Now here’s a little story that really has no bearing on the grand scheme of life, yet I find myself compelled to write about it. On one hand I find it to be just another silly story that brings a smile to my face. But then there’s the other part of me that is angered immensely.
The premise of the story is quite simple. Wahlert Catholic High does not tolerate drinking at school events. To combat this issue, Wahlert tossed common sense out the window and adopted a rather brazen policy of guilty until proven innocent. Students before every school-sponsored event are to undergo a breathalyzer test before they will be admitted. To combat any legal challenges, the Catholic school has distributed consent forms to the parents of every student. Students from other schools who attend Wahlert High activities will also be required to sign a consent form and submit to being tested.
Since I graduated high school in 1992, I have seen a terrible trend emerging in the United States that has gone largely unopposed. School’s have enthusiastically thrown out common sense and have adopted horribly invasive and ignorant policies.
I’m sure many of you have heard of the recent zero tolerance policies in schools. Here are a few examples:
These policies do away with common sense and remove the school’s ability to handle cases on an individual basis. They have damaged youths for seemingly ridiculous offenses regardless of whether they were even at fault.
Schools have adopted other stupid policies like banning cell phones, placing metal detectors at entrances, and even banning traditional games like dodgeball. I’ll leave it to you all to debate these if you so desire.
But let’s go back to Wahlert Catholic High’s decision to presume that all their students are guilty of underage drinking before proven innocent. It just disturbs me at a fundamental level. Wahlert is treating their students like criminals and violating their basic human rights. As a parent I would not let my child be subjected to this sort of treatment. Of course as a parent, my children wouldn’t be attending a Catholic high school like this in the first place :)
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- Catholic School Girls In Trouble
- Rep Mark Foley Is A Gay Sexually Abused Roman Catholic Pedophile
- Another Catholic Nun Jailed For Genocide
- Catholic Priests Takin’ Your Loot
It makes perfect sense. Schools prepare you for adulthood. These types of school policies are just there to prepare these kids for the coming police state.
I fear for those born in the 90′s. I may home school my children should I have any.
One could argue that students don’t have to turn up in the first place.
At my highschool a consent form was sent out so that the school could perform random drug tests. If you didn’t sign the form, then you were not allowed to participate in any school run extracuriculars (band, sports, debate, Academic Challenge, etc.) After the forms had been collected the school began employing the policy and at least once every six weeks (standard grading period) approx. 50 students would be removed from their 1st period class and made to go pee in a cup. This really agrivated me for a lot of reasons but the main two were that 1)if you were pulled out of class to be tested, you missed almost the entirety of that class period and had to later beg a friend for notes and 2)for those of us who don’t do drugs (hell, I barely drink now that I’m legal, being forced to prove that you’re not doped up is insulting…not to mention the awkwardness of being made to pee in a cup in the first place. As an added bonus, they brought sniffer dogs in at least once a semester to go through the lockers.
Ahhh the rights and freedom’s of those dumb enough to enlist.
In contrast, do you beleive people have the right to be an individual in the army? You know, like in Vietnam when the soldiers took back their freedoms and started killing their commanding officers, so that they woulnd’t have to fight?
My point is, if you’re dumb enough to put your kid in a school where they do this, expect them to do drugs. It puts unnessesary publicity on the offenses, and would make anyone curious.
That being said, you lose ALL rights to do and say pretty much anything when you join a school or a university. Most thinking is to protect the people from you, and not the other way around.
Aw c’mon Gas, has it been *that* long since you were subjected to the chatecism? Surely you remember, in catholicism we’re ALL considered guilty ALL THE TIME, just for being alive, remember?? :0P
Technically, since it’s a private school, it can do whatever it wants. Honestly I don’t have a big problem with schools doing this kind of stuff. Both of my parents are high school teachers, and this is kind of necessary. They have to do it because parents nowadays are doing nothing. Making sure the kid is behaving and not drunk and not doing drug used to be the parents’ jobs, but now they do basically nothing, so schools have to make up for it so everyone isn’t delinquent and distracting others. It’s sad to see things come to this, but until parents adopt responsibility again, schools are going to have to do this.
My school had about the same exact policy as Ginger’s. Though it always seemed the straight laced honors kids who hadn’t ever seen drugs were the ones who always got tested (random my ass). I got pulled out twice.
I have two competing thoughts on this issue. The first reflects my libertarian side. Since this is a private school, parents who don’t like the policy can take their child and tuition elsewhere. Parents who don’t want to do the parenting themselves can sign their unfortunate kids up.
On the other hand, the concept itself really pisses me off. Fundamentally, students are being coerced into submitting to a medical test against their will. That just screams ‘wrong’ to me. Worse yet, the coercion is a type of social ostracization. Don’t want to submit to an unnecessary medical test? Well than you can’t join your friends at the dance, on the team, or any other extracurricular activity.
[rant]
This is just a symptom of Americas asinine approach to intoxicating substances. First of all, the way in which we decide which substances are illegal is completely arbitrary. Think about it. What is the defining difference between cigarettes and joints, or between alcohol and, say, psychedelic mushrooms? I don’t see one. If anyone who reads this does, please, let me know.
The other ridiculous attitude is towards ‘under age’ drinking. First of all we have an irrationally high legal drinking age. Last I checked, 18 was the legal age of becoming an adult. What possible justification can there be for denying an adult, one who legally makes all other decisions about him or herself, from buying and consuming alcohol? Oh, but you can be drafted and sent off to war, vote, go to strip joints, gamble, and consume much more damaging substances, like nicotine.
The other thing that really irritates my rational mind is the zero tolerance policy that pervades American thinking about ‘under age’ drinking. We are prepared to seriously damage a kid’s academic future because they were curious about this stuff that the school is making such a huge fuss about. Context matters greatly in such situations. Where was the kid when he/she drank? How much did he/she drink? Who else was there? What were they doing at the time? All these factors should weight in on any punishment.
I won’t even start on the arbitrarily low, an one-dimensional standard for drunkenness, 0.08 blood-alcohol level.
[/rant]
Okay. I feel better.
Huh, what with me being the avid drug user in the forum, I’m surprised it took sid’s rant to put 2 and 2 together.
I’m so used to accepting the laws that stereotype average drug use, that I failed to even consider how much that’s gotta suck for the kids. But like Tommy said “These types of school policies are just there to prepare these kids for the coming police state.”
So true. I had a talk with a bunch of people at the hockey game and such last night (Go Canucks!), and the general concensus was that the US of A is a big scary place, one that no one wants to go visit.
Wake up sheeples! Your government and your religion’s are dividing you up, getting you to vote against yourselves on issues like health care and george bush.
Oh and to Jennifurret’s comments:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/903762/many_parents_admit_they_bribe_their_kids/index.html
Bribery just leads to spoiled brats who do whatever they want unless they get something better out of it. I’m all for a good old fashioned spanking. I only had to be spanked once by my 6’6″ father to understand that behaving was the better choice. I never got in trouble for stupid crap. If parents were stricter kids would turn out a lot better.
*steps out of the dark corner where he’s been lurking*
For once, I almost completely disagree with most of you. (Probably because this issue isn’t about religion.) I fail to see how this is such a big deal. Since this seems to be for school-organized social events, I think the school has a right to do this. I also think it might work fairly well, at least as far as keeping the dances alcohol-free. (Of course, any students indulging in underage drinking would be likely to go elsewhere and drink anyway, but that’s another story.)
Using a machine to test a person’s breath for alcohol is a far cry from being “Gestapo tactics”, nor is it a very significant invasion of privacy. The main problem, the way I see it, would be false positives, since breathalyzers are hardly the most accurate instruments in the world.
Calling this “Gestapo tactics” also cheapens the term. If they were imprisoning foreign nationals indefinitely with no charges and flimsy evidence at best and subjecting them to various de-humanizing treatment (torture, to put it bluntly), then you could start talking about CIA… erm, sorry… Gestapo tactics.
Sorry about going off on a bit of a tangent there, but I just had to get that out of my system.
To sum it up, I have seen many signs that the U.S. of A. is moving toward becoming a police state, and breathalyzer tests at school dances aren’t one of them.
*goes back to his corner to lurk some more*
@sid
Your rant is right on target, we shouldn’t be treating these substances differently.
But I think the problem is we trivialise or even glorify some of them, rather than that we demonise some of them. They are all pretty bad for you in the long run.
@Shaze
I don’t have a problem with what other people do to their own bodies. I do worry about people who only do it so the pain will stop ~ for those people it’s no different from being a religious freak, only with more physical[1] and perhaps less emotional damage. Opium is the religion of the masses, indeed.
[1] Except for suicide bombing or child abusing religious freaks. Not much causes more physical damage than that!
Recovered Catholic:
Newsflash – Emotional Violence is MUCH MUCH more damaging than Physical Violence.
“I do worry about people who only do it so the pain will stop”
Are you comparing reliance on pain killers to beleif in religion?
I actually go to Wahlert….and it sucks… It does not prepare u for the real world at all…first of all its too small and sheltered im a junior and i don’t think that we’re taught enough to get through one year in college. Second I have very little independence teachers and everyone makes the choices for me. Also, the school is going to lose a lot of money, prom attendance will be at an all time low, everyone will go to a different prom or go somewhere else and get drunk and maybe in trouble… Bad idea all around
I attend Wahlert High School and I think that it is a great place to go to school. I feel very sorry for the author of this article and his negative outlook on life. A religious education goes a long way into shaping the lives of our youth. In the future I will continue to pray for you Gasmonso and other writers on this website. God Bless
so ty, so you say you go to wahlert… i go there to, and you must be a d-bag because almost every student that goes here doesnt want to get breathalyzed… even if you didnt drink they shouldnt say that you are guilty, it should stay the way it was were they would only breathalye the people that act like they are drunk! so a few people drank why should i have to pay for it…? and sweetie maybe some one should pray for you cause your a loser!!! :)
i never said that i supported the breathalyzing. i just don’t appreciate Wahlert bashing. Student maybe we should have a little talk tomorrow at school. U will know where to find me. Until then u stay classy
Yeah Wahlert “Catholic” is definitly infringing on the rights of others, and this really isn’t doing anyone any good, becase number one its making the entire school look like a bunch of alcoholics, and giving them bad publicity. And number two it’s just trying to control the student body, and doing this will only result in a backlash. Kids are going to get drunk whether Wahlert likes it or not. You know everyone after the dance is going to get wasted, probably even more so than they would have if it wasn’t for that damn breathalizer. Wahlert gives catholic schools a bad name, and Cynthia Wagner is a total bitch. But you know what they can’t breathalize the students for that sweet mary jane. So toke up Wahlert HIGH. STICK IT TO THE MAN!
i think its absolutely the dumbest idea ever
but this is all chris’s fault!!! cause who tells the dean to do that like a student is acutally on their side casue he’s that big of a fag! THANKS CHRIS YOUR A FAG EVERY ONE LOVES WHAT YOU’VE DONE!!!
boo the maggie king dance act
i second/concur to comment number 22 BOO
yeah..i go there tooo…and i dont think its a good idea..because not alot of people will go to prom now..also alot of people are being made to feel guilty for a crime that they didnt even commit…Im not an angel by any means..but pulling every single person aside and breathalyzing them..come on..get a life
oh..and dont bash wahlert
there are waaaay worse places to be
thats all
less people are goin to prom now which means a definite higher percentage of students will be very intoxicated that nite getting in more trouble somewhere else besides just a dance where no harm could be done…
We never had breath testing when I was at school, but it came in shortly after I left. I was one of the guys who drank before going to a school organised function.
I’m only 10 years out of school, and I feel that the schools are doing the right thing. They are responsible for the students who attend these functions, and they should not be put in a position where they have to worry about students who are intoxicated.
It is a condition of attendance, you can choose to come or not to. If you choose to come, then be aware that you will need to submit to a breath test… I don’t see the drama.
Oh, and I agree with Sid that other substances are of similar concern, it is just much harder to test for them but if it becomes easier then I don’t think it would be far off from being tested for these too.
Do you really think Wahlert is the ONLY school to use the breathalizer…the other two schools in our city have been using them for years!!! Why don’t you quit the boo-hooing and have fun…why does there always have to be drama involved…have you nothing better to do??? Go ahead…get waisted…drive drunk…crash a car….kill someone!!! Will it all be worth it in the morning…when you have to live with that on your conscience the rest of your life?? Ya know…rules stink but that’s life….get used to it because that is what “THE REAL WORLD” is going to give you.
Go EAGLES~j~
PS~To Trevor: You are a JUNIOR…how do you know what the real world is ?? You have not been to college either so how can you possibly know that you are not prepared?? Maybe you should get off the internet..and do some homework!!! You will only get out of it what you put into it!!! That probably is not much:(
PSS: Kudos Ty…I am with you…these people need our prayers!!!
“Go ahead…get waisted…drive drunk…crash a car….kill someone!!!”
Thats not really the point, besides, most of the atheists i know dont drink(im an exception). Drunk driving is one of those things that happen when your young and stupid, you don’t understand the real effects of alcohol how you individually will react. But it is still totally unforgivable, i had a friend and her mother killed in a crash because of a drunk driver. I think everyone has been effected by drunk driving in some way. But to think that using a breathalyzer and having kids sign a waiver is going to get them to stop drinking is just plain stupid. For example, in North Carolina they just passed a law that make whoever bought a keg responsible if a single minor is caught drinking from it. So all the parties are a lot more boring now, right? WRONG, they just started going out and getting cases of beer or liquor, which depending on what you drink, can be MUCH cheaper than a keg.
hey hey hey!
It’s only a breathalyzer test! It’s not like they are testing you everyday, only for events such as proms,etc. The test is also being authorized by your parents. Hello people, high school students are still kids and unfortunately some kids (who think they are old geezers like i am) do stupid things; thus rules have to be implemented to deter such actions. Give it some time and see how it goes. Peace!
well it was worth it, not one child was hurt ot caused an accident or worse killed. The dance was a blast and no child was hurt. I am glad that wahlert did what they had to do in order to crack down and face life the way it needs to be faced, hard and in the face. Lets wake some of these parents up……..
Let’s see, my high school class had 500+ people in it, dozens of events every year, and no breathalysers. Yet not a single child was hurt, caused an accident, or died before, during, or after any of the events. Clearly breathalysers are not the determining factor for safe school functions. There are other ways to ensure student safety without an unnecessary medical test that many feel compromises their privacy.
Ah, spoken like a try believer in a police state, willing to compromise freedom and privacy for safety. Okay, that was a little hyperbolic; it is only a high school after all. But that is the sort of reasoning that can transform democracy into totalitarianism.
The only thing parents need to wake up to nowadays is how overprotective they’ve become. Or maybe they are just ‘too busy’ with their own lives to properly parent their kids themselves and need schools to do it for them.
Sidfaiwu:
I’ve read many of your posts over the past months and boy, do you make sense. However, you live in the US. Perhaps if you came to the UK you would realise that the amount of gun crime, drug crime and general shit is way ahead of you. Our urban youth seem to have copied the US urban rap scene and the Old England we knew is as dead as a dodo. All this ‘cracking down’ and ‘police state’ stuff is just daily news to us. We have virtually accepted a totalitarian state. Maybe we always did? George Orwell lives! (I say this with a deep sense of regret). I’m sorry, that sounds a bit over the top – but essentially, it’s correct.
Hello Mike,
Thanks for the compliment. Since I occasionally listen to the BBC World Service, I have noticed a restricting of liberties over in the UK. I wasn’t aware of the burgeoning thug culture though. Any hope for a reversal with a new PM?
Sidfaiwu, my man,
We over here in the UK seem to ape the US in most things. God knows why, since you are just a rengade colony!); (Only kidding, as you know!)
This country is going to the dogs. And I don’t mean nice dogs. Nasty, immigrational dogs. Our football teams are owned by Russians, our hotels are staffed by Poles, and our Prime Minister is SCOTTISH for God’s sake. The thing is, maybe we should extend Gasmondo’s website to cover not just the religious crap in the world, but also the political shite. Yes, we should. Gas, your sanction please!
And Sidfaiwu, what what an awful name to type!
Feel free to use ‘Sid’, if you prefer.
Gasmondo, where are you? I’ve dipped my toes in internet posts but my mentor had disapeared! Come back, my man!
Mike@Blackpool UK,
gasmonso has a website about “Political Freaks” at http://politicalfreaks.com/
but he only posted 2 topics on it and he hasn’t updated it since Ocober 20, 2006.
I guess he prefers to make fun of religious freaks.
It’s depressing to make fun of political freaks because it reminds us that despite living in a democracy, we have not really been able to make the government do what is right.
Time to change the target? Maybe God is dead and the goverment isn’t?
On Saturday I had the chance to talk to two old friends who are fundamentalist Christians. In the UK we call them Christadelphians. Apparently they’re not Trinitarians. Whatever. Anyway, we had a long and heated debate about – well, you know – and I still couldn’t dissuade them from their odd beliefs. My question now is – do I apologise for ranting on until the small hours about Atheism (about which I am passionate)or let the silly buggers just go on living in merciful ignorance? You see, I believe quite fiercly in radical Atheism. We’re not loud anough and we don’t grab nearly enough of our congregation’s cash. A Tithe would do nicely!
How can you comment on my school? You live in California. Wahlert is the safest of the 3 high schools in Dubuque. Why is this such a big deal? Sure it’s inconvenient and I don’t like it, but I also don’t like football practice and I do that to get to the game, just like I get breathalyzed to get to the dance. When I have no idea what someone is talking about, I don’t respond to it on the internet. You obviously do not have the same reactionary in stincts that I do. Be quiet. Please respond because I find your posts so bad that they are entertaining. Also, move out of your mom’s basebment and get a real job.
“How can you comment on my school?”
By having free speech.
“You live in California.”
Not everyone on the internet live in california.
“When I have no idea what someone is talking about, I don’t respond to it on the internet. You obviously do not have the same reactionary in stincts that I do.”
Some people have an amazing tendency to do something i like to call “research”, it involves looking up and studying information on my own.
“Be quiet.”
No.
“Also, move out of your mom’s basebment and get a real job.”
Damn, you caught everyone. Thats right, every single person that has a view or opinion different than yours lives in their mother’s basement.
a different Wahlern student —
“Why is this such a big deal? Sure it’s inconvenient and I don’t like it, but I also don’t like football practice and I do that to get to the game, just like I get breathalyzed to get to the dance.” Well, it’s such a big deal because your fourth (and to an extent, your fifth) amendment rights have been stolen. You will note I didn’t say “abridged” or “lessened.” Once this particular right has any chinks in it whatsoever, it basically has been ripped from you (like most natural rights).
You might protest, “But it’s only High School.” True. Unemancipated humans (such as children and the mentally incompetent) don’t have the right (for example) to keep and bear arms because of a lack of adult judgement. But the right against unreasonable (and this policy is *most* unreasonable) search and seizure has no codicil of that nature. So all it truly accomplishes is the production of adults who won’t mind their privacy being invaded and their other rights taken from them by the Federal and State governments.
Fabian strategies like this one are designed to slowly strip away one’s indignance at being treated like a criminal and a slave so that one can be made a criminal or a slave.
You wrote of how safe your school is (it’s been a long day; I’m not in the mood to fact check that). The more important question is: what is your school’s academic rating? I suggest that you study up on the fourth amendment. You might also delve into Stalin’s Russia and read the novel 1984.
And I’ll leave you with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would sacrifice essential liberty to achieve temporary security deserve neither.”
Look, I got carried away with the last post. I said some things that could be taken wrong and that I didn’t mean, and I’m sorry. All I am saying is that you should try to avoid hurting people with your posts. I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your position, I am just asking you to stop verbally assaulting my school. I don’t mind if you continue your discussion, but please stop dragging Wahlert’s name through the mud.
The discussion has not been about a specific school but of schools which seem to seek to train, and using not so different methods from the other regimes which seek to enforce obedience doctrines, students to let go of their rights in the name of ‘alleged’ safety.
Your school is merely an already forgotten side note in the battle between totalitarian rule and your rights which are being gnawed away and by your posts with your agreement.
Out of curiosity, how did you guys find this page? I had no idea this was national news, but I guess it is if it was in a San Diego newspaper.
My daughter attends this school and i have no problem with this and neither do most students. It is called being pro-active and if parents/students do not like it i am sure they would be welcome at the 2 public schools.
Thanks a million
I haven’t checked in here for a while since I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend :)
Time is cash as the outdated saying goes, and by studying this post, I realized that I saved myself a number of precious time, which would have been otherwise spent on studying low consistency info all around the almighty web. Thanks for the straight to the purpose, valuable input!
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