I Think My School District Just Turned Me Into A Trump Voter

[Olde Europe]

Back to the instant case, this school district, and others nationwide, cannot ignore the crisis of gun violence in schools and are literally the battlefield for it. So they necessarily come up with policies, which again will vary in cultural values between different parties, including in this case the OP and his son's school. Politicians didn't create that policy --- the school did. It has a direct and intimate investment in its own welfare which given the stark consequences of failing to do that can and does result in hypervigilance. What they come up with may be reasonable or extreme but it's THEIR environment and it's up to them to control it day-to-day. The fact that politician A over here may support that policy while politician B over there opposes it, simply does not make them the originators of that policy. It makes them followers of what they think is the appropriate social trend for them.

This is the same thing I've been preaching the entire time I've been on this site about gun violence in general, the hot issue when I joined USMB, that it's not a question of throwing laws at it but rather a question of cultural values. And I mention that because you personally, I recall, were one of the few who took the effort to understood what I was saying.

So that's why this is not a political issue. Politicians don't start these 'camps'. They may, and they surely do, jump into those camps and in so doing deepen the divide for no good purpose, but make no mistake, they didn't create those camps. WE did. So this idea that goes around that believes "we have a problem and therefore politicians have to fix it" (which then means "my" politicians have to overcome "your" politicians to do so), just sounds like a giant cop-out. That's a giant dead end.

There certainly is a lot of valid thought in the above, and "cultural values" do play a role in all of it. Still, I think you are talking past each other mainly because you are using a narrower definition of "political" than usual, meaning, it's political if politicians are involved in leading roles. I'd say, whenever a group of people gets together to haggle over how not just to deal with themselves, but how a broader circle of people ought to live together, how behavior should be regulated (in a school district, town, State, or the nation), it is already political, no matter professional politicians' involvement, or none. In addition to that, it should also be clear that politics does have an influence on cultural values, as the surge in gun nuttery during the last decades demonstrates.

Moreover, the safety of schools has long escaped your narrower definition, when the schools were declared gun-free zones, and the NRA tried to get that revoked. There is a surprising number of political and professional organizations involved with how guns / violence / counseling etc. and schools should be regulated / improved, including paying attention to first signs indicating a possible later resort to violence. See here, and here, and here, and here, for instance.

 

[grainbely]

Precisely, Rump has nothing to do with it. He's only tangentially connected to the issue at all by virtue of having proposed to rub salt into the wound by "arming teachers", a sick fantasy he seems to have dropped like a hot potato. So making the leap to vote for him not only doesn't follow, it's counterintuitive.

We seem to be unable of late to distinguish between political demagogues and cultural sickness. Where anyone gets the idea that a POTUS dictates culture is beyond my comprehensional pay grade.

This incident has helped me to understand why some people would vote for Trump. They are simply fed up.

I think Trump voters are in several categories.

You have the voters for whom the election was all about Mexicans and Muslims. Most of the Trump supporters on this forum are of that variety.

And then you have the voters who can't stand Trump but hated Hillary a little or a lot more. That's the category my father and most of my extended family fall into.

And then there are the voters who can sense that our country is on the wrong track, and that they are being robbed. They don't know exactly how the mechanism of the robbery works, but they can feel it. They feel it in their bones. Because of this, they believe the whole system is rigged against them and they want the whole apple cart overturned, damn the consequences.

This last category is made up of people on the left and the right of the political spectrum. And more and more people are joining that category every day.

I am repulsed by the first category of people. I am frustrated by the second category. But I empathize with and understand the last category, because they are right. And I can forgive them for casting a big FUCK YOU vote for Trump aimed at the system which is regularly fucking them in the ass.

First off, I knew from day one Trump was not the answer. I also knew Clinton was a big part of the problem. I couldn’t vote for either but I understood why you would vote for him. Clinton represented more government control and meddling that would not allow hard working Americans to get ahead. Trump was hope and change and an unknown that people were ready to roll the dice on.

Me, I saw two really bad choices and went to third party.

That's at least the honest alternative. Unfortunately the WTA system ensures that that vote goes straight to the trash can.

I've done that too, it's an empty feeling. We make a "statement" that only we can see.

Trump won. And everyone can see that.

All those FUCK YOU votes add up.

Ah but what do they add up TO. Aye, there's the rub.

They add up to everyone getting fucked.

 

[grainbely]

So my son, a high school sophomore, is sitting in class and the teacher leaves the room for some reason.

The kids start goofing off and my son and his best friend start aiming their fingers at each other and going bang-bang. They play a lot of PUBG. They're kids. This is what kids do.

Some other fucking candyass motherfucking pussy soap bubble of a punk in the class tells the teacher when she comes back that my son was pretending to shoot a gun at HER (the teacher). The teacher wasn't even in the room!

My son is taken to security and interrogated, and several "witnesses" are interrogated.

The assistant principal calls my wife (because the bitch is terrified of me) and tells my wife my son is suspended, and he cannot return until he sees a fucking shrink.

I shit you not.

This insanity is right out of Kafka.


If there is anyone on Trump's staff, or Rush Limbaugh's show, or Fox News reading this, please PM me. I would like to make these fucking retards into a national embarrassment.

Thank you.

What does trump have to do with this? Schools take guns seriously what with all the hysterical school shootings. They are trying what they can to prevent them.

Politically, we have the pro-pc people and the anti-pc people. Trump is the leader of the anti-pc party. That’s what he has to do with it.


Sent from my iPad using USMessageBoard.com

His crew has their own PC rules. Similar outraged reactions or immediate dismissal, too.

 

[Papageorgio]

This incident has helped me to understand why some people would vote for Trump. They are simply fed up.

I think Trump voters are in several categories.

You have the voters for whom the election was all about Mexicans and Muslims. Most of the Trump supporters on this forum are of that variety.

And then you have the voters who can't stand Trump but hated Hillary a little or a lot more. That's the category my father and most of my extended family fall into.

And then there are the voters who can sense that our country is on the wrong track, and that they are being robbed. They don't know exactly how the mechanism of the robbery works, but they can feel it. They feel it in their bones. Because of this, they believe the whole system is rigged against them and they want the whole apple cart overturned, damn the consequences.

This last category is made up of people on the left and the right of the political spectrum. And more and more people are joining that category every day.

I am repulsed by the first category of people. I am frustrated by the second category. But I empathize with and understand the last category, because they are right. And I can forgive them for casting a big FUCK YOU vote for Trump aimed at the system which is regularly fucking them in the ass.

First off, I knew from day one Trump was not the answer. I also knew Clinton was a big part of the problem. I couldn’t vote for either but I understood why you would vote for him. Clinton represented more government control and meddling that would not allow hard working Americans to get ahead. Trump was hope and change and an unknown that people were ready to roll the dice on.

Me, I saw two really bad choices and went to third party.

That's at least the honest alternative. Unfortunately the WTA system ensures that that vote goes straight to the trash can.

I've done that too, it's an empty feeling. We make a "statement" that only we can see.

Trump won. And everyone can see that.

All those FUCK YOU votes add up.

Ah but what do they add up TO. Aye, there's the rub.

They add up to everyone getting fucked.

Then the Republicans and Democrats need to get some good candidates instead of the crap we have had over the last few decades.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

First off, I knew from day one Trump was not the answer. I also knew Clinton was a big part of the problem. I couldn’t vote for either but I understood why you would vote for him. Clinton represented more government control and meddling that would not allow hard working Americans to get ahead. Trump was hope and change and an unknown that people were ready to roll the dice on.

Me, I saw two really bad choices and went to third party.

That's at least the honest alternative. Unfortunately the WTA system ensures that that vote goes straight to the trash can.

I've done that too, it's an empty feeling. We make a "statement" that only we can see.

Trump won. And everyone can see that.

All those FUCK YOU votes add up.

Ah but what do they add up TO. Aye, there's the rub.

They add up to everyone getting fucked.

Then the Republicans and Democrats need to get some good candidates instead of the crap we have had over the last few decades.

How can we do that? Look what the media does to these people.

Now Congress and even the state of New York are investigating Trump with no reason other than Donald Trump is Donald Trump. Pure hatred and the maniacal attempt to remove him from office. With George Bush, they dug up a 20 year old DUI. They tried to shame him by stating he went AWOL in the military. They even made claims 911 was his doing and he only did it to blame middle-eastern people.

Mitt Romney is as clean as the wind driven snow, but the MSM managed to demonize him by stating he got out of the military by going to school, he was born with a silver spoon, he went on vacation and put the dog carrier on the roof of his car and strapped it down. He has a car lift in his garage. He was responsible for the death of an employees spouse because he cut their healthcare insurance. He held down a schoolmate in high school and gave him a haircut.

What "good" person would want to run for office today? Look at what they did to Judge Kavanaugh. I mean, the media is responsible for the low quality of representatives that we end up with.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Listening right now to the OP on the Lars Larson show.

What do you think?

You did great.

Thing is though, I'm honestly surprised that you were so surprised about this. I've heard a # of stories of kids getting in trouble using "finger" guns in school.
It's absurd, but nothing surprises me when it comes to our schools today.

There are many stories like this one:

10-year-old suspended over finger gun - CNN

 

[DigitalDrifter]

You can listen to the OP's interview on the Lars Larson show at this link.

Click at the 50:20 mark, and the interview starts right after that.

 

[Gracie]

That sucks, and sounds as if it was an over reaction. But here's the thing. After nearly every school shooting, when the shooters past conduct is dissected, little signs emerge that were often overlooked. Well, it looks as if schools are now looking into them pro-actively.

Everyone knows my son. The security guy even told me this whole thing is fucking stupid. He knows my son, and he knows my son is one of the kindest people in the world.

We commiserated for a while over the fucking idiotic hyper-vigilance going on.

It's the assistant vice principal who is the problem.

She and I have had a run-in before when I found out the high school gives out contraceptives to the kids without the parents knowledge or consent. We had a gigantic shouting match about it in her office one day. I told her if I found out she ever gave any condoms to my son, or the pill to my daughters, without my consent, I would sue them back to the caves.

She tried to tell me the high school clinic was not part of the school. This is a clinic INSIDE the high school, with our high school name on it. That's when I fucking lost it.

So...when are ya gonna change your avie and sigline, comrade?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You can listen to the OP's interview on the Lars Larson show at this link.

Click at the 50:20 mark, and the interview starts right after that.

I clicked it but it didn't work. It made my US Message Board reload three times and nothing.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

You can listen to the OP's interview on the Lars Larson show at this link.

Click at the 50:20 mark, and the interview starts right after that.

I clicked it but it didn't work. It made my US Message Board reload three times and nothing.

Ok, try this. Click on the podcast for 2/15.

Podcast - The Lars Larson Show

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You can listen to the OP's interview on the Lars Larson show at this link.

Click at the 50:20 mark, and the interview starts right after that.

I clicked it but it didn't work. It made my US Message Board reload three times and nothing.

Ok, try this. Click on the podcast for 2/15.

Podcast - The Lars Larson Show

I appreciate that. To be honest, I don't even know this host. But I enjoyed the clip. Good for you G.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

You can listen to the OP's interview on the Lars Larson show at this link.

Click at the 50:20 mark, and the interview starts right after that.

I clicked it but it didn't work. It made my US Message Board reload three times and nothing.

Ok, try this. Click on the podcast for 2/15.

Podcast - The Lars Larson Show

I appreciate that. To be honest, I don't even know this host. But I enjoyed the clip. Good for you G.

Lars has a northwest show M-F during the afternoon, and a national show M-F at night.
He's been on for years.

Here's the list of stations he's on:
Affiliates - The Lars Larson Show

 

[Ravi]

So my son, a high school sophomore, is sitting in class and the teacher leaves the room for some reason.

The kids start goofing off and my son and his best friend start aiming their fingers at each other and going bang-bang. They play a lot of PUBG. They're kids. This is what kids do.

Some other fucking candyass motherfucking pussy soap bubble of a punk in the class tells the teacher when she comes back that my son was pretending to shoot a gun at HER (the teacher). The teacher wasn't even in the room!

My son is taken to security and interrogated, and several "witnesses" are interrogated.

The assistant principal calls my wife (because the bitch is terrified of me) and tells my wife my son is suspended, and he cannot return until he sees a fucking shrink.

I shit you not.

This insanity is right out of Kafka.


If there is anyone on Trump's staff, or Rush Limbaugh's show, or Fox News reading this, please PM me. I would like to make these fucking retards into a national embarrassment.

Thank you.

That would be a stupid reaction, letting a stupid school ruling make you into a trump supporter. Teachers are terrified of school shooters with good reason. It is sad that the ease of obtaining guns has led to cracking down on normal teen horse play.

 

[Norman]

So my son, a high school sophomore, is sitting in class and the teacher leaves the room for some reason.

The kids start goofing off and my son and his best friend start aiming their fingers at each other and going bang-bang. They play a lot of PUBG. They're kids. This is what kids do.

Some other fucking candyass motherfucking pussy soap bubble of a punk in the class tells the teacher when she comes back that my son was pretending to shoot a gun at HER (the teacher). The teacher wasn't even in the room!

My son is taken to security and interrogated, and several "witnesses" are interrogated.

The assistant principal calls my wife (because the bitch is terrified of me) and tells my wife my son is suspended, and he cannot return until he sees a fucking shrink.

I shit you not.

This insanity is right out of Kafka.


If there is anyone on Trump's staff, or Rush Limbaugh's show, or Fox News reading this, please PM me. I would like to make these fucking retards into a national embarrassment.

Thank you.

That would be a stupid reaction, letting a stupid school ruling make you into a trump supporter. Teachers are terrified of school shooters with good reason. It is sad that the ease of obtaining guns has led to cracking down on normal teen horse play.

Is there anything that guns aren't responsible of?

Maybe turn off CNN once in a while.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

So my son, a high school sophomore, is sitting in class and the teacher leaves the room for some reason.

The kids start goofing off and my son and his best friend start aiming their fingers at each other and going bang-bang. They play a lot of PUBG. They're kids. This is what kids do.

Some other fucking candyass motherfucking pussy soap bubble of a punk in the class tells the teacher when she comes back that my son was pretending to shoot a gun at HER (the teacher). The teacher wasn't even in the room!

My son is taken to security and interrogated, and several "witnesses" are interrogated.

The assistant principal calls my wife (because the bitch is terrified of me) and tells my wife my son is suspended, and he cannot return until he sees a fucking shrink.

I shit you not.

This insanity is right out of Kafka.


If there is anyone on Trump's staff, or Rush Limbaugh's show, or Fox News reading this, please PM me. I would like to make these fucking retards into a national embarrassment.

Thank you.

That would be a stupid reaction, letting a stupid school ruling make you into a trump supporter. Teachers are terrified of school shooters with good reason. It is sad that the ease of obtaining guns has led to cracking down on normal teen horse play.

What does the ability to obtain guns have to do with kids screwing around? Some kids have always lived in households where guns were present without any incidents. Of course back then, we had two parent families and a deep belief in God.


Sent from my iPad using USMessageBoard.com

 

[bodecea]

Listening right now to the OP on the Lars Larson show.

Who?

Is it in Norwegian?

At the first press conference in the White House, Trump personally invited Lars Larson to be there. It's the first time a radio show host was Skyped in to a White House press conference.

Never heard of him....or is it her?

 

[FA_Q2]

Listening right now to the OP on the Lars Larson show.

Who?

Is it in Norwegian?

At the first press conference in the White House, Trump personally invited Lars Larson to be there. It's the first time a radio show host was Skyped in to a White House press conference.

Never heard of him....or is it her?

Him. And he is a pretty large name in radio political shows. Been around for a LONG time.

 

[bodecea]

Listening right now to the OP on the Lars Larson show.

Who?

Is it in Norwegian?

At the first press conference in the White House, Trump personally invited Lars Larson to be there. It's the first time a radio show host was Skyped in to a White House press conference.

Never heard of him....or is it her?

Him. And he is a pretty large name in radio political shows. Been around for a LONG time.

Ok...still never heard of him.

 

[FA_Q2]

I feel for G's son. Taking a sophomore kid's business to Limbaugh or Carr to make political war is just plain over the line.

I have a lot of respect for G, but this is a mistake.

Why?

Why is making this a political war over the line? What was over the line was the political BS that caused this to happen.

You and pogo are simply against him hitting back politically because it is the side you agree with this time.

Because it isn't a political issue, that's why.

Unless you can explain to the class wtf a school's operation, reasonable or unreasonable, has to do with Rump, or with any kind of "politics" at all.

Clearly the school's (over)reaction here is based on a concern about gun violence in schools. While this or that politician may choose to take a side related to that, "gun violence in schools" is not itself a political issue but a social one. Politics and politicians have no authority or influence over social values. What is Donald Rump supposed to do, issue an executive order saying a kid can make a finger gun?

I might add, we had no indication from the OP if this suspension was entirely from the incident described, or if it comes from a cumulative history. That's all stuff we don't know, but that's not political either.

I don't know what OL stated but I advised that g5000 should not allow the talking heads to frame the issue as political. And I explained then, that they would do that in order to spike their ratings, because tribalist conflict is a boon for ratings --- but it also completely obscures what's going on and reduces it to yet another pawn in that bullshit tribal "everything is politics" song and dance. As long as that keeps happening, nothing gets addressed.

As Ray is about to do in exactly two posts...

Where do you think those policies come from? It comes from the political parties using these events as kick balls to advance their agenda. This new hyper sensitive bullshit is a political issue all over the nation. The fact that you do not want to acknowledge that is not really my problem pogo and I don't think that people should be quietly taking this crap without taking on the issue to its source.

No I don't accept that creation premise at all that social pressures and guidelines take their cues from politicians. Not even close. It's the exact opposite.

You have a wide-ranging social crisis, in this case school gun violence (or gun violence in general), but it could be any crisis. Consensus of opinion coalesces in the general public regarding what to do about it. In the case of a cultural divide on that crisis we get multiple and conflicting consensuses --- competing or opposing "camps". ONLY once those camps are established will politicians declare themselves to be "in" this one or that one. Politicians absolutely DO NOT lead sociocultural changes --- they follow them. According to whichever "camp" will serve their own ambitions.


I'll again point to my ready go-to example: smoking tobacco. If you're of a certain age you know it used to be a very common practice. Doctors smoked. Restaurants. Freaking planes. There was no such thing as a no-smoking section. You either smoked, or you put up with it. Every movie actor and TV scenario... watch Mike Wallace at the intro here between 0:15 and 0:25. He even casually tosses his match on the floor.

​

Nothing remotely like that would happen today. Nor would you likely see a screen actor, even the villain, smoking. And of course smoking on a plane is right out. That's a cultural shift. Politicians didn't do that. What happened is that the general public collectively decided it wasn't going to put up with smoking. And so you get (first) reserved no-smoking sections in restaurants and (eventually) no smoking at all in them. You may cherrypick a random politician jumping on the bandwagon passing a local ordinance about smoking in bars but again that's a reaction to where the public is already leading them. The old adage "if the people lead eventually the leaders will follow" sometimes actually works.

With you so far.

Moreover the way that smoking got started in the first place and sustained itself and grew to such a degree, was via advertising --- not politics. And that's far more influential. The bottom line to this analogy is not a lot of people smoke any more and politicians didn't do that --- WE did.

And what really took out smoking was also advertising - almost exclusively by government but okay. You are assuming that I accept these two instances are even remotely related. They are not.

Or take the (false) association of religion with politics. In wayback-then, the same time all that smoking was going on, there was no imaginary "correlation" between what your religion was and what your politics were. They went together like fish and bicycles. Along comes the Jerry Falwell ilk (again, enter advertising) and suddenly we've got "camps" with fake political party "associations" . Politicians didn't do that -- they followed the Falwells. And only did so when they thought it would sell.

Back to the instant case, this school district, and others nationwide, cannot ignore the crisis of gun violence in schools and are literally the battlefield for it. So they necessarily come up with policies, which again will vary in cultural values between different parties, including in this case the OP and his son's school. Politicians didn't create that policy --- the school did. It has a direct and intimate investment in its own welfare which given the stark consequences of failing to do that can and does result in hypervigilance. What they come up with may be reasonable or extreme but it's THEIR environment and it's up to them to control it day-to-day. The fact that politician A over here may support that policy while politician B over there opposes it, simply does not make them the originators of that policy. It makes them followers of what they think is the appropriate social trend for them.

Yes it is their environment BUT you ignoring that the policies we are railing against here do not need to originate from a specific politician does not mean they are not intrinsically integrated within a specific political base. It is the mentality on the left that has led to this hysteria and IT IS NOT LOCAL. This happens all over the place to tons of people that are unwilling to stand up because that is a pain in the ass.

Further, this policy WAS passed by politicians - that is what a school board is. The anti-gun movement is spearheaded by political groups and politicians - not a general grass roots movement.

This is the same thing I've been preaching the entire time I've been on this site about gun violence in general, the hot issue when I joined USMB, that it's not a question of throwing laws at it but rather a question of cultural values. And I mention that because you personally, I recall, were one of the few who took the effort to understood what I was saying.

So that's why this is not a political issue. Politicians don't start these 'camps'. They may, and they surely do, jump into those camps and in so doing deepen the divide for no good purpose, but make no mistake, they didn't create those camps. WE did. So this idea that goes around that believes "we have a problem and therefore politicians have to fix it" (which then means "my" politicians have to overcome "your" politicians to do so), just sounds like a giant cop-out. That's a giant dead end.

And I still agree - it is a cultural problem. This is an example of not addressing the cultural issues and, instead, using massive overreaction and policy to 'solve' the problem.

 

[FA_Q2]

Who?

Is it in Norwegian?

At the first press conference in the White House, Trump personally invited Lars Larson to be there. It's the first time a radio show host was Skyped in to a White House press conference.

Never heard of him....or is it her?

Him. And he is a pretty large name in radio political shows. Been around for a LONG time.

Ok...still never heard of him.

And....