No Tolerance

Young Johnny carries a Candide to class.
"This perilous infraction will not pass,"
His teacher sternly does declare,
"For if young Johnny reads Voltaire,
He will his classmates all surpass,
Which is monopolizing and unfair."

So Johnny is into detention sent
And dosed with Ritalin without consent.
"His energy exceeds our charts,"
The school psychiatrist explaining starts,
"Some more, and he'll begin our dogma to resent.
This drug suppresses Johnny's interest in the arts."

But Johnny's penalty is not complete.
The institution's weapon policy he did not meet.
Ten thousand activists, with stones held high,
Pacifist rhetoric at Johnny cry.
"From schools we must all similar books delete.
The corners may well puncture someone's eye!"

The school spreads pleas for help throughout the land.
A sixties-educated doctor takes the stand,
"A drug in new-age medicine's defined
As any substance that transforms the mind.
First comes Voltaire, then he will read Ayn Rand,
And he'll defy the tribal fate which we designed!"

The city council meets, policemen does dispatch.
With clubs and pepper spray they do young Johnny catch.
Johnny is jailed for having used a "drug".
His cell is shared by a malicious thug.
Whose mind did twisted schemes of murder hatch,
The "bleeding hearts" on whom won't pull the plug.

Then does a miracle young Johnny find.
No longer will he be in jail confined.
A councilor from school the guards addressed.
"Johnny's a normal boy, but now depressed.
A slacker usually, does but what's assigned,
By us his further strife will be repressed."

Big Brother thus did Johnny back to school return.
No longer will the boy for reason yearn.
He's fashionably clothed. His comrades, too, are such.
They ask, "Wazzup?" He answers, "Nothin' much."
In class he's timid, outside loud and stern.
Big Brother grins at John Automaton, his crutch.