The Entitlement Mentality Hits High School Activities

When my kids were at Mission Viejo High School they participated in a number of music activities including Marching Band, Jazz Band, and several trips - all of which required us to pay what were known as "fair share" fees to help cover the costs not included in the school budget.  I think at the point where both kids were there at the same time it was costing us about $650 per kid for Marching Band, $125 per kid for the district's bus fee, $100 for Jazz Band, plus other costs associated with trips they took. The fees were mandatory and we were glad to pay them because our kids got so much benefit from the music program.

My youngest graduated in 2009 and got out of there just in time, because thanks to the ACLU and some parents who are members of the entitlement class, schools can no longer mandate those fees for participating in extracurricular programs. While I'm sure the ACLU thinks it's done a noble thing by ensuring that nobody can be excluded from these activities, the law of unintended consequences doesn't care about ACLU nobility.

Instead of allowing a few kids to fully participate the lawsuit has guaranteed that all kids will have a diminished experience, missing opportunities they would have had under the old rules, and creating unnecessary tension within the ranks of parents and kids.

Although I don't know how this has affected the programs at Mission, my niece attends another Orange County high school as a member of the color guard and this change has devastated their program. The school set the fee at $900 per semester for color guard (guard is usually more expensive than other programs because of uniforms and instructors), and because if could not be mandated they had to hope parents would recognize the value and agree to participate. So, what happened at this high school in an upper middle class-to upper class area?

During both the marching season and the winter guard season something like 40% of the parents never paid a single dime for their kid's participation. Not. A. Dime. While parents like my sister paid the full fee these deadbeat parents kicked in absolutely nothing.

I mean it's one thing if a parent says "I can't afford the entire $900, but I can pay half of it" or something like that. They didn't. They paid nothing, and the school actually asked the parents that paid if they could kick in more to make up the shortfall (my sister had the same reaction I would have had - FORGET IT!).

And in nearly every case the freeloading parents never participated in booster activities, working at the events, or other things they could have done to help.  Not only were they useless, they were actually dragging the program down.

As a result the school had to cut back the hours the instructors worked, lost their annual Disneyland trip, and had to cut back on the number of competitions they attended. They weren't able to buy new costumes for winter guard and every student's experience was diminished thanks to the freeloaders.

If I were the coach, and of course they know who paid and who didn't, any of those girls returning to the program next year whose parents didn't contribute wouldn't have a chance of making the team. Since it requires an audition and not everyone is guaranteed a place, I think the coach could get away with something like that. I wouldn't even hesitate to keep someone off the team, especially if I know enough about their financial situation to assume they could have contributed.

This is just one small example of what happens as the entitlement mentality seeps through our culture. We've either got to change it or our society will collapse.

Christmas Cartoon of the Day

Yes, Christmas is over, but this is too good to let wait until next year:

ACLU Gets Smacked Around in Florida

Chalk one up for the good guys:

After months of litigation against the ACLU and the Santa Rosa County School District, and on the eve of Independence Day, Liberty Counsel has restored freedom to the District’s teachers, staff, students, and members of the community.

Faced with an imminent trial and damning evidence of their constitutional violations, the ACLU and the District agreed to settle Liberty Counsel’s federal lawsuit, challenging their Consent Decree on behalf of students, teachers, parents and community members. The Consent Decree that led to criminal indictments against school employees for prayer and banned "God Bless" in Santa Rosa County schools will now be gutted and revised.

The amended Consent Decree will restore dozens of constitutional religious freedoms that were previously denied. In addition, Liberty Counsel and Christian Educators Association International will be awarded $265,000 in attorney’s fees and costs from an insurance provider, not the taxpayers, to compensate them for the litigation caused by the ACLU and the District.

This is a huge step in the right direction and a victory for the citizens in Santa Rosa County. The notice of settlement was filed with the court this morning and awaits official approval by the school board and the court. As a result, Liberty Counsel’s clients who are teachers will now be able to pray at school during their break times, pray during school events in a nonofficial capacity, attend and fully participate in baccalaureate services, have a Bible on their desk, wear religious jewelry, and assign readings from the Bible to students when relevant to nonreligious academic assignments. Students will be allowed to voluntarily pray, submit religious answers in homework, and freely participate in private, after-school religious programs.

It's time a lot of this nonsense banning any mention of God in schools is abolished. The constitution, which the ACLU claims they want to protect, has been badly abused in cases like this.

Supreme Court Routinely Smacks Down the Ninth Circuit

They're known as the "Ninth Circus" around here, but the federal appeals court that covers much of the Western U.S. is the most liberal in the land and the Supreme Court is getting a little tired of them:

Sometimes the Supreme Court simply decides cases and sometimes it seems to have something bigger in mind. In the past two weeks, it has been in scold mode, and its target has been the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

In five straight cases, the court has rejected the work of the San Francisco-based court without a single affirmative vote from a justice. The nation's largest court, stretching from Montana to Hawaii, the 9th has jurisdiction over nearly 20 percent of the nation's citizens. Not surprisingly, it routinely supplies the largest portion of the cases the court reviews each term.

As the most liberal circuit in the land, its work quite often is at odds with an increasingly conservative Supreme Court.

But some of the recent reversals have been delivered with a lash that those who closely watch the courts say reflects more than just a disagreement of law.

"They seem to do that every now and then," said University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur D. Hellman, an authority on the federal circuits with a particular interest in the 9th. He was referring to the "combination of a cluster of decisions and language meant to send a message."

The Ninth Circus routinely makes decisions that can't be supported by the Constitution. One of the top judges on the Ninth District is married to a former local head of the ACLU, and the court's decisions have often looked more like ACLU propaganda than Constitution-based sound legal doctrine.

Thankfully we have a Supreme Court that can overturn them. That's why presidential and senate elections are so important - those are the people responsible for appointing and confirming the judges that make up both the Supreme Court and the district appeals courts. If the Supreme Court ever is allowed to swing hard left again we'll lose an important check on liberal craziness.

The ACLU-Commie Connection

Ever wonder why the ACLU seems to regularly side with organizations and issues that seem to oppose traditional American values?

Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.

Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.

The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.

Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million Ukrainians in the two years that followed.

The Ukrainian government considers this to have been an act of genocide.

Foster was a key figure in the early years of the American communist movement who belonged to the ACLU’s National Committee in the 1920s, according to FBI documents. He later wrote a book titled “Toward Soviet America” in 1932 and also testified under oath before Congress that he opposed American democracy.

There's nothing surprising about any of this. Communists of that day, and ACLU lawyers of today, know the best way to bring down America was to use its own rules and laws against it, and there's nobody better at that than the ACLU. The connection seems pretty obvious.

Law Students Sue TSA Over Nakie Scanners and Pat-Downs

Go get 'em class of 2012!:

The U.S. government was sued in federal court in Boston by two Harvard University law students who claim their constitutional rights were violated by “nude body scanners” and “enhanced pat-downs” at airports.

Jeffrey Redfern, 27, and Anant Pradhan, 23, who are members of the law school’s class of 2012, said the security measures taken at airports are “intrusive” and violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, according to their complaint filed Nov. 29.

The students, who said they are regular travelers who use Boston’s Logan International Airport, seek a declaration that mandatory screening using the enhanced measures is unconstitutional and a ban on the techniques “without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”

Where's the ACLU on this one? If the government was trying to put a creche on the Capitol lawn they'd be all over this, but millions of Americans being treated like terrorists doesn't seem to bother them.

Your Airline Ticket Comes With a Free Grope

The way passengers are treated by the TSA is getting out of hand and some civil liberties groups are taking legal action:

As federal aviation officials increased airport security measures, civil liberty groups fought back, protesting new pat-down search techniques and the growing use of full-body scanners.

The Transportation Security Administration announced last week that security officers would to perform more aggressive pat-downs and vowed to approximately triple the number of full-body scanners in airports nationwide by the end of next year.

Under the new pat-down technique, TSA security officers use their palms and fingers to probe for hidden weapons and other devices. In the past, officers used the backs of their hands to brush past sensitive body parts, including breast and groin areas.

On Tuesday, TSA Administrator John Pistole told an aviation security conference in Germany that the agency plans to have deployed about 1,000 full-body scanners at airports throughout the U.S. by the end of 2011.

The more than 300 machines now installed at 65 airports use low-level radiation to detect weapons hidden under travelers' clothes, in the process generating images that look like nude photos.

TSA screeners use the new pat-down search on passengers who opt not to go through the full-body scanners or who trigger an alarm from a metal detector. An American Civil Liberties Union spokesman called it a choice between a "virtual strip search" and a "grope."

Also last week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group in Washington, charged that use of the scanners violates passengers' privacy. The move was part of a lawsuit filed in July against the Homeland Security Department.

The group accused TSA officers of using the scanners on all passengers regardless of levels of suspicion and of not telling passengers that they can opt not to pass through the scanner.

"It's a highly invasive search," said Ginger McCall, an attorney for the privacy group.

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said the agency would not comment on pending litigation. But, he added, it has held news conferences at every airport where a full-body scanner has been added. He said TSA has also posted signs at those airports, explaining what the machines do and what options passengers have.

Want to know what happens when you refuse to meekly comply with the TSA? Read this guy's account.

This is one of those rare occasions when I find myself supporting an ACLU action. The TSA favors political correctness over real security, choosing to treat everyone as a terrorist rather than use some relatively simple profiling measures to eliminate people from aggressive screening who obviously don't pose a threat (I'll never forget the 3-year old that got a full body search in OKC one time shortly after 9/11).

I have my doubts that the increased level of screening has commensurately increased security.  All it has done is make flying an ordeal that more and more people are trying to avoid.  The industry is obviously hurting.  I just bought tickets for a trip in January that I've made every year since 1999, and the tickets this year were the cheapest ever.  Given how the costs of fuel and other things have gone up in 11 years there's no way the airline would be offering such cheap fares unless they're hurting, and I think the routine we now have to go through just to get in the terminal is adding to their woes.

We are not all terrorists and we do not deserve to be ordered around airline terminals by people who are essentially janitors with badges.

Film a Cop, Go to Prison

This is a troubling story:

That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable. He raced his Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95 in Maryland at 80 mph, popping a wheelie, roaring past cars and swerving across traffic lanes.

Anthony Graber was arrested for posting a video of his traffic stop on YouTube.But it wasn't his daredevil stunt that has the 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard facing the possibility of 16 years in prison. For that, he was issued a speeding ticket. It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later -- taken with his helmet camera -- of a plainclothes state trooper cutting him off and drawing a gun during the traffic stop near Baltimore.

In early April, state police officers raided Graber's parents' home in Abingdon, Md. They confiscated his camera, computers and external hard drives. Graber was indicted for allegedly violating state wiretap laws by recording the trooper without his consent.

Arrests such as Graber's are becoming more common along with the proliferation of portable video cameras and cell-phone recorders. Videos of alleged police misconduct have become hot items on the Internet. YouTube still features Graber's encounter along with numerous other witness videos. "The message is clearly, 'Don't criticize the police,'" said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland who is part of Graber's defense team. "With these charges, anyone who would even think to record the police is now justifiably in fear that they will also be criminally charged."

Carlos Miller, a Miami journalist who runs the blog "Photography Is Not a Crime," said he has documented about 10 arrests since he started keeping track in 2007. Miller himself has been arrested twice for photographing the police. He won one case on appeal, he said, while the other was thrown out after the officer twice failed to appear in court.

"They're just regular citizens with a cell-phone camera who happen to come upon a situation," Miller said. "If cops are doing their jobs, they shouldn't worry."

It's rare that I find myself on the same side as the ACLU these days, but I'm with them on this one. Filming a cop doing his job should not be a crime as long as the film is not used for the purposes of threatening or harming the cop. Showing police misconduct would not fall into those categories.  Cops who are doing their job by the rules having nothing to fear if their work becomes public.

ACLU Beclowns Themselves on Arizona Law

What a bunch of morons:

Travel advisories are usually the domain of the State Department, warning Americans about travel into possibly dangerous or hostile countries.

Local civil rights officials say they're doing the same with Arizona.

On Wednesday, officials from the 26 state-wide offices of the American Civil Liberties Union issued an advisory warning people about traveling to "The Grand Canyon State."

The move comes before the Fourth of July weekend and is the latest reaction to Arizona's illegal immigration enforcement law SB1070, which makes it a crime to lack immigration papers in state.

"If you look at it from the perspective of the State Department when they warn people of situations in a foreign country, that's essentially the model we are using," said Hector Villagra, who heads the Orange County office of the ACLU. "If you are thinking of traveling to Arizona you may want to keep this in mind. You may be subject to racial profiling. You may be stopped by police because of your appearance so you need to be aware of that and need to know what to do when it happens."

The next time I have the opportunity to schedule a vacation I'm going to the Grand Canyon.

And the ACLU can sit on it.

You Can't Burn THAT Flag

We all know that the Supreme Court has ruled that burning the American flag is protected speech. However, as Don Surber tells us, burning the Mexican flag is a crime:

From the Napa Valley Register: “Vintage High School students were suspended for fighting and burning a Mexican national flag during incidents on campus Wednesday, school Principal Craig Lewis said.”

Sorry, girls, you burned the wrong flag.

Texas versus Johnson, 1989, allowed the burning of the American flag, not the Mexican.

From June 11, 1989, Deborah Leavy, executive director of the ACLU: “The flag is a symbol of American freedom — and that includes the freedom to disagree. By protecting the right to dissent, the court has done more to protect and defend our nation and our flag than any flag burning law could ever do.”

I personally am not in favor of burning any nation's  flag. To me that's a very weak gesture and doesn't help anyone's cause.

But it is true that had these kids burned an American flag a host of ACLU lawyers would have descended upon Napa Valley to protect the little darlings, while burning a Mexican flag will only get them in trouble and declared racist.

ACLU Loses Mojave Cross Case

The ACLU tried to get a war memorial cross removed from its long-time home in California.  Today they lost their Supreme Court case:

The Supreme Court has said a federal court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home in California.

The justices said Wednesday that federal judges in California did not take sufficient notice of the government's decision to transfer the land in a remote area of California to private ownership to eliminate any constitutional concern about a religious symbol on public land.

Just another loss in a long line of losses for the ACLU and the Ninth Circuit.  I guess they can finally take the cover off the cross.

ACLU Finds New Right to Have a Prom

Yeah, that's pretty much the case they're making in Mississippi (h/t Don Surber):

A lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district to reinstate the dance it canceled.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn’t host the April 2 prom.

“Somebody said, ‘Thanks for ruining my senior year,’” McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.

The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who is a fellow student, and wear a tuxedo, which the school said also violated policy.

The district’s decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students’ rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen’s free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.

McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.

“A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom” to cancel it, she said.

Guess what, you were wrong. Whether or not you think school districts should have the ability to ban same-sex couples at their school dances, I think most of would agree that the districts should have the right to decide whether or not to hold or cancel an event, regardless of the reasoning. This is a significant overreach by the ACLU and I expect it will be swatted away by the court.

Atheist Loses Pledge of Allegiance Appeal in CA

From Ed Whelan at The Corner:

Good news from the Ninth Circuit: A divided panel has ruled that teacher-led recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, with its reference to “one Nation under God,” is constitutionally permissible. Judge Carlos T. Bea wrote the majority opinion, which Judge Dorothy W. Nelson joined. Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote a 133-page dissent.

For what it’s worth, Judge Bea is a Bush 43 appointee, and Judges Nelson and Reinhardt are both Carter appointees.

Reinhardt is also married to Ramona Ripston, the long time head of the Los Angeles branch of the ACLU. He's waaaaay out there on the left.

ACLU Headline of the Day

You just knew the ACLU was going to take this case:

Gay, Mentally Challenged Biracial Male Cheerleader Claims Discrimination

Mark Steyn adds this comment:

He was allowed to join the high-school cheerleading team but was not given a set of pom-poms and was prevented from wiggling his hips. So naturally he wants Washington to take political action. This sounds like a job for Harry Reid and Rahm Emmanuel, with their well documented interest in biracial males and the mentally challenged.

Welcome to America 2010.

ACLU Loses 25% of Its Funding

And wait until you see why:

The American Civil Liberties Union has lost a quarter of its yearly donations after a major donor cut off $19 million in annual donations because of economic difficulties.

David Gelbaum, a wealthy California conservationist, said he was indefinitely stopping the donations that had made him the New York-based group's largest anonymous donor.

"For a number of years, your organization has received very substantial charitable contributions from me," Gelbaum said in a statement. "My investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems."

This guy not only bought into the anti-American nonsense promoted by the ACLU, but also bought into the notion that investing in "clean energy" is a sound strategy. He's the classic liberal.

By the way, Obama also tells us that investing in clean, green energy will generate the jobs needed to get the U.S. out of its current problems. He should go talk to Mr. Gelbaum.

ACLU Tries to Take the Animals From the Manger

After all, it's Christmas time:

The ACLU sent a letter dated Nov. 11 asking the city to “end the unlawful endorsement of religion,” claiming that the city paid for animals used in a Nativity scene. The letter accused the city of violating the First Amendment.

In the letter, the ACLU claimed the city paid $200 for animals used in a Nativity scene co-sponsored by Grace Church of the Nazarene.

Piper confirmed the city spent the money two years ago — not last year as the letter claims — the exhibit’s first year at “Christmas on the Cumberland.” The scene will be on display from 6 to 9 p.m. Dec. 11 and 12 this year at McGregor Park pavilion.

“If the City of Clarksville did pay for the animals, this was a violation of the Establishment Clause,” the ACLU letter reads. “The City of Clarksville must not provide funds for Grace Church of Nazarene to perform biblical plays or displays.”

The church’s pastor, Steve Estep, and the mayor said the church will receive no money from the city this year for the Nativity scene. And each year, Estep said, the church has been required to obtain a permit from the Parks and Recreation Department for several hundred dollars.

Why isn't the ACLU examining the loss of civil rights that will occur if cap-and-tax or Obamacare gets passed? Wouldn't that be a lot more valuable expenditure of time than $200 manger animals?

Classic Overreach

I wanted to expand a bit on an item I posted in the "Things You Ought to Read" post yesterday, and that has to do with the story of the ACLU and the Florida school district:

The fight involving the ACLU, the school district and several devout Christian employees began last August when the ACLU sued Santa Rosa County Schools on behalf of two students who had complained privately to the group's Florida affiliate, claiming some teachers and administrators were allowing prayers at school events such as graduations, orchestrating separate religiously themed graduation services, and "proselytizing" students during class and after school.

In January, the Santa Rosa County School District settled out of court with the ACLU, agreeing to several things, including a provision to bar all school employees from promoting or sponsoring prayers during school-sponsored events; holding school events at church venues when a secular alternative was available; or promoting their religious beliefs or attempting to convert students in class or during school-sponsored events.

Mr. Staver said the district also agreed to forbid senior class President Mary Allen from speaking at the school's May 30 graduation ceremony on the chance that the young woman, a known Christian, might say something religious.

"She was the first student body president in 33 years not allowed to speak," he said.

In response, many members of the 300-plus-member student body taped crosses to their mortarboards and stood for an impromptu recitation of the Lord's Prayer during the ceremony.

Mr. Mach responded, "We believe students have the constitutional right to pray voluntarily in public or private. Constitutional problems arise only when public school officials promote or endorse prayer or specific religious views."

While the ACLU is probably patting themselves on the back and proclaiming victory because they successfully stopped an 18-year old from professing her personal beliefs at her graduation, this in fact was a classic ACLU failure. Instead of a few words of religious belief spoken by one student you had 300 students with crosses on their caps standing and interrupting the ceremony to recite the Lord's Prayer. The sight of 300 kids professing their religious beliefs certainly had more impact on the crowd than the words of one student.

Classic fail for the ACLU. Their efforts clearly backfired on them.

And at no point had the class president indicated plans to pray in public. In fact, no one know what she would have said because the decision to ban her speech was made before any such speech had been written or submitted for approval.

Do I believe the school district has a right to approve any such speeches? Of course. There is no first amendment right to speak at your high school graduation. But by literally making a federal case out of this the ACLU, and the cowardly school district, compounded the "damage" they thought would result from a few religious words of a devout student.

LAPD Released From the Federal Leash

Maybe now the LAPD can concentrate on fighting crime rather than filling out paperwork:

The Los Angeles Police Department has been released from a long running decree after a federal judge decided the department had reformed significantly from prior corruption charges.

The city was forced into the consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice after the Rampart corruption scandal and brutality complaints.

The agreement, which aimed to improve the LAPD's policing standards, meant more than 100 reforms to the department, the tightening of internal checks on officers' conduct, improved training, increased oversight of the anti-gang unit at the center of the Rampart corruption scandal, and a ban on racial profiling.

The decree also required officers to submit to strict audits by an outside monitor who reported the results back to Judge Feess.

Under the new agreement, audits will still be conducted with the Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the LAPD, taking over the monitor's duties of supervising reform improvement.

According to Judge Feess, the court will keep jurisdiction over the agreement, and if lawyers from the Department of Justice are unsatisfied with the commission's oversight, they are allowed to bring the department back before Feess.

The judge noted in his decision the LAPD's distinct turnaround from its "troubled" state following the Rampart gang-unit corruption scandal.

"In 2008, as noted by the Monitor," the judge stated, 'LAPD has become the national and international policing standard for activities that range from audits to handling of the mentally ill to many aspects of training to risk assessment of police officers and more.'

The American Civil Liberties Union, which argued for continuing the consent decree, criticized the decision.

"The department has made substantial progress under Chief Bratton, but there's still too much evidence that skin color makes a difference in who is stopped, questioned and arrested by the LAPD," remarked Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California.

Well, perhaps if people with certain skin colors would quit committing most of the crimes in Los Angeles they could start operating in the world of unicorns and rainbows as the ACLU would like them too. Unfortunately, the real world keeps interfering in those plans.

I'm glad to see the department off the federal leash. Say what you want about the way former Chief Gates handled the department, but when he was in the big chair the local gangbangers feared the cops. I don't think you can say that today.

Match Made Not in Heaven

Here we go again:

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Maplewood today on behalf of a controversial Kansas-based church that protests at the funerals of soldiers, alleging that the city's funeral protest ban is unconstitutional.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, is a first in eastern Missouri but part of a broader effort by the ACLU to go after state and local laws that have been passed in recent years targeting funeral protests, said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

Missouri and Illinois are among the more than two dozen states and the federal government that have passed similar laws. Many, if not all, were prompted by the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church and founder Fred Phelps, who believe that America is being punished by the deaths of soldiers and others for its "tolerance" of homosexuality. Church members began protesting at the funerals of gays but then started protesting at soldiers' funerals and carrying signs such as "Thank God For Dead Soldiers."

The church has already won an initial victory against a Missouri law that banned funeral protests.

Phelps-Roper sued in federal court in 2006 to block enforcement of Missouri's law, passed earlier that year. Their bid for a temporary ban on enforcement of the law was initially turned down by a lower court judge, but the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis reversed that decision and the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29 declined to hear Missouri's appeal.

I can't think of a more unsympathetic partner for the ACLU than that wacky Kansas church. They may win some of these cases, but their brand will be damaged for good.

You want to stop these funeral protests? It's not really that hard. You just get some of these more ardent veteran's groups to show up in force, meet the protesters head-on...and beat them senseless. It's not really that hard. Repeat until problem solved. As I read somewhere else in an unrelated post, even a flatworm is smart enough to avoid pain.

You can spend a lot of time with lawyers and court filings, but there's nothing like a little street justice to knock the stupid out of these people.

And don't start quoting scripture to me about "turning the other cheek" or loving everybody. Jesus didn't calmly talk the moneychangers out of the temple - he beat them out of there. Crude but effective.

I'm Going to Go With the ACLU On This One

I rarely find occasion to agree with the ACLU, but I think I'm with them on this one:

A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Transportation Security Administration alleges a Ron Paul supporter was unreasonably detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying about $4,700 in cash.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Bierfeldt, director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an organization that grew out of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.

The organization had hosted an event in St. Louis that included the sale of tickets, T-shirts, stickers and other materials and Bierfeldt said he was carrying the cash proceeds in a metal box when he was detained at Lambert Airport for about 30 minutes on March 29.

The lawsuit does not seek money but asks the court to declare the TSA's actions unconstitutional and to prohibit the agency from similar searches when there is no evidence aircraft are endangered.

"It's obviously important that the safety of flights be ensured," Bierfeldt said in a telephone interview. "But subjecting innocent travelers like me who are doing nothing wrong — I think it diverts TSA away from its core mission of safeguarding air travel."

TSA spokesman Greg Soule said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.

Bierfeldt said he refused to answer when a TSA official asked what was in the box. Another TSA official arrived, and Bierfeldt was taken into a separate room where he used an iPhone in his jacket pocket to record the officials' questioning.

An audio clip provided by the ACLU includes repeated questions from a TSA official about why Bierfeldt was carrying so much money, and his repeated refusal to answer. On one occasion, the questioner swears and asks, "Is there any reason you're not answering questions?"

Bierfeldt answers, "Am I legally required to answer the question?"

Soule said while there is no limit to the amount of cash a person can travel with domestically, travelers must cooperate with the TSA screening process.

"Cooperation may involve answering questions about their property," Soule said. "A passenger who refuses to answer questions may be referred to appropriate authorities for further inquiry."

Bierfeldt's attorney, Ben Wizner, said the lawsuit does not challenge TSA's authority to search and detain those suspected of taking weapons, explosives or other dangerous objects onto planes.

"That's the whole purpose of airport searches," Wizner said. "These are not, however, open-ended criminal searches."

The reason for the existence of the TSA is to keep our airliners safe from those who would attempt to destroy or hijack them, and to ensure that dangerous objects are not taken on board regardless of the motivation. That's it. They are not a general purpose investigative organization, nor are they sworn peace officers. To my knowledge TSA employees do not undergo the types of training that would qualify them as peace officers in any of the 50 states. They are simply federal versions of the civilian contractors that used to do this work.

I have often carried large sums of cash on flights when returning from a quartet trip and have wondered if I would ever get questioned about it. It would be easy for me to prove that those funds were the result of product sales and offerings, but I still wouldn't be happy about going through an interrogation about it. It's none of their business how I came to possess the money.

I think the individual in this case probably brought trouble on himself that wasn't necessary by refusing to answer the questions, but if that's the way he wanted to play it the TSA shouldn't have pushed it since the presence of cash is not proof of a threat to the plane. The TSA does not have a right to have any question they can come up with answered by the traveler.

I hope the ACLU prevails on this one.