Kill Zero Tolerance

You’ve heard of schools being declared drug-free zones. Now schools are becoming… hug-free zones.

Yes, it sounds crazy, but believe it or not, a growing number of public schools are disciplining students for for hugging. In Missouri, for instance, a junior high student was put in detention for two days after she was seen hugging friends at a football game. In Alabama, another junior high girl was suspended for hugging a male friend who had recently lost a parent. And last year, a four-year-old in Texas was placed into in-school suspension when he hugged a teacher’s aide. A four-year-old!

What's going on here? I thought the slogan was “Hugs, Not Drugs.” How on earth did innocent hugging become so demonized?

Apparently, it originated with the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1999 ruled that schools can be held liable if they ignore claims of sexual harassment. The court, however, offered no guidelines for what constituted sexual harassment, thus leaving it up to the idiots in our nation's schools to figure it out on their own. To be fair, there are a great many school officials who do practice common sense and differentiate between a sexual and a non-sexual hug. But there are just enough idiots turning schools into no-hug zones to give us cause for concern.

What can be done about these idiots? Will there ever be an end to zero tolerance? Are we doomed to live in a world where an innocent hug between friends is considered the same as a lecherous grope, where drawing a picture of a gun is the same as bringing an AK-47 to school, where cutting a cupcake with an unauthorized plastic knife is the same as whipping out a switchblade, where being found in possession of an aspirin is the same as smoking crack? These are just a few of the actual infractions that have caused students to be disciplined under the zero tolerance policies of today’s public schools.

Zero tolerance is supposed to make us feel safe. But it does not make me feel safe, because in practice zero tolerance translates into zero common sense. Zero tolerance only sees the world in two colors: black and white, with no shades of grey. It sees a four-year-old’s affectionate little hug as something sick and depraved. And in the larger world outside school, it sees shoes as potential bombs, confiscates bottled water and nail clippers, puts a deadly chokehold on a 110-pound woman who was upset because she missed a flight, throws a man to the ground and handcuffs him because he jaywalked, and Tases old people in wheelchairs when they don't follow orders fast enough.

Zero tolerance is idiocy, insanity, hysteria, paranoid delusion. Zero tolerance is dangerous, far more dangerous than the things it professes to protect us from. Zero tolerance is the enemy. Zero tolerance hates our freedoms. Zero tolerance wants to kill us. Zero tolerance wants to torture us. Zero tolerance wants to scare us. Zero tolerance wants to turn us into a nation of bed-wetting, boot-licking sissies.

Forget the War on Terrorism. We should be fighting zero tolerance. Let’s declare zero tolerance on zero tolerance. Let’s suspend idiot school officials from their own schools. Let’s make it mandatory for cops who misuse their Tasers to be Tased themselves. Let’s pass a new Patriot Act that restores the Constitution and puts all the Neo-Con, PNAC, Bush White House scumbuckets in the concentration camps they’ve been building for us. Then let’s waterboard them all! Yay!

Zero tolerance, zero tolerance, zero tolerance for zero tolerance … sis-boom-rah!

Zero tolerance keyed your car. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance sends you spam. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance killed your dog. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance is tapping your phone. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance stole your credit card. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance knowingly gave you AIDS. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance plays its music too loud. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance lied when it said it loved you. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance mugged you and left you for dead. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance shortchanged you at the Lucky Mart. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance took your money but didn’t deliver the weed. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance married your sister and beats her every night. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance doesn’t wash its hands after it uses the bathroom. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance took a wide stance in the next stall and tapped its feet. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance took a cell phone call in the middle of your presentation. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance put Rohypnol in your drink and is raping you in a cheap motel. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance farted next to you on a crowded bus and thought it was funny. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance took pictures of your wife’s butt and masturbates to them every night. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance has a meth lab next door and lets its pit bull run loose in the neighborhood. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance text-messages its friends while driving drunk 90 miles an hour through a school zone. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance has a reality show and sings crappy pop sings and just made headlines by giving birth to a purple-assed baboon. Kill zero tolerance.

Zero tolerance has done all these things and more. It is everything bad and stupid and foul and mean and rotten and stinky and selfish and shallow and hateful and wicked and loathesome and wrong in the human spirit. So KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL zero tolerance.

Sis-boom-rah.