Recently I listened to a commentary on the treatment of young people in the Schools and Juvenal Justice System of the United States. I would encourage you to watch it. The commentary is made by a man named John W. Whitehead, the founder the Rutherford Institute an organization dedicated to maintaining the rights of free speech and the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

John Whitehead explains that,

By the time the average young person in America finishes their public school education, nearly one out of every three of them will have been arrested.

It is not unjust that students may be disciplined by their schools, but in the current environment where the principle of zero tolerance is the rule of the day the treatment of students has increasingly been decidedly unjust.

More than 3 million students are suspended or expelled from schools every year, often for minor misbehavior, such as “disruptive behavior” or “insubordination.” Black students are three times more likely than white students to face suspension and expulsion.

For instance, a Virginia sixth grader, the son of two school teachers and a member of the school’s gifted program, was suspended for a year after school officials found a leaf (likely a maple leaf) in his backpack that they suspected was marijuana. Despite the fact that the leaf in question was not marijuana (a fact that officials knew almost immediately), the 11-year-old was still kicked out of school, charged with marijuana possession in juvenile court, enrolled in an alternative school away from his friends, subjected to twice-daily searches for drugs, and forced to be evaluated for substance abuse problems.

The extremes of absurdity being indulged in beggar disbelief.

A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

John Whitehead, Public School Students Are the New Inmates in the American Police State:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYouVdmMttI

Please share your response.

Who benefit from this nonsense?

Coward teachers and staff afraid of losing their jobs so they reinforce societal norms with an iron fist.

It's even worse now with the post-Trump election moral panic.

Where does it all begin?

It is difficult to say.

It seems to me that there are numerous legislators and administrators who are highly skilled at getting a job but atrocious in the actual performance.

So, the local school board members (who are elected officials) are concerned with violence in the schools. So they create a rule stating that any object with a sharp edge is contraband. Next thing you know, some student is suspended for months for having a nail cliper, or nail file. Which has happened!

I don't know what accounts for all this. The world is full of obnoxious people.

The answer is that young people aught to attend school board, and PTA (parent teacher association) meetings. And when you can vote you should do so. An 18 year old can change the world with their vote. The fact that so few people vote for so-called inconsequential school board elections gives those who do a disproportionate power.

Get involved.

And Vote!

If you would like to learn about the Rutherford Institute:

https://www.rutherford.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_Institute

The institute has been described as "a more conservative American Civil Liberties Union." (ACLU)

The Rutherford Institute has worked with a number of similar groups across the political spectrum, including the ACLU, the Cato Institute, the Constitution Project, and the Liberty Coalition. Whitehead was described by jazz historian and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff (of the Village Voice) as "this nation's Paul Revere of protecting civil liberties."

Voting puts you on the same plane as everyone else who votes.. the majority of the population.

A truly brilliant individual could make an impression on a noble or a Monarch! But in democracy, the very high IQ population has the same vote as everyone else!

In the U.S. people are lazy about voting.

This gives those who are conscientious disproportionate power.

Most people vote for the interest of their economic class or their racial/ethnic class. Democracy inevitably leads to identity politics. Sure some people consider all things but the vast majority, when it actually mobilizes, is instinctual and mob-like.

Democracy is a corpse, completely inwardly dead. People will no longer throw their lives away fighting for majority rule.

it's not that it's "unfeasible." There are infinite feasible ways to structure a government. It's that it didn't produce the transcendent, virtuous results it intended to and now "for democracy!" is a hollow call to arms against tyranny.

Wulfhere, you might be curious to know that the afore mentioned Mr. Whitehead agrees with you to a degree. He is of the opinion that it is more accurate to call the United States an Oligarchy than a Democratic Republic. This is not the same as saying you have no influence. But all manner of entrenched powers are resistant to change.

On the local level things are more tractable.

Re: AI.

I heard a programmer offer the following definition:

A computer is a human being pretending not to be a human being.

Meaning, all the programs we have ever created are scripts written by human beings. Those scripts play out in a consistently deterministic way. It is not a higher intelligence. It is merely a programmer hiding behind a mask.

I was under the impression the American education system was rife with poor behaviour from students , is there any truth in that?

Bureaucrats with little to no accountability have always been loathesome.

I don't see why any non psychopath would want a DEADLY assault nail clipper!

really makes you HMMMMMMMM

[qoute]Who benefit from this nonsense? The prison-industry complex?

The key to solving such issues isn't to appeal to morality. Instead it is to find the cause of this nonsense and legally pressure these people to stop. [/quote]

Corporations that use the free labor that private prisons provide. The constitution outlaws slavery in all instances except one, prisoners/criminals. So it's in the interest of these entities to back policies that keep our prison populations up so that they can take advantage of this unpaid labor. Anyone that keeps up with the stock market will remember that after Trump became president private prison stocks doubled.

Slavery should be legal.

Also it's not like the people in prison don't deserve to rot there.

Slavery should be legal.

Also it's not like the people in prison don't deserve to rot there.[/quote

You missed the point entirely.

it's not like the people in prison don't deserve to rot there.

Waste of ressources is heresy. You are wasting human ressources. You deserve to be eaten to make yourself usefull.