I have frequently mentioned the long discussion I was lucky enough to have with futurist Herman Kahn, due to a scheduling snafu at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that had us waiting for over an hour for a meeting that never occurred. One of his most vivid observations was that societies periodically forget why certain practices, traditions and policies exist because they have been around so long, so the societies temporarily abandon them, only to learn to their sorrow why the jettisoned practices had endured.

This observation led to Ethics Alarms christening the current explosion of destructive wokism “The Great Stupid.” One of its mutations, the de-fund the police fad and its attendant nonsense like “restorative justice,” decriminalization” and “anti-incarceration,” has already led to widespread crime and urban rot just as anyone would have predicted without opposition a decade ago. Now states and cities are finally turning on the equally stupid education policy, inflicted on the American mind by the Obama administration, that disruptive, misbehaving and habitually violent students need to be coddled and tolerated rather than disciplined.

Usually it is a particularly egregious incident that spurs lawmakers to action. In Kentucky, a superintendent who yielded to pressure and returned a suspended student to class who had a ‘kill list’ naming other students he was going to kill sparked the legislature to approve stricter punishments for disruptive students. The new law directs that students can be suspended or expelled from school for many kinds of misconduct, including “willful disobedience or defiance of the authority of the teachers or administrators”; using profanity; assaulting another student or a member of the school staff; threatening violence; using alcohol or drugs or defacing school property. The law also requires schools to expel students for at least a year who threaten violence or bring a weapon to school. Arizona, Florida, Nevada and West Virginia have passed similar laws, while Nebraska, North Carolina and Texas are considering them.

I know, I know: none of those states are the ones that have been totally engulfed by the Great Stupid, like poor California, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and others. Well, they’re a little slow, you know, but they finally realized that civilization needs police and they are gradually learning the open borders don’t work. Right now, they are distracted by so many of their most progressive citizens advocating killing Jews. I think they’ll come around eventually.

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