Fingerprints are the Mark of the Beast, Says Kindergarten Teacher

what? That’s nuts. Everybody knows that social security numbers are the Mark of the Beast.

Err, she has fingerprints whether someone records them somehow or not. She’s beyond stupid.

I’ve been fingerprinted twice in the past year, it’s a standard part of hiring for some jobs. I knew when I applied that I would have to get an FBI background check including fingerprinting (which is done at trained locations, some of which are police, some court houses, or even properly certified businesses) and this woman probably knew that too. While I do not like giving out personal information to government officials, I understood that this rule was in place to protect the kids in the day care where I was working from people who had records of abusing kids (the report does clearly differentiate between types of crimes, so the employer would be able to know a drug possession felony from an assault on a child felony). The right talks so much about wanting to ‘protect’ kids from pedophiles, so why do they always object to simple rules that make a big difference?

On an ironic side note, unless her lawyer is about a hundred, their fingerprints are on record too. You get fingerprinted when you take the LSAT.

“This law prohibits the free exercise of her religion,”

Yeah, there are a lot of laws that do that. The abolition of slavery comes to mind. God said slavery was ok, so she should be allowed to have slaves, right? Whack job.

Before anyone comments that someone with her mentality shouldn’t be allowed near children, I should mention there’s no evidence that she teaches Creationism or preaches hellfire or anything like that to the children. So I’ll avoid that characterization

Why? Something is way off here. She doesn’t have to teach creationism or preach hellfire for something to be way, way off. Hell, I’m willing to bet it’s something even creepier that she’s afraid fingerprinting will reveal. There’s some reason she doesn’t want to be and I’m willing to bet it’s got absolutely nothing to do with god or the devil.

In any case, keep her fucking far away from my grandchild.

This is already settled law. People have attempted to avoid being photographed, or being photographed with their faces veiled, and these lawsuits have lost because the government has a good and sufficient reason for doing it. Same with fingerprinting.

Her reason may be stupid, but you shouldn’t need a reason. Each of us has rights to privacy. Not wanting to live in a conservative’s paradise totalitarian police state is reason enough to refuse. They’ve been unsuccessful in getting mandatory-fingerprinting laws, so instead they’re attacking our liberties by adding these requirements, one profession at a time.

While an employer of course has a right to ask potential employees to waive those rights during (or after, or before) the interview process, such businesses wouldn’t do very well in a free market, as competitors with less draconian views would become more attractive to potential employees and those companies that don’t adapt would either be left with the bottom-of-the-barrel employees or be forced out of business entirely. So, issues like this really only come up because we don’t have a free market.

In terms of criminal law, it won’t matter for too much longer anyway. The scientific evidence against fingerprinting is getting so strong that courts are starting to reject them. For exemplar prints (i.e., those taken in a police station), they’ll (almost certainly) be unique, of course. However, the sorts of partial prints that come up at crime scenes will often match hundreds or thousands of people and investigators make value judgments about who to compare the prints to. The process is always subjective and often pseudo-science. cf. the Mayfield case for a particularly egregious example.

This becomes doubly important in the hiring scenario, as it’d suck to be denied a job based on someone guessing that your print maybe looks a bit similar to a smudged mess taken from an old crime scene. These sorts of background tests (by which I mean fingerprint based, not identification based) almost never turn up anything, and when they do the vast majority are false-positives that nonetheless wreck lives.

There’s no science behind background-check fingerprinting. It comes exclusively from politicians playing on our fears (i.e., monsters are out to get our children) in a cynical attempt to win votes.

People have attempted to avoid being photographed, or being photographed with their faces veiled, and these lawsuits have lost because the government has a good and sufficient reason for doing it.

But then, it’s the government that decides whether their reasons are good and sufficient. They may not be the most objective judge of the matter. Consider what we’re doing in places like Gitmo, since that’s likely to be the new standard.

When the government says it has a good reason to do something, it really means that it wants to do something and nothing else. And what’s good for government and what’s good for society rarely align.

My religion is I’ll steal and eat your cookies and french-fries.

If you stop me, that’s an infringement on my right to a religion.

You are persecuting me because of my religion! You intolerant bigots!!!

Urgh, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m for all this fingerprinting in the first place. Her reason strikes me as wrong, sure, but I sympathize with her not wanting to be fingerprinted. Especially if you follow the link and see she’s already been teaching for 22 years. This isn’t a new hire. Is she a good teacher? After 22 years on the job, I think her record should be what’s most important.

Wouldn’t she have to give a forehead print too for this to have any possible bearing? As it’s just fingerprints, she’s not in trouble. She just has to be sure not to touch her forehead before washing her hands.

There is a legitamate reason for fingerprinting teachers. This screening kept a man convicted of brutally beating his kids in another state from getting hired at my local elementary school. This is not a random fingerprinting, it is done for good reason and with notice that it is part of the job screening.

I guess it would stand to reason that giving just one fingerprint is ok though… assuming that she has a drivers license.

I wonder if Pam has a Texas driver’s license. If so, she’s already given them a fingerprint; I don’t see what the big deal is. Not that I like the DPS requiring fingerprint scans to get a license, but the proverbial cat is already out of the bag.

I hope they kick her to the curb; part of her job requirement is to verify she has a clean criminal record where it comes to dealing with children. The social benefit is obvious, the individual cost is minimal, and there’s no infringement on her right of conscience. It’s yet another crybaby Christian claiming they’re oppressed because they don’t get special treatment when they stamp their little feet and hold their breath.

My question: what’s the real story? Looks like she works in a real mouth-breathing part of Texas (east TX, due west of Huntsville, northwest of Beaumont, northeast of Houston) so she might be for real. Then again, this may be a ruse to avoid getting fired for stealing the kids’ Tang and graham crackers. It doesn’t hurt to presume she’s not a lunatic and do a little more digging.

I personally have no problem saying that someone who thinks there is such a thing as a beast who has a mark, which is constituted in finger prints, is not sane enough to qualify to teach anyone anything; much less impressionable children. We can’t trust her with that task, because as Bill Maher said “there is an electrical fire going on in [her] head”

It’s high time religion/faith exemptions for laws, rules and regulations be stopped. Everyone else has to follow them so why shouldn’t people with imaginary friends?

If we play by the rules of Revelation, it seems that the answer is quite simple. The passage being cited says, “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand and on their foreheads…”

Use the left hand.

Haha, I love it! She calls the background check process “the mark of the beast,” thereby confirming why we have background checks in the first place. Way to go, system!

It doesn’t hurt to presume she’s not a lunatic and do a little more digging.

Well, actually it could… especially since she’s exhibiting some signs of mental instability.

Truly, does anyone want her around a little kid near and dear to them?

I still say this is a camoflauge for something else. What’s she hiding that she’s so afraid of getting fingerprinted? I’m absolutely not buying the devil is it. Especially with gawd to protect her immortal soul.

Leave it to Jeff to detail the exactness in following scripture. Kudos

I scratched by right hand mowing the lawn this last week. Does that count as a mark? lol

I don’t think the 5th Amendment really applies here because fingerprinting is a condition of employment and they are not actually looking for a criminal conviction. Though I’m sure if a background check did show a warrant (though having worked in law enforcement I know that this is checked via other means and not fingerpints) police would be knocking on her door.

I do believe that there’s something more to the story and there’s a real reason she doesn’t want to get fingerprinted. Sorry, but just because someone’s a Christian doesn’t mean that they won’t lie. And I do believe that she’s never actually read the bible, or has and didn’t understand it. But that tends to be par for the course for most Christians.