The Stupidity of Zero Tolerance

If you've read much of what I've written you know that when I was a young teenager some friends and I  tried to build a rocket. With 20/20 hindsight, that was a totally stupid thing to do. We did  some of things right and and some  things quite wrong. 

• We set it off in an empty construction yard. 
• We mixed up Black Powder (Gun Powder) from easily obtainable chemicals. (OK, very stupid thing) 
• We had a long enough fuse to get our butts behind a berm. 

 The rocket exploded on it's erector-set gantry.

But just doing it was stupid. it was called a Pipe Bomb by the local news . As a side note we all grew up to be respected people in the sciences.


Today we might have been tracked down by the FBI and jailed.  the following column upsets the scientist in me.

http://godfatherpolitics.com/10662/zero-tolerance-policies-to-end-all-academic-scientific-inquiry/

What damage are we doing to natural curiosity?