that.