Raised in Captivity
The most frustrating thing, for me at least, is that it's hard to communicate this stuff without putting it into terms that are taken as unreasonably alarmist.
There was a news story today to the effect that many US high school kids don't consider their First Amendment rights to be particularly important: The Bill of What?
It doesn't really surprise me, as many of the kids about to reach legal adulthood have experienced, through the public school system, life without many of the rights we take for granted.
We're talking about kids who, since elementary or middle school, have been conditioned to:
- A daily pat-down or stroll through a metal detector
- Random suspicionless searches of their personal possessions, sometimes using drug dogs
- Mandatory urine tests as a prerequisite to participate in after-school activities