Almost 20 years ago, at the muddled dawn of my political awakening, I took a road trip from Orlando, Florida to Washington, DC with a few friends intent on joining one protest or another against the first Gulf War. My car was literally festooned with anti-war, pro-peace graffiti, bumper stickers and slogans — a rolling billboard for anti-war protest.

Late at night during the journey we stopped off for food and a break from the road at a Waffle House or Shoney’s in a tiny little town in South Caroline called Paxville. The perfect stopping place, one might think, given that the Latin word “pax” means “peace”, and wasn’t that just what we were after?

So we ate our meals and drank our coffees. About mid-way through, a small group of young men came in to dine as well, looking at us suspiciously and having conversations with a waitress in hushed tones. Cold stares all around. One of my friends noticed an insignia or patch on something one of the guys was wearing that suggested he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol. Potential conflict ahead, and under the surreptitious appraisal and venomous looks we finished our meals quickly, full of tension that this group might decide to provoke some sort of conflict.

We got back in the car and made ready to continue the long drive to DC. As I pulled out of the restaurant parking lot, one of my friends said that the CAP guys were hustling out of the restaurant and piling into a Camaro. I got us out onto the deserted, dark county road, heading back for the highway, but about 500 yards from the restaurant I and my friends spotted the Camaro’s headlights behind us. The CAP guys were accelerating quickly to close the gap between us. I made a snap decision to evade them; if they wanted to start trouble out here at 4 o’clock in the morning without another soul in sight, we would likely have our faces pulped and the car damaged. Spotting an unfenced field filled with tall grass and weeds ahead, I switched off my headlights and plunged into it, with the Camaro now maybe 200 yards behind. A short, reckless, bumpy ride into the field in darkness, and I used engine braking and the hand brake (to avoid brake lights betraying our position) to bring us to a stop a goodly distance off the road. I shut off the car, and we watched the Camaro pass slowly, take a U-turn a ways up the road past our location and circle back looking for us before making a final U-turn and continuing on their way.

After catching our breath a while and agreeing upon what had just happened, we all shared a laugh about the name “Paxville” and got ourselves back on the highway to continue on.

This close encounter with violence was part of a tapestry of counter-protest that we experienced nearly everywhere. “Support the troops, oppose the war” on our side and “America, love it or leave it!” on the other, backed by the barely-controlled fury of some in the opposite camp eager to bait us into violent confrontation.

I was just reminded of this old tale of Paxville on discovering and reading another follow-on fisking to my “Fuck the Troops!” article. It’s by one W.B.B. Johnson and entitled “OUR TROOPS…MY HERO’S! DON’T LIKE IT…THEN GO TO HELL!“. A long screed with a surfeit of apostrophes and all-caps invective ends on this note:

No one (especially our troops) likes war. Atrocities (which no one wants to have happen) do happen in war… IT’S WAR!! To call our troops murderer’s… is TOTALLY… UNACCEPTABLE and beyond reason! The cracker-ass-joker that wrote this article: http://www.nostate.com/77/fuck-the-troops/, would have been hung for treason against AMERICA… had General George Washington been here today!

What Mr. Johnson doesn’t seem to get is that if I were transplanted into the history he romanticizes here, I might indeed be hung for treason — by the British.

It is one measure of the relative success of the American state’s indoctrination program that so few would be able to make that qualification correctly.

Repeat after me:

• Public school is about learning, not indoctrination or obedience training
• Children are property
• Initiating violence against someone is OK when the law says so
• Children are slaves
• Offending the State is a true crime
• Torture is OK
• The theory that people beaten as children go on to beat children and commit grander crimes is ridiculous

From KGBT-TV, Texas:

Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

5 June 2008

Texas: It's like a whole 'nother country

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (AP) — A Los Fresnos family is going to court to prevent a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom.

A lawsuit filed today alleges Justice of the Peace Gustavo “Gus” Garza told a 14-year-old girl’s stepfather to strike her repeatedly on the buttocks in open court.

If he didn’t, the judge said the girl would be found guilty and fined $500 for truancy.

The lawsuit by Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, described the paddle provided by Garza as large and heavy and fashioned from a thick piece of lumber.

In a story for The Brownsville Herald, Garza declined to comment on whether he has people spanked in his courtroom. He also said he had not seen the lawsuit.

Zurita says he didn’t feel as if he had a choice but to follow the order.

In an affidavit, Zurita says that when he was through, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough.

Selected, choice comments to the article:

A student who is truant is violating the law and causing the school to lose funding. The kid’s step father couldn’t control the kid (Is he a wimp?). Far too many judges refuse to enforce the law. Judge garza should be recognized for enforcing the law. The parent had three choices: Make thge kid go to school, pay a fine, or paddle the kid–and he is now crying about his choice. Again, I ask if he is a wimp?

— Terry Oberg, Mcallen

Spank Her Good

The judge should have had a police officer spank that brat. Getting a strong, muscle-head cop to do the spanking would have been ideal. Then I would have paddled the hell out of the parents too. They know when their child is not attending school. I bet you she will be pregnant and on public assistance before she is 18 years old. Thats all we need another dumb teenaged parent with an attitude. Sorry if it seems harsh but thats what it is. Just a thought!

— l deleon, harlingen

Ordered Spankings

Go Judge Garza! It’s about time someone taught kids now a days about discipline. This lawsuit is a joke. If we as parents don’t want to be at this point where we are at court having to spank our kids in front of a group of people, we need to start doing it at home. We as parents need to pay more attention to our kids and instill in them the importance of education and teach them discipline. Besides its the parents spanking the kids in court not anyone else. You as parents have a right to do that if you love your child and want him or her to grow up and become a good citizen. Believe me it will only take one good spanking for your child to know that you are serious about what’s good for them. Hey you’re even saving yourself $500 that you probably don’t have!

— N R, Los Fresnos

Good for Judge Garza

Lack of discipline is what is breaking down our society. Children will not learn, pay attention in class, or even attend class, as in this case, without proper discipline. The judge ordering the parents to “paddle” not beat the child is a clear indication that at least one judge realizes that a lot more parents need to take responsibility for their children’s discipline and not rely on the courts or the state for raising their children. Isn’t it interesting that these people can afford a lawyer to sue for tax payer dollars but they couldn’t afford to pay the $500 fine for their child’s truancy and instead oppted for the corporal punishment and are now crying foul. This is just another attempt to make a fast buck by milking the system. If we had more judges like Garza maybe some actual learning will take place in schools and the community would be a lot better off because this would raise the quality of life for everyone.

— Juan Ochoa, Hidalgo County

Aw heck, why don’t we just bring back the whip and the stocks while we’re at it? Nothing’s too good for our kids here in Texas!

"You bet I'm goin' to be a soldier, too, like my Uncle David, when I grow up."

Chapter 1, THE EPISTLE TO THE PARANOIDS

–Lord Omar

1. Ye have locked yerselves up in cages of fear–and, behold, do ye now complain that ye lack FREEDOM!

2. Ye have cast out yer brothers for devils and now complain ye, lamenting that ye’ve been left to fight alone.

3. All Chaos was once yer kingdom; verily, held ye dominion over the entire Pentaverse, but today ye was sore afraid in dark corners, nooks, and sink holes.

4. O how the darknesses do crowd up, one against the other, in ye hearts! What fear ye more that what ye have wroughten?

5. Verily, verily I say unto you, not all the Sinister Ministers of the Bavarian Illuminati, working together in multitudes, could so entwine the land with tribulation as have yer baseless warnings.

from Principia Discordia, Or, How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her: The Magnum Opiate of Malaclypse the Younger

Related: Fuck the troops!

From the New York Times:

To Curb Truancy, Dallas Tries Electronic Monitoring

[...]

Instead of juvenile detention, Jaime was selected by a judge to be enrolled in a pilot program at Bryan Adams in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically. Since Jaime started carrying the Global Positioning System unit April 1, he has had perfect attendance.

“I’m just glad they didn’t take him to jail,” said Jaime’s grandmother Diana Mendez, who raised him. “He’s a good kid. He was just on a crooked path.”

[...]

Truancy experts say the results in Texas are promising.

“It’s far better than locking a kid up,” and is cheaper, said Joanna Heilbrunn, a senior researcher for the National Center for School Engagement.

[...]

Dave Leis, a spokesman for NovaTracker, which makes the system used in Dallas, said electronic monitoring did not have to be punitive. “You can paint this thing as either Big Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe and help you graduate.”

UPDATE:

Happening in Maryland as well. From the Washington Post:

[...]

During the same session, some lawmakers in Prince George’s proposed strapping ankle bracelets on students to electronically monitor the whereabouts of those who constantly skip school. That bill did not advance.