Children can be difficult and annoying to deal with. Sometimes they need strong discipline. However, there is a difference between how one treats a child and how one deals with an adult, because while children are little people, they are not fully developed and have much to learn, and part of being a child is learning how to control one’s actions and learn to become a functional adult.
Sometimes, children have temper explosions, where they break down and cry, and adults have to step in and remove them. Sometimes adults need help, especially if the child is older, and sometimes a firm hand is required. However, it is very rare that one needs to use strong force against a child, especially one under the age of ten.
However, that is what happened to a six-year-old girl, Kaia Rolle, who was arrested by police for throwing a tantrum while at elementary school, something that her grandmother found out later. The police even went so far as to take her “mugshot” and fingerprint her before being dropped off at a juvenile delinquent center.
“What do you mean she was arrested, he said ‘there was an incident and she kicked somebody and she is being charged and she is on her way,’” Kirkland explained.
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“She has a medical condition that we are working on getting resolved and he says, ‘what medical condition, she has a sleep disorder, sleep apnea,’ and he says, ‘well I have sleep apnea and I don’t behave like that.”
First grader Kaia was handcuffed and carted off where Kirkland says she was fingerprinted and even had a mug shot taken. (source)
People talk about the “threats” that face America, and most of them define such threats as foreign things, but what is not to say that as is often is, the greatest threat is from oneself?
Now while there could be more details to the story, there is hardly a reason ever to do such to a child. Given the persistent pattern in the US of police over-reacting and using disproportionate force in cases where it is not needed, this should not come as a surprise. Likewise, it is also not a surprise that, as the “right” reminded the American public of frequently during the Obama years, of the militarization of the police and how the next generation of police was being taught not to see themselves as “peace officers” who keep peace in society, but as “law enforcement officers” who “enforce the law” and who see the public as an enemy.
This is not to say that police do not have many stresses, and sometimes have to make difficult decisions under high pressure, nor that they will always be correct. However, what is one to say about arresting, taking a mugshot, taking fingerprints, and then dropping a six-year-old at a juvenile delinquent center- the equivalent of jail -for having a tantrum? Why was the girl’s grandmother not informed of the situation?
Details are necessary in this case, but it would be very hard to assert that the situation was handled properly. Rather, this small child was treated as though she was an older teenager or a serious “threat.” This pattern should be highly disturbing because the consequences could be fatal in the future if such continues.
For example, what would happen if the girl kicked the officer, or bit him? Small children having tempers are known to do such things. Would the officer have taken his taser, or club, or perhaps even have shot her? What would he say to the media after a child has permanent brain damage from electric shock, or perhaps a lifelong injury from being beaten with a stick, or is dead? That the child “assaulted a law enforcement officer” and the “officer took measures to protect himself”, and then have the police department defend the officer and keep him on the force?
If one does not believe this could not happen, one needs to look at the transformation of the police over the last three decades into what it is today. If these changes could take place, what is to say the could not become even worse, especially as the society embraces paganism, turns more away from God, and more force becomes required to keep people from fighting as it will also be invited by the same people against those who they do not like?
What message does this send from public schools? Given the levels and types of teaching today that is often little more than an intellectually-sounding form of indoctrination, what are the schools teaching other than to obey everything that “the authority” says, and if one does not, the “man in the suit” comes and takes you away?
People complain that America could become like communist China, but perhaps one does not realize that the US has already embraced many of the same ideas, technologies, and processes and implemented them as China has. The difference is that China does not attempt to cover up what she does, but the US and other western nations present them as conveniences that make life better and disproportionately emphasize the positive while shying away from the negative unless it can be translated into a socially acceptable context.
Some talk about the “social credit system” of China, but fail to see that the US already has the same tools and is implementing them, albeit in a different manner, and when it comes to public face, it will likewise not be done with force, but with the acceptance and to the praise of the general public. The same is with the persecution of Christians, for while the Chinese shut down Churches and beat Christians with clubs, in the US it is about building support against Christians by using social causes that are abominable to Christianity but accepted by the majority, and in so doing to create a division between Christians, into factions that are “patriotic” (that support said causes in spite of the direct opposition from the faith they claim to espouse) versus those who truly believe, who are focused on as the “problem” that must be ridiculed, harassed, and are not worthy of any place in society, including the unspoken but real economic disenfranchisement through the not-admitted-but-present decision to refuse to hire people with such voices, thus impoverishing them and forcing them out of the sphere of public discourse.
This is not a trend that Christians can stop either, as the processes that brought about the current situation were implemented a long time ago, have been running for a while, and are accepted by most. This is not time for Christians to fight a battle they cannot win, but to return to caring for themselves and those in their sphere of influence, of which a large part necessarily must include economic preparations for the future.
In the story of the grasshopper and the ant, the grasshopper did not try to fight the weather. Winter was going to come regardless, and there was nothing that he could do. It was only for him to prepare for the inevitable as best as he was able to.