Background checks

[Rich Littleton]

Janos,

Just because someone can "guess" at a problem, that doesn't mean that the
problem relates to SCNA.  (It's not an SCN problem if lawyers MIGHT
smuggle chocolates to their fat clients in jail.)

Since we don't deal with fragile populations, as do the other volunteer
agencies cited who use background checks, there is not SCN problem that
requires background checks.

However, SCNA is hurting badly for volunteers.  Rather that putting effort
into processes that intrude on potential vols. (which we don't have enough
of), lets focus on real and existing issues.  THEN worry about the
hypothetical ones.

Later,

Rich

______________________________________________________________________

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On Sun, 24 Oct 1999, Janos Szablya wrote:

> 
> Kurt 
> the hazard of not acting responsably is loosing the system that we have
> built...
> Kurt, I know that I have cleared the system....there is little doubt that
> all of us will... but if we don't ....we could be considered negligant is
> a future action..  
> 
> This is a standard that we will have to impose on ourselves or face the
> reality of a dwindling support from our users and corperate supporters.
> 
> The standard is that of outside influence.... and given the nature of our
> history we have always been affected by that force.
> 
> Janos
> 
> 
> > 
> > Not one genuine hazard or existing safety condition was identified here!
> > It's all vague, mushy stuff, about what might possibly happen.  It's the
> > sort of thing all the Nice People and Ed.D. cush-makers at Columbine
> > HS were busy with *before* the shooting, and probably what they are
> > busy with right now: counting their toes, verifying their colleagues'
> > toe-counts, and making policy.  Fat lot of good it did them...
> > 
> > And *fear* as a basis of policy is never assuaged for long, which means
> > that the policies intended to assuage that fear lose their efficacy
> > (and note most carefully that this happens regardless of whether any
> > incidents covered by the policies occur or not!), and the fear comes back,
> > in a sort of "relaxation"-type periodicity, giving a cyclic character to
> > the process.  In electronics, an RC oscillator exhibits these properties
> > nicely.  So do addictions of various sorts.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, while fear has the properties of accumulation and
> > dissipation, the policies they drive are long-lived artifacts, which
> > hang around, accreting, over many fear-cycles.  So what emerges out of
> > all of this is sort of a ratcheting-type pattern that eventually even
> > causes the policy-makers to complain (the only element of justice in the
> > whole affair, usually long-delayed).  And this is why it's fundamentally
> > unsound.
> > 
> > On a national scale, I think Thomas Jefferson guessed the optimal
> > time-constant to be about 20 years :)
> > 
> > Unless policy-makers are mindful of this stuff *and* don't want it
> > to happen.  Note the conjunction.
> > --kurt
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