You may have heard already about Alex Barton. He is a five year-old in Florida who has had more education in his Kindergarten year than his teacher was qualified to give.

Apparently, the teacher was unhappy with Alex’s behavior. It’s hard to tell from the article whether she was unhappy with it because it alarmed her and she was incapable of dealing with such an alarming pre-schooler, or if she simply found the behavior to be offensive in some primal way. Either way, she decided it was time to do something about it. She got educatin’.

She stood Alex up in front of the other Kindergarten students. Then she had a good old-fashioned Communist-style group criticism by asking all the students - one by one - what they didn’t like about Alex. Then, out-doing even the Communists, she taught them that Democracy truly is the tyranny of the majority upon the minority: she invited the class to vote Alex out. And they did. The teacher told him that he had been voted out by his fellow students and that he had to leave.

Alex spent the rest of the day in the Nurse’s Office, since he felt unwell, and that is where his mother was told to pick him up. He no longer attends that school, and screams when Mother drives up to it to drop his sister off.

Read the article and let me know if I’ve gotten any of the facts wrong. I think I got the gist. Notice that I have not mentioned that Alex is an Autistic. That’s for two reasons. One is that he has not been “officially” determined to be Aspergers, though that appears to be imminent. Two, because it simply doesn’t matter. Alex was treated the way he was because he was different. He thought and behaved differently than most of those around him, and differently from the way his teacher wanted.

We’ve all heard stories of stupid teachers and heartless administrators. We’ve heard of schools that shock students and mothers who kill their children. All these stories describe acts that come from deficient personalities or madnesses of some variety. But this story about Alex is one of the tricky ones: it makes perfect sense to the perpetrators, and to a large number of the public. It even seems to make sense to many parents of Autistics. This is where the danger lies.

Take a side trip with me….

Almost three thousand years ago, the Spartans were a mighty country of warriors. They were feared and admired by most of the known world. But this didn’t come from technological leaps in building armor, or ingenious new weapons. It came from eugenics and oppression.

When a Spartan baby was born, a man came from the government and took a look at him or her. If he was impressed, the child lived. If the baby was less than spectacular, it was lobbed off a cliff. This way, the Spartans became a strong, beautiful, dangerous nation, and scared the bejeebus out of everyone who met them. They had to stop having families, cease producing any art whatsoever, and risk individual expulsion for the tiniest differences, but they did get to be the meanest bastards on a very large block.

Eventually, the story went where you’d expect it to go. The Spartans ran into someone who thought outside the box, and the Spartans couldn’t change. Finally, they became nothing but a tourist stop, where I imagine you could get a great deal on red cloaks and blunt swords.

This is what we keep having to deal with, over and over, for at least 3000 years. It’s the same old eugenic dream. “If we can just get control over who makes what kinds of people, we can become the strongest/meanest/smartest/holiest bastards on the block.” That’s all it is. Just some people being frustrated at the ability of strangers to make new people without permission.

And that is what happened to Alex, and to many Autistics, and - of course - to practically every minority throughout the history of Mankind. Too many unauthorized people of the wrong kinds. And the solution is always the same: cull the live ones and prevent any more from popping up. It’s been responsible for many World Wars, and many dead babies.

Well, as you may be able to tell, this kind of thinking makes me very cross. But I didn’t make this stink just to get you cross at Spartans and Nazis. I want you to realize that the people who think this way are not just isolated kooks! These people really don’t see the problem!

The Spartans, and Germans, and various other groups that believed in the possibility of genetic superiority, all felt they had the good of their neighbors in mind. They had seen many times when it seemed to work so well. It is a fact that the Spartans could kill hundreds of enemies to one death of their own. They held huge blocks of countries in their power, and cured many of the social ills that plague more democratic societies. It is a fact that the Nazis took almost anything they wanted, and that life was almost glorious for the true believers. There is very good evidence that a well-administered program of selection can have exponentially magnified benefits for the group in power. So, if you truly believe in the principle that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, it’s clear where you sit in all this. The weak must not be allowed to hinder the mission of the strong.

And this is where we pick up the Florida school that expunged young Alex. The teacher was not an un-principled thug. She was one of the Believers. She was upholding the Spartan Principle, the Capitalist Principle, the Conservative Principle. She was taking good care of her charges and seeing to it that they were given the very best chance to excel. She conscientiously removed the distraction - the deficient - the drainer-of-resources - from the classroom. And I bet she will never, ever see that there was anything unrighteous about that. and neither will the school, or the town. And neither did a significant number of those commenting on the website where this story was published.

So, I want you to remember, as you push on toward the day when all of God’s creations are understood to be acceptable by the simple fact of birth, that you are not always arguing with the uneducated and befuddled. Sometimes your opponent is very aware of the issues, and just plain believes we should get out of the way - that we should accept our labels and classifications and throw ourselves off the nearest cliff with a glad heart.

Don’t wear yourselves out on these people. They are principled, dedicated, well-supported and justified soldiers who share a common creed: that their only duty is to their own kind, and that all others are only animals. The battle is not for the hearts of these soldiers, it is for the hearts of the unaware and unprincipled civilians. Those who currently do not care, and don’t understand what’s happening.

You’ve noticed that the Enemy does not try to convert you? Well, don’t try to convert them. The battle between us is for the minds of the clueless people surrounding us.

I, personally, would not bother to tell the school or the teacher what they did wrong. They will not hear you. They will continue to believe in their cause. Instead, spread this story, and all the other stories we’ve heard in past years, to as many new people as you can. Tell them about the children being shocked at the Judge Rotenburg Center. And the children poisoned by unwitting parents sold cures by heartless doctors and organizations, and the children murdered by their mis-educated and abandoned mothers, and - of course - tell them about how a Florida community treated poor 5 year-old Alex.

It is simply not enough to be principled. It is vitally important to chose those principles that preserve the infinite value and unique glory of each of God’s children.

And remember: the best way to defeat a Spartan is to never fight him. Instead, free the slaves who feed him.

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On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt to try ;-)

Morningside Elementary School Principal:
Mrs. Marcia Cully
cullym@stlucie.k12.fl.us
(772) 337-6730

St. Lucie County Schools Superintendent:
Michael J. Lannon
4204 Okeechobee Road
Ft. Pierce FL 34947-5414
Phone: 772/429-3925
FAX: 772/429-3916
lannonm@stlucie.k12.fl.us

St. Lucie County School Board Chair:
Carol Hilson
772-519-0397
hilsonc@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Vice Chair:Judith Miller
772-528-4545
millerj@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Tags: abuse, Alex, democracy, Kindergarten, Spartans