That kid who made a clock

There has been a lot of talk about a 14-year-old student who was taken into police custody for making a clock. I don't normally like to bother saying the same things that everybody else is saying, but I feel like doing just that today. Part of the reason that I'm tackling this subject is because I have something that I want to add.


I'm going to start with my basic impressions of this incident. The bottom line is that this kid did absolutely nothing wrong and was traumatized for it. He brought a clock in to school. He always said it was a clock. His engineering teacher knew it was a clock. There was no reason to believe that it was anything else. Unfortunately, his English teacher thought that it looked like a bomb.

I have not seen any evidence that the English teacher believed that the clock might actually be a bomb. Everything that I have seen in reports was built around the idea that the teacher thought that someone could mistake it for a bomb. Apparently, in this paranoid society of ours, this one teacher's mistake is grounds for slapping handcuffs on a child, taking him into custody, and suspending him.

You can argue all that you want about how we are better safe than sorry, but this cliche is no justification for what happened. You can't let paranoia strip innocent children of their rights. I have repeatedly stated that there is always more that you can do for safety, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Traumatizing a child who did no wrong clearly crosses that line.

Here's the problem with the story. The kid in question is Muslim. Many people are absolutely pouncing on that fact. While it is definitely possible that being Muslim could have been a factor, I have seen no evidence pointing in that direction. How do I know that a white Christian kid in that same school would not have gotten into trouble for doing the exact same thing?

There is a difference between suspecting a problem and stating that problem as a fact. If you have reason to believe that this incident had anything to do with the fact that the kid was Muslim, show me the evidence. If not, quit stating as fact that this was an extreme case of profiling.

Before I go any further, I want to go to a story that became a big deal while the Democrats were pushing the so-called Affordable Care Act. The Democrats convinced a child that his mother (if I'm remembering right) would not have died had the Affordable Care Act been law at the time. They paraded the kid around to gather sympathy and sway votes. The kid was not an expert on health care, and he had no way of knowing the impact the law would have on his family. His beliefs were clearly manipulated purely because the Democrats thought they could use him to pass a bill. There is no question that this qualifies as a form of child exploitation.

I am going to say something similar with this clock maker. Although this isn't as extreme, the Democrats are using this kid to push an agenda. They usually try to make discrimination against some minorities a key talking point for their party. They are using the fact that this kid is Muslim in order to show that their frequently exaggerated portrayal of discrimination is valid. Although they are not forcing their views onto him, this still clearly qualifies as a form of child exploitation.

The Democrats need to start thinking about the consequences of their actions. While this kid has been willing to share his story, we do not know the impact this attention is having on him. He was traumatized by his school and the police. Now he is being forced to represent other people's agendas. For some people, this kind of attention can be difficult. For others, being the face of a political agenda can force them to change who they are to better fit the agenda. There is a very good chance that the antics of the Democratic party will cause this kid some form of harm. Again, this isn't a first for them. I personally find it sickening that the Democrats are willing to harm children in order to help themselves politically.