Disclaimer: This is a rant. It will probably be long, and it will definitely cover multiple subjects. They will all have a common theme: Why the US is no longer a free country.
First let's talk about children. Specifically, let's discuss "free range children." Evidently some parents let their children roam further without supervision than other parents are comfortable with. And, those other parents take offense at this! Now, I totally understand throwing people in jail and taking their kids away, when they are starving their kids, beating them, or otherwise actively abusing or neglecting them. There are some things all children are entitled to. One of them is learning to do things on their own. No one has any business criticizing a parent for how they choose to do this, unless there is a very high probability of serious harm. Here is a news flash for anyone reading this who just said, "But without supervision, the child could be kidnapped." This happens only extremely rarely! For comparison, 22% of children in the US live in poverty. Poverty has repeatedly proven to cause serious harm to children. Letting your kids go a mile to park and back several times a week has an extremely low incident of harm (fractions of a percent), and most of the time, the harm done is very far from serious. All laws and social media attacks on these parents do is take away their freedom to teach their children responsibility in the best way they know how.
So, here is all of my advice to all of those entitled idiots who get involved in Twitter and Facebook attacks of any parent who let's their kid stray more than a few feet from the house without constant supervision: If you really care about the well being of kids that much, get off of Twitter and Facebook, and spend some of your time and money helping the 22% that are definitely being harmed by being in poverty. If you cannot bother to do that much, then please, shut up!
Now let's talk about putting kids in jail. In fact, let's talk about putting kids in jail for breaking school rules and some non-criminal legal violations. Evidently (I did not know this), while it is a crime for a non-minor to provide a minor with alcohol, it is not a crime for a minor to drink alcohol. It is illegal, but it is not a criminal offense. Naturally, this explains why so many minors in the US end up getting put in jail with actual criminals for drinking. Recently, a Virginia youth who happens to be autistic was charged with assaulting a police officer. What was the officer doing? He was detaining the boy illegally, for breaking a school rule. Further, the rule broken was an unofficial rule that applied only to the boy. The school made a rule that this boy was not allowed to leave his classroom until all other students had exited. When he chose not to follow this rule, the school administrators asked the police officer to step in. The police officer did so (despite the fact that no laws had been broken and there was no reasonable suspicion that a law had or would be broken) by attempting to force the boy to go to the principal's office. The boy attempted to escape, and the officer tackled him (wait, who is getting charged with assault here) and arrested him. By all counts, the officer was illegally detaining the boy, and then the officer assaulted the boy when he attempted to escape the illegal detention. Now, let me ask you one question: Since when do schools get to legislate laws? Is this how it works in a free country? We put people in jail for doing things that are not strictly crimes, and we allow schools to legislate highly specific laws without even documenting them. Right, and then we protect the police officers that enforce these "laws" and press charges against the victims. This does not sound like a free country to me!
Now I want to discuss one that is not related to children (at least, not directly). Did you know that if a well dressed man in a business suit decides to take a quick nap on a bench in the park during his lunch break, nobody cares! If that one does not surprise you, maybe this one will: If a man wearing dirty clothing that is not quite his size tries to do the same thing, he will be fined or even arrested! Since when do police in a free country treat people differently based on how they are dressed? I mean, think about it. The guy with the nice suit is doing the exact same thing, but because he has nicer clothing, he does not get in trouble. The fact is that in most cities where this happens, taking a nap on a park bench is not illegal. Homeless people don't get charged with "sleeping on a park bench illegally." They get charged with "disorderly conduct," which happens to be disorderly only because they are homeless and cannot afford clean, well fitted clothing.
Now, I understand the concern. No one wants their beautiful park to be tainted with a bunch of dirty, poorly dressed bums (if you just nodded your head to that sentence, shame on you, you horrible unfeeling bigot). If that is the case, then fix it. No, I don't mean fix it by discriminating even more against American citizens with the same legal rights as you that happen to have fallen upon hard times. I mean, buy them nicer clothes, help them find jobs, help them rent an apartment, or at least write your appropriate government representative a letter explaining how they have a moral responsibility to make sure that poor American citizens are not starving on the streets. If you want your park and your city streets to be beautiful, without people wearing old, dirty clothes, do something real about it. If all of the bums have nice clothes (which are not that expensive, you miserly scrooge), then you won't have to look at old, dirty clothes every time you walk by them. If all of the homeless people have homes, then you won't have to see them sleeping on the park benches. If everyone has sufficient food, then you won't have to see the lines outside the soup kitchens or the people handing out food to all of the bums in the park. You can fix it! Even if you don't have much money (who am kidding: if you have the time to complain and worry about this, you have enough money to help), you can still write letters to your mayor, your city council (heck, attend the meetings in person), you state legislature, your state governor, your Congressmen, and even the President. Instead of trying to push all of the homeless people out of your city (which, just for the record, will make you a murderer in my eyes, because they will probably starve or die of exposure out there), doing something real about it. Freedom is not just for the rich. The US is supposed to be a free country for everyone. As long as we are discriminating against the poor, the US is not a free country.
Alright, that is about it for now. I could discuss a lot more topics, but I am tired, and I have run out of steam. Maybe another day I will read a bunch of articles that remind me of how entitled and deliberately blind the middle and upper classes in the US are, and then maybe I will rant again. Thanks for listening, and please take my advice. Instead of buying that new yacht, think about all of the homeless people making your city ugly, and go out and buy them all a new set of clothes (and, it will be way cheaper than the yacht).
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