Purely out of curiosity...

[David Morris]

This whole stupid discussion begins with this statement, which I've never
heard before, and is of dubious veracity:

"Whatever his intentions, if he re-assembled clock parts in a box and took
them to school, he broke the law."

Chapter and verse, please?

David Morris

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick <petopoet at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Peter M. Fitzpatrick <petopoet at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:43 AM
> Subject: Re: Purely out of curiosity...
> To: ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>
>
>     I am not quite sure about this particular case, but as an American, I
> am aware that the "zero tolerance" policy has been used to replace
> education with discipline in not a few cases that smack of the truly
> bizarre and Orwellian, if not completely scripted from some absurdist
> scriptwriter in the sky.Case in point, when I lived in a Atlanta some years
> ago, the news broke that a young 6th grade black girl was facing severe
> disciplinary actions for bringing a "Tweety-bird" keychain to school.
> "Tweety-bird", the cartoon character from, I believe, Porky Pig, was the
> culprit. How or why or what they were thinking that she would do with this
> nefarious bird replica, I do not venture to guess.
>     Ahmed's case is perhaps more understandable, but he is innocent before
> guilty, even if he is considered a child in the eyes of the law.
> Authoritarianism in the name of safety should not substitute the sanctity
> and value of  freedom, regardless of how dangerous the times might be. If
> he was a white teenager, I don't believe the "terrorism" image would
> immediately come to mind. Level heads should prevent a possibly misguided
> adventure being misconstrued as a nefarious terrorist plot. This will
> probably follow him for the rest of his life now.
>      Again, what is never brought up again after perhaps a quick mention
> or two, the mental health problem in this country is woefully underfunded
> by insurance companies and difficult for moralists to face. Many of the
> school shooters were and are mentally ill, perhaps criminally so, but if
> involved parents, teachers, and yes, medical professionals, were more
> involved and concerned, these tragedies could perhaps be averted. No one
> wants to be mentally ill. There are wonderful drugs that can treat the
> disease. But the arcane bureaucracies of school, hospitals, and insurance
> companies almost guarantees that none of these kids will get these drugs.
> Personally, I believe that even so called "terrorists" meet the standards
> of being mentally ill, at least by the standards of in most societies, or
> at least those that are not sociopaths and criminals in the first place. I
> am aware that leads into the quandary of mental illness vs. criminality,
> rehabilitation vs. punishment, and ultimately free will vs. determinism,
> something we cannot solve in discussion list.
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:13 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Was the clock a school project? In other words, did a teacher, a club
>> adviser, any adult in the school assign a project, and did the clock fit
>> the assignment? Or did the young man make a clock and bring it to school?
>>
>> As far as I can tell the young man did not build a clock or make a
>> project, or in any way bring something to school that was part of an
>> assignment from any adult in the building. It was not a project. It was not
>> show and tell. It seems the student took apart a clock, re-fashioned it and
>> put in in a box and brought it to school.
>>
>> Why did he do this? What was his motivation?
>>
>> Whatever his intentions, if he re-assembled clock parts in a box and took
>> them to school, he broke the law. While 14 year old boys, and sometimes 14
>> year old girls, are instructed that bringing a clock in a box, a plastic
>> gun, a plastic sword, a paper bomb or dynamite  etc..., even on Halloween
>> is dangerous and against the law, young people do make these kinds of
>> mistakes, from time to time. Best if they make them in school as school is
>> the safest place in the world for students. Obviously, doing so in the
>> street may get one killed by a police officer or even a gun toting citizen.
>> In a school the child, age 14, will be interrogated, handcuffed,
>> probably, and asked to write a statement explaining his or her intentions
>> and the police will contact the guardians and book the kid. This is the
>> law. It matters not the race or religion of the child.
>>
>> From time to time, a  brave administrator, more likely an experienced
>> teacher will protect the child with a slap on the wrist, but the current
>> mood in the country and in schools is making this a rare act of....welll
>> not courage, but decency.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:02 AM, The Jonathon Hunt Experience <
>> newtalkingwall at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Is there any evidence that the kid "only" took apart a store bought
>>> clock and put it back together, beyond people online pointing out that
>>> doing so is a thing that people can do? Beyond that, if the child acted as
>>> maliciously as Richard Dawkins and others would like to believe, this means
>>> his whole plan hinged on the knowledge that his teachers and police would
>>> confuse a circuit board and some wires with something that can explode. If
>>> our teachers and police are this stupid (which seems to be the case, here),
>>> then we are lucky in getting off with a $15 million dollar fine.
>>>
>>
>
>
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