Gotcha all beat.
Flemington, NJ, halfway between NYC and Philly:
2: WCBS (CBS, NYC)
3: WKWY (NBC, Philly)
4: WNBC (NBC, NYC
5: WNYW (independent, NYC)
6: WPVI (ABC, Philly)
7: WABC (ABC, NYC)
9: WOR (Independent, NYC)
10: WCAU (CBS, Philly)
11: WPIX (Independent, NYC)
12: WHYY (PBS, Philly)
13: WNET (PBS, NYC)
I’m sure these weren’t all there in 1957, but there were all there by 1967, I think. Plus I think we had a couple of UHF stations by then as well!
[QUOTE=Shawn1767]
Okay, here’s the original list.
I would take it for satire if it weren’t for the commands at the end to send it “to everyone to show how stupid we’ve become… etc.”
SCHOOL – 1957 vs. 2007
Scenario:
Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking
lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957
- Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to
his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007
- School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to
jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in
for
traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario:
Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957
- Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end
up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and
Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started
it.
Scenario:
Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957
- Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the
Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class
again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie.
Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a
disability.
Scenario:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives
him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to
college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed
to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy’s
sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to
prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.
Scenario:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking
dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug
violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.
Scenario:
Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to
college.
2007 - Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles
appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for
graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state
school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English banned from core
curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a
living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts
them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007- BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with
domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from
home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list
and is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee.
He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her
job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of
therapy.
This should hit every e-mail to show how stupid we have become!
And if we do not wake up & take our Country back, we will not
have a Country nor a society to grow old in or for our children to grow
up in.
Think about it !
[/QUOTE]
That may be the stupidest thing I have ever read. I am definitely dumber now for having read it.
1957:
Dupont Rockefeller Van Astorbilt IV is rich but weird and stupid and stingy and does his taxes himself. He earns $500,000 (in 2007 USD) from his trust fund, claims a $1200 exemption for himself and his wife, and pays $450,000 (in 2007 USD) in taxes at the 91% maximum tax rate, keeping $50,000 (in 2007 USD).
2007
Dupont Rockefeller Van Astorbilt VI is rich but weird and stupid and stingy and wants to do his own taxes just like grandpa. He earns $500,000 from the same trust fund, claims the $6,100 personal deduction for himself and his wife, and pays $155,000 in taxes at the 35% maximum tax rate, keeping $345,000.
(And the 91% tax rate was halfway through the administration of a Republican president.)
1957: After school Johnnie & Mary go home where Mom has a nice snack waiting for them. While they eat it, they discuss their day in school. They then go out to play with the neighborhood children. Mom calls them to supper when Dad comes home
2007: Well, it’s Tuesday so Johnny has Little League and Mary has gymnastics. Sharon’s mother will pick you up and drive you there, then pick you up and drive you home. Make sure you have your keys, as Dad is away on a business trip and I have a late meeting. I’ll leave some microwave dinners in the freezer, or you can order pizza. Don’t call me on my cell phone for anything, as I’m going to be busy.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
The problem here is that many of the very things that eliminated the bad from 1957 also eliminated the good.
[/QUOTE]
So, you agree that there is “good” in a 1957-style life. Good. But I guess you think it is not appropriate to look back to it and recognize it as such. I’m confused.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have clean water and air unless you have environmental safeguards, for example. If you doubt me, look at the most unbridledly capitalistic country in the world, China.
[/QUOTE]
You’re doing here what I called the OP on in my first post. The email was not a defense of 1957 in general, only as it applied to school and our children. Any desire to refute the points in the email by looking at issues not germane to it is attacking a straw man. (And who has attacked environmental safeguards . Certainly not I. Nor regulation.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
Yes, we have many, many over-precautions today. Do you know why? Because individuals kept suing. Do you know why? Two reasons. In some cases, because the platintiffs were greedy jerks. But in other cases, because the companies were negligent or even abusive, especially when it came to their employees or the land/water/air they were working on. Sorry about that, but you can’t get the benefits of regulations without the regulations and the nuisance that goes with them. And guess what else? You can’t get them without paying for their enforcement. That means - ooga-booga! taxes! 
[/QUOTE]
Whether this is true or not, it is not on point. You might be right as to lawsuits being the reason for environmental regulations, but which part of the email does this refute? Answer: none.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
It’s the same thing with the other items on the list. Yes, we want to protect people’s rights. We do that for a reason. Yes, sometimes it seems a little ridiculous. Personally, I think the American way of life is worth a little inconvenience. Maybe you disagree.
[/QUOTE]
Yikes. You attempt to refute the points in the email but bringing up stuff outside its scope (strawman), and then attempt to use that refutation to counter the actual points through some halo effect. Sorry, that’s not how it works.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
Things change over time. Our concept of what rights encompass changes. Back when the constitution was drafted, women had little or no rights. People of no property had no rights. Things change. So of course we’ve changed. If your friends want to go back to 1957, they have only to get a majority to vote with them and agree with them, and they can get society to move with them back to the '50s, when we had just gotten past McCarthy, we still practiced “duck and cover” in school, “Negroes” still knew their “place,” and “I Like Ike” was a viable political slogan. Good luck with that.
[/QUOTE]
Ay yay yay, Oy!. You seem intent in refuting things NOT in the email. The email was not defending life in 1957 in general, but as to school and children. You seem to acknowledge that there was some “good” back then in that regard, but for some reason feel the need to attack aspects of life during that time that no one has seeked to defend. What environmental regulations have to do with the email eludes me. Perhaps you can show me . To me the article is attacking the nanny-state thinking that has brought us the genius zero-tolerance policies that gets an Eagle Scout suspended from school for having a knife in the trunk of his car. Or a second-grader getting sent home and suspended by kissing a girl on her cheek. It pines for the day when mothers were at home, for their kids. Something I think many working mothers would love if they didn’t have to work. This doesn’t argue for mothers not being able to work (as was much the case in 1957), but simply points out the benefits of them being there. I have friend who actually took herself out of the work force to do just that. It would be good if more women had that option, don’t you think?
And while the past 50 years have brought us wonderful medical advancements, many in the area of mental health, do you really want to defend the incidence at which kids (especially boys) are diagnosed with some syndrome or another and are medicated to make them just stop being young boys?
If you decided to respond, let’s leave the straw out of it, okay? Isn’t it possible that we can look back to some point in history and see things that served us better and maybe find away to bring back the good without the bad? Can we look back and admire the penmanship that people had in 1800, maybe want to see how we can bring such care back to the written word and not be accused of wanting to reinstitute slavery? Or talk about the benefits of spanking a kid and not be accused of wanting to abolish asbestos laws?
In 1957, there had never been a school shooting.
In 2007 there were 3, including the deadliest rampage by a single gunman in US history, on or off campus.
[QUOTE=Cisco]
In 1957, there had never been a school shooting.
[/QUOTE]
Not that these sorts of lists are ever hindered by fact-checking, but…
[QUOTE=Shawn1767]
“In 1957 a secretary had to have sex with her boss to keep her job. In 2007, she can file a sexual harassment suit and keep her job based on her abilities alone.”
[/QUOTE]
So, we’re keeping with the “total bullshit” or “totally ignorant” theme?
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Not that these sorts of lists are ever hindered by fact-checking, but…
[/QUOTE]
Those are not “school shootings” in the contemporary use of the term. These are school shootings and you’ll notice there was not one in 1957 or before.
Well, I suppose it’s alright to shoot up a school if you’re a student, then.
[QUOTE=Cisco]
Those are not “school shootings” in the contemporary use of the term. These are school shootings and you’ll notice there was not one in 1957 or before.
[/QUOTE]
Uh huh. So, despite the fact that people had been shot at schools before 1957, there were no “school shootings” before 1957. I stand corrected. You can understand my confusion, I hope.
Magellan, I absolutely admit that there was good in 1957. After all, the world had just acquired Me a year earlier!
But as you yourself had pointed out earlier, the original email was full of hyperbole. And it wasn’t just a matter of pointing out that it was nice when mothers could stay home and be there for their kids to get home from school with milk and cookies. In fact, there’s not a single item on that list that talks about that. Every item on that list is talking about the kind of what you call nanny-state protection that I thought I was addressing in my last post. And that email uses hyperbole, or what we more simplistic types call “lies” to make their point.
I don’t know if there’s an actual case of a second grader being suspended for kissing a girl on the cheek, but if so, I’d want to know a little bit more about the case before I decided. It sounds enormously innocuous as described, but what if he was a lot bigger than she was, and holding her down while she was screaming while he did it? He may have meant no harm (or was teasing and getting carried away). Or maybe it was entirely harmless - if so, it’s a very rare case.
The fact is, occasionally you do get people who lost their judgment, either in the direction of over-regulation or under-regulation. As I said in my previous email, I’d rather go through a bit of inconvenience and protect the rights and safety of my kids (if I had any) or other peoples’ kids. If you disagree, you’re perfectly welcome to get the majority of voters and society to agree with you and reinstate the fifties, and that’s what this email is trying to do. But don’t try to pretend it isn’t at the very least exaggerating grossly (There’s no one out there trying to claim that teaching English is a violation of human rights, and no one’s Dad is going on a Terror Watch List for leftover fireworks in an ant bed unless they also happen to be Democratic Activists, in which case they’re probably already on it anyway), or that you can get the regulations we need without the price we pay in the occasional over-regulation. People are not now nor will they ever be perfect.
[QUOTE=Spoons]
Didn’t need to be near those three cities. In Toronto, we had six available channels; and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Buffalo NY had the same (elmwood?):
– Channel 2 (NBC, Buffalo)
– Channel 4 (CBS, Buffalo)
– Channel 6 (CBC, Toronto)
– Channel 7 (ABC, Buffalo)
– Channel 9 (CTV, Toronto)
– Channel 11 (Independent, Hamilton)
I’m unsure if these were all available in 1957, but they sure were in the early 1960s.
[/QUOTE]
We got cable in 1973, when my parents got their first color television.
In the early 1970s, over the air on a set of rabbit ears, there was …
2 (WGR, NBC, Buffalo)
4 (WBEN, CBS, Buffalo)
5 (CBLT, CBC, Toronto) *
7 (WKBW, ABC, Buffalo)
9 (CFTO, CTV, Toronto) *
11 (CHCH, Independent, Hamilton) *
17 (WNED, PBS, Buffalo)
19 (CICA, TVO, Toronto) *
25 (CBLFT. French soft-core porn on Friday and Saturday nights, Toronto) **
29 (WUTV, Independent, Buffalo)
** Lots of snow, but as teenagers in the early 1980s it was better for seeing boobies than on the wavy scrambled images from pay channels.
Although national network programming was all the same, local programming definitely wasn’t; the network affiliates from Buffalo and Rochester would have completely different shows on when soaps, national news and prime-time programming wasn’t airing, each with some syndicated and locally produced shows that weren’t aired in the other city. Television stations in Buffalo were notorious for pre-empting in the 1970s, so that’s when you swung the Channel Master towards Erie, whose network affiliates never pre-empted.
Yes, syndicated television still exists, but with so many more stations in every city, there’s fewer shows that aren’t going to be seen in a certain market. In 1973, well … hypothetically, there were many situations like where Mike Douglas aired in City A but not nearby City B, Merv Griffin in City B but not City A, and if you were a Merv Griffin fan in City A, you spent a hundred bucks on an outdoor antenna and rotor, pointed it towards City B, and watched Merv through what looked like a blizzard. Now, the likelihood that … oh, Oprah airs in City A but not City B, and Rachel Ray in City B not not City A, is going to be rare.
Locally produced shows on independent and network affiliate stations, such as kids shows, Dialing/Bowling/Curling for Dollars, and so on, is very rare now; local news, “AM (city name)”-type shows in a few cities, and early Sunday morning public affairs shows of the type often satirized by Saturday Night Live. and that’s it.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
But as you yourself had pointed out earlier, the original email was full of hyperbole. And it wasn’t just a matter of pointing out that it was nice when mothers could stay home and be there for their kids to get home from school with milk and cookies. In fact, there’s not a single item on that list that talks about that. Every item on that list is talking about the kind of what you call nanny-state protection that I thought I was addressing in my last post. And that email uses hyperbole, or what we more simplistic types call “lies” to make their point.
[/QUOTE]
Sheeze. You’re hurting my head. While it used hyperbole, it was very pointed as to the subjects it was addressing. You seem intent on expanding that to compare 1957 to 2007 in totality. The email does NOT do that. So you have erected a strawman and then have slayed it mightily. This has been pointed out, yet you insist on doing so. Amazing. But here are a few links to nanny-state zero-tolerance stupidity. Unfortunatley, I could search all day and continue to find more.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed080504a.cfm
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmU5NGIxZmZmODE4ZWJjOTE0NmM1ZTY3ZjRkNjQ1ZDI=
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/21136.html
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2003/apr03/03-04-23.shtml
http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/press_release.asp?article_id=449
[QUOTE=Oy!]
The fact is, occasionally you do get people who lost their judgment, either in the direction of over-regulation or under-regulation.
[/QUOTE]
The problem is that zero-tolerance policies take judgement to a great extent. It tells people “Do Not Think.” If an honor role Eagle Scout has knife in his trunk because he has some outing the day before or that day, they treat him the same as a kid who has been in trouble many times before and may be a member of a gang. THAT is the stupidity that was being attacked in the email. This bizarro reality is brought to us by those who don’t want to offend, or make judgements. But you know what, if you can make good judgements, you shouldn’t be teaching our kids.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
As I said in my previous email, I’d rather go through a bit of inconvenience and protect the rights and safety of my kids (if I had any) or other peoples’ kids. If you disagree, you’re perfectly welcome to get the majority of voters and society to agree with you and reinstate the fifties, and that’s what this email is trying to do.
[/QUOTE]
There you go again: insisting that anyone is arguing for 1957 writ large. Since you so insist on doing this, perhaps you care to point out WHO is arguing for reverting back to 1957 in totality?
I’ll wait.
Apparently the people who sent out the original email.
[QUOTE=Oy!]
Apparently the people who sent out the original email.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, really? And you know this how? Did you notice how each and every one of their examples were centered around school and children? And you think that is some strange coincidence? That they really meant to indict 2007 as a whole and wish to adopt 1957 in totality? Yet they tailored and restricted their examples to schools and children?
Odd that.
Care to stop your knees from jerking and try again?
On review, you may want to examine why you felt the need to use “Apparently”.
I can’t help the fact that panicky parents or stupid citizens call for “Zero Tolerance” programs, any more than I can help the fact that a lot of conservatives seem to get off on the idea of Three Strikes laws. The fact is any rule or law that does not allow for circumstances is silly.
A lot of the reaction to 9/11 was silly. It didn’t add much, if anything, to our safety, other things that could have added to our safety were ignored, and things that interfered with our liberty were instituted - and these things were done very much at the behest of your BFFs in the current administration and their best buddy John McCain. (As a social liberal, you may want to think long and hard before you vote for him; his positions on things like torture have changed quite a bit since 2000. Are a few bucks in taxes really worth it?)
My point is, people do over-react, and over-do a good thing. They make things like Zero-tolerance rules. It’s silly, it’s stupid, and I deplore it. Unfortunately, it sounds very good when you’re making a speech for a school board election. When someone tried to take more nuanced positions <cough-Obama-cough>, people <cough-Republicans-cough> start saying they’re weak. You and I, of course, are perfect, but we’re dealing with an imperfect world. Personally, I’d rather have an Eagle Scout suspended for an afternoon or a couple of days (obviously with the private, heartfelt apologies of the principal and faculty) than have a bunch of kids at the school running around with knives. I know that’s not the choice, but someone decided it was and put a Zero-tolerance rule in place. They were idiots - OK? Like there were no idiots in 1957?
[QUOTE=Oy!]
I can’t help the fact that panicky parents or stupid citizens call for “Zero Tolerance” programs, any more than I can help the fact that a lot of conservatives seem to get off on the idea of Three Strikes laws. The fact is any rule or law that does not allow for circumstances is silly.
A lot of the reaction to 9/11 was silly. It didn’t add much, if anything, to our safety, other things that could have added to our safety were ignored, and things that interfered with our liberty were instituted - and these things were done very much at the behest of your BFFs in the current administration and their best buddy John McCain. (As a social liberal, you may want to think long and hard before you vote for him; his positions on things like torture have changed quite a bit since 2000. Are a few bucks in taxes really worth it?)
My point is, people do over-react, and over-do a good thing. They make things like Zero-tolerance rules. It’s silly, it’s stupid, and I deplore it. Unfortunately, it sounds very good when you’re making a speech for a school board election. When someone tried to take more nuanced positions <cough-Obama-cough>, people <cough-Republicans-cough> start saying they’re weak. You and I, of course, are perfect, but we’re dealing with an imperfect world. Personally, I’d rather have an Eagle Scout suspended for an afternoon or a couple of days (obviously with the private, heartfelt apologies of the principal and faculty) than have a bunch of kids at the school running around with knives. I know that’s not the choice, but someone decided it was and put a Zero-tolerance rule in place. They were idiots - OK? Like there were no idiots in 1957?
[/QUOTE]
Now we’re getting somewhere. The email was pointing to those policies, and the like, that you say you find idiotic. Yet, you joined in on erecting straw men an attacking them, while laughing at the backwardness of the person sending the email. I’m glad to see that you jumped the gun and see now that one can assail what idiotic policies of today have wrought (as well-intentioned as they might have been) and point to certain aspects of a previous era when things made more sense and not be advocating throwing away today’s society and replacing it with a past one.
You bring up three-strike laws. That’s a good comparison. Similarly, while it was well-intentioned, it has brought us outcomes that almost everyone finds regrettable. Pointing out and seeking to address those failing does not equate to advocating lawlessness. Or even the permissiveness that caused the laws to be crafted in the first place. Any rule that seeks to disallow judgement, is a recipe for disaster.
And one might ask, why do we have such policies in place, even before 9/11? Because schools didn’t want to treat students differently because of how race aligned with transgressors. If a kid had a knife and he was thought to be a member of a gang (theoretically a minority), he’d get suspended. While an Eagle Scout (theoretically white) would get a pass or an warning. Well, we couldn’t have that, now could we—people being judged on how they’ve conducted themselves throughout the school year?!?!?! Heaven forbid!
I’d also add that if you think the stupidity I cited resulted in an afternoon or a day of detention or suspension for the people mauled by the zero-tolerance morons, I suggest you give those articles more than a cursory look.
Since we couldn’t post last night, I sent this directly to magellan01. I’ll post his response and my response to his response in the following posts. All uses of the “you” refer to magellan01. The cites in question are from his post #154 in this thread.
OK, you made me ashamed so I went back and looked at your links in more detail.
The first one, about the Eagle scout being suspended, did not specify any length of time of suspension that I could find.
The second one, about the scissors in HomeEc, sounds a bit silly, but all they said was that they “vigorously defended” the process. It’s not clear what the process was. If it was the expulsion that the headline referred to, all I can say is that the kid and the parents should have known the rules, and if this is in fact true, I would imagine they can and should appeal first to the school board, and ultimately to the courts. Remember, what you’re seeing here is a grossly oversimplified version of what happened. It may have been as simple as what they’re describing, but these kids may not always be so lily-white and pure in their intentions. We can’t know, because they gave a name and a township - no state, no date, nothing that would allow us to run it down and confirm the facts.
The third one, about the gun in the truck and other assorted items, first of all is presented by the Heritage Foundation, which to my mind is not the most reliable of sources (they have an agenda). But, look, he had a gun and ammo in a gun rack in his truck at school. His intentions probably were absolutely blameless, but nonetheless it was a very bad thing to do; someone could have seen that stuff, broken into the truck (if that was even necessary) and had themselves a grand old time. It is not appropriate for kids to have guns on school property, ever, unless there are vicious wild bears in the area and kids have been shooting pheasants and possums since they were six.
The court, not the school, was responsible for setting bail. Personally, I think $25K was a bit on the high side, but that means $2500 to get him out, which isn’t too bad (I couldn’t afford it, but heck, I can’t afford groceries right now! ). He made a really dumb mistake by forgetting the gun, if that’s what really happened and he didn’t just bring the gun along to show it off to his buddies. Expulsion was a bit extreme, but again, this was a BIG mistake, and the people there knew the situation far better than you or I do from reading a blurb in a Heritage screed about it.
The little kids playing with paper guns or tiny GI Joe guns were silly, but if the school has a rule against all toy guns, the teachers probably have to enforce it even when it’s stupid. It doesn’t look as if any of the kids got into any serious trouble.
Quote:
[QUOTE=heritage article]
At another Alabama school, two boys were suspended for playing with toy guns that one had brought in for a school project.
And those are just the school punishments. A 9-year-old in Martin County, Fla., was arrested for aggravated assault and disrupting a school function for playing with his toy gun as he left school at the end of the day. A 10-year-old in Alabaster, Ala., was arrested for supposedly engaging in threatening behavior with a toy gun.
[/QUOTE]
Do you know how realistic some of those toy guns are? People have held up real stores with some of them! Again, I’m going to leave that kind of decision to the people on the ground rather than second guess them based on an article with an agenda. Same with the last item, describing a kid who sounded like he was doing a pretty good job of bullying the kids ahead of him in line. Until recently, bullies at school had free rein as long as they weren’t too blantantly active directly in front of a teacher. Back in your and my time, that was quite common. If that’s being stopped, I can only be glad. If occasionally it leads to a kid who is just messing around being arrested, again, a) I’m going to assume the people there have a clue, and b) bullying isn’t a joking matter unless it’s among very intimate friends who know for a fact that you’re joking. The terrorist threat thing is bullshit, but I’d want independent confirmation of that before I actually believe it. Even under W, I haven’t heard of any 12 year old Americans being arrested for terrorist threats in the US.
Your fourth cite lost me with the first line:
Quote:
Zero Tolerance for guns is not about school safety, it is about gun control. Zero Tolerance for bullies is not about school safety, it is about legitimizing and promoting homosexuality.
[/QUOTE]
Do you honestly expect anyone to take anything these people say seriously? Do you really believe that any adult is promoting homosexualty? Why would they? It’s not a religion, so they don’t get brownie points with God, and they don’t get green stamps or a toaster at the special Homosexual Store. So so much for that source.
Source five sounds silly, but once again, we don’t know the full circumstances. In any case, I’m pretty sure that except when a minor has been convicted as an adult, their record is wiped clean when they reach adulthood, so I believe this souce to be creating its own strawman.
Frankly, I don’t find your 6th cite to be particularly reprehensible. Regardless of its anti-terrorist message, the kid’s T-shirt was advocating murder
Quote:
[QUOTE=Tshirt]
image of a military sidearm and on the front pocket says “Volunteer Homeland Security.” On the back, over another image of the weapon, are the words “Special issue Resident Lifetime License — United States Terrorist Hunting Permit — Permit No. 91101 — Gun Owner — No Bag Limit.”
[/QUOTE]
and he refused to turn the shirt inside out when requested to do so. He was given a detention, for Pete’s sake. People are given detention for talking out loud in class!
Your seventh cite, from The Conservative Voice, again is not the cleanest of sources. They have a very definite agenda, so we can’t know what they are over-emphasizing or under-emphasizing (if anything) in order to make their point. I’m also not clear on the events. Did this little kid find a toy pellet gun in the bathroom at school, or at home? Either way, why didn’t he just tell an adult? How long was it between finding and picking it up, and turning it over to the authorities? We don’t know. But it looks to me like the school was caught between a zero-tolerance policy and trying to educate a kid, and settled for home-schooling the kid; sometimes you settle for what you can get. It’s not like the 2000s are the beginning of blacks/whites in politics and law-enforcement. In fact, we’re on the whole, I think, far more likely to see greys now than we were in the fifties.
And a zero-tolerance policy is the very essence of blacks/whites policy - you’re either with us or against us. Uh, where have we heard that before? Here’s a clue - it wasn’t from the evil Democratic liberals. 
8th, 9th, and 10th cites are all variations on the same theme of play guns or apparently innocent sexual harassment. They all come from sources that strike me as about as reliable as Fox News: they’re clearly pushing an agenda. Since I know even less about the cases than these sources do, I can only throw up my hands and say “As presented here, they sound stupid,” but I can see the possibility of circumstances they could be described in the same words that nonetheless would absolutely be worthy of the punishments involved. Just because someone is a white or educated and smart child doesn’t mean he’s not a nasty piece of work.
Your last cite is the most problematical. As you know, the government has absolutely no business promoting any particular religion or religion at all, for that matter. This holds true especially for schools and courts, but it’s true for any and every branch of the government.
That little boy made pictures representing Jesus. It’s not clear whether he was evangelizing or just showing a part of his own life - it may not be possible for him to make that distinction himself yet (or know the meaning of the word evangelize, for that matter). But things hanging on the walls in a school are kind of expected to be condoned, even endorsed, by the school. And a public school cannot afforded the remotest appearance of endorsing a particular religion. They open themselves up to a nightmare of lawsuits.
The child wasn’t deprived of free speech. He can draw that pic, show it in school or out of school to anyone he wants. The only question is, will it be displayed for a couple hours on the cafeteria wall?
If higher courts didn’t disagree with lower courts, we wouldn’t have a Supreme Court at all, so this is no change from 1957. And while you may find this a trivial waste of time, a lot of us do not. Many of us cherish the right of freedom of religion as the most precious in the Bill of Rights. And personally, I consider the endorsement of religion to be a violation of that freedom. So I don’t see why this article belongs with the rest.
The problem here is the one you mentioned when discussing the Three Strikes law. When decisions are left to the discretion of the judges, there is a strong possibility that the the judge’s own idiosyncrasies will enter into his decisions - including racism. The percentage of young black men in prisons and jails far exceeds that of young white men. A lot of that is that a much higher percentage of young black men live in poverty than do young white men, and that’s something that goes back several hundred years and probably won’t be fixed entirely for another several hundred. But the other reason is that, as I understand it, black men really do get sentenced more harshly than their white counterparts, just as women really do get paid on average less than their male counterparts. So you have to look very carefully as this stuff before you decide just how to approach it. I don’t know the answer. Probably some moral relativity so despised by the ultra right except when it’s applied to things they personally want to do.
What I do know is that, as human beings, we’re extremely bad at predicting the sociological consequences of the things we do. Case in point: the death penalty. You’d think it would be a deterrent. But every study I’ve ever encountered (and I was a psych major who did study social psychology), apparently the trend is the opposite - the rate of violent crime and especially murder seems to increase around the time that the execution is carried out. So no matter what rules we set, there are going to be people who get it wrong.
magellan01 had a special thing going on today, so he didn’t have much time. But he took a few minutes to very kindly send me a response, which I very much appreciated:
[QUOTE=magellan01]
Oy!,
I just got all your messages. I think there was a problem with the boards last night[sup]1[/sup]. Any way, I’m getting ready to go load the car and head to ***** for my ride[sup]2[/sup]. I just wanted to say thanks for taking so much time and care with what I supplied and responding. The links were the result of a rather quick search, so I wouldn’t hold each of them and indisputable proof of anything. I supplied so many, and many had more then one example within, knowing that some might be sketchy on the facts. So I don’t think it is necessary to critique each of them as you did in your PMs. I think you can see that there are not just a few ridiculous examples. And I thought one of the articles said that the Eagle Scout was suspended for two weeks, but maybe I’m remembering it from an article from when it actually happened.
The straw man I kept bringing up had to do with assailing aspects of 1957 not brought up in the email. It was very pointed to school and children, do it seems any criticism of the email needs to address those specific points.
As far as the death penalty, I agree with your recollection that studies have shown it is not a deterrent. It is NOT my position that it is. I’m not surprised that it is NOT a deterrent—as it is. There is too much time between the crime and the punishment. I do think it CAN be a deterrent if that time is dramatically shortened. That is what I advocate. I also advocate drastically lessening the # of people who would qualify for it. I don’t mind if it’s just a handle, or some years, zero. I think we should raise the bar to include only those instances when guilt is certain. For example, a clear video tape and witnesses. But when we have that, we should fast-track the case, making sure that there is adequate lawyering (not some shlub with a degree). This 17 -22 years that we currently experience on these trials and strings of appeals is an abuse of the system. So, let’s restrict the number to those where guilt can be clearly assessed, hold a trial, allow for a limited number of appeals and get on with it.
Well, I need to load up and run.
Have a good day.
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