Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A 13 yr. old shows what it is to be "ungovernable"

Last week, Cody Alicea, a middle-schooler in Denair, California, was told by school officials to take the flag off his bike he had been riding back and forth to school with for the past couple of months in order to honor this nation's veterans including his grandfather. The school district warned of potential violence against Cody because of his clearly insensitive flag-waving. The school district eventually relented after um, pretty much all of America descended upon Denair in one big electronic shit storm tying up the switchboards and effectively shutting down Denair Middle School's website.

Cody was back at school on Monday receiving an escort from a group of vet bikers and attended a small pep rally of sorts out in front of the school.

Behold this gloriously off-key salute to Cody and this country.




A few thoughts:

After all the hoopla dies down, we sincerely hope that Cody has some large and loyal friends who will have his back when the time comes, because it will come.

We're thinking of setting up some sort of 1-800 public servant hot line to keep people like the Denair school district from making fantastically inept and tone-deaf decisions. After fielding this particular call, we would advise the following: "Are you sure you want to do that? Are you sure you want every Fox News affiliate from here to inner Mongolia descending upon your town there in Northern California like a swarm of locusts demanding answers as well as the rest of America melting down your grid in a veritable electronic assault? Do your job. Quarantine the aggressors. We thought bullying was supposed to be bad? Do the right thing and look like you actually give a damn about this country rather than kow-towing to the Mexican kids who want to beat up Cody. Now leave us alone and don't call back.

We think there is some potential in this hot line thing.



Recall that it was also up in Northern California this past spring where a handful of high schoolers in Morgan Hill were told to change their American flag t-shirts they wore to school on Cinco de Mayo. The aggrieved in this particular situation responded by walking out of school the next day to stage a march waving Mexican flags to demonstrate what were not really sure.

Lessons learned: Wave an American flag on your way to school? Get told to take it down. Wave a Mexican flag on your way out of school during school hours? Get a police escort.


Finally. Being "ungovernable" does not necessarily mean breaking or disrespecting the law. What it means, quite often, is cutting against the grain or orthodoxy of correct thought and behavior as defined by the political class. Clearly, young Cody was running afoul of "the law" so to speak and though he was threatened with bodily harm, it was obvious that he bore the responsibility for the actions of others. Unfortunately, for the ruling class, Cody and others did not back down from this challenge. May we behave accordingly.

As always...


2 comments:

Dean said...

That is one of my fears.

Road Dawg said...

Our thanks and prayers for Cody.