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You are here: Home / He Thought He Was the King of America

He Thought He Was the King of America

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In Thailand, you get arrested and thrown in jail for disrespecting the royal family on Facebook. In Kansas your principal gets a call, you get bawled out, and you have to write a letter of apology if you disrespect the Governor on Twitter. I’m sure this is an oversight on Kansas’ part, and once they’re done prosecuting abortion providers, they’ll get around to passing their own set of lese-majeste laws.

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  2. 2.

    General Stuck

    Yep, read that this morning and was stunned at what happened to that Kansas high school student. Especially as it was uncovered and reported by a staffer of Gov Brownback.

  3. 3.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    What a bunch of thin-skinned reptiles in the governor’s office. Obviously they need to close all of the public schools and send the students to a private one.

    Uniforms too, with nice brown shirts so the students look like Brownback supporters.

    But make the kids parents pay for them!

  4. 4.

    cmorenc

    I’m absolutely sure the Kansas school systems are also carefully monitoring students for disrespectful remarks about President Obama, and make any student caught making one write a similar letter of apology to the White House. I assume this is true, at least, since Republicans are so scrupulously honest and fair-minded.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    For the kings, the problem with lese-majeste is it means everyone else has to think in terms of “when you strike a king, you must kill him”.

  7. 7.

    c u n d gulag

    So, Gov. Thin-skin, a Social AND Fiscal Conservative, is using TAXPAYER MONEY to check on people who say he sucks, or is a douchebag?

    What if the voters find out?

    You know what’s the matter with Kansas?
    The pig-ignorant, stupid, and religious morons who vote for assholes like Gov. Thin-skin.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    When the King of Thailand grants you an audience, court etiquette requires that he remain above your level: so His Majesty sits on a couch, while you sit on the floor. But don’t let Governor Brownback hear about this. He might get ideas.

    Seriously, demanding an apology in writing from a high-schooler, over something she said on Twitter? Ye gods. Just how small is this guy’s dick?

  9. 9.

    Snowball

    The people from the tea party are so funny. They claim they hate big government. Yet, they have no problem when big government tries to silence free speech.

  10. 10.

    tjmn

    I would like to think that the truth hurts. However, I would like the magic mirror used by these conservatives that allow them to look themselves in the mirror and not gag on their own bile.

  11. 11.

    JPL

    Breaking news on my local ABC station.. Newt receives the endorsement from the fascist NH paper.
    I had read it earlier but our local station is a tad behind. Newt’s people are a tad slow on their calling the local stations. Considering how we the news treats Bayh, as a sitting Senator, I think it’s only respectful to call him Congressman Newt. Now he go can sit at the back of the plane again.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    Of course, if Governor Thin-skin hadn’t made an issue of this, nobody beyond this teen’s immediate friends would have evr seen this tweet. So, congratulations Governor, for broadcasting it far and wide.

  13. 13.

    flounder

    In that post about Kyl’s greatest hits, I noted that the sleaziest thing he’s ever done was lie to the Supreme Court. Brownback, or at least his staff, tried to help Kyl ( and Lindsey Graham) cover up their lie. I imagine he took some of the lowlifes with him from the Senate.

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Snowball:

    They hate big government pretty much the same way the German industrialists hated big government in the 20’s and 30’s, so they financed a movement to deal with that nasty big government interference with labor/management relations.

  15. 15.

    Keith

    This line was from a different version of the article, but the smugness of it really ticked me off:

    “That wasn’t respectful,” responded Sherriene Jones-Sontag. “In order to really have a constructive dialogue, there has to be mutual respect.”

  16. 16.

    patrick II

    @Keith:
    That makes sense. There is no better way to show the complete mutuality of Brownback’s respect than to punish those who disagree with him.

  17. 17.

    PIGL

    What I want to know is on wha grounds a “school” can require a sudent to write any sort of letter to anyone….

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    @PIGL:

    What I want to know is on wha grounds a “school” can require a sudent to write any sort of letter to anyone….

    You’d be surprised at what they take for granted if you’re not very vigilant. Years ago, when my son was in high school, he created some sort of Web page or forum (today we’d call it a blog, but I honestly don’t remember the platform; it was Geocities time) expressing his disdain for a particular subject due to the incompetence of the faculty. He did it on his own time, using non-school resources and nobody’s real name, real school name, or even any identifiable info about the town or state. Since kids blab and (some) teachers listen, word got around, and the long-serving authoritarian principal threatened a variety of sanctions. I had to go in and calmly but very firmly explain to him about freedom of speech outside of school. I was calm, he was quite heated; it wasn’t fun. His point was largely about “proper respect”, completely ignoring the facts that a) respect is earned, not a right and b) high-school kids are predisposed to disrespect, and that’s natural.

    The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

  21. 21.

    harlana

    hmmm, I guess Brownback is the only public official with a Twitter account that has ever received less than flattering comments!

    WHO KNEW??

  24. 24.

    RSA

    On Tuesday, Sullivan was called to her principal’s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback’s staff and reported to organizers of the Youth in Government program.

    and

    Sullivan’s older sister, Olivia, a sophomore majoring in political science at Wichita State University, said she thinks the controversy amounts to Brownback “censoring the opinion of a student.” … “It’s unacceptable, first of all, to censor her and punish her for what she said. But for the governor and his staff to waste their time getting a high school student in trouble? That’s ridiculous.”

    Waste in government is a terrible thing for Republicans, unless it’s paying staff members to keep the teenagers in line. It’s notable that a 20-year-old college student has more good sense than the governor’s office.

  25. 25.

    harlana

    @Gin & Tonic:
    A Coward’s Tale:
    I agreed with you, but lemme tell ya, i gots no twitter, but when i lost my job (twitter was yet to be born), and after numerous rejections, i became terrified that potential employers could somehow dig into my internet past and find out about my activism and internet rantings on various progresive blogs, against Bush/Cheney gov’t for going to war with Iraq.
    My paranoia was fueled by a fear that i would be passed over once my political beliefs were discovered (i live in a very red state)- also in a previous job, I witnesed first-hand just how easy it is to obtain IP addresses and the like, requested by local or federal law enforcement and also how easy it would be for that information to fall into the wrong hands.

    after you get turned down over and over and over again for jobs you are fully qualified for, you start to wonder – because i lived that – the decimation of our privacy rights, first hand, during the Bush admin. THAT’S how paranoid I was. but can you really blame me? those of us lived it?

  26. 26.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    I’m saving some of my ire for the spineless principal who supported the censorship by asking for the apologies.

  27. 27.

    Donut

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Thanks for sharing that story. I know not everyone is a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but I am a little surprised that the older adults connected to the kid are not quoted at all in any of the articles I’ve seen on this.

    This, from the linked article, freaks me out:

    The Shawnee Mission school district was not in session Wednesday. Leigh Anne Neal, spokeswoman for the district, said that district officials were not aware of the incident, but would look into it after the Thanksgiving break.
    “In general,” she wrote, “students on school-sponsored field trips, in which they are representing the school, would be expected to conduct themselves in accordance with school district policies, including use of electronic devices. Students may express their personal beliefs, views, and opinions, as long as they do so appropriately and in accordance with school policies.”

    The kid is 18, therefore a legal adult, and does not have to do a god-damned thing “in accordance with school policies” when she is using her own personal phone and a decidedly non-school web-space like a personal Twitter account.

    Shouldn’t that go without saying?

    Also, too – for people who supposedly hate government overreach so much, these assholes in Brownback’s office sure are concerned with showing government officials so much respect.

    The contradictions, they boggle the rational mind.

  29. 29.

    smintheus

    Yes, Brownback and the principal have behaved like jerks. But practically speaking, what power does the principal have to force the student to write letters of apology? Had my HS principal tried such a stunt I would have laughed in his face.

  33. 33.

    Geeno

    @smintheus: Seriously. Then I would have flipped him the bird and walked away. A lot has changed since we were in high school.
    ETA: In this case I’d immediately tweet what an asshole my principal is.

  34. 34.

    Cacti

    So, in other words, this student is being punished by the school (a State institution) for offering a disparaging opinion about a State official.

    This is about as blatant a violation of First Amendment rights as you’re likely to see. Where is the “don’t tread on me” crowd for this one?

    Applauding King Brownback, that’s where.

  35. 35.

    Cacti

    @smintheus:

    Yes, Brownback and the principal have behaved like jerks. But practically speaking, what power does the principal have to force the student to write letters of apology? Had my HS principal tried such a stunt I would have laughed in his face.

    I’d write the following…

    Dear Governor Brownback,

    I’m sorry you blow a lot.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    Sullivan, 18, said she posted the comment because she doesn’t agree with Brownback’s policies, particularly recent cuts in state aid to schools. She is a registered Democrat.

    There’s the problem for you. The franchise should be restricted to responsible white male property holders the way God and the Founding Fathers intended. Once we stop letting these irresponsible 18 year-olds vote and make it illegal for anyone to register as a Democrat, this kind of problem will go away.

  37. 37.

    Gretchen

    The hold they had over the kid is that this is college application season, and they implied her recommendations would suffer if she weren’t a good little girl. My four kids graduated from this school, and I’m not at all happy about its making national news as a right-wing, authoritarian backwater just when one of them is applying to grad schools on the coasts. People from other places already think of Kansans as ignorant rednecks – the school doesn’t need to go out of its way to confirm it. Shawnee Mission East is proud of its acceptance rate to high-end schools, and this won’t help.

  38. 38.

    G Newman

    Kansas remains one of the few states with a criminal in addition to a civil libel law. You can be charged with defamation and sent to jail for mere spoken words. However, such prosecutions remain rare. Source: American Journalism Review online, http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=2606 . Interestingly, the majority of the commenters on this story in the Kansas City Star side with the girl, rather than with Brownback. Shawnee Mission East is a high-end demographic high school in Johnson County, and the majority of its students come from liberal Republican households (yes, they still exist) of the economic elite of the Kansas City area.

  42. 42.

    henqiguai

    @Angela (#41):

    I am from Kansas and I have always thought it odd how hard Dorothy worked to get back to Kansas!

    Well, like Oz, from where she was trying to escape, the Kansas to which she was trying to return was equally make believe and fantastical.

  44. 44.

    gogol's wife

    @Gretchen:

    I can’t believe this kind of thing can happen at Shawnee Mission. The name makes it sound as if it’s out in the prairie, but it’s like East Coast private school in reality. Or at least it used to be!

  45. 45.

    Lojasmo

    I wonder if McCain is going to get on my ass for calling him a douchebag on twatter. Time will tell.

  46. 46.

    tech98

    It’ll be a frosty day in hell before you’ll see the Repukes or the Teatards stand up for the free speech rights of anyone outside their smug little club challenging one their authoritarians.

  47. 47.

    Nutella

    How funny is it that the governor and his staff care that a teenage girl was mmmeeeeeeaannnnn to him?

  48. 48.

    Gretchen

    @gogol’s wife: still is. It always used to bother my husband, when dropping the kids off at school, that the student parking lot was filled with cars far nicer than his. Some of those Mission Hills kids still get BMW’s for their 16th birthday.

  51. 51.

    Imarkley

    @Violet:

    THis may be the case.. and if she had done this in a school newspaper or publication then the rules could be entirely different. However, she did it from her phone ( I believe) to her private twitter account. So… free speech rules apply.

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