Here’s the kid you were trying to force me to drug.

Here’s the kid you took away from me when I refused to follow your nonsense order.

SHAME ON YOU!

It’s terrible – just look at how distracted this kid is – he can’t pay attention – he can’t sit still – he’s rambunctious – his mind wanders – he’s so endangered! HE NEEDS DRUGS!

Gimme a friggin break!

Shelly Griffin – Judith Abramsohn – Judge Dean Fink – SHAME ON YOU!

When my teacher told my parents that I had a hard time sitting still and paying attention in class, I tried to tell them that I was just BORED. School wasn’t challenging enough for me. My mom took me to a doctor and he told her that I had ADHD and that I had to take medicine for it.

My dad didn’t like the idea of giving me medicine so he took me out of that school and decided to homeschool me. I LOVED IT! I didn’t have ANY problems with paying attention because he knows how to make learning fun for me.

But my mom didn’t like that idea so she kept giving me the drugs. The drugs made me sit still in school but they also did a lot of bad things. I was sick a lot. The drugs made me dizzy and gave me headaches and stomachaches. They also made it so I couldn’t sleep so my mom and the doctor decided to give me sleeping pills every night. I didn’t like the way I felt on the drugs and my dad didn’t like it either.

When the judge told my dad that he had to give me all these drugs, my dad said NO! The judge kept telling him that if he didn’t drug me, he would lose custody of me. After two years of my dad refusing to drug me, the judge said that I couldn’t see him anymore.

After that, my dad did the only thing that he could do to protect me from these drugs. He quit his job and sold everything that he owned and took me across the country to keep me safe. In the 3 ½ months that we were gone I did SO good! I was homeschooled again and had a lot of fun learning. I felt great being off the drugs and I gained A LOT of height and weight. The drugs kept me from growing for 2 years.

But then we got caught. They took my dad to jail and I had to go back to the same school that I hated, and now I’m on the drugs again. These drugs are killing me and it’s sad that my mom and the school and the judge can’t see it.

My dad is doing everything he can to get me back and to get me off of the drugs. He’s hired an attorney and he’s not going to stop fighting this until I am off the drugs and back with him.

Ben

If I could make a list of people who I’d like to shake their hands and thank for the way their writing has influenced me, John Taylor Gatto would be at the top of that list. A few days ago I got the opportunity to do just that.

John is a former public school teacher of 30 years. He was named New York City Teacher of the year 3 times and New York State Teacher of the year once. He quit teaching, while still New York State Teacher of the Year, claiming that he was no longer willing to hurt children.

He’s now an outspoken critic of the public school system and has written some of the BEST books out there on the subject including….

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992).
The Exhausted School (1993).
A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling (2000).
The Underground History of American Education (2001).
Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008).

No comment needed.

“The widespread use of Ritalin and other drugs on youngsters who simply exhibit typical rambunctious, fidgety, and impatient behavior is nothing short of criminal.”

A presidential initiative called The “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health” has issued a report recommending forced mental health screening for every child in America, including preschool children. The goal is to promote the patently false idea that we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment.

One obvious beneficiary of the proposal is the pharmaceutical industry, which is eager to sell the psychotropic drugs that undoubtedly will be prescribed to millions of American schoolchildren under the new screening program. Of course a tiny minority of children suffer from legitimate mental illnesses, but the widespread use of Ritalin and other drugs on youngsters who simply exhibit typical rambunctious, fidgety, and impatient behavior is nothing short of criminal. It may be easier to teach and parent drugged kids, but convenience is no justification for endangering them. Children’s brains are still developing, and the truth is we have no idea what the long-term side effects of psychiatric drugs may be. Medical science has not even exhaustively identified every possible brain chemical, even as we alter those chemicals with drugs.

Dr. Karen Effrem, a physician who strongly opposes mandatory mental health screening, warns us that “America’s children should not be medicated by expensive, ineffective, and dangerous medications based on vague and dubious diagnoses.” She points out that psychiatric diagnoses are inherently subjective, as authors of the diagnostic manuals admit. She also is concerned that mental health screening could be used to label children whose attitudes, religious beliefs, and political views conflict with the secular orthodoxy that dominates our schools.

The greater issue, however, is not whether youth mental health screening is appropriate. The real issue is whether the state owns your kids. When the government orders “universal” mental health screening in schools, it really means “mandatory.” Parents, children, and their private doctors should decide whether a child has mental health problems, not government bureaucrats. That this even needs to be stated is a sign of just how obedient our society has become toward government. What kind of free people would turn their children’s most intimate health matters over to government strangers? How in the world have we allowed government to become so powerful and arrogant that it assumes it can force children to accept psychiatric treatment whether parents object or not?

Parents must do everything possible to retain responsibility and control over their children’s well-being. There is no end to the bureaucratic appetite to rule every aspect of our lives, including how we raise our children. Forced mental health screening is just the latest of many state usurpations of parental authority: compulsory education laws, politically-correct school curricula, mandatory vaccines, and interference with discipline through phony “social services” agencies all represent assaults on families. The political right has now joined the political left in seeking the de facto nationalization of children, and only informed resistance by parents can stop it. The federal government is slowly but surely destroying real families, but it is hardly a benevolent surrogate parent.

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

In Ben’s case, it’s real simple to understand.

Shelly (Ben’s mom) has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is on a lot of medications herself. In her situation, the drugs mess her up more than the so called “disorder” itself.

Below are some quotes from her personal journal. These are words that she personally wrote, describing how messed up she is and how she isn’t able to take care of Ben….

“It seems like I’m constantly getting onto Benjamin. Of course, I worry if I’m giving him enough attention. I’m so unhappy most of the time. I’m sure it rubs off on him.”

“I just get more and more pissed off. My mind races. I cant seem to make decisions. I just wander around like I’m lost, or that’s how I feel in my head. I’m “acting” all day long. What I truly feel like is coming completely out of my skin. Everything is confusing.”

“Ben takes so much, he’s so difficult right now. I know it’s because I can’t or don’t give him the attention he needs.”

“I sometimes feel like I don’t have control of my thoughts.”

“I slipped into a very dark day. Cried all day, neglected Ben.”

“Aside from my messed up mind, I’m healthy.”

“More of the same today. I had a horrible morning. I think I scared Ben.”

“I wish I could just fly away and never come back or go die somewhere. I’m never happy, this is all so hard. I think of dying every day.”

“I’m so confused, my brain seems rattled. I’m paranoid and sensitive. I’ve been crying every day. This is so hard. I really feel like the living dead.”

“I’m so uncomfortable, my mind races. It’s exhausting. Thoughts of suicide penetrate my mind. It’s scary. I cried most of the day yesterday. Ben deserves better than that.”

“I feel like bugs are crawling under my skin and that I’m hanging on by my fingernails. It’s all in my head but that’s where I need to feel better. Every day is a struggle.”

“Shit, I’m having those black days again. Yesterday and today, I’m very tired of it. I’m crying off and on all day – totally sleeping. Right now I feel – confused – tired – very sad. I keep sleeping hoping it passes. I seriously am not interested in anything. I couldn’t take care of Ben.”

Wow!

Is it possible that ANY kid would come out of that sort of home environment “normal”.

Do you think that just maybe being a kid in an environment like this might have some effects on your mental health?

The way to correct the problem isn’t to give a kid mind-numbing drugs so that he can deal with the environment.

The way to fix it is to remove the kid from the environment until his mother can get the help that she truly needs.

“This perhaps occurred for no other reason other than because of these prescriptions”

Everybody’s comments were overwhelmingly positive in my favor. Of the few negative comments I received, there was one that just made me laugh. It was posted by someone hiding behind the name “busted1” on the azFamily website.

Busted1 wrote…

“It’s just like his kind to hide behind the Constitution to justify his crimes”

I had to wonder how many people saw the ignorance and stupidity in his statement. I mean, here’s someone acknowledging that I have God-given rights guaranteed by The Supreme Law Of The Land and that I’m somehow “hiding” behind those rights.

“Busted1” went on to inform people that the Constitution was written over 200 years ago and that it is pretty much outdated and meaningless today.

I initially dismissed his statement as ignorance. I understand that most Americans don’t get what role the Constitution plays in our lives. Most don’t understand that it spells out the fact that we have God-given rights that no government can EVER take away from us. Most don’t understand that it’s the one tool we’ve got to keep government intrusion out of our lives.

But, there are a few of us who SHOULD know.

Me, for example. 25 years ago I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution Of The United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I made sure to understand exactly what that oath meant and I took it seriously. As far as I know, that oath didn’t have an expiration date.

Judges take the oath too. The Constitution is the very core of their job. They should understand it’s significance in our lives better than anyone.

Cops take the oath. They swear to protect and defend the Constitution. They deal with it every day and their entire job revolves around protecting our rights. You would think that a cop should fully understand the rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution.

So, when I found out that “Busted1” was none other than Chris Keipert, the Chandler AZ cop who was the lead investigator on my case, his ignorance wasn’t funny any more, it was scary.

I’m not sure what’s scarier – the fact that we have judges taking an oath to protect the Constitution and then totally ignoring it in our courtrooms, or the fact that we have clueless, ignorant cops taking the oath and then saying that the Constitution is meaningless.