*Disclaimer: Most of this is my fictional interpretation based on the real-life news story: Orwellian Nightmare Begins for Teacher who Wrote a Sci Fi Novel
Real Life News:
Location: Dorchestor County, Maryland
August 31, 2014
Mr. Patrick McLaw, an English teacher wrote a science fiction story set in 2902 about a futuristic school shooting. The school board received word of it. He was taken into the psychiatric ward for evaluation, put on administrative leave, the police sent a bomb squad all because of this story.
My Interpretation is a work if Fiction Starting on the Day of the Events
The summer went by uneventfully. As always, the teachers slowly began their exodus into the classrooms, setting up their books, creating lesson plans and familiarizing themselves with their future students.
One young enthusiastic English teacher "Winston" was compiling a list of books, for his class to read, critique and digest. The books included the eighth grade staples such as Diary of Anne Frank, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Emma and of course 1984.
Meanwhile, in an administrative building, almost planets away, they receive a mysterious email. It is sent by an anonymous email, which takes great care to erase its trails. The Ip address is spoofed, and the message is untraceable. This mysterious email brazenly includes two links to the Kindle Store for the book Insurrectionist written, using a nom de plume, K. Volteare. The email targeted an English teacher as the author.
The book was a science fiction book set 900 years in the future, which involved an insurrection occurring in school.
Upon receiving this email, the school board went into panic mode. Never mind common sense, and the books references to the Imperial Union's law enforcement officers watching the massacre on holographic technology. Ignoring the fact that the book was set in years 900, the school board focuses on two keys words. As though they are programmed to execute a series of commands when faced with these keywords: "School Shooting."
Unbeknownst to Winston, who was preparing discussion questions regarding Big Brother, Thought Crimes, the school board had fired their missile.
The School Board, in efforts to minimize any threat of potential litigation, asked their lawyers about the risk.
"Forseable" was the magic word. Fresh from the sting of Sandy Hook, and an ever litigious society, the School Board was posed with these questions.
Had the provided a safe school setting.
Does the school board have a duty to review its employees for potential issues?
If the problem was foreseeable, what preventative action must someone take?
In a less litigious society, this book may have been dismissed as an attempt for a young man to publish some science fiction. However, the school board's thoughts exclusively ran the following train:"Torts" "Scandal" "Mass Shooting" and "Going Postal."
They never calculated the remoteness of a sci-fi novel, to real-life desires and wishes. It was merely an exercise of precaution to prove that they were not negligent. They took all precaution to make sure that they would not be liable in an event of a massacre.
They sent red-alerts to the police. Winston was whisked off to a mental hospital to ensure he posed no risk to the health and safety of the students. The police ravaged through every inch of Winston's home, school, office and car searching for guns, bombs, incendiary devices and WMD, only to turn up empty.
Winston was evaluated repeatedly by many psychiatrists and psychologists to prove that his fiction book set 900 years in the future was not a projection of a subconcious or conscious desire for a mass murder. Regardless of how implausible the technology, he had to convince them that they were not allegories to the plan of attack , he was going to carry.
The doctors,too, worried about their liability, if they let a potentially insane man back to school to teach students. They thought, better safe than sorrry and were very thorough in their evaluation. But, ultimately, technology put a damper on a very thorough investigation. Neither the doctors could read his mind nor the future. They would simply be forced to trust their judgment.
The teacher was suspended from school. When the substitute teacher entered the classroom, his discussion questions for the first part of the syllabus laid open:
What is Winston's Thoughtcrime?
What is a difference between a facecrime and a thoughtcrime?
Can you imagine what life would be like, if there were thought crimes?
Unfortunately, for all, no imagination was necessary!
His book is available on Amazon.com, if you want to purcahse it as a solidarity in support of Free Speech
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend till death your right to say it.
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