The Cruz Case: The State’s Kindly Cruelty

Unintentionally and accidentally the school boycotts have fortuitously stumbled on the best way to achieve the physical safety of students; not for the irrelevant and nonsensical reason proposed (more of the failed policies that have been proven ineffective) but by removing them from these union/government indoctrination camps where they are incarcerated and contained in self-defense-free designated target zone holding pens to await slaughter. Changing this temporary absence to a permanent one would accomplish more for these children’s physical safety than all the multitude of present or future ‘laws’ could ever hope to. Public schools are facilities where the inmates are propagandized and indoctrinated drones who have been force-fed what their masters wish them to believe but never taught how to think for themselves. Their sell-removal would also materially aid in their genuine and actual “education”, a process that obviously is not occurring in the public schools as evidenced by their sycophantic advocacy of such intellectually bankrupt “solutions”.

Liberty and security need not always be at odds; however, they are rarely in balance.

All human beings, and high school students are no exception, have rights to due process under the laws which (ideally) are designed to protect them. It's not entirely clear in the public record, but I suspect young Cruz may have been formally identified as a special education student. The "alternative" school to which he was sent, was, I believe, a special education separate day school and he could not have gotten there without a diagnosis. (Full disclosure, I am a former special educator and worked in a quasi-administrative capacity.)

Special education law includes all sorts of protections of due process. And this is, I submit, a good thing. Otherwise, the state, in loco parentis, might take upon itself to power to expel or exclude all sorts of undesirables -- kids who look different, kids who question authority, kids who don't learn as quickly as their age-peers, kids (in short) who pose no threat to anyone (except perhaps to a few adult martinets with fragile egos).

I will acknowledge that something seems to have gotten off-balance in the treatment of Mr. Cruz. We likely need to have a better way to ensure that an individual's right to due process does not trump other individuals' rights to be safe in their own schools. But no-one should imagine the solution is simple -- neither those on the left nor those on the right.

If punishment alone were a deterrent, our prisons would be nearly empty.

An insecure citizenry will clamor for police surveillance and constant monitoring to stop muggings and homicides. Desperate parents will agree to soul-crushing restrictions so that Timmy won't keep coming home with bruises and ripped clothes.

So if your agenda calls for less freedom, you will be very gentle with dangerous criminals.

The worst thing is the bureaucrats who coddle juvenile criminals don't even realize that they are paving the road to Hell. But their handlers do.