Think of it as practical education in civics, and the lesson that words don’t always mean what they say:

1. First Amendment: Symbolic free speech is protected, unless you say or do something that is politically incorrect;

2. Second Amendment: There is an individual right to bear arms, unless the gov’t entity decides that you might actually exercise that right or want to learn to do so; and,

3. Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments Due Process: You have a right to due process of law, including notice and a meaningful opportunity for a hearing, and protection against arbitrary and capricious action by government officials, unless those pesky rights get in the way to taking away your other rights.

Brake the serfs to the yoke while they are young and they will not realize what life is like without its burden.

A Calvert schools spokeswoman, Gail Bennett, said she could not comment on the case because student discipline matters are protected by confidentiality laws.

Just who is being protected by the so-called confidentiality laws? It is certainly not the student who has been punished. Rather it is the school system that uses the law as an excuse for not having to defend their outrageous behavior.

At the board meeting, Kimberly Roof, executive director of administration for Calvert schools, said that a group of school leaders and others had met to discuss such ideas but that they did not support using intent as a factor in considering cases. That, she said, would be “putting our principals in a very, very precarious situation if they were trying to figure out what someone’s intent might be. It’s really about the legality of the situation that they are dealing with at the time, and what is the threat that someone is perceiving to themselves.”

My god, we can’t expect principals to be able to think and use common sense. Clearly that is asking too much from them.