Right-wing judge makes family pay school's legal fees

If there's one Nazi idea that's seen unexpected inroads in America over the past 15 years, it's mandatory uniforms in public schools. A vast majority of folks who have kids in public schools hate it, but most of them just buckle under and take it. Who wants to spend money fighting something that'll be over in, like, 13 years anyway? Guess everybody thinks just a little fascist brainwashing never hurt anyone once it's over.

There's many arguments in favor of school uniforms. Unfortunately, all these arguments are lies. Uniforms and right-wing dress codes are not the economic equalizer that the liars who support it claim. If you contrast my first high school versus the one where I graduated, that's one difference that just sticks out like a sore thumb: My first high school, which had a draconian dress code, had the worst snobbery, bullying, and violence I've ever seen. My final high school, which had almost no dress code to speak of, reported zero fights all school year. Weird thing is, everyone else who transferred between schools in other areas says nearly the exact same thing.

Gee, what a coincidence!

I saw a survey from Knoxville, Tennessee, that showed that support for uniforms increased with economic levels. (I couldn't save the report I saw online about the survey because it was in a nonstandard format.) Yep, uniforms sound like a real equalizer to me - not! The few sites I've seen supporting uniforms focus mostly on instructing followers to try to convince us poor people what a great idea it is. That's their idea of populism. Like FairTax cultists, they're from the "trust us rich folks" school of phony populism.

It proves many things. For one, vote Green. Then you won't get a President who says, "The era of big government is over," while backing uniforms in the same speech. (This is not a reference to Bush, incidentally.) For another, uniforms channel economic differences into violent deeds and bullying.

The economic sting of uniforms is heightened in Anderson, Indiana. Because the city's school system is run by Nazis, it recently enacted an absurd dress code that amounted to a uniform policy requiring the purchase of extra clothes costing hundreds of dollars. (The dress code is regulated by the color of the clothing.) The school system refused to reimburse parents who had to buy the items. The uniforms have no purpose outside of school - because who the hell wants to be seen wearing it? Thus, nobody had the think-alike attire until the school made them buy it, so it was a school expense.

This calls the uniform policy into question not just on the usual free speech grounds but also on the grounds that it violates the right to a free public education.

If you're of average smarts, you'd oppose it. But if you're of above-average smarts, you'd fight it. One way is to ignore the policy and let the school do its worst to enforce it. Another way is: Don't take the law into your own hands - take 'em to court! Laura and Scott Bell - who are parents or stepparents of 5 children in the Anderson schools - did exactly that when they sued the Anderson school system over its new sumptuary laws. Because legal fees are too expensive, they filed the suit pro se, which means they used no lawyer.

If that isn't a clear-cut case, I don't know what is. How can a public elementary or high school be allowed to force every family to pay hundreds of dollars per child as an admission fee?

When you have idiots running the country, it's the school however that comes out on top. The school system launched slick legal maneuverings in which they moved the case from local court into federal court (where they knew they'd get a more favorable ruling), which caused the Bells to miss a deadline. Then, U.S. District Judge John D. Tinder - a Reagan appointee - called the Bells' suit frivolous and threw it out.

If the judge had simply tossed the case because of missed deadlines and sent it back to the local court where it belonged, it would be one thing. But that's not what happened. The school system used taxpayer dollars to shop for a friendly judge, which caused the deadlines to be missed. Then - after the fix was in - the right-wing federal judge ruled that the Bells' case itself was frivolous and that they lost their claims that the dress code violated free speech or family rights.

Then came the real clincher. Just a few weeks ago, Tinder ruled that the Bells had to pay the school system's legal tab of almost $41,000 - which is much more than the family's total annual income!

Here's a message for the Anderson school system: Don't expect other people to pay your legal fees. The school system hired expensive lawyers to abuse the system by shopping for some right-wing judge and filing moronic motions to gum things up - when it would never have had any legal fees if it had just dropped the new dress code altogether. The school system set itself up for a big legal bill and made someone else pay for it.

In BushAmerica, crime pays.

Here's an even bigger clincher. John Tinder is known as one of the biggest right-wing activists on the federal bench. Prior to this ruling, his biggest claim to notoriety was his 1990 decision that gutted an Indiana law that barred hauling in garbage from other states to be dumped there. Voiding this law wasn't just a bad ruling - it was an activist ruling. Tinder's extreme activism led Bush to nominate him to be moved up to federal Circuit Court. Then - just after he made the Bell family pay $41,000 to the school system - the Senate confirmed Tinder 93 to 0!

What was this I hear again about America having a two-party system?

Every so-called Democrat who voted to confirm Tinder after he made such an extremist ruling ought to be kicked out of the party immediately.

The Bells' response to Tinder's idiocy is priceless. Laura Bell said being forced to pay the school system $41,000 is "flat ridiculous." How is she going to pay the $41,000? She said, "I'm not paying it, obviously."

Now that's a great response! Concise, clear, and unambiguous. If a school violated my constitutional rights, do you honestly expect me to pay the school more than a year's pay because of it?

The next step is making sure the school system's lawyers are disbarred for pulling this shenanigan - and impeaching John Tinder for violating the Constitution he swore to uphold.

(Source: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/14919141/detail.html;
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/LOCAL/712190492)