For their own good … ban trick-or-treating
A small community in Greene County is embroiled in controversy after local officials decided to ban trick-or-treating this year.Instead, Bobtown will hold a four-hour Halloween party.
Supervisors in Dunkard Township say they are taking the steps for safety reasons.
Somehow, I read that as Drunkard Township.
Assistant Dunkard Fire Chief David Pritchard, running unopposed for supervisor in the election, said he was surprised by all the negative reaction to the decision to ban trick-or-treating.
And somehow, I’m not surprised by his surprise. (h/t Walter Olson)
Bureaucracy is known for burning out that part of the brain where normal common sense lays. We must protect THE CHILDREN …
… even from themselves.
Six-year-old Zachary Christie was so excited to become a Cub Scout that he brought his camping utensil to school. The tool serves as a spoon, a fork and a knife, and Zachary wanted to use it at lunch.What Zachary didn’t know was that the gizmo violated his school’s zero-tolerance policy on weapons. And now the Christina School District in Newark, Del., has suspended the first grader and ordered him to attend the district’s reform school for 45 days.
That’ll teach that tiny reprobate! And how dare his parents enroll him in such a dastardly, partriarchal group reeking of malevolently masculine heteronormative privilege as CUB SCOUTS!!!1!1!
But like Drunkard Pritchard above, willing suspension of using the brains God gave us escapes even college professors
Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at Buffalo Law School who has written about school safety issues, said he favored a strict zero-tolerance approach.“There are still serious threats every day in schools,” Dr. Ewing said, adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.
Really? Only a cop can tell me whether or not a six-year old with a eating utensil is a threat or not?
Wow.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 4:17 pm #
“adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination”
oh noes discrimination
Comment by dicentra on 10/12 @ 4:21 pm #
willing suspension of using the brains God gave us escapes even college professors
Even? Especially. If they can’t use their hard-won expertise to tell you how to run your life, they might as well off themselves right now.
Have some sympathy, hey?
Comment by Nazdar on 10/12 @ 4:29 pm #
Having rules means not having to engage his brain. Consequences are irrelevant to a bureaucrat, as long as his obedience to the rules covers his ass.
Comment by Chairman Hussein Teh Magnificent on 10/12 @ 4:29 pm #
I like this sentence, Darleen. “Bureaucracy is known for burning out that part of the brain where normal common sense lays.”
May I use it for a signature for email?
Comment by Darleen on 10/12 @ 4:30 pm #
Chairman
Certainly, sir!
Comment by SDN on 10/12 @ 4:33 pm #
#1: You might end up with Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson on the doorstep…. not to mention the Southern Poverty Law Center….
Comment by JeffS on 10/12 @ 4:35 pm #
Ah, bureaucracy! Where functioning brains are a detriment to high ratings on your annual performance evaluation.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 4:35 pm #
are you discriminating if you have the fetal tissue sucked out
Comment by happyfeet on 10/12 @ 4:38 pm #
Public schools are a sick institution to where lots of the time it’s flat-out abusive to send your kid to one. It’s sad but the guy is probably right that public school officials are too stupid and fascist to be granted discretion. It could have gone much, much worse for the poor little kid.
Comment by Pablo on 10/12 @ 4:54 pm #
Having been law enforcement, I can assure you that Dr. Ewing is a blithering idiot. Anyone just slightly smarter than such an idiot can figure out a 6 year old jazzed with his new Cub Scout utensil. No particular training is necessary.
Buffalo Law School needs a Common Sense Department. I’ll Chair if need be.
Comment by JD on 10/12 @ 4:54 pm #
I do not like Halloween. Or midgets. Or clowns. There is an oddly sybiotic relationship amongst them. Costumes are wrong too. Especially adults in constumes. Kids less so, but Halloween still is teh suxXor.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:00 pm #
“And now the Christina School District in Newark, Del., has suspended the first grader and ordered him to attend the district’s reform school for 45 days.”
the kid’s 6 y/o. i’m missing something.
Comment by Matt on 10/12 @ 5:01 pm #
Personally, I just don’t like people ringing my doorbell all night. It always worries me its a process server. God knows what I’ve done this time …
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:03 pm #
i get it now: for crimes against THE PEOPLE the criminal must be punished in the gulag.
Comment by No one you know on 10/12 @ 5:05 pm #
newrouter, he didn’t get 45 days for carrying the spork to school. He got it for being a cub scout, that’s damn near the KKK to public school officials.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:05 pm #
really does these administrators go to the joe stalin public administration school for their continuing education
Comment by tony smith on 10/12 @ 5:07 pm #
I’m sure same-sex marriage caused him to become such a violent child! LOL. Some of the same people whining about Stalinism probably want homosexuality criminalized.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:08 pm #
i think there’s much fear and loathing in the public education industry
Comment by JD on 10/12 @ 5:09 pm #
Oompa Loompa’s too. Evil.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:11 pm #
“Some of the same people whining about Stalinism probably want homosexuality criminalized.”
Stalin
In 1933, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union, that expressly prohibited male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor in prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia
Comment by No one you know on 10/12 @ 5:15 pm #
I’m trying to figure out how tony smith got from some kid getting 45 days in a school district’s reform school to criminalizing homosexuality. Has there ever even been a post on PW calling for criminalizing homosexuality?
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:17 pm #
“Has there ever even been a post on PW calling for criminalizing homosexuality?”
no but much on statism/fascism/socialism. funny that stalin outlawing teh gey
Comment by Makewi on 10/12 @ 5:20 pm #
Exactly how does one ban trick or treating? Apparently I was under the mistaken impression that people had a Constitutional right to assemble. Not to mention that I would think dressing up in costumes would be protected behavior as a form of speech.
As to the kid with the very dangerous menacing cub scout eating utensils of doom, I have to wonder if one day we will look back and wonder how we ever allowed individual circumstance to be a non factor in this sort of thing, or if we will think that action wasn’t nearly progressive enough. That poor fucking kid.
Comment by newrouter on 10/12 @ 5:32 pm #
“Exactly how does one ban trick or treating?”
create a hostile work environment.
Pingback by Small Town Nannies Cancel Trick-or-Treat : Conservative Compendium on 10/12 @ 5:39 pm #
[...] Hat tip: Protein Wisdom [...]
Comment by Wm T Sherman on 10/12 @ 5:49 pm #
Re: Draconian punishment for possessing a spork.
If it were my kid, he would not be going to any reform school. I would call the news and make a big public deal of trying to get him in the front door of the school that my taxes paid for. I would sue. I would do everything I could to publicly humiliate and harass the people responsible, short of breaking the law. I would become a nightmare for them.
But no matter what, the kid would not be reporting to any reform school.
Comment by SGT Ted on 10/12 @ 6:38 pm #
tony,
STFU and come back when you have something rational to say.
love,
SGT Ted
Comment by happyfeet on 10/12 @ 6:59 pm #
Mr. Sherman really has the most sensible point of view I think. You can’t accommodate stupid not even a little or you just breed more of it. It’s like what happened in Detroit except for Carin.
Comment by chasingwaterfalls on 10/12 @ 7:18 pm #
“giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination”
I always told my kids not to expect justice in the public schools. Daughter was new kid at big high school. Within the first week she got pushed from behind down the stairs onto the landing, falling painfully on her knees. The school had her sit at a “Peace Table” with perpetrator. Total moral equivalence. This was a school that locked the kids in during the day and had cops roaming the halls. She was disgusted – it went against everything she had learned to cherish in her upbringing. Daughter got job, raised half the tuition to private school, and got the hell out of that social justice nightmare.
Pingback by Zero judgment policy « Intrusion Alert on 10/12 @ 7:33 pm #
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Comment by Stan in Sugar Land on 10/12 @ 7:50 pm #
FYI, I was born in Bobtown, it was a very nice J&L company town and my father worked in the supporting mine for 46 years. We moved to the country when I was 6. I left the area at 18 for college, as did many others of my generation and never returned, I’ve lived in Africa, the Middle East and Siberia since. Recently returned for my wife’s 50th HS reunion. The mines are gone, the area is depressed, people are without hope, but the county side is beautiful and the river(Monogahela) clean The HS we graduated from had 100 kids in my wifes class, 35 in the most recent – thanks to stupid politicans, labor unions and business leaders the area is destroyed, just another part of the rust belt. Crome was not a problem when I left the area, would guess it is now, plus the average age of the population is probably near 70, so fesr may in fact be an issue. Remember if you like Detroit or Bobtown today you will love the US in about 10 years with the current politics!
Comment by Stan in Sugar Land on 10/12 @ 7:51 pm #
Sorry about that, it is Crime was not a problem and fear may in fact be an issue
Comment by Seth on 10/12 @ 9:08 pm #
There’s a sad truth in there: they can’t – won’t – use thier discretion because if they did, they likely would be accused of discrimination. The litigousness of some self-empowered and self-entitield people in our society is rending the fabric of our society.
yeah, I have spelling and composition errors, no doubt. That’s how I roll.
Comment by Joe on 10/12 @ 9:10 pm #
My third grader has the same fork, spoon, knife set. Outlaw.
Comment by Seth on 10/12 @ 9:12 pm #
Joe, how do you do it? Family dinners must be hard with the restraining order against him.
These kids are NOT to be trusted.
Comment by SDN on 10/12 @ 9:16 pm #
I’ve called for criminalizing stupidity, tony; sounds like you’re up for a life sentence.
Comment by j.pickens on 10/13 @ 12:03 am #
Let’s see.
I graduated from High School in ‘75.
We had a smoking lounge (bottom of stairwell) designated for kids who smoked to smoke in.
Boys who hunted brought their shotguns and rifles to school (no female hunters I was aware of).
Drugs were a problem, but not excessively so.
There were about 10 kids who were constantly in trouble for drugs.
Everyone there voted for Democrats, teachers and 18 year olds alike.
That last point is why all of this changed.
Pingback by blogwhoring 10-12-09 - rightofcourse.com on 10/13 @ 1:29 am #
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Pingback by Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » Because only cops can protect us from the Cub Scouts on 10/13 @ 5:41 am #
[...] Darleen, Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at Buffalo Law School who [...]
Comment by Eben on 10/13 @ 5:45 am #
Tony Smith, courageously fighting the straw-man army in his head every day. For the children!
Comment by Smarty on 10/13 @ 8:00 am #
There are two reasons for zero tolerance policies, both race related.
1) They noted that more minorities, as a %, were being punished for weapons and drug offences. In order to rectify this, they classify scout and butter knifes with fighting knifes, and they classify Midol and athsma inhalers with pot and crack. The police may handle it differently, but the schools treat it all as contraband with zero-tolerance. It allows them to punish more white kids, so they don’t “look racist” or have “disparate impact”. They can then publish statistics that hide the fact that minority kids are 8x more trouble than white kids.
2)Affirmative action and generally low standards of entry and graduation in teaching have provided a generation of teachers and administrators that cannot be trusted with judgement calls. Therefore districts take as much judgement out of their hands as possible.
If we could just accept that a white boy with a cub scout knife has different intentions than a lazy-eyed Crip with a switch-blade, then this stupidity could go away.
Comment by mojo on 10/13 @ 8:25 am #
“Sure, he’s small – but he’s feisty!”
Comment by SarahW on 10/13 @ 8:27 am #
The penalty for a six-year old bringing a cub-scout camping gizmo to eat with should be confiscation of the treasure until the end of the term.
What the hell is wrong with people.
Comment by Dr Gerald Click on 10/13 @ 11:07 am #
Another argument in favor of home schooling.
Comment by MarkD on 10/13 @ 12:34 pm #
I rewarded my son for retaliating against bullying in High School. He got the dreaded one day suspension for turning around and whacking the kid who was slapping him from behind on the bus. In the face, with a book. It never happened again. My son was a good kid who never got in trouble. I’m not advocating violence in the schools, just noting that zero tolerance has a different meaning to some of us.
Interestingly enough, an acquaintance’s son suffered permanent injuries from being shoved into a locker from behind by another bully.
Not all the lessons learned in school are what the teachers teach.
Comment by pst314 on 10/13 @ 12:47 pm #
“the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.”
Let’s take him at his word: School officials are incompetent.
Comment by bill on 10/13 @ 7:16 pm #
Bobtown?
Comment by tehag on 10/14 @ 4:33 am #
Scouting while white–definitely a bureaucratic infraction.