Post Pastry Trauma Syndrome

Are you familiar with Post Pastry Trauma Syndrome? George Will writes about it in his latest column. A seven-year-old boy in Maryland bit his pop tart into the shape of a gun, and said, "bang-bang." Of course, he was suspended and a letter was sent home to all parents to encurage their children to express their "feelings" about the incident. Will writes,

Ah, yes. The all-purpose adjective “appropriate.” The letter said “one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures” and although “no physical threats were made and no one was harmed” the code of student conduct stipulates “appropriate consequences.”

By now, Americans may be numb to such imbecilities committed by the government institutions to which they entrust their children for instruction.

But looking on the bright side, perhaps we should welcome these multiplying episodes as tutorials about the nature of the regulatory state that swaddles us ever more snuggly with its caring.

Government is failing spectacularly at its core functions, such as budgeting and educating. Yet it continues to multiply its peripheral and esoteric responsibilities, tasks that require it to do things for which it has no aptitude, such as thinking and making common-sense judgments. Government nowadays is not just embarrassing, it is — let us not mince words — inappropriate.

Read the whole thing here: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/george-will/george-will-pop-tart-terrorist/article_6f63c4bd-a0ff-5681-aaed-9b4f298c6441.html