You Are the Enemy
Update, December 16, 2004


Loudoun County, Virginia, has gone in a few short years 
from being a bucolic rural backwater to a bedroom 
community for Greater Washington City. It is now 
considered the fastest-growing county in the United 
State.

Despite the inevitable boost in crime rates resulting 
from this population explosion, Barney Fife and his 
colleagues apparently still have enough time to carry 
out their sacred duty to protect the Empire from the 
terrifying threat of thoughtcrimes committed by little 
boys. Sleep soundly, denizens of Trantor: the Loudoun 
County Sheriff's Department is on the job!

[First story]
  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
A64726-2004Dec14.html (You must register first to 
access this story; registration is free.)

(From the Washington Post)

> Va. Boy's Defiant Words Draw Police Response
> Investigators Visit Home After Student 
> Allegedly Wishes Harm on Americans
> 
> By Rosalind S. Helderman
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page B01
> 
> When the two plainclothes Loudoun County 
> sheriff's investigators showed up on her 
> Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous. 
> But when they told her why they were there, she 
> got angry: A complaint had been filed alleging 
> that her 11-year old son had made "anti-American 
> and violent" statements in school. 
> 
> She was aware of an incident at Belmont Ridge 
> Middle School in which her son, Yishai Asido, 
> was assigned to write a letter to U.S. Marines 
> and responded, according to his teacher, by 
> saying, "I wish all Americans were dead and 
> that American soldiers should die." Yishai and 
> Albaugh deny that the boy wished his 
> countrymen dead.

The inevitable question this raises is, of course: so 
what if he did? He's eleven, for heaven's sake! But the 
geniuses at the local copshop somehow felt that such an 
inflammatory statement was serious enough to sacrifice 
valuable doughnut-eating time to investigate. Besides, 
they had further reasons to be suspicious:

> Albaugh thought the whole thing was resolved 
> in school until Investigators Robert LeBlanc 
> and Kelly Poland showed up last week. What 
> followed, she said, was two hours of polite 
> but intense and personal questioning.
> 
> They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the 
> military. They asked whether she knows any 
> foreigners who have trouble with American
> policy. They mentioned a German friend who 
> had been staying with the family and asked 
> whether the friend sympathized with the 
> Taliban. They also inquired whether she might 
> be teaching her children "anti-American 
> values," she said.

"They mentioned a German friend who had been staying 
with the family ..." Aha! A foreigner! And this in an 
area that positively swarms with them! Obviously, this 
family deserved a closer look.

> Toward the end of the conversation, Albaugh's 
> husband, Alon Asido, arrived home. Asido said 
> the pair then spent another hour talking to 
> him, mostly about his life in Israel and his 
> more than four years in an elite combat unit 
> there.
> 
> Before the investigators left, one deputy said 
> their "concerns had been put to rest," Albaugh 
> said.

Well, isn't that nice. After three hours of 
interrogation, time that could have been spent much more 
productively sleeping or drinking coffee and munching 
Slim Jims in a cruiser parked at the local 7-11, Barney 
and sidekick decide to let things slide. The really sad 
thing is that neither the kid's mom nor his father sent 
them away with fleas in their ears in the first place.

Let's look at how this adds up:

(1) The kid's teacher is stupid enough to be upset at a 
young child's careless remark. Given the level to which 
the U.S. educationist system has sunk, this is hardly 
surprising;

(2) Furthermore, the teacher believes it is his or her 
duty to report this shocking statement to the school 
Authorities;

(3) Who, in turn, after investigating(!) and talking to 
the kid's mother (!!), decide to turn the case over to 
Starsky and Goober;

(4) Who, instead of laughing it off, take it seriously, 
and somehow discover interesting details about the 
family;

(5) And the parents, like good little Imperial subjects, 
allow these clowns into their house to interrogate them!

The only encouraging thing about this whole mess is that 
it actually made it into the paper, as did the following 
incident:

[Second story]
  
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6699151/

> 10-year-old arrested, handcuffed over scissors
> Student detained after school officials find 
> shears in her backpack
> 
> The Associated Press, Dec. 11, 2004
> 
> PHILADELPHIA -- A 10-year-old girl was placed 
> in handcuffs and taken to a police station 
> because she took a pair of scissors to her 
> elementary school.
> 
> School district officials said the fourth-
> grade student did not threaten anyone with the 
> 8-inch shears, but violated a rule that 
> considers scissors to be potential weapons.
> 
> Administrators said they were following state 
> law when they called police Thursday, and police 
> said they were following department rules 
> when they handcuffed Porsche Brown and took her 
> away in a patrol wagon.

Gee, when I was a 10-year-old, I used to take my Boy 
Scout knife to school -- as did the other boys. Today, 
that might as well have happened on Mars.

Here are some questions for you. If this is the kind of 
thing that goes on in state-run schools, what are they 
actually teaching their little victims? And how long is 
it going to be before a sincere Detective Duffle comes 
around to ask you some questions about "anti-American 
values"?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David T. Wright's original article "You Are the Enemy" 
may be found at: 

Updates are posted as events come to Mr. Wright's 
attention.

Copyright (c) 2004 by the Thornwalker.com 
www.thornwalker.com. All rights reserved.