Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Some folks on the Right are in arms over a story involving a Milwaukee school teacher who cut a braid off a first grader. Lamya Cammon, who is a very cute sweetie pie of a girl, has beautiful braids of hair. As many first grade girls do, she absent-mindedly twirled the brain with her fingers.

Her teacher reportedly and repeatedly asked her to stop doing it. Eventually, she asked Miss Cammon to come to the front of the room to accept a piece of candy. Confused, Miss Cammon walked to the front of the room, whereupon the teacher grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped off the brain braid in question and handed it back to her.

The girl burst into tears and the teacher (allegedly) and the class (inarguably) burst into laughter.

Miss Cammon’s mother went tactical over the issue, and confronted the teacher. The teacher apologized and added “But I was frustrated.” The principal transferred the teacher to another classroom until further notice while the Milwaukee Public School District starts disciplinary hearings, the Milwaukee Police Department fined her $175 for disorderly conduct, and the union’s Sid Hatch blamed budget funding woes adding to her daily stress.

So the controversy among conservatives is whether a teacher should face any displinary action at all for what is, admittedly, a minor form of corporal punishment. The expectation, of course, is that Miss Cammon’s mother will sue the district for mental endangerment, and so forth.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Here are your facts.

A first-grade girl with braids is likely to play with them absent-mindedly. First graders do a lot of absent-minded things, like tap their pencils, stare out windows, make weird popping noises with their mouths, and so on. Twirling a braid? Hardly the most disruptive thing in the world.

So by the Czar’s reckoning, a first grade teacher of any competency will know that first-graders can do these things, and will not be outraged, offended, or territorially challenged by it. And what does it say about a teacher who cannot function professionally because a girl, somewhere in class, is twirling her hair silently? Seems that it ain’t Miss Cammon who has a problem with distraction, ironically.

Third, if you were to walk up to someone in the street, pull out a pair of scissors, and snip off a lock of their hair without warning, what do you think would happen to you? You would be charged with battery. The Czar is not sure why the Milwaukee DA opted to drop criminal charges against the teacher.

Is battery too strong a charge for a little class discipline? Indeed, not: for one thing, there is a tremendous power imbalance between a first grader and her teacher. The teacher is, by rights, a semi-deity to the brain of the first grader. When the teacher humiliates a student—and let’s not kid ourselves that the girl was humiliated when she cried while the entire class laughed—the student can only call the hair snipping an unwanted, potentially damaging contact.

And that’s good enough for an assault charge.

What’s more, the Union implies the teacher’s inarguable guilt by defending her with the ludicrous idea of budget-induced stress. This is nonsense of pre-traumatic stress disorder proportions.

If your first grade teachers are stressed out to the point that they cannot handle a braid-twirling seven-year-old sweetheart short of committing an assault on her with a pair of scissors, maybe it’s better if you stop talking to the press entirely.

Unless there is something far deeper with this story that no one has reported, this is a pretty simple case of abuse being swept away by the union.

Everyone involved has hidden behind their lawyers, except one: Lamya’s mother has not, as far as anyone knows, engaged an attorney. But she should, and quickly.

Conservatives need to voice their support behind little Ms. Cammon and her mom, and call out the filthy union that chillingly protects a teacher who uses scissors on a kid. The Czar already knows that all the teacher did was cut a lock of hair. She could have scribbled on Lamya’s face with a marker, or spat on her, or stolen her shoes and socks: the principle is the same and equally disgusting. The Czar would very much like to meet Lamya Cammon one day, and tell her she’s a very sweet girl who deserves a better education…not that she hasn’t learned plenty from this episode.

Also, ‘Puter… the Czar is not about to imagine what satisifies your naughty quotient. Not since he saw you run through the lobby carrying a head of cabbage and a bottle of sesame oil.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.