Reply #29: My son is seventeen and a junior in high school. [View All]

[liberalhistorian]

He and another classmate were the only Obama supporters in his classes, everyone else was for McSame. Things were okay, didn't get beyond discussions of why they were supporters of either McSame or Obama, with everyone keeping their cool, until after the election. I told him to keep it cool, not to say anything and if someone said something to him just to keep cool. He said at first a couple of the really strident McSame supporters were being a bit obnoxious, but he could understand their frustration and disappointment and thought they were just doing some venting and letting off steam. He said they were still thinking, the day afterwards, that McSame could win (don't know how, but whatever). On Thursday, when it was perfectly clear who had won and by how much, he said that these same three students were saying throughout the day that "that's okay, maybe he'll be assassinated. We can only hope so." He said they weren't kidding around, either (not that kidding would have been acceptable in any case either). He kept his cool, didn't say anything, didn't want to get into it or provoke anything, but he was very, very disturbed.

Apparently, the teachers and administrators were, too, 'cause suddenly after that those kids went quiet. I told my son that they had the perfect right to express their feelings regarding Obama and to legitimately criticize him, and to blow off steam in their disappointment and frustration. I reminded him that he'd gotten in trouble with the Bushbots for saying anything at all against Bush a few years ago, until I set them straight on his rights to do so as long as he wasn't being disruptive or threatening, which he wasn't. But to be threatening, to even kid around about assassination, let alone be perfectly serious, is simply beyond wrong and unacceptable.

And he and his classmates are nearly adults. These kids were just elementary students. They HAD to have been hearing it from their parents, no question. And that is what is truly sick and disturbing. Their parents have the right to criticize and protest against Obama. They do NOT have the right to talk about assassination or other threats, period.