Christmas Spirit: Statute of limitations on teenage misbehavior?

by philg

Microaggression alert! Last week I was ordering something from a company in Texas and the salesman signed off with “Have a blessed holiday.” (Cisgender-normative alert! I assume that this deep-voiced person named “David” identifies with the male gender, but I didn’t ask directly.)

In that Texas spirit I would like to wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas! And also make a wish of my own…

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World gives us a reminder not to judge people by teenage behavior: Humboldt “was now the most famous scientist in Europe and admired by colleagues, poets and thinkers alike. One man, though, had yet to read his work. That man was eighteen-year-old Charles Darwin who, at the very moment that Humboldt was being fêted in London, had given up his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh. Robert Darwin, Charles’s father, was furious. ‘ You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching,’ he wrote to his son, ‘and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.’”

So that’s my Christmas wish! We forgive the teenagers.

You might ask, what evidence do I have that we do not already do this? One of our flight school customers is a 35-year-old guy (surprise!). He hasn’t been able to solo because he can’t get the FAA to issue him a medical certificate that would enable him to act as pilot-in-command. From what disability does he suffer? He was arrested for DUI at age 18, i.e., 17 years ago.

Second aviation story: a 28-year-old whom we know dreams of joining the U.S. military and flying helicopters. (Me too! But of course discriminating against old people in employment is perfectly legal for the government.) At age 18 he was driving a car from which a friend shot a paintball gun at a house. He was charged with “felony vandalism of more than $5000”. This charge was ultimately reduced to a misdemeanor but just having the arrest (not a conviction) on his record means that he would need a “moral waiver” to get into the military. Despite folks talking about how the military doesn’t pay enough and/or doesn’t pay veterans enough, there are so many Americans trying to get into the military currently that no moral waivers are being issued. Had the paintball incident occurred just a few weeks earlier, he would have been 17 years old and there wouldn’t be a record of the misbehavior.

In an economy increasingly dominating by the government, there are an increasing number of areas where if you’re on the wrong side of the government you can’t work or exercise other privileges accorded to other citizens. I would like the Christmas Spirit applied so that at least most infractions that happen through age 19 can be forgiven after 5 years.

5 thoughts on “Christmas Spirit: Statute of limitations on teenage misbehavior?”

  1. I helped a young software developer friend get into Navy pilot training with a ‘moral waiver’ for some junior high school misadventure in which two kids got into a fight.

    It was not that big of a deal.

    A DUI? That IS a big deal.

  3. The Spanish Nobel laureate (medicine) Santiago Ramon y Cajal was a “difficult” teenager. According to his Wiki page “as a child Ramón y Cajal was transferred many times from one school to another because of behavior that was declared poor, rebellious, and showing an anti-authoritarian attitude. An extreme example of his precociousness and rebelliousness is his imprisonment at the age of eleven for destroying his neighbor’s yard gate with a homemade cannon.”

    Would a modern day university accept a kid with such record?

    However, according to Wiki:

    “His original pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain have led to his being designated by many as the father of modern neuroscience.”

  4. The military is highly variable in the stringency of its recruiting standards, depending on the op tempo and state of finding new recruits, which corresponds to the state of the hiring economy. Some years, you would need a “moral waiver,” other years you would need to fog a glass.

  5. Phil wrote: […] Despite folks talking about how the military doesn’t pay enough and/or doesn’t pay veterans enough, there are so many Americans trying to get into the military currently that no moral waivers are being issued.

    Given visible belligerence of USA’s armed presence, daily drill brutality, and higher than usual risk of death or lasting personal injury in its many “peace-bringing” actions abroad, the reverence of the military in your popular culture and IRL borders on the inexplicable. Because, since the many internal security services are good mainly for budgets infighting, America has to be defended by boots on the ground and drones in the air 7000 miles from its continental borders, never mind the refugees that then flood nearby Europe.

    Interesting, too, that the Army had no means of weeding out people without no moral spine like Abu Ghraib torturer Charles Graner, and his once underling/ service paramour Lynndie England.

    I’ve been thinking about this for a while and in the end have no other answer than that of the reprimanded private (Chandra Wilson’s character) in the movie “Lone Star” (1996) who, when asked by her “Army Is My Life” black commander of why she joined up: “it’s the best deal the whities have on offer, sir.”

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