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I think the US is goingthrough an epedemic called Zero Tolerance. I have subscribed to a free Email newsletter for some time called This-Is-True that periodically brings up different absurdities. I thought I would post here to bring it to my readers notice.

One recent excert:

WEAPON OF MASS DISTRACTION: When a student at Juanita High School in Kirkland, Wash., arrived at school, the bus driver told school officials that he had heard the boy say he had uranium in a box he was carrying. They looked inside and saw a rock and a Geiger counter, and called the fire department. The responders found the rock was totally harmless, and the box showed no signs of radiation. "FiestaWare from the '50s is more radioactive than this," said Lt. John Fox of the fire department's hazmat team. The police have no interest in investigating. Still, the rock has been "seized" and a district spokeswoman says the unnamed student faces "appropriate disciplinary actions." (King County Journal) ...Extra credit?

Note, the words in italics at the end are his 'tag line' which is always worth reading for the chuckle involved.

Zero tolerance is good.Even in the small city i am living here now is practising that and i feel very safe here

No, i dont want to offend anyone with this post so plz bare with me on this.

In my opinion zero tolerance can be a danger too.

Let me try to explain the view of a dutchie Mind you, english in not my native language so i could be confusing here.

Holland or The Netherlands are known for their tolerance right? And i always thought it is a charm, to be able in your own country to encounter this many cultures.

Then came 9-11. To be perfectly honest i was shocked beyond belief.
First of course due to the devistation and secondly, but this i realized later, why?

Yes, i know, it sounds too common. This phrase sprang to mind and until this day i am not able to shake it: "Whatever happened to the value's of humanity?"

Then the murder on Theo van Gogh was a fact, so we went zero tolerance too.

In the case of terrorism, i dont pretend to know anything that could be of use to fight it.

But i do know this: Communication is now and always has been the key to avoid situations wich have a breedingground for misunderstanding and everything that can follow out of that, when the particular situation is not kept under control.

The control factor in my view would be communication. I even have a fairly recent example for this:

On a Gaming forum, where i have some powers, people started posting about a clan war going on. This happend on the servers where they played the game.

On the servers however, i dont have any powers what so ever. First thing I did was sit back and look at the situation at hand. To me, at that time, the only thing i could do was get online and find out what the problem was.
Which was as follow:

When you play and a higher level character joins your party or walks by where you are fighting, the monsters respawn at the highest level. Not really a problem unless you play hardcore and the level differnce is so high your character is bound to die.

This was mostly the case, besides the fact this was going on for a while now and the harrasment between players back and forward has gone out of hand. The only thing possible was to communicate, wich was fun since I am dutch and the clan inolved was Russian.

No, my russian is not that good.

With the help of more clans we started playing with the russian people and communicated to them what could happen if they kept behaving like this to our characters.

It took me almost a month, but with the help of the other clans the situation was resolved. This help they provided was nothing more than being able, and more inportant willing, to play/ talk with the Russian people.

Back to Spocks post.

I noticed that he made this post at the beginning of the year.
We all know what happend after that.

Did it help? could be my question then.

Are we as humans, where we do live, one year later, feeling more safe then before due to zero tolerance?

Personally i have to say no, I'm not. What I do miss, since the zero tolerance attitude has become a norm in Holland, is the fact that the standard communication has been replaced with no communication.

In my oppinion this could be he trigger for more trouble. Why? you might ask...

I'm not convinced this terrorist situation will be the end of this earth and its community's as we know it. I mean, i dont think we as humans, will go out into the universe or blow up the earth pretty soon, therefore we probably have to keep going on this globe as we do now.

So, plz someone tell me how are we to re-accept those who are different from us now? At some point I honestly think we need to communicate and tolerate people again who we think are the terrorists this time.

With a zero tolerance attitude here in Holland I know it is going to be harder then it should be, and trust me, I think it is difficult enough to begin with.

Plz dont get me wrong, I fully agree that there has to be done something, I'm just not sure if this would be the way.

And again, this is not me offending someone, but with the Christmas time ahead, I have found that it maybe the best time of the year to reflect on these things, it is just my oppinion as a Dutch person.

edit; I know I did something wrong, what is it with that help smile?

[Edited for spelling/grammar - Spock]

I believe zero tolerance is the most effective way to stomp out crime. One might think twice if this was the case. The effects of zero tolerance could only make our world safer. The problem is zero tolerance is never enforced consistently.

krank:
If anyone in here is ever offended by calm, dispassionate discussion then that is their problem. You stated your opinion and, as your opinion, everyone should respect it.

I, however, believe very similar to you. Zero Tolerance has gotten out of hand. People need to use common sense when applying it.

Unfortunately, there seems not nearly enough common sense to go around these days.

I am against unrestricted, rampant Zero Tolerance anywhere. I am for good old common sense in all cases where it will make things better.

Of course, I am also for capital punishment in any case where guilt has been absolutely proven, so I guess I'm a lost cause.

Kind of off topic: Why did they call the fire department to handle radioactive material? It doesn't seem like the fire department - the people that fight fires - know how to handle radioactive material...

iissmart wrote:... Why did they call the fire department to handle radioactive material? ...

If you were in a panic and had no idea whom to call I bet you would just dial 911 and they would probably dispatch the fire department. They are also supposed to be trained in the proper handling of hazardous materials.

Spock wrote:They are also supposed to be trained in the proper handling of hazardous materials.

Ah. I never knew that. I always wondered who was trained to handle that sort of stuff.

The police and the military are also supposed to be trained but it always seems to be the poor sods in the fire truck who get called.

That could be because they ussually have the equipment to fight it.
And have a faster time-index then the army to get there. Ussualy the police is present there too.
Obviously this goes for Holland

Spock wrote:

Unfortunately, there seems not nearly enough common sense to go around these days.

Maybe kids wouldn't kill kids if we applied zero tolerance when needed. Anyhow it will never happen...

icy wrote:... if we applied zero tolerance when needed. ...

The trouble is, it's applied a lot of times when it is NOT needed!

icy wrote:

Spock wrote:

Unfortunately, there seems not nearly enough common sense to go around these days.

Maybe kids wouldn't kill kids if we applied zero tolerance when needed. Anyhow it will never happen...

That depends on who should apply that, in my book the parent is the sole responsible person who in the first place either allows the gun, or doesnt know the kidd has one.

Want to hear something weird?

I have kids, a daughter of 12 and a son of 5 years old and untill either is able to support a mobile phone finacially for the time index of a year, then and not before, i will consider the mobile phone for my kidd.

With this example i try to show that the parent can do alot to ensure the child has no gun and that should be the beginning of the resolvement of the problem: kids with guns.

krank wrote:That depends on who should apply that, in my book the parent is the sole responsible person who in the first place either allows the gun, or doesnt know the kidd has one...

I have kids, a daughter of 12 and a son of 5 years old and untill either is able to support a mobile phone finacially for the time index of a year, then and not before, i will consider the mobile phone for my kidd...

I agree completely. Unfortunately some parents don't do all they can. I feel the parents and offending child should face consequences.

As for a cell phone, when my daughter started driving (17). I gave her my prepaid cell phone to be able to keep tabs on her and in case of an emergency.