With each passing year, the societal institutions we established long ago as a means of advancing our unique American culture are looking less like entities meant to serve us and improve our condition, and more like authoritarian enclaves that lord over us to keep us submissive and compliant.

What made America so unique, at least at our founding and for more than a hundred years thereafter, was our commitment to freedom, individual liberty, and the "inalienable rights" recognized by our founders as those which belong to us as human beings - and are not dependent upon government or a governing body to dole out to us as it wishes, when it wishes.

But since the end of World War I, Wilsonian progressivism has crept into national and local policymaking. At every turn, American traditions and constitutional principles - the same ones adopted by our founders and which transformed America into the greatest, wealthiest, and most powerful nation the world had ever known - have steadily been cast aside over the course of decades, in favor of a new administrative state constructed by the Progressives and which now controls - literally - nearly every aspect of our lives.

So big and domineering is this administrative state, that we are constantly reminded of its reach, scope and power. Just when we think we still own a portion of our own lives, the administrative state reminds us, again, that such ownership is largely illusory.

Such examples are both large and small. Most even seem innocuous. But when taken at face value and viewed with a critical eye, it becomes apparent that the myriad of rules, requirements, regulations, mandates and restrictions imposed upon us by the leviathan administrative state runs afoul of the promise of liberty, freedom and rugged individualism promised to us - no, entrusted to us - by our founders.

Indoctrinating our kids to believe in the authoritarian state

These changes have been subtle over the years, but they have been steady. The leviathan manifests itself even in small decisions like those made recently by a Chicago-area high school. In attempting to further circumvent the role of parents, the school board of St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights is adding alcohol screening to its mandatory drug testing this year, over "concerns" about underage drinking.

Per CBS Chicago:

The test will use hair samples to determine whether a student has used alcohol in the past 90 days. St. Viator administrators say random drug testing of students has been ongoing since 2007, and less than 1 percent have come back positive.

"We're adding this test because we care about our kids and we want them to be the best God created them to be," Corey Brost, St. Viator President, told local media.

So another rule, another "mandatory" requirement - because they care - is the solution?

"It's a great vehicle for them to understand that if you're not going to be accountable to your parents, you're going to be accountable to somebody," said Joe Farwell, a parent of a student at St. Viator.

What message is being sent?

What is worse about all of this is not the implication that parents aren't doing a good enough job taking care of their own kids. It's that such rampant overreach has had a conditioning effect on our future generations. They've been conditioned, in this case, to believe that the school - the institution - and not their parents are the ultimate authority.

"Kids fear getting suspensions from school or detentions even and maybe what their parents will do, if they find out they're getting caught, so I think it actually will make a difference," said St. Viator student Miguel Aguilar.

The American Civil Liberties Union gets the implications of this decision, but the group says they would be powerless to stop it because St. Viator is a private school.

In this case, the soft tyranny of the rule is bathed in hypocrisy. St. Viator is not simply a private school but a private religious school in which children are given wine for Communion.

Not to worry, say school officials. Their mandatory alcohol testing won't pick that up.

Sources:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com

http://www.aclu.org

http://www.naturalnews.com/drug_testing.html