1131: Homeland Security

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by SmallMan

So it's not the job of a government institution to ask for the disciplining help of people whose job it is to act as the government's body for disciplining society. I do understand that point. I guess its the teacher's problem - or the parents'. And the rest of society's authority figures should have no play.

Yep, inside school grounds the school is charged with the responsibility of disciplining the students. The only exception is when a student significantly endangers other students and/or teachers. If you're a school who can't even handle the discipline of a 12 year old girl then shut the fuck down and become a brothel or something because you're a disgrace to the teaching profession.

Originally Posted by SmallMan

I may be misunderstanding... I think you're also contradicting yourself. What punishment can a school give that is harsher than what the police can do?

Come on dude, the police can't do shit to a 12 year old kid that a school can't do themselves. What do you think, they'll taser her? Lock her in a cell with gang members? Smack her around with a phone book? Of course they won't, they can only do what they did do, make a retarded show of putting her in handcuffs, leading her across the road to the station and releasing her back across the road again. That is the point about the harshness of the punishment; not even what the police can do, but what they did do. Which was fuck all. Because she's 12.

Originally Posted by SmallMan

And people in society deserve police attention even when they are not "dangerous", but are simply disrupting society to an inordinate extent. Not to speak of the fact that the girl was vandalizing public property, and therefore had committed a crime punishable by... whatever, but surely the police if it had to come to that.

And you're right, people in society do deserve police attention when they're disrupting society to an inordinate extent. But this dumb kid wasn't in society, she was in school, an institution whose job it is to discipline its students. And she wasn't disrupting anybody to an inordinate extent, she was defacing her desk. And she wasn't vandalizing public property, she was vandalizing school property. The school has the authority to discipline the kid for that and the fact they didn't have the stones to meet that responsibility themselves shows how weak they are. Kids don't respect weakness. That's why this kind of punishment backfires.

Originally Posted by SmallMan

I also find it hard to understand why students should be exempt from punishment from any specific institution - that the disciplining of children is the sole purvey of teachers and parents. There seems to be a huge amount of shit swirling here on the simple fact that it was the police involved in disciplining a seemingly innocent little fair-skinned girl. Would it have been different if it was Homeland Security on a bomb suspicion because the Middle Eastern child's family couldn't afford to keep him clean, or replace his overly large trench coat? (You get my point, please don't go after the bad analogy because you think that its still a case of bad teaching - that's a different point).

There's two parts to this. One, it's not really about the kid being exempt from anything. It's not really about the kid, period. It's really about the school. The bad teaching isn't "a different point". It should be the only point of discussion. It's about how a school should not be exempt from disciplining a student. When a student is in school it's the school's responsibility primarily to discipline the kid. When the student is on the street or at home that's when the cops and parents have the responsibility.

The second part, about how some people seem to mistake this kid as innocent, is related to the first part. You're dead right and it's what I've been saying too. She vandalized the desk for fuck's sake. She's not innocent. She deserved significant punishment. There should be zero controversy about that, it's a total red herring. The real controversy is about the fact that the school abdicated its responsibility.

Originally Posted by SmallMan

Finally, why am I off topic for saying the same thing that you accuse me of being off topic for? I in fact said something to the tune of: "The smarmy, pouty photo of her only proves she has no respect for the punishment she was given or the school who gave it, because it was a fucking retarded idea that it should have been obvious was going to backfire, and backfire it did."

You're right, you did make that point and clearly I felt the same way as you about it. But for the reasons I just outlined, for about the fifth time in this thread, the real topic isn't the kid's innocence. When I said you were off topic for talking about that, that's what I was getting at. And you're right that I was off topic at times too. But I never denied that, I just told you not to go around calling folks out for being off-topic when you were off topic yourself. You know? Pot? Kettle? All that malarky?

Originally Posted by SmallMan

But your point seems to be what? "Harsher punishment"... should the school develop its own solitary confinement in a broom closet somewhere? Or employ some older children to endlessly damage her ego? I'm in for the second, but the point is not that the school's solution was inherently wrong.

God dammit Small Man, why don't you read the damn thread before you post in it and make ol' Bucho have to rehash shit he's already said 17 times.

Harsher punishment? You put the kid in the dunce's corner on all fours in front of your classmates, that's worse than what the cops can do. Or even better, you give the kid a month's worth of detention, but not that pussy unsupervised detention you Americans have, where you apparently learn how to be even badder. You make sure the kids shut their mouths and work. You ditch that softcock Breakfast Club horseshit (except for in the movies, where it makes for a good story) where the kids can yap away and get up to shenanigans, and you supervise them and get them scrubbing desks and blackboards, cleaning the toilets, picking up litter. Detention is supposed to hurt. If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong.

The school can do much more to correct this kid than the cops can. That is why the school's solution was inherently wrong.

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by SmallMan

What that little bitch is smiling about in the picture is the fact that society is kind of brainless towards pretty people, and particularly pretty girls. The newspaper took her side, and so the punishment evaporated into her first publicity stunt. The solution, no matter how effective it might have actually been, became destroyed by the media who took the side of the "smarmy...".

Again, this is not a black and white thing. In the end, I take Keith's side simply because I think he's right to not be fooled by a retarded media stunt, and a little pampered princess. I also think that the police should be involved in any kind of social disturbance, including major disruptions in schools, colleges, or universities that do not involve violence. Government institutions should work together.

But this time Keith was fooled by a stupid stunt, only it wasn't the media one, it was the cop one. Everyone who thinks the cops were heavy on the girl was fooled by it. She came out without a scratch on either herself or her pride. In fact now, because of the susequent media coverage, she's revelling in the notoriety. In her 12 year old eyes and the eyes of her peers she was treated like an adult. That's what you want when you're 12, to be a grown up. And being taken away by the cops doesn't make you a pariah in the playground, it makes you a badass. Total fucking backfire.

Originally Posted by SmallMan

But there is a lot more to this than saying that the girl should or should not have been disciplined in this way. Teachers in America are undertrained and underqualified, and the schools are understaffed. I didn't hear how many kids are in that class in the article. Because the level of education is falling, educational institutions in America are losing the respect of not only normal citizens, but the teachers themselves. And the kids know that like Chemda knows reformed fatties.

Dead right dude, that's exactly what I was getting at.

Originally Posted by SmallMan

Finally, the police, and the security institutions in general are incredibly respected in many parts of the States. The military is almost a religious institution in how much it is revered. Even though it may not work all the time, there is still a deference awarded to it that is not matched by schools, and maybe in some cases even by parents.

Hey, I respect the shit out of the guys who do those jobs, I have them in my family and friends just like I have teachers in my family and friends. But we already agreed that if the school is going to lose control and abdicate responsibilty to the cops then that doesn't necessarily breed more respect in the police. Much, much more likely it breeds disrespect in the school. It's a viscious circle.

And the kid I see in that photo doesn't respect the police. She's at home listening to NWA and Bodycount. She ain't got ol' Bucho fooled.

[SmallMan]

Two points. But breaking up an argument into sentences is missing the spirit of the thing. My point is broadly that since the education of the young is a social issue, all of society should be involved in getting it right. The two points were for your answers.

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by SmallMan

My point is broadly that since the education of the young is a social issue, all of society should be involved in getting it right.

My point, broadly, is that if all of society are going to be involved in educating kids then let's call in the Delta Force to confront kids who litter.