Date: 2003-09-20 00:07 Subject: minor rant

I heard something yesterday that set me to thinking... a son of a friend recently started as a freshman at a high school in a town not too far away. He worked very hard all summer on his golf game and was one of only a few freshmen that was invited to join the golf team at school. However, that was all for naught, as he was caught at school for having a small toy gun, purple and yellow, with no real resemblance to a real gun, in his backpack. It was reportedly there from a weekend trip to a friend's house and merely a forgotten toy, yet spotted by someone at the bus stop, it became a weapon, and without any real due process or, perhaps more importantly, without any real thought or consideration, he became just another victim of a school's zero-tolerance policy. Suspended, detentions to serve, and most devastatingly, off of the golf team.

Now I will be among the first to say that what he did was stupid, that kids should not have guns or gun-like toys in school. and I would even be willing to say that the punishment meted out was not unreasonable, but not the way in which it was done. I mean, what is "zero-tolerance policy" but a way to kowtow to the most unreasonable and illogical of our fears, and substituting a knee-jerk, brainless rule, promulgated by fearful, small-minded administrators and politicians to give us artificial solace. And why do we believe we are better off with a zero-tolerance policy, or mandatory sentencing, or "three strikes, your out" rules? Are we really safer for it? Is the thoughtless application of a rule more beneficial to our society that the more difficult, sometimes uneven application of justice that occurs with the intervention and consideration of a human brain? I guess I shouldn't be that surprised; any society that values McDonald's as a reasonable source of nutrition, that prides itself on the quality of grocery store sushi, that allows itself to be manipulated into allowing an unelected buffoon take the highest office of the land, and then lead us into a pointless quagmire of a war, will get exactly what it deserves.

May God have mercy on our [stupid and thoughtless] souls.