In the United States we treasure individualism, so much so that many in our society see anything that even remotely smacks of collectivism as something dark and evil. We honor liberty and courage as supreme blessings and virtues, quite literally singing their praises as the climactic finish of our national anthem. Yet, for reasons passing understanding, we seem to have fallen in love with mandates that tie our hands and leave us at the mercy of predetermination even in cases where it seems preposterous. These mandates stand in diametric opposition to both freedom and courage, as they leave no opportunity for discretion no matter how obviously it's called for, and they insulate those who are paid to be decision makers from actually having to take a stand, make the call and accept the consequences. We find this occurring throughout our society anywhere we see the words zero-tolerance.
The worst culprit by far is our education system. Our school systems lead the league by a wide margin when it comes to mindless implementation of zero-tolerance polices resulting in outcomes that would make any reasonable person cringe. In one recent story, common sense was somehow allowed to eventually sneak through the schoolhouse door and six year old Zachary Christie, originally sentenced to spend 45 days in "alternative school" for troublemakers, subsequently received a reduced punishment for eating lunch with his favorite camping tool, which had a fork, spoon and knife. Perhaps even more troubling, this same school district had already been forced to confront the folly of mandatory draconian punishment for what an innocent child (or a person with a scintilla of common sense) would never see as introducing danger. Last year a 5th grade girl was to be expelled because she brought in a birthday cake along with a serrated knife to cut it. She later got a reprieve and the state then passed a law allowing school districts to (gasp) exercise some judgment on punishments, but the law only covered cases involving expulsion. The school district obviously learned nothing from the prior year's disgrace, and the equally cowardly legislature essentially said that common sense should be viewed in the same light as a tourniquet or poison pill -- something to be used only in the direst of emergencies!
Speaking of relatively harmless serrated knives and idiotic school punishments, a few years ago Lindsay Brown, a Florida high school senior and National Merit Scholar was, among other things, forbidden to attend her own graduation after a kitchen knife (the kind parents place at the right of a child's dinner plate - not a weapon) was found on the passenger side floorboard of her car. Leaving aside the fact that this object is less dangerous as a weapon than a pencil, her explanation that she had no idea it was there was entirely plausible. She had been in the process of moving and the knife very likely fell out of one of her boxes. Nevertheless, school administrators were strictly forbidden to exhibit any evidence whatsoever of brain function. She was also arrested and spent nine hours in jail. The charges were later dropped.
The last example I will cite is that of Jonathan Prevette, a six year old boy who kissed a girl on the cheek after she asked him to. He was suspended and forced to miss an ice cream social at school because he was, under the school's witless policy, guilty of sexual harassment. I wish I could tell you that there weren't many, many more instances of zero-tolerance foolishness, but I can't. If school policymakers are unable or unwilling to make the difficult discretionary calls, balancing the competing interests of school safety and equitable treatment of students, then I wouldn't let them near a school unless it was to perform a task involving a mop, a broom or a bucket of sawdust to throw over puke.
