Posted by
David Zublick on Sunday, October 18, 2009 4:12:12 PM
Three stories in the news this week pointed out the lunacy of what has become known as "zero tolerance".
In
the first case, a 6-year-old boy was suspended and threatened with
reform school because he brought a camping utensil to school. Zachary
Christie, a first-grader at
Downes
Elementary School in Newark, Del., was so proud of the spoon-fork-knife
combination gift that he wanted to show it off and use it to eat his
lunch. He was by all accounts a good student, who sometimes wore suits
to school because he took his education seriously. He was also a Cub
Scout.
The school clearly overreacted. At best the school
officials should have taken the "weapon" away from the boy and promised
to return it to him at the end of the day. They should have explained
that bringing such a tool to school is not allowed. And they should
have left it at that. Instead, they chose to make an example of this
fine young man. It was only after the story went national, and a huge
uproar ensued, that the officials relented.
In the second case
of zero tolerance gone wild, a 17-year-old Eagle Scout was suspended
because he had a knife in a survival kit locked in his car. It was a
gift from his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town. He did not
bring the knife into the school. Initially Matthew
Whalen
was suspended for five days. But the superintendent of the Troy, N.Y.
school district tacked on an additional 15 days after a hearing. The
superintendent,
George J.
Goodwin, 55, said in a written statement that his district "has an
established policy of zero tolerance with respect to the possession of
weapons of any kind on school property or in school buildings." He
refuses to budge on the suspension, despite the young man's excellent
academic and behavioral record. The suspension could affect Whalen's record
at West Point, as the military academy considers his moral and ethical
fiber. Goodwin should lose his job over this dumb decision.
The
third case of zero tolerance revolves around radio talk show host Rush
Limbaugh and his thwarted attempt at purchasing the St. Louis Rams.
False allegations of racism on the part of Limbaugh prompted by unsubstantiated quotes attributed to him and milked by race baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
derailed his bid to become a minority stakeholder in the Rams. His
potential business partners panicked, and the liberal NFL itself,
clearly not wanting any problems from the players union, caved.
Zero tolerance for conservative thought on the part of football.
Limbaugh
should take legal action, as he was the victim of character
assassination. All involved in this fiasco need to pay dearly for this
abomination.
And these idiots Jackson and Sharpton should be put in their place once and for all. Jackson is not only a race baiter, he is a racist who referred to Jews as "
Hymies" and to New York City as "
Hymietown" in January 1984 during a conversation with Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman.
Sharpton,
who has made a living out of shooting his mouth off, was brought to
task by Limbaugh in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which
Limbaugh pointed out that
Sharpton was responsible for the 1991 Crown Heights riot ... and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot."
What
Sharpton
and Jackson need is a liberal dose of "shut up" and a lawsuit resulting
in punitive damages would go a long way to achieve that.
There should be zero tolerance for zero tolerance.
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