Tough Love, Dead Kids

I have never really bought into the idea that has spread faster than the Bush administration's addiction to corruption. That idea is that getting tough with kids will somehow straighten them out. For well over twenty years, juvenile delinquents are increasingly being subjected to conditions that even violent criminals would find abusive.

Republican politicians, themselves often on the wrong side of the law, argue that you can't be tough enough on underpriviledged kids - no, sir. Tough is never, ever tough enough. Of course when politicians break the law they write their memoirs while awaiting early release matriculation.

Here's the latest tragedy - big surprise - in a Bush state.

Autopsy: Boot camp guards killed teen
Second coroner's examination finds 14-year-old suffocated
Friday, May 5, 2006; Posted: 6:03 p.m. EDT (22:03 GMT)

(CNN) -- A teenager who died at a Florida boot camp was suffocated by guards who were restraining him, a medical examiner has determined.

Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died in January after he was restrained and struck by workers at the boot camp for juvenile offenders.

No charges have been filed in connection with Anderson's death.

It's about time this country re-examined its lust for punishment when it comes to kids. These practices of racheting up the violence are racheting up the violence and the people getting hurt can't vote or fight back - not my idea of America.