Principal reports anarchist student to cops for thought crime

Kinnan Zaloom is a former student at Hampstead School and he wrote under the pseudonym Sludge at The Hampstead Trash Blog. Principal Jacques Szemalikowski was so offended by Zaloom’s writing that he blocked the website on school computers, forbid him from ever returning to the campus for any reason, warned the university he hoped to attend about his “mad writings,” and reported him to the police. Talk about an overreaction.

The Hampstead Trash Blog describes itself as:

A blog in which pretentious arrogant pricks deliberate their views on school and scorn on its many flaws, whilst trying their hardest to be funny to appeal to your boring life.

Disclaimer:
Everything is bullshit stories we made up while tripping on LSD, nothing is real. And we never killed no animals either. I swear. Wallah.

Sounds like good honest fun, so I went and . So, what’s this sociocrat all bent out of shape about? Szemalikowski said he was “duty bound” to take these actions because he was concerned that Zaloom was, “developing into an anarchist!” Gasp!

Zaloom started the blog to criticize was he viewed as mismanagement of the school, including wasted spending on promotional material, lack of investment in music and sports programs, and failure to listen to the concerns of the students. This is done with, let’s say, colorful language.

Szemalikowski says he took these extreme measures to censor the young blogger in order to “prevent violent extremism.” When asked what he was so scared about he said, “Kinnan has mentioned the ideologies of anarchism and individualism on this blog.”

Read that again.

“Kinnan has mentioned the ideologies of anarchism and individualism on this blog.”

So… no menacing photos of him holding firearms, no bomb plots, no angry rants about killing school faculty, not even evidence of being a Marilyn Manson fan? He mentioned an ideology? I can understand ignorant government employees being spooked by the word “anarchy,” but why mention individualism? Unless, individualism is is somehow also a dangerous ideological threat to compulsory schooling. But that would mean that compulsory schooling was actually about teaching… collectivism.

I know. Shocking, right?

Szemalikowski added, “In the last year he has become more and more enchanted by anti-establishment ways of thinking and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt.”

Still not hearing any violent extremism. And by the way, isn’t it true that there is an inherent risk of corruption in every government? Isn’t that what they say the point of compulsory schooling is? To make sure a well educated citizenry is vigilant enough to head off the inherent risk of corruption in government? That’s what I was told in school.

Specifically, Szemalikowski was incensed by a post by Zaloom that compared school faculty to the characters in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, with Szemalikowski as Napolean, the tyrannical pig who becomes president of the farm. Other than that, his only substantive objection is to Zaloom’s swearing, but he added, “If Mr Zaloom had not used bad language I would still have warranted an expulsion for his mad ideas and ranting”.

Zaloom said, “What worries me is that they would have been prepared to ruin my education because they didn’t like my thoughts.” Zaloom compared he lengths of intimidation to control a student’s thoughts to Ingsoc, the a totalitarian government in the Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Seriously? This is a blog… on the internet. I’ve got no problem with him blocking websites on school computers, but he seriously thinks he’s justified in attacking students for what they write at home? This guy is a viscous petty tyrant whose power has gone to his head.

Zaloom no longer writes for the blog, but it’s still kept up to date by a team of anonymous students writing under the pseudonyms, Councillor Hugh G. Rection, Heywood Jablome, Penn Name, and Phyllis Stine. If I had to guess, I’d say they all have promising careers as journalists, whistleblowers and rabble rousers ahead of them.

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