XPost: alt.education, alt.true-crime, pdx.general   
   XPost: or.politics   
   From: tedm@toybox.placo.com   
      
   "Werebat"  wrote in message   
   news:WEpmi.36977$LE1.31664@newsfe13.lga...   
   >   
   >   
   > Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:   
   >   
   > >   
   > > Teenagers today know the score on pot perfectly well.  They are   
   intelligent   
   > > enough to know that a teacher is pretty much required by school policy   
   > > to say that recreational drug use is bad.   
   >   
   > You are telling half of the deal here.  You are omitting the dangerous   
   part.   
   >   
   >   
   > > What kids today need is positive examples of role models.  I would not   
   call   
   > > an adult who takes as stupid a risk as this guy did any kind of positive   
   > > role   
   > > model.  To me, him smoking pot ina public park is as stupid as riding a   
   > > motorcycle without a helmet.   
   >   
   > IOW his crime in your eyes is not that he smoked pot so much as that he   
   > got caught doing it.  There's a lovely lesson to teach our kids.   
   >   
      
   This is correct.  Why - because pot is not addicitive, and not unhealthy.   
   It   
   is far better for you than tobacco.  And in many jurisdictions it's legal to   
   use   
   as a medicine.   
      
   The laws on pot are stupid and deserve to be violated.  Stupid laws deserve   
   to be violated, that is what this country was founded on.  If you still   
   don't   
   understand this, then read the Declaration of Independence.   
      
   HOWEVER, there is a big difference between public and flagrant violation   
   of stupid laws, and private violation of stupid laws.  The people who   
   should be out there publically and flagrantly violating stupid laws are the   
   people who's job it is to effect change - ie: political protesters.  For   
   example   
   the people publically burning their draft cards during Vietnam War were   
   doing their job as protesters.  The people who it isn't their job to be   
   protesters   
   but also it isn't their job to be implementors of the stupid laws, they   
   should   
   be doing their civic duty and voting the stupid laws out the window.  The   
   people who's job it is to implement the law, their obligation is to do that   
   and not to protest against it.   
      
   This has nothing to do with being caught.  Being caught violating a stupid   
   law is a natural result of violating the stupid law in public in front of   
   authority figures.  If your a protester it is in fact essential that you do   
   get caught and get cited - your supposed to get arrested and cited - because   
   the public outrage at seeing someone get arrested and cited for a stupid   
   law is what brings about change in the laws.   
      
   For example the guy that got arrested for not paying child support to   
   his ex-wife.  Problem was, DNA testing on the child and the guy showed   
   the child wasn't his.  The stupid laws on the books were what got him   
   arrested and he had to be arrested in order for public outrage to get   
   the legislators to change the laws.   
      
   This principal's job was not that of a protester, in fact, completely to the   
   contrary, as a school administrator he agreed to implement ALL the laws,   
   stupid or not.  If he disagreed with some of the laws - like drug laws -   
   then as long as he was a school principal he was morally obligated to   
   remain silent and do his smoking in private.  If he felt that he couldn't   
   do that then he should have resigned and made public that the reason he   
   was resigning is that he was protesting the drug laws the school was   
   telling him to administer.   
      
   What you seem to completely miss is this guy's hipocracy.  He's making   
   a living in a job where the people paying him to do the job expect him to   
   do certain things.  One of these things is to serve as a role model, another   
   is to be anti-drug.  He's being paid to appear anti-drug.  Yet he feels it   
   OK to be publically smoking pot.   
      
   This is no different than when the Miss America pagent finds out that   
   a contestant posed nude for Playboy.  The pagent is hiring someone as   
   a public figure and quite reasonably expect them to not engage in   
   certain behaviors.  Such as posing nude.  The contestant that takes the   
   money even though they have done the posing anyway, is being a   
   cheater.   
      
   >   
   > >>>If  Mr. Miller was the school's janitor would he still have his job?   
   > >>   
   > >>If he was the school's janitor, would the school board have even found   
   out   
   > >>about the citation?  Would it have made the news?   
   > >>   
   > >   
   > >   
   > > Irrelevant, schools are not holding up janitors as role models.   
   >   
   > Why not?  If kids know that janitors are getting arrested for possession   
   > and keeping their jobs, won't that affect them too?   
   >   
      
   Of course it will.  However kids are able to put things into perspective   
   which   
   you appear to be unable to do so.   
      
   Sure, a minimum wage janitor is probably expected by the hiring school to   
   be drug-free.  But if it turns out that he is not, well as long as he's not   
   doing   
   it during his work hours, the expectation by most people is that when your   
   out there paying minimum wage you take what you can get, and you are going   
   to expect to get rather crappy workers.   
      
   By contrast when your hiring the top-dog administrator for a lot more money   
   than minimum wage, and you expect that he's going to be drug free, when it   
   turns out he is not the example he's sending the kids is that even when   
   people   
   are paying you a lot of money to be a good worker, it's perfectly OK to   
   screw   
   them over anyway.   
      
   As a parent I really don't want my school holding up janitors as role   
   models anyway.  I don't want my kids learning that being a janitor in   
   a school is a goal to strive for.  If my kid came home and said they   
   heard through the grapevine that the school janitor was a pot head,   
   my response would be "well, what do you expect out of people that   
   work shit jobs like that?  The guy's a pot head probably because he   
   dropped out of school without graduating and   
   doesen't have anything better to look forward to than cleaning up   
   after you.  That's what happens to people that don't do their homework   
   and pay attention to their teachers"   
      
   And of course now I'm sure to hear some mush-headed politically   
   correct outrage about how janitors are people to and all of that.  Fine,   
   you teach your kids that and when your kids and mine are grown up,   
   your kids will be emptying the wastebaskets in the office building   
   that my kids are working in.   
      
   Ted   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)