[freepatriot32]

the school boards in this country view children the same way that george bush views al quada and the taliban

[OldFriend]

And doubts left that the courts in NJ are out of their minds...........

[phasma proeliator]

Hell, if things were like this were I grew up - I would have been expelled permanently for playing cowboys and indians. (now known as cowboys and muslims). What a bunch of bullshit.

[rwfromkansas]

good grief......I guess cops and robbers is evil nowdays.

It was just 12 years ago I remember the fun we had at school playing games like that.

Now if kids do it, they better hire a lawyer. Geez.

[lilylangtree]

This is a stinky decision. Hysteria of being PC is ridiculous. Quite often people use the phrase "I'm going to shoot" whoever as a way of taking them to task, meaning not literally. Example: Quite often I tell my son that I'm going to shoot him if he doesn't straighten up and fly right, but taking a gun and actually shoot him is not even in my mind.

[Numbers Guy]

First off, it's clear that the rule is ludicrous.

But it's not up to the court to throw out ludicrous rules. The courts are not legislatures (no matter how much Justice O'Connor acted like a legislator in her rulings today).

Someone said long ago that the Supreme Court needed a rubber stamp labeled "STUPID BUT CONSTITUTIONAL".

The real question is why haven't the school board members responsible for implementing this ridiculous zero tolerance policy been recalled, and why haven't the statutes authorizing such actions been revised?

It's not up to the courts to repair idiotic political decisions that still pass constitutional muster. It's up to the politicians and the people who elected them to fix that.

[newgeezer]

Wakeup call to these parents: Consider it a Divine sign that your kids are better off NOT in these schools.

[South40]

[jgrubbs]

zero-tolerance policy means that the school teachers and administrations no longer have to think, they just see someone "break a rule" and then punish the student.

This case is just as stupid as the girl in GA who go suspended for the butter knife on her floor board for breaking the zero-tolerance no weapons policy.

[South40]

[Uncle Miltie]

Wait! We must ask the race of the alleged perpetrator and his targets. We cannot judge without including race in every equation. The Supreme Court just said so.

[microgood]

Their words were overheard by classmates, who told teachers.

When I was growing up, this was known as snitching and snitches became outcasts.

[trebb]

society’s countervailing interest in teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior.

Of course, if he had said,"I'm going to fu** you up the a**." it would have been OK because that's a "socially acceptable lifestyle" comment...

[goodseedhomeschool]

Homeschool rules!!!!!

[gwmoore]

The problem is that one can't move away from this PC crap. "Zero tolerance" is a curse that the Demoncrap-infested NEA has pushed, and politicians buy into because of percieved "threats" which have been propagandized into the "Merican Pipple" since the mid '80s.

My wife, who happens to work for the justice system, now tells me that overworked District Justices now have to dispense jurisprudence in such inane things as "Smoking Court" (yep, smoke a damn cigarette, go to court) "Fighting Court" (a real good name if I ever saw one, and this is actually for the fighting that DOESNT happen in court) and when all else is left, "Zero Tolerance" court (anything left out of the first two.) Sounds a bit like The Gulag Archipelago doesn't it????

We have become such a wimped out, hand wringing bunch of nothing that these "Zero Tolerance" laws get passed faster and faster, simply because previous "Zero Tolerance" laws have created a condition equivalent to caging wild animals in small cage, and letting them pace aimlessly in circles 24/7 until something snaps, violence occurs, creating an immediate need for further "Zero Tolerance" laws. Self perpetuating insanity, pure and simple, with a real hefty dose of Communism/Leftism/Liberalism mixed in, dosed with heavy amounts of Ritalin, and stirred with the shrill rhetoric of the anti-self defense bunch. Parents are not allowed to discipline their children any more, and the kids damn well know it... parents have been sent to jail for spanking their obstreperous youngster, as a matter of fact, in a lot of this "Zero tolerance" s**t, parents have been sent to jail for the actions of their children, and the children have simply been released, scot free, to do whatever the hell kids do nowadays when the parents aren't around. Great justice Huh?

I wish I knew what the answer was. First, repeal all the "Zero Tolerance" laws and let kids socialize the way they have for all eternity, by interaction with other kids. Those who do sure don't pile up a bunch of inner hostility because they are arbitrarily restrained from harmless activity. Second, the NEA has got to be broken, and broken well, so we don't have the proverbial 800 lb (Demoncratic/Communist/Leftist/Liberal) gorilla basically running all the educational process. Third, we have to restore some legitimacy to parental dicipline, and not make criminals out of parents who have a hard enough time trying to "tame" their youngsters, who have been caged and forbidden enough to make crazed the most docile being.

Can we do this without universal homeschooling, which in today's economic conditions is not really feasable? I don't know, but there has to be a fundamental shift in education, to remove the insidious slide of the last 35 years (note, I set the "watershed" year for the start of the nonsense as '68, which would be basically, the first year Colleges and Universities graduated a "counterculture" class, the year of the 2nd original sin, the GCA'68, and the height of the looting, burning, and insanity which damn near burned the heart out of this Republic. (Note: I feel fortunate that I was able to "witness this from outside, as I spent that particular period of my life serving in the military, and only found out the real truth much later, after my return home).

At any rate, the insanity will simply continue to get worse, unless immediate measures are taken to stop this silly PC crap in the bud. I realize NJ is a liberal infested state, of the first water, but then so is much of the Northeast, and I see no real movement down the sane and correct path as long as the people get their "bread and circuses" (Zero Tolerance). It is just too simple to pass blame off on others when the laws enable same, and most parents just don't give a damn what their kids do, or don't do any more. What is seen coming into the justice system earlier and earlier, proves this point, and the untenability of the hopeless "Zero Tolerance" escalation.

Keep the Faith For Freedom & GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Greg

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Our 5-year-old son Daniel wouldn't last a day in a school like this.  You give him an arbitrary object, and the next thing you know he's Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, making laser noises as he waves the object around.

Oh, did I mention that we'll be homeschooling him?  :-)

[Walnut]

oH, i GET IT. THEY ARE PRACTICING ON THE KIDS FOR WHEN THEY FACE A REAL ENEMY. YEA, THAT MUST BE IT. OTHERWISE THEY LOOK FOOLISH. WAIT , THEY DO LOOK FOOLISH. GIVE ME A BREAK. i HOPE THE KID DOESN'T GET INTO A FIGHT (LIKE i HAVE AND ALL MY FRIENDS HAVE AT ONE TIME OR OTHER IN SCHOOL) THEY WILL PROBUBLY GET LIFE WITH - OUT PAROLE.

[unixfox]

Fyffe said the four boys were suspended under the district’s zero -tolerance common sense policy.

[Ed_in_NJ]

So, if he said "Go to Hell," the zero-tolerance policy would have allowed the school to execute the kid?

[Ohioan]

Students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” the court said. But, the panel said, there has to be a balance between the “freedom to advocate unpopular and controversial views in the classroom” and “society’s countervailing interest in teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior.”

The balance the Court refers to, here, sounds totally inapplicable to a case of little boys playing a shoot 'em up type game. You have to be a very goofy Leftist to believe that there is anything socially inappropriate for little boys to be playing this type of game. What planet are these Judges and school officials from?

I guess that coupling of Judges with wacked out school officials, disqualifies me from ever practising in that Circuit; but, frankly, if they see themselves sitting down to tea with the Mad Hatter & the rest of the crew, that Alice found down the Rabbit hole, I don't expect that I could do a client much good in their Court. Reality is obviously not one of their strengths.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[baseballfanjm]

So the kid MUST be on his way to being a mass murderer. After all, he pointed his finger while playing a cops and robbers type game and said "I'm gonna shoot you". His finger must have been a pretty powerful weapon. Of course, no sane individual has EVER pointed his finger as a child, pretending it to be a gun. I swear, his kid should be locked up.