Another Reason Not To Go To Wal-Mart

As if substandard wages, shoddy merchandise, and a grind your suppliers until their employees bleed aren't all reason enough to avoid Wal-Mart, here is yet another provided by the folks at The Progressive.

This article tells the story of a high school student in North Carolina doing a project where he was asked to

"take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights"

which turned into a real life lesson on the Bill of Rights, complete with Secret Service agents.
The student

"had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."

Standard freedom of expression stuff these days, expressing disgust and disdain for the most powerful man in the world but then he took the photos to Wal-Mart to be developed, and this is where things went a bit haywire. According to the article:

"An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service."

Thank the sweet baby Jesus' tiny toenails America can count Wal-Mart employees among its "first-line defense" against terror and anti-government forces, as beckoned by Condoleezza Rice's siren song in 2002:

"Rice urged Americans to remain vigilant, calling the public "the first line of defense" against attacks. "There have been many cases in which Americans who were alert to suspicious circumstances around them have been able to tip law enforcement officials," she said."*

Secret Service grilled the student, and his teacher before taking the matter to the Attorney General where it was decided that no further action needed to be taken. At least sanity prevailed.

Thanks for keeping America safe Wal-Mart.

>_<'
Somebody please make it stop.
*source United States Department of Defense