Kurt Meyer: Zero tolerance leads to zero common sense

[The Straight Story]

Kurt Meyer: Zero tolerance leads to zero common sense

In April, a Michigan man took his 7-year-old son to a pro baseball game. The child wanted lemonade. The concession stand gave the man a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Never having heard of the product, and not knowing it was an alcoholic beverage, he gave it to his son. He soon found himself in police custody and his son placed in foster care.

Adults shouldn’t give alcohol to children. But that wasn’t the man’s intent. Authorities knew that, but compounded the mistake – and perhaps truly damaged the child by following child-protective procedures to the letter of the law.

Though extreme, it’s another example of zero-tolerance mania run amuck.

...

We’ve all heard zero-tolerance horror stories – a kindergarten boy expelled from school for sexual harassment after kissing a little girl on the playground, and a teenager who went to football practice after a hunting trip but forgot a hunting rifle was in his trunk and was expelled and referred to the police for bringing a firearm to school.

...

When former Fishers High School Principal Scott Syverson was pulled over last winter, the police officer demonstrated something feared in the zero-tolerance world: discretion. He thought for himself. The officer, no-doubt recognized that arresting Syverson for drinking and driving would destroy a career decades in the making, and so, he drove Syverson home. Many locals vilified the officer.

If value judgments aren’t allowed, maybe we don’t even need police officers, just hall monitors.

http://www.county29.net/cms2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14390&Itemid=225

[MercutioATC]

1. Amen.

We try to teach our children analytical reasoning yet we publicly adopt policies that not only discourage the use of said skills, they result in actions that fly in the face of reason.

[Bunny]

2. So letting a drunk driver off the hook is now okay?

Seriously? :shrug:

The officer drove the drunk driver home instead of arresting him? Well, that's just lovely. Did the officer make him a nice cup of tea, too? :eyes: