Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review August 22, 2002 / 14 Elul, 5762

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


LET THEM EAT PEANUTS!


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | The principal of the Nickajack Elementary School outside Atlanta recently decreed that no student would be permitted to bring peanuts or peanut butter to school. She is not alone. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, schools in "at least nine states" now ban peanuts and peanut butter.

The reason? A few students are highly allergic to peanuts, and if not treated in time, the reaction can lead to death.

Lest 1 or 2 percent of the students have a bad reaction to peanuts (a reaction that is entirely treatable by the school nurse), the cheapest, tastiest, healthiest food that most kids like -- the peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- is now forbidden in some American schools.

We have here in microcosm five highly destructive developments in modern American life:

1. Social policies determined by "compassion." To the Nickajack Elementary School's principal and the many other Americans who support a peanut ban, the issue is simple: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on one side, the health of some students on the other. Compassion obviously dictates a peanut ban.

More and more Americans want more and more of American social policy -- from schools to government -- to be guided by compassion. But compassion-first advocates do not understand that while compassion can and usually should determine personal behavior, it must almost never determine society's behavior.

When compassion determines social policy, it is almost always destructive. Because compassion is by definition highly selective, it is not possible to be equally compassionate to everyone. When dealing with the public, compassion to some people inevitably means injustice to others. For example, if compassion for the sufferers of one disease determines society's funding of research into that disease, sufferers of other diseases will receive less compassion and therefore unjustly receive less funding.

Banning peanuts is unjust, even mean, to the 98 percent of elementary school students for whom peanut butter is the most practical source of protein they will eat at school. It is cheap, delicious, and won't spoil as meat or cheese might. For the sake of a few students, thousands are seriously inconvenienced.

2. Compassion or selfishness?

To deny nearly every student at an elementary school the right to eat their favorite healthy food is labeled compassion, and the educators who push for the ban may well be motivated by compassion. But the activists who demand the community's compassion are simply selfish.

On my radio show, I spoke to a parent whose child is highly allergic to peanuts, and who supports school bans on peanuts. After a few minutes of challenges, he acknowledged that he is simply being selfish. I saluted his honesty. Would that the rest of us acknowledge the selfishness that is at the root of so many policies determined by compassion.

3. Compassion trumps all.

Compassion trumps all other considerations, especially facts and reason. The fact is that there is an antidote to peanut poisoning that every school can easily administer. The fact is that banning peanuts actually makes schools less safe for nut-allergic students, since they then let their guard down and think they can eat other students' food. And reason suggests that if we ban peanuts, we should also ban school picnics to protect those who can die from bee stings. But to raise such objections only shows that one is not compassionate.

4. Fear of lawsuits.

As powerful as compassion is, neither it nor justice dominates school, company or government policies today as much as fear of trial lawyers. Parents now sue schools for their children's poor grades. Surely they will for allergic reactions.

5. The pursuit of a risk-free world.

Perhaps it has been this generation's unprecedented affluence. Perhaps it has been the absence of widespread suffering in America since World War II. Whatever the reason, more and more Americans have been preoccupied with abolishing all risks to their well-being. Americans increasingly feel that no price is too high to pay to ensure no risk.

Such thinking, however, is very wrong. With fewer and fewer risks demanding ever more money and ever more legislation, the prices we are paying are getting ever steeper. Just ask the tens of thousands of schoolchildren now eating junk instead of peanut butter.

If your kid is allergic to peanuts, have the school stock epinephrine. Don't deprive all the other children of peanuts. That's not compassionate; it's selfish.

Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He is a director of Empower America and the author of "Happiness is a Serious Problem". Click here to visit his website and here to comment on this column.

Up


08/14/02: How the nuclear family became "controversial"
08/07/02: Every generation is tested by great evil
07/31/02: Those who curse the Jews and those who bless them . . .
07/24/02: Children should talk to strangers
07/17/02: Why my son's best friend is black
07/11/02: Why Hesham Hadayet may be scarier than al Qaeda
07/03/02: "Pro-Israel lobby" is not why America supports Israel
06/26/02: Why does the Left support the "Palestinians"?
06/19/02: The commencement address I would give
06/12/02: Why do adult children live with their parents? Because they actually like them
06/05/02: The stripper and the Christian school: Thoughts on what a Christian school should do when a parent is a stripper and on who the biggest sinner here is
05/31/02: Don't worry, New York, you are safe from a terrorist threat
05/15/02: A proud member of the world's two most hated peoples
05/10/02: What Israelis are saying
05/06/02: Thank Heaven for moral violence
04/29/02: Give back the Nobel Peace Prize: A letter to Elie Wiesel
04/22/02: Why so many students cheat
04/12/02: Is it 1938 again for the Jews?
04/05/02: It's the values, stupid
01/31/02: Smoke and lose your son
10/30/01: Why Arab/Muslim anti-Semites are worse than the Nazis

© 2002, Creators Syndicate