Moscow on the Pacific

I fear this might become a daily feature here on the Malcontent. Now a California school district is prohibiting all symbols of patriotism, Mexican and American.

Officials there say some students are using flags and clothing to taunt other students. The solution seems easy enough: punish those offenders. I'd be willing to bet these are isolated incidents.

It leads you to wonder whether this kind of knee-jerk reaction is simply a manifestation of silly zero tolerance rules?

The American Civil Liberties Union points to the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines. In that case, school officials attempted to stop students who were protesting the Viet Nam War from wearing black armbands.

"The school has to be able to show a strong likelihood that there is going to material and substantial disruption of school, and if they don’t meet that standard, then they can't censor student speech," said Kevin Neenan of the ACLU.

A few hurt feelings won't qualify. Again, the lesson is a bad one: if something offends, ban it.

Makes it kind of hard to export democracy when it's constantly being undermined here at home.