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the article doesn't really go into detail on whether they literally would not have been able to graduate, but it's completely in keeping with the ass backwards concept of punishment that we have in modern society
punishment doesn't actually make any sense, see. you can't do it in a way that's really ethical. prison for violent crimes is about the only justice that maybe makes sense to me because you're hypothetically keeping someone from being able to hurt more people.
for lots of stuff that doesn't rate prison in the eyes of legislators you see weird shit. holding unrelated things you need hostage - in other words, leverage. the thing you do when you can't "get" to someone but you can get to things they hold dear.
taking someone's car away because they can't afford to pay for road taxes looks like a relevant punishment. it isn't. taking their car away doesn't meaningfully solve the problem - the roads still wear down. it's just the leverage that that department has, so they use it.
it doesn't prevent further harm, it just makes them feel bad and potentially destroys their life. it leads to further 'crimes' because like. people mostly do shit because they need to. needs can't be deferred or worked around.
i've never known anyone whose tabs expired who didn't keep driving. i've known lots of people who never had that problem, but the ones that did just kept driving. so the punishment does nothing except create room for a secondary crime that *looks voluntary*
i wouldn't be surprised if they did in fact have a rule that you can't graduate without paying your lunch bills because it's the only leverage they had against someone who's already leaving their authority
the one thing these Authorities have power over is whether they lie about whether you completed your education, so they use it. because authorities do not accept being told they can't have what they want.
in the last few years I have realized that you can either run society mostly on the honor system or you can live in hell, and we are firmly entrenched in hell.
