Living free doesn’t necessarily mean living safe. That’s the trade-off for living in a society where liberty is the dominant structure. People sometimes forget that liberty and chaos are cousins, and that sometimes the two get together. The results can be wonderful. Sometimes they’re tragic.

From the very founding of our nation, we learned that order and safety can be just as devastating — if not more so — than chaos. Just as liberty and chaos are closely related, so is tyranny and order. You might live in a more safe world where danger is kept at bay, but there’s a good chance you won’t like how the powers that be go about it.

And the Parkland students just learned that lesson. Needless to say, the freedom they just gave up to get safety isn’t sitting well with them.

According to the DailyWire, the Superintendent of the Broward County School System issued an order that all students must have their student ID on them at all times. Furthermore, the students may only have clear backpacks, that the school will issue free of cost, that display their contents for everyone to see.

Robert W. Runcie, the superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, announces that only clear backpacks will be allowed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after Spring Break, which is next week. The school will provide each student with a backpack at no cost.

— Patricia Mazzei (@PatriciaMazzei) March 21, 2018

Each student will also be given an ID badge. Students and staff will be required to wear the badges at all times.

— Patricia Mazzei (@PatriciaMazzei) March 21, 2018

Naturally, the students are not happy about their breach of privacy.

This is absolutely ridiculous at this point like schools are slowly but surely becoming prisons (I am aware most schools in primarily high crime rate areas look like prisons) but school is supposed to be a place to learn and feel comfortable.

— natasha (@sighnatasha) March 22, 2018

Marjory Stoneman Douglas Penitentiary

— Chad 🏝 (@chad_williams05) March 22, 2018

also clear backpacks are a mistake because now if someone asks for a pencil i HAVE to give it to them. they’ll see right through my bag and my lies. gross

— sara giovanello (@phirecrackers) March 22, 2018

Great. Because clear backpacks are gonna fix everything. I appreciate the attempt, but I’d rather have common since gun laws than a clear backpack.

#NeverAgain #EnoughIsEnough https://t.co/1HRudeSOib

— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) March 21, 2018

One student, who has now deleted her tweet, nailed it on the head before she understood what she was saying.

“So, we’re giving up all illusions of normalcy. okay. why should 3300 students be penalized for the failure of security to do their job?” asked MSDHS student @Nikta04.

Indeed. Why should others be punished with things they like taken away from them due to the failures of security?

The high school students are now being introduced to the bed they made, and must now sleep in. They demanded better security, more oversight. What they got was better security and more oversight, but it wasn’t what they intended. They wanted OTHERS to have to change in response to their demands, not themselves.

The students opened the door for tyranny with their highly public demands for safety. They invited nonsensical solutions for problems the moment they rejected the route that offered danger to be utilized to protect them.

The clear backpacks won’t make them more safe, but in an effort to “DO SOMETHING!!!1!” as the students demanded, they pretty much rolled out the welcome mat for ridiculous safety measures brought on by ridiculous people, who feel their ridiculous actions are helping simply because they’re acting. And this kind of tyranny is the worst kind.

This was best pointed out by author C.S. Lewis when he wrote of this kind of tyrannical rule bent of safety.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I hope the students think critically, and learn a lesson from this development. If you ask for safety, be ready to give up a freedom.