Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfpack
I don't consider this a left versus right issue as much as I do a matter of being overly dedicated to equality versus having common sense.
The school board wants everyone to be treated equally so they institute a zero tolerance policy which comes down equally hard on everyone. I am sure we will all agree that treating everyone equally is a noble goal, but as we see in this example, it can result in throwing common sense out the window whereby a 6 year old with a swiss army knife gets treated the same as a 16 year old with a 12 inch blade.
|
I don't think it has anything to do with treating people equally as a principle, I think it's nervous school boards that want to prevent something they are scared of by taking discretion away from teachers in an age when every parent seems willing to sue at the drop of a hat.
You see the same sentiment in mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines coming down from (usually right wing) legislators. The authoritarian mindset is that you need to have a comprehensive set of laws that cover every situation regardless of circumstance otherwise society is completely out of control. In the process you lose any ability to reason or use discretion.
Americans eat that "zero tolerance" BS up cuz they think it means they are taking a "tough" stand on crime and taking back their country from the namby pamby liberal judges and teachers that the media tells them are willing to let child molesters off the hook and kids bring drugs into schools.
The quickest way to get someone on your side is to strike fear into them by telling them that they are losing control. There's been a pretty steady ratcheting up of "tough on" this or that over the past 15 years and along the way the laws/rules get unsurprisingly less and less rational.
Tell a Mother or Father in bumfvck South Dakota that the school is taking a tough new stance on something to avoid another Columbine and they'll cheer you on for taking such a hardnosed stance until, of course, their kid gets in trouble for something frivolous and once again the parents would be happier to just leave it at the discretion of the teachers instead of fallin victim to some bureaucratic madness.
Michael Moore covered this only about 8 years ago when talking about the absurd reaction to Columbine where other schools suspended 7 year old kids for pretending a chicken finger was a gun among other ridiculous kneejerk responses. As usual everyone is about a decade behind him though, so it's nice to see some of the right leaning members on this board make the same point he did back then.
libbies and their zero tolerance out of control
Linear Mode
