BULLYING

I believe that bullying at DHS is not a problem. There are many people who get bullied but not to an extent where suicide is the only escape. The school deans have been on top of harassment and bullying. There is very little tolerance for it at our school. However, that does not mean that it does not exist at our school. For example, I have seen teachers make subtle remarks making fun of kids. I wont mention any names but the kid was clearly trying to get attention and unfortunately when people try to get attention they most likely get negative attention. The entire class was telling him to stop talking and then the teacher made a joke about him. To be honest I feel like that was not a problem because when a kid puts himself out there and talks a lot then he has to be able to take criticism. This situation is okay to me because I see little to no harm being done emotionally. Where as the cases that you need to worry about are the ones where kids bully a student that does not put himself out there. If a student that is gay or to fat or too tall is just walking down the hall minding their own business then other students have absolutely no right to make rude comments to them even if they claim that they are friendly with the student. I have only seen this occur a few times this year. There was a lot more bullying last year with the senior class. There were two groups that did not get along and they showed it in the halls. In that case I believe that the best way to combat the bullying would be to have a "Challenge Day." We saw how effective the challenge day was in the movie and I believe that if they could make that a annual assembly that it would help. However, I am not saying that DHS needs it because of the way the faculty punishes bullying. There are very few students that will bully in school because of the possibility of suspension. This is much different than other schools where I hear stories of kids severely picking on students because they are Jewish or gay or even overweight. In Deerfield I believe that we live in a bubble. It is so different from the outside world that I believe that a little bullying is healthy. If no one was bullied than kids would be shocked and not ready for it in the world outside of high school. There is no doubt that bullying will exist outside of high school so adapting to a little criticism is healthy.

Down Range Navy SEALs in the War on Terrorism pt.1 Chapter 1 and 2

So far in the first 60 pages this book has given me a great deal of insight of how the American forces and special forces reached out to other nations in the middle east even before 9/11. There are six SEAL teams that are stationed all throughout the world. Three on the east coast of the US and three on the west coast. However, these teams consist of multiple platoons so that at any one time there are six platoons deployed all around the world. In fact, "there were combat-ready SEAL platoons in Central Command and the Arabian Sea, ready for operational tasking, on 11 September. These forward deployed platoons were in Afghanistan within weeks of the al-Qaeda strikes in New York and Washington, D.C." The effectiveness of broadening Americas territory in which its power and special forces can reach is extremely beneficial to counter terrorism. It allows for the necessary swift action to stop the terrorists and enforce justice. However, this does bring up many issues in the fact that spreading our forces around the world in order to protect ourselves is very similar to an imperial power. In order to keep other countries happy and not to act as an imperial power, American special forces must meet certain ROE, or rules of engagement, established by the UN. For example, before the attacks on 9/11 there were many oil tankers that were smuggling oil out of in order to fund Saddam Hussein's weapons and palace-maintenance coffers. These ships were welded shut in order to resist boarding parties such as the Navy Seals. The Iraqis knew that the SEALs could only operate when the vessel has entered international waters. Therefore, the welded doors and portholes only needed to slow the special forces down long enough for the vessel to enter territorial waters. "An armed force entering the territorial waters of another nation is considered a hostile act."(43)This rule of engagement helps stop America from becoming an imperial power and just entering any country that they please. However, for the men on the front lines it is extremely different. The SEALs also could not use an explosive breaching round that would allow them entry to the ship when on board. Therefore, they had to use saws to cut through the welded doors and portholes which was difficult in the allotted time. This seemed really silly to the SEALs. They believed that "given a free hand, they would have put an end to Saddam's tanker-smuggling operation in short order."(49) The rules of engagement that try to protect America's name and stop America from doing malicious acts of invading unfriendly country's territories are the same rules that help make it easy for Saddam to fund his army. These special forces units have to work with one hand tied behind their back all the time. Every ship that gets away is worth $10 million or more to Saddam in pure profit.(45) In my opinion there should be restrictions on where the special forces should be able to act. However, there certainly should not be rules on how they act. These men are trained to make wise decisions by themselves. They are so powerful that their enemies do not want to carry guns because then that would give the SEALs a reason to kill. If the Iraqis had no lethal weapons on them then the SEALs would just fight to remove the threat and not kill. The SEALs often used the phrase "They got what they deserve."(51) The SEALs have the training in close quarters combat to instinctively identify the threat and react with equal and appropriate lethal/nonlethal force. This ability to save lives and still get the job done is the reason why the Navy SEALs are of the elite.

Drug Testing

I am pulled between the specifics of the law and the morals that drug testing infringes on. My heart and personal opinion pull me to believe that drug testing should not be done in schools. This is because I feel that there are certain people that should be exempt from drug testing. For example, if someone was taking prescription drugs that were prescribed to them for a disease then most of the students will feel violated by giving that information to the school. There are reasons why they have not told anyone about their condition; it is because people will judge them and look differently towards them knowing that the student has depression, AIDs, or anger issues. I feel that in Petitioners v Lindsay Earls they explain that there was a documented occasion when a choir teacher left the list of prescription drugs that the students were taking in plain view for the kids to see. This way all the kids could find out that Jimmy was taking antidepressants for his depression which would be awful for him. At a point were he is trying to be more social all the kids are making fun of him for being depressed. That is not what Jimmy would want and would only make his situation worse. However, I have to agree that the law does say that drug testing in schools is a completely legal exception to the 4th amendment because the government's interest in keeping the schools drug free. This means that I believe that if drug testing is implemented in a school there will be an exception for students to take drug tests from an outside organization or their doctor in order to keep their personal medications personal.



I read the article on the Missouri case where they searched the backpacks during a lock down drill. This made me think that could they bring in a dog to sniff for drugs and gunpowder as well? And if the dog finds anything then that is reasonable suspicion to search the bag. So what I am wondering is how can the government determine what evidence for reasonable suspicion is reasonable I guess.