The latest Crime Against the State: Educational Theft

Most of the laws that we have on the books are not crimes against private property or persons but transgressions against the peculiar way that state elites have rigged the system for their benefit.  In the Soviet Union they used to call these things "Crimes Against the State" by "antisocial elements".  Take for example the new practice of putting parents in jail for trying to get their children a better 'free' education.  The system is organized to benefit the state elites and crony capitalist friends.  For the rest of us, the state is just a destructive, oppressive enemy.

From today's WSJ editorial by Michael Flaherty, president and cofounder of Walden Media, which coproduced the 2010 documentary Waiting for "Superman":

"In case you needed further proof of the American education system's failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft. That's the charge that has landed several parents in jail this year. 

From California to Massachusetts, districts are hiring special investigators to follow children from school to their homes to determine their true residences and decide if they "belong" at high-achieving public schools. School districts in Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all boasted recently about new address-verification programs designed to pull up their drawbridges and keep "illegal students" from entering their gates. 

Other school districts use services like VerifyResidence.com, which provides "the latest in covert video technology and digital photographic equipment to photograph, videotape, and document" children going from their house to school. School districts can enroll in the company's rewards program, which awards anonymous tipsters $250 checks for reporting out-of-district students. 

Only in a world where irony is dead could people not marvel at concerned parents being prosecuted for stealing a free public education for their children."