Zero-tolerance… nationwide tour 2001! Coming to a school near you!:CNNfyi.com – Reporting possible threat leads to legal woes for one child – March 26, 2001. So, this young girl hears (allegedly) some comments from a young man such as “…we’re sick of people… want to kill them… ” So she tattles and the kid got expelled from school, sentanced to 6 months of probation by a juvenile court, and his reputation is ruined. Why? Because one do-gooder thought she better warn authorities of the threat. They have told her to… they have established an protocol and policy of information. So the school systems and administrators move quickly, as we would expect in this day and age of teenage terrorists, with great vigor and prejudice.
Now, the girls family finds itself in about $40k legal debt and defence costs. The boy and his parents evidently sued the family and the school disctict… did the school district stand behind their informant? No, they hung the family out to dry… left them stuck with the defence bill and said “Gee, we’re really sorry, but you’re on your own.” Nice policy, very nice. Zero-tolerance for non-conformists, zero-tolerance for freedom of speech and expression, zero-tolerance for being made to make real decisions, and particularly… zero-tolerance for bad publicity and bad press.
I’m particularly enraged at the concept of nurturing a sub-culture of snitches and informants among the student bodies across the country… this is an especially deplorable practice… stop it, stop your kids, stop your teachers from blindly reacting to these tattle-tale, attention getting, always in the middle of the controversy nit-wit children. Who among us was not punished because some asshole kid (in your youth) tattled on you something you did, or didn’t do? I was taught to mind my own business… I was taught that my business was more than I could handle and I better see to it… I was taught that getting involved in grey areas will land trouble on myself. Well guess what happened to this one? Exactly that. Good, perhaps the sweet dear will think again about making acusations and allegations that are not supportable.
Kids are getting killed in schools by other kids. That is really not a good situation. It’s not a new one either… it’s been going on for years, all over the country. Particularly among minority dominated districts. I feel very badly as a parent. I am concerned as a parent. However, I am not in support of developing a system of zero-tolerance policies, fostering a community of zero-tolerance guidelines that are applied and acted upon with impunity, and I’m especially not in favor of “profiling potential risk students” as is taking place as we speak all across the country.
Parents, if your child is a misfit, a nerd, an outcast, or does not wish conform to a cultural standard, please, please, please watch him or her very carefully… your school officials are watching your child, the police liason is carefully watching your child and talking to other children about your child. The other students, who probably don’t like your child very much, are watching and talking as well. Watch them carefully, not because the may be the next shooter, not because they are disturbed, or potentially violent… because they may be the next victim of these newest zero-tolerance initiatives. You may well find your child expelled for writing a poem about war. You may well find your child jailed and accused of being a terrorist for listening to certian music, or wearing certian clothing. You may find yourself forced into paying a psychologist $250.00 an hour for mandetory therapy, or else face dire consequences. Then, who will you be angry with… of course, your child… there will be no one else to blame.
The hunt is just begining. Wait until the next school shooting, you’ll see some of these things I’ve been talking about begining to move from school policy, into local and state legislature and enacted as laws. In many states, zero-tolerance is well on it’s way to becoming law. We have already seen the aftermath of zero-tolerance for drug use. Imagine your teenager locked up for 10 years for talking about killing himself, or drawing a picture of a gun, or violent scene. He’ll be in a cell rooming with the dipshit who got 10 years after being caught with an ounce of pot under the other zero-tolerance laws…. they’ll be together with the animal who shot-gunned a store clerks head off, or raped his neighbors daughter to death.
What a thoughtful and nice society we are developing into, how very nice… I am more and more proud to say that I’m an American with each year that passes. I’m so glad that I served my country and watched others die in the name of the preservation of the rights of the ignorant, the irresponsible, and the thoughtless “do-gooders.”