Sometimes it's the seemingly insignificant things that are revelatory of major problems. It's the tiny whine in the car engine and a flashing engine warning light that lets the driver know the car is in deep trouble.

In a similar manner, it's the seemingly small stuff that can warn us that society is veering off the road and heading for a crash. Recently two small incidents indicate complete derailment of the U.S. educational system as well as the increasing insanity of the Left.

According the USA News, a five-year-old girl was suspended from school for aiming a pink plastic "Hello Kitty" bubble gun at a fellow kindergartner and saying, "I'm going to shoot you and I will shoot myself."

The girl was immediately questioned by school authorities for 30 minutes and was subsequently labeled a "terrorist threat." She received a ten-day suspension, subsequently reduced to two days after a lawyer for her family intervened. She joins another disgraced cohort in crime, a six-year-old boy who pointed his finger at another student and said, "Pow."

It seems the days in which kids played cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians have bitten the dust forever. Children are not even to say, "Bang, bang. You're dead!" After all, we can't have terrorist tykes in our midst.
The reaction of any rational adult would be, "How absurd! Are you nuts?"

But the matter of these two little children goes far beyond irrationality or even absurdity. The actions of a couple of teachers and administrators indicate the vacuity of the thought patterns of the Left, which desires to create an Edenic kingdom where not only children, but grown men and women are forever blowing pretty bubbles in the air. The moral champions of our educational system represent inculcation of bubble head standards that bear little or no resemblance to reality and common sense, inculcation that is comparable to brainwashing.

But what is perhaps even more important, there are grave consequences for the little kids who are punished for merely playing games that have been played from time immemorial.

First, down here on the real earth far away from the rainbows created by Champagne Ladies' enchanted bubble world, a little girl -- still a mere baby -- has been branded a terrorist. She effectually has a criminal record at age five and will from henceforth be regarded as a potentially violent person who is a danger to society unless there is radical intervention.

Further, she has been shamed and humiliated without even comprehending what she did wrong. A child her age has few or no inner resources to ward off the attacks of adults who punish her for thinking about using a toy gun. Instead she absorbs burning shame and condemnation into her spirit like dye. She absorbs guilt without hope of expiation for her sins. Her entire inner being has been assaulted and she has virtually no defense. She may as well have been put in the stocks or had a big red "T" for terrorist sewn to her dress.

In other words, both the little girl and the little boy have been subjected to extreme emotional and spiritual abuse. They are likely to bear scars for life. Scars, which not so coincidentally, which come from wounds inflicted by people who doubtless would cringe at the very thought of water boarding real terrorists who may be conspiring to blow up whole schoolrooms of children. Yet they feel have no compunction about destroying the developing inner moral compass of little children.

The fact is that the so-called teachers of the children are hell bent on completely killing the capacity for anger even when it is harmlessly displayed ritualistically in innocent games. In so doing, they are not only training the child to sublimate all types of anger, but they are essentially killing the capacity for righteous indignation. Righteous indignation is essential to the integrity of the individual and society. The ability to separate out the good guys and the bad guys is totally dependent on the ability to be indignant at unjust assault.

Does anyone think the little boy who was condemned for pointing a finger at another child and saying, "Pow," will be inclined to lift a finger to protect anyone against assault? The unlikelihood of his protecting himself or another is increased, as he has been told that any indication that he is angry and/or possesses the means of self-defense or defense of another is dreadfully, horribly wrong.

Further, in a strange, distorted, secularist resurrection of the concept of original sin, the little boy and girl are being told for the most superficial reasons that they are intrinsically bad. They are being told it is outward signs and possession of certain objects that designate them as essentially unclean. Outward appearances rather than inner integrity of heart are what matters.

Last, both kids will be inclined to view armed protectors such as the police or the armed forces as inherently suspicious. After all, if the kids themselves have been condemned for owning bubble guns or pointing fingers, how much more offensive are those who own actual weapons? The learned aversion could well include aversion to their parents or other relatives who own fire arms. How long before Suzie decides she doesn't want to play with Uncle Nathan because he has a gun? How long before Joey decides his dad is a creep he doesn't have to listen to because dad likes to go hunting? How long before both decide the entire armed forces of the U.S. have to be reduced or even eliminated? After all, childhood aversions extend into adulthood and even dictate national policy, as we have recently discovered.

Those adults who still recognize the difference between the real good guys and the bad guys will be and perhaps must be, increasingly disinclined to send our children to schools that essentially abuse our children.
Yes, abuse.

Abuse just as bad as Mr. Broklehurst, the "educator" at Lowood School handed out to Jane Eyre. Abuse just as severe as David Copperfield endured at the hands of the despicable Mr. Creakle at Salem House. Both schools depicted by the authors were examples of a corrupt Victorian educational system often characterized by physical abuse.

And while there still are some kindly teachers like Salem House's beloved Mr. Mell within the American public school system (thank God), the reins of authority are increasingly in the hands of radicals who in the name of good and for the cause of utopia too often beat up our kids. It's just that the abuse, instead of being primarily physical -- though sexual molestation makes too frequent an appearance within public schools -- takes the seemingly invisible forms of emotional and spiritual abuse that is killing to the human spirit.

Parents and concerned citizens must revolt against an increasingly despicable system that essentially canes children for being -- well, just children.

Fay Voshell may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com