Losing my Tolerance for "Zero Tolerance"

this is true ^ | ? | Randy Cassingham

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Zero tolerance = Zero IQ

[marktwain]

Much of the "Zero Tolerance" for guns is simply an attempt at cultural genocide. The liberal elites distain and hate America's predominant gun culture, and try to do everything they can to eliminate it.

[fnord]

bump for 'This is True'. With the deluge of weekly newsletters available, Cassingham's has stood the test of time. It is witty and deadly accurate. He really rails against the stupidity of modern life, especially ZT, dumb criminals, and silly lawsuits.

I have been a subscriber for probably 8 years, and a premium (few dollars a year) for the last several. I highly recommend FReepers check it out, at least the free version.

[Mamzelle]

"Zero Tolerance" is lazy management. Just issue a ridiculously extreme edict, and prove your toughness by bizarre enforcement.

Case in point...sending daughter to school, who had a very mild tummyache, with a pink Pepto-Bismol tablet. Then realizing, with horror, that this might result in her expulsion from school.

[irv]

Zero tolerance policies are rarely enacted by law. That's the scary thing: When administrators do have a choice, and choose to avoid any semblance of thought and hyper-react to minor things.

It's common in schools. Far less common even in politically correct workplaces like mine. I guess it's because there's work that needs to be done in the real world, while the schools feel no need to produce.

But that's another rant.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Waterguns are gateway toys. Nailclippers are gateway guillotines.

[dark_lord]

It is easy to get riled up. But note the stories cover the whole planet and go back to 1997. It does happen, and where it happens it is nasty bureaucraps taking advantage just to be mean. But any given kid is more likely to be hit by lighting than hammered by a zero tolerance ruling.

That said, the real problem is the "atmosphere" of fear and oppression this communicates. It teachs some kids to be weasals who can turn in other kids, and it teaches other kids that it is okay to break the rules (because the rules are, after all, so obviously stupid) - and of course, that adults are not to be trusted since it is the adults that passed and enforce the stupid rules.

[Gritty]

Here's the offending deadly weapon...

[Chemist_Geek]

Zero tolerance policies are rarely enacted by law. That's the scary thing: When administrators do have a choice, and choose to avoid any semblance of thought and hyper-react to minor things.

It's common in schools. Far less common even in politically correct workplaces like mine. I guess it's because there's work that needs to be done in the real world, while the schools feel no need to produce.

Oh, I don't know, HR managers get pretty odd sometimes...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Zero tolerance = Zero IQ

Agreed. "Zero tolerance" presupposes that we live in a black and white world. We do not live in a black and white world. All some people need to do to see that is to open a window in their minds and look out at the pretty green trees in the real world. It may also let some much needed fresh air in at the same time.

[FITZ]

We have zero-tolerance in the public schools my kids attend and if it weren't for that, I'd have to home-school them. There are gang fights every day in the middle school ---it's one thing if the kids fight with their fists but if they start bringing knives to fight with it's going to get bloody. Many kids are caught using drugs and out they go ---the nice thing is by 9th grade the kids who aren't going to learn anything are gone and the fights dwindle down.

[FITZ]

The schools my kids go keep zero tolerance just to illegal drugs, knives and guns. Another school I know of takes things quite a bit further, a boy got suspended for giving a girl a "wedgie" in the 6th grade ---her mother thought it was sexual abuse.

[marktwain]

It isn't zero tolerance that keeps the fights from getting bloody. We could bring guns to school (for hunting afterward), and it was the rare individual who didn't have a pocket knife on him. I made a spear gun in shop.

What we had that was different was discipline, the backing of parents, and the ability to expell students who didn't cooperate.

The teachers union, department of education, federal and state funding have all worked to eliminate that level of local control.

[henderson field]

Zero tolerance is a Nazi Policy. Do we want to be Nazis? Perhaps we should not tolerate Zero Tolerance.

[FITZ]

discipline, the backing of parents, and the ability to expell students who didn't cooperate.

We don't have that here, it's a different kind of society, knives would definitely get used in some of these fights if they had them with them. It's a good way to get the trouble makers out ---sometimes good kids get caught because they brought a knife or gun --but then they can go to an alternative school, sometimes if they do well there they can come back. It's good because by high school, most of the non-performers and punks are gone.

[supercat]

Here's the offending deadly weapon...

Uh oh... looks like he removed the little orange cap on the end of the barrel...

[JoeSixPack1]

Zero Tolerance = Zero liability on said teacher, administrator of faculty member.

It's all a simple matter of educators and faculty not having to take responsibility for any action they may be required to make or feel is necessary to the circumstance. The more outragous the circumstances, the more press coverage for the policy.

So once again teacher unions' insulate educators from parents' outrage, disguised as "for the children".

[FairOpinion]

I remember an incident, it was in the news some time ago, which is another insane example of "zero tolerance".

There were some school kids in a bus, one of them, who had asthma was having trouble breeding, and he didn't have his inhaler with him. A girl, who also had asthma, gave the kid her inhaler, and quite possibly saved his life. The girl was suspended for giving out "drugs".

Then there was some other incident where they found Tylenol on a kid, I mean genuine Tylenol, and they suspended him for "drug" possession.

Instead of a zillion rules and "zero tolerance", they should use some COMMON SENSE, which seems like none of the bureaucrats or officials possess.

[FairOpinion]

Sorry, for the typo, I meant "breathing", not breeding, gees!

That's what happens when I a listening to TV at the same time, I just heard someone say that Saddam HAS 9 nuclear weapons, some of the old Soviet nukes, so that kind of took my attention from my typing.