This is an editorial opinion piece I wrote for, and was printed in, the Attleboro, MA Sun-Chronicle some time back. I release this to public domain for use in whole or part.
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The Death Of Goodness In America
I was exiting a local warehouse club recently and was greeted at the door by the obligatory person who checks your receipt against the goods in your cart. I thought “Treat everyone as though they are a thief and no one can complain.” I later heard the President say on television that we have reached a level of zero-tolerance in America. I thought “Treat everyone as though they are a criminal and no one can complain.” The two were inexorably linked in my mind.
Most Americans can tell you that the death of common sense occurred years ago. What most fail to realize is that the death of goodness accompanied it.
Mandatory sentencing, due to the unwillingness or inability of judges to act against criminals, is one aspect of the equality in justice that has removed all semblance of cognizant thought from the process. Judges have their hands tied when it comes to sentencing; unable to differentiate between persons who broke the law with malice or those who simply fell astray. Any consideration of the motive of the accused is removed and everyone is treated as though they had heinous intent. Everyone is lumped together as a single evil entity.
Not even the President of the United States is exempt from this madness. Under the laws, as written, he has no choice but to impose sanctions on any nation that errs on any side but our own. The result is that the United States now has sanctions on many countries including some of our closest allies. Regardless of their true intent, all who err are treated as though they have the basest of intentions.
In the drunken logic of the modern bureaucrat the equality of treatment for all far outweighs the quality or fairness of that treatment. All things must be treated on an equal basis regardless of right or wrong. The problem is that when you treat all things equally you must always err on the side of evil over goodness. All things are viewed in their worst light. Of course this allows the bureaucrat of the moment to shirk any duty to fairness and relieves them of any and all responsibility for any and all decisions at any and all levels; i.e. the law is the law and it is out of my hands. Neat, concise, to the point.
Zero-tolerance is the primary example of this wrongheaded thinking. Everything is treated as equally bad and everyone is treated as equally evil. Under the guiding principles of zero-tolerance everything is at its worst. Every knife is a weapon. Every drug is a restricted drug. Every action contrary to the wishes of the authorities is evil.
When a girl picked up her mother’s lunch in error one day in Longmont, Colorado she didn’t realize there was a paring knife in the bag. Upon discovery of same, she brought it to the attention of her teacher, and was immediately expelled from school under zero-tolerance.
When a Providence, Rhode Island teenager used the screwdriver on his Swiss Army knife to tighten the screw on a computer case at school he was immediately suspended under zero-tolerance.
When a Denver, CO student handed out lemon drop candies to a few of his fellow students he was met with a barrage of criticism after the school panicked and called out the police, fire department, and paramedics. He was suspended under zero-tolerance.
When a girl in another city gave a girl at school an aspirin for “ladies cramps” she was immediately suspended under zero-tolerance.
What all of these kids have in common is that they were deemed to be the worst of persons with the worst of intentions; even though they were good kids and their intentions were good. They also share the common thread that it will be long and hard to bring them back to whatever respect they previously had for the system that wronged them..
What is the underlying cause for this anomaly in our nation? What has caused us to become so suspicious, so paranoid, so distrusting? In a word; litigation. Our litigious society has driven us over the brink and into the abyss from which we may never return. We now are so paranoid that if we treat one person in one manner, and another in another, we will be sued for the inequality of our actions. One, or the other, will sue us because of their real or perceived injury at our hands and we will do anything to prevent it; even the destruction of an entire generation of our children and their respect for the laws of the nation.
When we treat everyone as a criminal, a ne’er-do-well, a druggie, a purveyor; we also create hostile, disrespectful, angry human beings that will at some point live up to those expectations. We instill in the young that there is no goodness.
The time has come for the people of this nation to realize that zero-tolerance, and like laws, are destructive to our nation and our system of laws and government. The people of this nation must realize that it is time to do away with these destructive laws and return to the common sense approach to the laws that built this nation. Only through the destruction of these laws can we as a nation return to a system that seeks out and reveres goodness.
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Gun Control: The proposition that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose, is more acceptable than allowing that same woman to defend herself with a firearm.
