Makers - #IStandWithAhmed

This is all over the news and I'm sure this isn't anything new to you.But it still freaking bothers me.Why is it that people have gotten so afraid of everything and anything is a tool of "the terrorists." In past decades it was "the communists" but that's worn off in the intervening years.When you have a smart kid doing smart things (oh, and likely the wrong color too), why is it that the first thing that we try to do is make sure they don't get ahead?I remember when I was in high school playing around in the physics lab, both during class and over lunch, we were playing with all sorts of things that would now get you arrested. We had lasers. You know, pew pew shit right there. Of course if you know what the hell a laser is you know that it doesn't make you vaporize in a puff of smoke. Nor do they typically go "pew pew." But that's what the idiots now think. We were busy measuring the weight of an electron -- of course this meant dealing with rather high voltages and vacuum tubes. Oh crap, what if little Johnny licks the HV?No.You were teaching students. You showed them what to do and how to do it. You assumed they had a bit of smarts and cultivated that as opposed to assuming terrorist and beating the smart right out of you.No. Science doesn't look like it does on TV. No. Not everyone is a terrorist. (hell, almost 0 percent of the people in the US are) You're not protecting us.All you are proving is that people in authority positions aren't to be trusted and are stupid.