What is WRONG with us?

Good grief. Good, good grief.

I want to call your attention to an article on Alternet this morning entitled "The Stupidity of "Zero-Tolerance": 6-Year-Old Suspended For Bringing Food Utensil to School" with a lead that says, "What can this teach us about U.S. foreign policy? Quite a lot, actually."

Here's how it gets started:

NEWARK, Del. -- Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother's fiancé by his side to vouch for him.

Zachary’s offense? Taking a Cub Scout utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about joining the Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary now faces 45 days in the district's reform school.

Reform school? Reform school?

Then there's this:

"Zero-tolerance" policy arose from the string of shooting sprees in American high schools. As usual, schools did not thoughtfully analyze what kind of school environment (complete with hierarchical sects and rampant bullying) is inspiring such horrific shootings. Rather, schools followed steps 1 through 5, and opted for a hyper-totalitarian state within a state where children are all treated as suspects, including little Zachary Christie.

Just go read the rest of it, okay? It's short. I'd love people's take on it.
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