9 ms·

Zero Tolerance Policies Put Students In The Hands Of Bad Cops

146 points by whiddershins 13y ago

darkchasma 13y ago
I cannot think of a single occasion where zero tolerance is not the drum beat of the fool.
- D9u 13y ago
  How about zero tolerance for police misconduct? How about zero tolerance for appointed government servant's lying to Congress? After all, these individuals should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us if they want to impose their will upon us without our explicit approval.
  - javajosh 13y ago
    Not even then. The fact is that people make mistakes. They should be punished, and the punishment should fit the crime.
  - x0054 13y ago
    Even for a police officers, zero tolerance is a foolish standard. But in this case, even under the most lenient of systems, this cop should have been gone from the force a long time ago. I have known a lot of cops over the years, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of awesome guys doing that job. But it also attracts these power hungry assholes, who could care less about law and order, and only care about pushing people around and compensating for what I can only presume their manhood inadequacies. For instance, I knew a guy who was a very successful civil litigation attorney, very shitty attorney, but very successful. He worked part time as a patrol cop. Why? He did not need the money, he did not care about the law for a bit, and he could give two shits about helping people. But he loves the power. In his own words, he was bullied as a kid, and now it's his turn. That man is still a cop to this day, and he absolutely should not be one.
  - cheald 13y ago
    > police misconduct How about an officer who has to break the law/procedure to expose corruption or save someone's life? Life is rarely so black-and-white; zero tolerance strips us of our ability to use reason and discretion based on the arrogant assumption that our rules and procedures are perfect and infallible, which is just silly.
    - hnnnnng 13y ago
      If cops have to break the law to save someone then the law is at fault. But I cannot, for the life of me, think of any such scenario. As for exposing corruption or being a whistleblower, there are many who want to modify laws to make it easier(Infact, Obama's stance on it during his elections is a prominent example.), but by definition, whistleblowers are fighting against the more powerful and/or the rich which has made it a losing battle.
      - vacri 13y ago
        If cops have to break the law to save someone then the law is at fault. This may be, but it still means that they broke the law, and would still be affected by zero tolerance. Just because the law is an arse doesn't mean the law has no teeth. As for an example of breaking the law in the course of duty, in a lot of places police are required to have lights and sirens before they break traffic rules - no sirens means no breaking traffic rules. There are times when police serve better by doing just this.
        quinnchr 13y ago
        What situation would warrant breaking traffic laws without using light and sirens? It seems almost a tautology that doing so is a danger to everyone else on the road...
        vacri 13y ago
        It's not remotely a tautology, because you're assuming that any breaking of a traffic rule is dangerous when that just isn't true. Ever seen a 'no u-turns' section in the dead of night with no cars in sight? There's plenty of times and places where traffic rules can be safely broken, and there are times when police have to respond in a timely but not urgent manner. For example, frequently with theft, they'll take a while to get to the location where it was reported - this is because the one place the criminal is not at is the site of the theft. So they drive around the location for a bit, sirens off so as not to alert the criminal, and see if they find anything suspicious. Then they can come in to do the report after the scout around. If you honestly cannot think of a situation where police need to respond without using sirens or breaking traffic rules, then I would suggest you're not close enough to understanding what the job entails to be passing comment on their procedures.
  - deepblueq 13y ago
    Higher standard, yes, but people will err, and not all errors deserve the same response.
  - coffeemug 13y ago
    The problem with zero tolerance is that large systems are about balance, so when you're designing a process to govern a large system, rules quickly become untenable when measured in absolutes, and become about managing probabilities. When designing the rules for a legal system, for example, we can never have 100% correct outcome, so we have to decide whether we're ok with 100 innocent people going to prison for every guilty person, or 1 innocent person, or 100 guilty people going free for every innocent person going to prison, etc. Sociological systems are governed by laws of nature, and we can't just ignore them any more than we can ignore the laws of physics. Zero tolerance is a copout. It sounds good, but real systems simply don't work that way. It might be manageable for congressmen or senators because the system is small enough, but is completely untenable for a system as large as a police force.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    At this point in time, I'd settle for pretty much anything less than 100% tolerance for those examples.
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    Supposed a battered wife is in hiding and a police officer knows where she is and the husband makes some frivolous lawsuit so he can see her - would it be so bad if the police officer claimed he didn't know where she was? As for lying in Congress I would expect it if it was to protect the identity of a whistle blower or something like that. The key in all parts are context, but Zero Justice explicitly denies context; it would be the same as giving the driver of a car what hits and kills a pedestrian because it gets bumped by another car the same punishment you would give for first degree murder.
  - kazagistar 13y ago
    Unless you have the ability of perfect distinction of guilty versus innocent, then any policy that demands action against 100% of the guilty is going to catch a lot of innocent as well. So no, I don't have a zero tolerance for police misconduct. I have a low tolerance for it, and would prefer that it be treated more severely, but if a few cases slip by, that is OK, because the alternative would inevitably be dysfunctional.
retrogradeorbit 13y ago
Recommended viewing on this: http://www.thewaronkids.com/ http://www.thewaronkids.com/
- pivnicek 13y ago
  That looks very interesting. Thanks for the link.
AmVess 13y ago
Zero tolerance policies are intellectual cowardice in specific, and overall cowardice in general. There are far too many spineless dolts in charge these days.
linuxhansl 13y ago
This comment sums it up nicely: "Conditioning the next generation into docile, subservient servants by using fear as a tool." Yep. At least some students and parents are not being bullied and file lawsuits, which is really the only reason why we even know about these incidents.
- dendory 13y ago
  Police has been using fear for quite some time now. Those who terrorize others in order to obtain their goal are called terrorists by definition. Many police officers are terrorists.
pg 13y ago
"Zero tolerance" is essentially a legitimate sounding way to reject "Let the punishment fit the crime."
- tankenmate 13y ago
  Indeed. I live in Northern Ireland; not a place known for its entirely peaceful neighbourhoods. But even here I would be shocked about a police officer arresting a student for starting a waterfight for example, even if it did result in damage to property that was not excessive. I have colleagues who wonder why I wouldn't want to move, along with my family, to the US for work.
  - pizza 13y ago
    I'd like to say that most people have common sense, wherever in the world they happen to be, and that these stories are only news-worthy because they're rare.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      But these extremes have recalibrated people's expectations of what's acceptable. Is it okay to have police in schools if they're not zip-tieing children? I think it's baffling to have police officers stationed in schools.
      - girvo 13y ago
        More than baffling, I think it's disgusting.
      - notahacker 13y ago
        I'm not convinced police officers stationed in school is generally a good idea, but the bigger issue here seems to be more the actions of the police officers in question. Whilst some incidents might be open to framing by the media, there are simply no circumstances under which charging a 5 year old with battery of a police officer would be appropriate. (I think we can safely apply "zero tolerance" here; someone should be fired for sanctioning the charge) It's genuinely quite scary to think how an officer that considers that an appropriate response might react when dealing with adults suspected of committing something which might actually be a crime.
gruseom 13y ago
I wonder how much the massive adoption of zero tolerance policies has to do with the name "zero tolerance" itself. It sounds indisputable. Why should we tolerate things like weapons or drugs in schools? Those things are bad. If you're against "zero tolerance" of them, it sounds like you're in favor of tolerating them. The truth is that there are many ways of not tolerating those things, and "zero tolerance" is an extreme one that causes harm. If it were named more accurately—"extreme enforcement", say—this would be easier to see.
- whiddershins 13y ago
  Until 1947, the United States had a Secretary of War. Now we have a Secretary of Defense. A lot can be hidden in a name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_War
  - tptacek 13y ago
    The renaming of the Secretary of War to "Secretary of Defense" has an interesting history that is not at all to do with manipulation of the language, but rather the fact that the War Department and the Navy were separate bureaucracies prior to WWII. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3rhQc666Sg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3rhQc666Sg
- njharman 13y ago
  It's all to avoid responsibility and blame. Something happens, hysterical parents throw fit, parent/reporter/boss you don't have a policy against that, or you used common sense/judgement. Well fu! Your job/career is over and we are suing/charging you. Or, Why, yes we have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy and I just say no to everything or pass the buck so no one can blame me. Well darn, I guess we'll have to blame rock'n'roll, drugs, or sex then.
  - gruseom 13y ago
    You're probably right that that's why administrators like it, but I'm talking about public opinion, which is different. Tacit public support is a necessary ingredient here.
spiritplumber 13y ago
I probably would not have finished school if this stuff existed in my country at the time. Then again, I remember the school's attempt to put me on Ritalin very vividly -- it ended when my mom flat out decked the school nurse after coming over to discuss it. Do not mess with seemingly gracile Italian moms.
- cranefly 13y ago
  That's not great is it? Imagine if your mother was the one 'decked'.
  - spiritplumber 13y ago
    It'd have come down to who had the bigger / more militant family, I suspect.
smsm42 13y ago
Zero tolerance means zero thought, zero reason, zero understanding and zero compassion. Why anybody who subscribes to such values would be let anywhere near a school? I'd ban anybody who institutes a "zero tolerance" policy - instead of exercising one's own adult judgement on a case by case basis - from ever working in education. And of course any such policy should be immediate ground for termination of administrator instituting it - as they're essentially turning themselves into non-thinking robots. Who needs non-thinking robots in charge of schools?
- jcromartie 13y ago
  > Who needs non-thinking robots in charge of schools? Somebody does, apparently. At least that's the feeling I get when I see the proliferation of this kind of idiotic policy showing no sign of slowing down. The non-thinking robots in positions of authority and instruction are more likely to churn out non-thinking robots as a result. That may very well be the goal.
DanBC 13y ago
Officers appear to have forgotten that they need the support of the population to police, and that without the support of the population they cannot do their job. Having armed officers in schools feels bizarre, especially taking into account the reduction in violent crime. > Combined, these two factors have resulted in criminalization of acts that were once nothing more than violations of school policies, something usually handled by school administrators. Even without the severe examples listed in the article this criminalisation of normal teenage behaviour is terrible. Teenagers don't have fully formed brains and haven't learnt how to behave in society. That's why we restrict their abilities to do things (they can't vote, buy alcohol, have sex, join the army, etc etc).
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Why, teenagers may have sex. It's adults who may not have sex with them.
- mapt 13y ago
  Anecdata from one story: "Of the remaining 80 still in the running for a spot in the next police academy, about 60 percent have military experience, Gish said." The military don't train for the expectation of support of the population.
mtgx 13y ago
I think this is also a side-effect of the private prison system, which constantly needs more and more prisons to have "growth" as a business.
- hga 13y ago
  Private prisons are a really small part of this as far as I can tell. They e.g. don't touch at all upon the size of police forces and judicial systems, in most places those would have significantly downsized if they'd followed the sharp decrease in crime over the last couple of decades or so. You might want to check out Arrest Proof Yourself (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377/ http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...): it presents a thesis that what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" to keep all those people employed. What this topic discusses would just seem to be extending that.
dendory 13y ago
It's like they're trying hard to showcase to the future generation that they're living in a police state..
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
CurtMonash 13y ago
Schools are the extreme of wanting to be seen to enforce the rules equally on everybody. Reasons include: 1. They're government or other not-for-profit organizations. 2. Unlike others, with which people interact only occasionally, they're experienced for 1000s of hours each by many, many individuals (and vicariously by those individuals' parents). Unequal treatment will be noticed. 3. Schools think it's part of their MISSION to teach adherence to rules. The result is inanity. My favorite dumb example is the girl who wanted her prom date to be her 21-year-old soldier brother, who wasn't allowed because 21-year-olds couldn't be prom dates in general (too old). The whole thing should have been settled with one phone call to his commanding officer, making sure he was under orders not to behave inappropriately. (Why that approach? Because the whole argument for letting him in was that he was a soldier, we should support our troops, etc.)
microcolonel 13y ago
Makes me wonder how people could be so heartless as to put their children in state indoctrination(slaughter?) camps. Then again, with the prevalence of physical abuse against young humans, it comes as no surprise that practically nobody cares, and when they do, they rarely take steps to create assurances against it. What about their parents giving “officers of the law” and politicians unlimited exclusive license to use abusive force against humans, rape children around the world, destroy the power of free economies to mitigate poverty, and improve the health of humans?.
cafard 13y ago
When the history of our time is written, a major theme should be the recursive multiplication of finer and finer rules to regulate what should be handled by common sense and good will. I do know a kid who got a misdemeanor charge for a hallway scuffle at a public high school. It was settled with probation before judgment and the requirement to attend an anger management course; but it should have been handled by a detention and forgotten. He is now a teacher at the same school, and if he ever goes into administration might bring some needed perspective.

146 points by whiddershins 13y ago

darkchasma 13y ago

I cannot think of a single occasion where zero tolerance is not the drum beat of the fool.

D9u 13y ago
How about zero tolerance for police misconduct? How about zero tolerance for appointed government servant's lying to Congress? After all, these individuals should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us if they want to impose their will upon us without our explicit approval.
- javajosh 13y ago
  Not even then. The fact is that people make mistakes. They should be punished, and the punishment should fit the crime.
- x0054 13y ago
  Even for a police officers, zero tolerance is a foolish standard. But in this case, even under the most lenient of systems, this cop should have been gone from the force a long time ago. I have known a lot of cops over the years, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of awesome guys doing that job. But it also attracts these power hungry assholes, who could care less about law and order, and only care about pushing people around and compensating for what I can only presume their manhood inadequacies. For instance, I knew a guy who was a very successful civil litigation attorney, very shitty attorney, but very successful. He worked part time as a patrol cop. Why? He did not need the money, he did not care about the law for a bit, and he could give two shits about helping people. But he loves the power. In his own words, he was bullied as a kid, and now it's his turn. That man is still a cop to this day, and he absolutely should not be one.
- cheald 13y ago
  > police misconduct How about an officer who has to break the law/procedure to expose corruption or save someone's life? Life is rarely so black-and-white; zero tolerance strips us of our ability to use reason and discretion based on the arrogant assumption that our rules and procedures are perfect and infallible, which is just silly.
  - hnnnnng 13y ago
    If cops have to break the law to save someone then the law is at fault. But I cannot, for the life of me, think of any such scenario. As for exposing corruption or being a whistleblower, there are many who want to modify laws to make it easier(Infact, Obama's stance on it during his elections is a prominent example.), but by definition, whistleblowers are fighting against the more powerful and/or the rich which has made it a losing battle.
    - vacri 13y ago
      If cops have to break the law to save someone then the law is at fault. This may be, but it still means that they broke the law, and would still be affected by zero tolerance. Just because the law is an arse doesn't mean the law has no teeth. As for an example of breaking the law in the course of duty, in a lot of places police are required to have lights and sirens before they break traffic rules - no sirens means no breaking traffic rules. There are times when police serve better by doing just this.
      - quinnchr 13y ago
        What situation would warrant breaking traffic laws without using light and sirens? It seems almost a tautology that doing so is a danger to everyone else on the road...
        vacri 13y ago
        It's not remotely a tautology, because you're assuming that any breaking of a traffic rule is dangerous when that just isn't true. Ever seen a 'no u-turns' section in the dead of night with no cars in sight? There's plenty of times and places where traffic rules can be safely broken, and there are times when police have to respond in a timely but not urgent manner. For example, frequently with theft, they'll take a while to get to the location where it was reported - this is because the one place the criminal is not at is the site of the theft. So they drive around the location for a bit, sirens off so as not to alert the criminal, and see if they find anything suspicious. Then they can come in to do the report after the scout around. If you honestly cannot think of a situation where police need to respond without using sirens or breaking traffic rules, then I would suggest you're not close enough to understanding what the job entails to be passing comment on their procedures.
- deepblueq 13y ago
  Higher standard, yes, but people will err, and not all errors deserve the same response.
- coffeemug 13y ago
  The problem with zero tolerance is that large systems are about balance, so when you're designing a process to govern a large system, rules quickly become untenable when measured in absolutes, and become about managing probabilities. When designing the rules for a legal system, for example, we can never have 100% correct outcome, so we have to decide whether we're ok with 100 innocent people going to prison for every guilty person, or 1 innocent person, or 100 guilty people going free for every innocent person going to prison, etc. Sociological systems are governed by laws of nature, and we can't just ignore them any more than we can ignore the laws of physics. Zero tolerance is a copout. It sounds good, but real systems simply don't work that way. It might be manageable for congressmen or senators because the system is small enough, but is completely untenable for a system as large as a police force.
- rhizome 13y ago
  At this point in time, I'd settle for pretty much anything less than 100% tolerance for those examples.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Supposed a battered wife is in hiding and a police officer knows where she is and the husband makes some frivolous lawsuit so he can see her - would it be so bad if the police officer claimed he didn't know where she was? As for lying in Congress I would expect it if it was to protect the identity of a whistle blower or something like that. The key in all parts are context, but Zero Justice explicitly denies context; it would be the same as giving the driver of a car what hits and kills a pedestrian because it gets bumped by another car the same punishment you would give for first degree murder.
- kazagistar 13y ago
  Unless you have the ability of perfect distinction of guilty versus innocent, then any policy that demands action against 100% of the guilty is going to catch a lot of innocent as well. So no, I don't have a zero tolerance for police misconduct. I have a low tolerance for it, and would prefer that it be treated more severely, but if a few cases slip by, that is OK, because the alternative would inevitably be dysfunctional.

retrogradeorbit 13y ago

Recommended viewing on this: http://www.thewaronkids.com/ http://www.thewaronkids.com/

pivnicek 13y ago
That looks very interesting. Thanks for the link.

AmVess 13y ago

Zero tolerance policies are intellectual cowardice in specific, and overall cowardice in general. There are far too many spineless dolts in charge these days.

linuxhansl 13y ago

This comment sums it up nicely: "Conditioning the next generation into docile, subservient servants by using fear as a tool." Yep. At least some students and parents are not being bullied and file lawsuits, which is really the only reason why we even know about these incidents.

dendory 13y ago
Police has been using fear for quite some time now. Those who terrorize others in order to obtain their goal are called terrorists by definition. Many police officers are terrorists.

pg 13y ago

"Zero tolerance" is essentially a legitimate sounding way to reject "Let the punishment fit the crime."

tankenmate 13y ago
Indeed. I live in Northern Ireland; not a place known for its entirely peaceful neighbourhoods. But even here I would be shocked about a police officer arresting a student for starting a waterfight for example, even if it did result in damage to property that was not excessive. I have colleagues who wonder why I wouldn't want to move, along with my family, to the US for work.
- pizza 13y ago
  I'd like to say that most people have common sense, wherever in the world they happen to be, and that these stories are only news-worthy because they're rare.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    But these extremes have recalibrated people's expectations of what's acceptable. Is it okay to have police in schools if they're not zip-tieing children? I think it's baffling to have police officers stationed in schools.
    - girvo 13y ago
      More than baffling, I think it's disgusting.
    - notahacker 13y ago
      I'm not convinced police officers stationed in school is generally a good idea, but the bigger issue here seems to be more the actions of the police officers in question. Whilst some incidents might be open to framing by the media, there are simply no circumstances under which charging a 5 year old with battery of a police officer would be appropriate. (I think we can safely apply "zero tolerance" here; someone should be fired for sanctioning the charge) It's genuinely quite scary to think how an officer that considers that an appropriate response might react when dealing with adults suspected of committing something which might actually be a crime.

gruseom 13y ago

I wonder how much the massive adoption of zero tolerance policies has to do with the name "zero tolerance" itself. It sounds indisputable. Why should we tolerate things like weapons or drugs in schools? Those things are bad. If you're against "zero tolerance" of them, it sounds like you're in favor of tolerating them. The truth is that there are many ways of not tolerating those things, and "zero tolerance" is an extreme one that causes harm. If it were named more accurately—"extreme enforcement", say—this would be easier to see.

whiddershins 13y ago
Until 1947, the United States had a Secretary of War. Now we have a Secretary of Defense. A lot can be hidden in a name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_War
- tptacek 13y ago
  The renaming of the Secretary of War to "Secretary of Defense" has an interesting history that is not at all to do with manipulation of the language, but rather the fact that the War Department and the Navy were separate bureaucracies prior to WWII. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3rhQc666Sg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3rhQc666Sg
njharman 13y ago
It's all to avoid responsibility and blame. Something happens, hysterical parents throw fit, parent/reporter/boss you don't have a policy against that, or you used common sense/judgement. Well fu! Your job/career is over and we are suing/charging you. Or, Why, yes we have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy and I just say no to everything or pass the buck so no one can blame me. Well darn, I guess we'll have to blame rock'n'roll, drugs, or sex then.
- gruseom 13y ago
  You're probably right that that's why administrators like it, but I'm talking about public opinion, which is different. Tacit public support is a necessary ingredient here.

spiritplumber 13y ago

I probably would not have finished school if this stuff existed in my country at the time. Then again, I remember the school's attempt to put me on Ritalin very vividly -- it ended when my mom flat out decked the school nurse after coming over to discuss it. Do not mess with seemingly gracile Italian moms.

cranefly 13y ago
That's not great is it? Imagine if your mother was the one 'decked'.
- spiritplumber 13y ago
  It'd have come down to who had the bigger / more militant family, I suspect.

smsm42 13y ago

Zero tolerance means zero thought, zero reason, zero understanding and zero compassion. Why anybody who subscribes to such values would be let anywhere near a school? I'd ban anybody who institutes a "zero tolerance" policy - instead of exercising one's own adult judgement on a case by case basis - from ever working in education. And of course any such policy should be immediate ground for termination of administrator instituting it - as they're essentially turning themselves into non-thinking robots. Who needs non-thinking robots in charge of schools?

jcromartie 13y ago
> Who needs non-thinking robots in charge of schools? Somebody does, apparently. At least that's the feeling I get when I see the proliferation of this kind of idiotic policy showing no sign of slowing down. The non-thinking robots in positions of authority and instruction are more likely to churn out non-thinking robots as a result. That may very well be the goal.

DanBC 13y ago

Officers appear to have forgotten that they need the support of the population to police, and that without the support of the population they cannot do their job. Having armed officers in schools feels bizarre, especially taking into account the reduction in violent crime. > Combined, these two factors have resulted in criminalization of acts that were once nothing more than violations of school policies, something usually handled by school administrators. Even without the severe examples listed in the article this criminalisation of normal teenage behaviour is terrible. Teenagers don't have fully formed brains and haven't learnt how to behave in society. That's why we restrict their abilities to do things (they can't vote, buy alcohol, have sex, join the army, etc etc).

guard-of-terra 13y ago
Why, teenagers may have sex. It's adults who may not have sex with them.
mapt 13y ago
Anecdata from one story: "Of the remaining 80 still in the running for a spot in the next police academy, about 60 percent have military experience, Gish said." The military don't train for the expectation of support of the population.

mtgx 13y ago

I think this is also a side-effect of the private prison system, which constantly needs more and more prisons to have "growth" as a business.

hga 13y ago
Private prisons are a really small part of this as far as I can tell. They e.g. don't touch at all upon the size of police forces and judicial systems, in most places those would have significantly downsized if they'd followed the sharp decrease in crime over the last couple of decades or so. You might want to check out Arrest Proof Yourself (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377/ http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...): it presents a thesis that what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" to keep all those people employed. What this topic discusses would just seem to be extending that.

dendory 13y ago

It's like they're trying hard to showcase to the future generation that they're living in a police state..

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

CurtMonash 13y ago

Schools are the extreme of wanting to be seen to enforce the rules equally on everybody. Reasons include: 1. They're government or other not-for-profit organizations. 2. Unlike others, with which people interact only occasionally, they're experienced for 1000s of hours each by many, many individuals (and vicariously by those individuals' parents). Unequal treatment will be noticed. 3. Schools think it's part of their MISSION to teach adherence to rules. The result is inanity. My favorite dumb example is the girl who wanted her prom date to be her 21-year-old soldier brother, who wasn't allowed because 21-year-olds couldn't be prom dates in general (too old). The whole thing should have been settled with one phone call to his commanding officer, making sure he was under orders not to behave inappropriately. (Why that approach? Because the whole argument for letting him in was that he was a soldier, we should support our troops, etc.)

microcolonel 13y ago

Makes me wonder how people could be so heartless as to put their children in state indoctrination(slaughter?) camps. Then again, with the prevalence of physical abuse against young humans, it comes as no surprise that practically nobody cares, and when they do, they rarely take steps to create assurances against it. What about their parents giving “officers of the law” and politicians unlimited exclusive license to use abusive force against humans, rape children around the world, destroy the power of free economies to mitigate poverty, and improve the health of humans?.

cafard 13y ago

When the history of our time is written, a major theme should be the recursive multiplication of finer and finer rules to regulate what should be handled by common sense and good will. I do know a kid who got a misdemeanor charge for a hallway scuffle at a public high school. It was settled with probation before judgment and the requirement to attend an anger management course; but it should have been handled by a detention and forgotten. He is now a teacher at the same school, and if he ever goes into administration might bring some needed perspective.