A Quixotic sally against cynicism, a discreet nod to teleology, an oblique broadside against the twin spiritual assassins of consumerism and materialism, and above all a poignard-like thrust (now stabbing left, now right) at the absurd modern presupposition that "efficiency" somehow produces "happiness," which, last I checked, it most certainly did not.

Why Zero Tolerance is Bullshit

Zero tolerance is just a code-word for the deliberate violation of American principles of fair play and justice.



Zero tolerance is philosophical bullshit, if you'll pardon my French, and I hope I haven't offended any bulls out there with this admittedly somewhat unwonted epithet.

Why is it so? Pray, be seated and perpend.

Zero tolerance is "all of a piece" with the creation of "czars" in American government. It is a deliberate attempt to find a kind of moral and political "cover" for our desire to handle problems in a completely un-American way: namely by giving up on mere justice, equality before the law and common sense, and resorting to bare knuckle, unapologetic enforcement of inflexible edicts instead, often by assuming prima facie that certain types of people (read "male" in the case of sex crimes and "black male" in the case of so-called drug crimes) must be considered guilty until proven innocent whenever they are viewed from a standpoint of jurisprudence. The use of "zero tolerance" is a sign that we've grown tired of victims suffering unnecessarily, and so we've decided that the solution is to make the innocent suffer instead.

When we invoke "zero tolerance," we are saying that the precise facts of a case no longer matter. If the case in question serves to illustrate a sufficiently despised trend, then the suspect must be treated as if he or she (typically he) had committed the worst possible crime in the category involved, whether it be sexual harassment or a so-called drug crime. Did he make a woman uncomfortable with some gender-laden language? Let him be treated as if he committed rape. Did he use marijuana? Let him be treated as if he was selling opioids. Compared to such despotic chop logic, bullshit itself smells sweet, for the latter will help a rose to grow while the former conduces only to tyranny and injustice.

Fair enough?

Arise and go now, with your newfound grasp of the problematic nature of "zero tolerance" as vouchsafed to your worship by my humble adumbrations.

Well, don't just sit there taking up my bandwidth: scoot!





Akhenaten -- Another Interview with Greatness -- Bombshell: Webmaster Insists that Everybody Must Get Stoned -- Buoyancy: Review by the Moviegoer of the United States of America -- Dear Lance Morrow -- Denzel as Terrorist in John Q -- Don't Read This -- First Lab-Grown Hamburger Financed by Brian Quass -- How the DEA Determines if Your Relgious Beliefs are Real -- Materialists to Earthlings: You Ain't Nothin' Special -- Merry Christmas 2021 -- Minnie and Me -- More things that Dr. Fauci will and will not be doing now that he's been vaccinated -- Pipe Dream or the Next Big Thing: You be the judge -- Portrait of the artist as a young witch -- Psst! This post is for artists only! -- The Drug Problem is a Social Creation -- The Man of Mode by George Etherege -- The State v. Homo sapiens -- The Theory of Aesthetic Relativity -- The Turing Test Bias -- The Visit -- Thoughts about Cultural Geography, dawg -- Three Arguments Against Political Correctness in Academia -- Why Zero Tolerance is Bullshit -- Willie Who? --

Up