Are we taking teens too seriously when they do teen things?

You may not have heard about Justin Carter because he's just a kid in San Antonio who apparently made a tasteless joke among friends on Facebook. What he wrote was this:

"I'm f---ed in the head alright. I think I'ma (sic) shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them."

He was arrested, has been in jail for months, and is actually facing 10 years in Federal prison for what may simply have been a stupid wisecrack.

Before international terrorism came along, back when I was a teen, I remember some tasteless jokes we thought were funny. When we told those jokes, it was just among friends and there was no way people outside our circle could even know what was said.

Some of the things we joked about when I was a teen, like dead baby jokes, today might be considered terroristic in today's America.

Bear in mind, all the authorities have are his words. They found no plans, weapons, or terroristic devices. Have we reached the point where a child can be at risk of possibly doing hard prison time based on words alone?

Read more about his case here. What do YOU think?

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 4, 2013 at 10:31pm

Thanks for the heads up. Fixed.

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Permalink Reply by H3xx on July 7, 2013 at 8:00pm

He looks just like Cory Harris on Pawn Stars.

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Permalink Reply by H3xx on July 7, 2013 at 7:30pm

Have we reached the point where a child can be at risk of possibly doing hard prison time based on words alone?

We reached that point a long time ago when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decided to fix their own school troubles in Columbine. After that, children became one of the most terrifying things in the world, leading to ridiculous restrictions such as school uniforms, curfews, zero tolerance laws, and the impossibly strict speech laws.

Here's a little piece of trivia for you: Kids are cruel. They can be the most hateful things on the planet, spouting off things that would make a hardened Al Queda serial rapist gasp in astonishment. But it takes quite a lot of abuse to drive a kid to actually do something. Most parents notice this abuse and get the child some help, but some don't.

In this case, however, this was a kid making a joke. If George Carlin had been in high school today, he'd be in Justin's place right now. Making a joke for shock value is not a crime, and they had no right to arrest him for a single joke. Now if he'd been talking about this for some time, that would be worth at least an investigation, but still not an arrest if no other evidence had been discovered.

p.s., Here's one of my favorite dead baby jokes in honor of and solidarity with Justin Carter. What do you call twenty dead babies in a maternity ward? Spawn Camping!

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Permalink Reply by Gregg R Thomas on July 7, 2013 at 7:40pm

Dead baby joke:

What do you get when you put two dead babies and half of a lime in a blender and turn it on?

I don't know but it goes good with Vodka.

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Permalink Reply by H3xx on July 7, 2013 at 7:55pm

What's worse than ten dead babies in a dumpster? One dead baby in ten dumpsters.

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Permalink Reply by Nina van der Roos on July 8, 2013 at 1:08pm

I think america and common sense parted company on bad terms some time ago and unfortunately a fetish for authoritarianism has stepped in to fill the voide left behind. Sorry but this sort of arrest and persecution by the incredible plethora of law enforcement agencies you now have competing to out-testosterone each other is just the extension of them trying to justify their existance.