Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Sociotard]

I did find an article about Washington molester teachers continuing to receive pensions. And I found one about teachers fired for accused molestation finding new teaching jobs. Nothing for an accused teacher returning to his post.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

If I came across as condescending I apologize. 

 

No worries.

 

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

I spent ten minutes googling for stories about Washington sex offenders getting returned to the classroom, and it's definitely a royal PITA since I couldn't find any.  At any rate, I hope we can all agree that if there are sex offenders teaching in the classroom, perhaps we should not give them guns.

 

I spent about 45 minutes searching, including the site for the radio station that covered the story steadily for a couple of weeks. Couldn't find it. It was a few years back now, but the gist of it was a science teacher engaging in unwanted grabassery with female students, being fired for it, and then getting put back in school sometime later. There was a second similar case that I don't remember the details of, because it got a bit less coverage. The gist is that -- at least locally -- the teacher's union is very aggressive in job protection, with little regard for the students' safety. They also strike frequently, but that's more understandable since the state also repeatedly fails to uphold the budget, even under court order. Listening to too much state level politics can give you a dim view of humanity, really.

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Heard on the radio, the School Resource Officer on scene was suspended for not going after the shooter, then quit. Story.

 

I have kind of mixed opinions on this one. One the one hand, going in would have been the right thing to do. If that was my assignment, I'd have gone after the shooter without hesitating.

 

On the other hand, you normally can't force a police officer to put himself in harm's way. I also heard (not confirmed) that the officer was only armed with a pistol. That compounds the issue. Someone guarding against armed riflemen should have access to a rifle or shotgun, preferably a rifle.

 

ETA: Just read in one of the articles linked on the same page as above that the campus was 45 acres. That's . . . a big school. And they had one guy assigned to guard it.

[Christopher]

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

At any rate, I hope we can all agree that if there are sex offenders teaching in the classroom, perhaps we should not give them guns.

We can all agree they should not be in teh classroom at all.

 

5 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Using Google to dig up local news stories in Washington is a royal PITA, because Google can't tell the difference between the state and  D.C. I'm not wasting my time doing it to appease Christopher's condescending attitude. Or yours. We've all been posting her for YEARS. Either you trust that I'm not an idiot who can't remember a simple news story or you don't.

I do trust you to remember the newsstory. I do not trust anyone (even myself) to keep up with every turn of a newsstory.

 

I can give you a simple chain of events to showcase this:

1. Teacher is fired

2. Teacher sues

3. Teacher is given right in the first trial

4. Appeal is made.

5. Teacher looses all further trials.

 

If you only followed it up to point 3 your preception of reality is the opposite of reality.

it is easy to only read a headline, not noticing that a appeal (or similar retrial) is possible or even planned.

 

Or what if the teacher - wich happens to also be a grabber - was originally fired for something totally unrelated. And the court decision was only about 1 month of pay or some such?

[Pattern Ghost]

As I said before, this story was covered for weeks. The reinstatement is the last step in your hypothetical chain, and the events leading up to it were followed up on extensively by local radio news. That site doesn't archive very far back, or has a poor search function, so the story isn't available for further analysis.

 

 

[Starlord]

Trump proposes bonuses for armed teachers

[Lord Liaden]

I'll just briefly reiterate the opinion I've expressed before: the core issue isn't the ownership of guns. It's the widespread attitude in American society today that guns are an acceptable, legitimate means to deal with a variety of issues and conflicts. Spreading more guns around, particularly in the presence of impressionable young people,  won't change that attitude and is likely to exacerbate it.

 

In a related vein, gun control laws are not in themselves a complete solution to the problem. But IMO the enactment of laws is a reflection and symbol of what a society considers intolerable conduct. The intense, knee-jerk reaction against any kind of gun control by a sizeable fraction of the American public underscores the irrational passions at play. Nothing will improve until that starts to change.

[Ragitsu]

We have a gun fetish. There's no mincing words about this. It's one thing when you like a good action flick or even game (be it digital or analog). Quite another when, as Liaden said, firearms are viewed as a means to remedy many problems that could be resolved much more peacefully.

[Zeropoint]

I'm inclined to agree with Lord Liaden and Ragitsu on this. However, I'm a gun owner myself, and so a reader could reasonably suspect my views to be biased. Still, to me, guns are fun dangerous toys, cool and interesting machines, and neat pieces of history you can own. The idea of someone seeing a gun as some sort of token of manliness and power . . . I remember years ago seeing someone who seemed to feel that way about holding a pellet gun, and it was unsettling. I've met someone who's impulse on holding a decorative sword was to hold it near my neck.

 

There are people who have pathological responses to possessing weapons, and since it doesn't seem to happen as much in other countries, I blame elements of our culture.

[Pattern Ghost]

28 minutes ago, Zeropoint said:

There are people who have pathological responses to possessing weapons, and since it doesn't seem to happen as much in other countries, I blame elements of our culture.

 

It's kind of baked in to our national mythology at this point, from the Revolution to the settlement of the Old West. (ETA: Heck, our most popular sport is a violent blood sport that leads to serous injuries.) Rebelliousness and individualism are enshrined in our culture, while they're strongly discouraged in many other cultures. I think it's those traits more than any gun fetish that when taken to extremes is an issue. More of a general violence fetish, IMO.

[Ragitsu]

14 minutes ago, Zeropoint said:

I'm inclined to agree with Lord Liaden and Ragitsu on this. However, I'm a gun owner myself, and so a reader could reasonably suspect my views to be biased. Still, to me, guns are fun dangerous toys, cool and interesting machines, and neat pieces of history you can own. The idea of someone seeing a gun as some sort of token of manliness and power . . . I remember years ago seeing someone who seemed to feel that way about holding a pellet gun, and it was unsettling. I've met someone who's impulse on holding a decorative sword was to hold it near my neck.

 

There are people who have pathological responses to possessing weapons, and since it doesn't seem to happen as much in other countries, I blame elements of our culture.

 

Language plays a significant part, too. I feel a twinge of awkwardness whenever I hear someone refer to a firearm/gun as a "tool".

[Ragitsu]

https://thinkprogress.org/dana-loesch-cnn-parkland-a35b833e1d90/

 

When I listen to people like Dana Loesch and Marco Rubio speak, I get the sense that they lack a soul. There is nothing genuine there except their desire to deflect away from their corporate masters. Maybe they're a-okay in their off hours. I cannot speak to that. All I can comment on is how they behave in a moment when the populace is ardently demanding authenticity from them.

[Lord Liaden]

51 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

 

Language plays a significant part, too. I feel a twinge of awkwardness whenever I hear someone refer to a firearm/gun as a "tool".

 

I believe it's an insidious attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to downplay the gun's primary function as a weapon, a very efficient killing machine. Many people don't display enough respect for the responsibility of handling something with such deadly potential.

[Lord Liaden]

33 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

https://thinkprogress.org/dana-loesch-cnn-parkland-a35b833e1d90/

 

When I listen to people like Dana Loesch and Marco Rubio speak, I get the sense that they lack a soul. There is nothing genuine there except their desire to deflect away from their corporate masters. Maybe they're a-okay in their off hours. I cannot speak to that. All I can comment on is how they behave in a moment when the populace is ardently demanding authenticity from them.

 

I'm reminded of a moment from an episode, of all things, of the Robocop television series years ago. A politician was hooked up to a futuristic lie detector, and his readings when telling a lie and telling the truth were identically indeterminate. The conclusion was that he'd been in politics so long, he no longer distinguished between the two.

[Ragitsu]

7 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I'm reminded of a moment from an episode, of all things, of the Robocop television series years ago. A politician was hooked up to a futuristic lie detector, and his readings when telling a lie and telling the truth were identically indeterminate. The conclusion was that he'd been in politics so long, he no longer distinguished between the two.

 

 

[Ragitsu]

As the years roll by, I continue to hear variations of "We need guns in case the government tries to take our rights away!" from gun owners whenever the tiniest suggestion of gun control is brought into the arena of public debate. Our rights are being stripped away day by day and a single shot doesn't have to be fired. This notion that gun owners are going to rise up to "take back" the government is a humorous yet juvenile fantasy. Apparently, they're going to wait until the black helicopters/drones fly overhead while, simultaneously, the tanks start rolling downtown. Why is there no concerted effort to deliver them this harsh dose of reality?

[DShomshak]

A few days back, the BBC asked an American teacher's thoughts about Trump's proposal of arming teachers. This teacher happened to be a former Marine (I don't remember the weapons in which she claimed expertise, sorry). She gave an eloquent and reasoned explanation of why this was a Very Bad Idea.

 

Sure, you can find one person to support any conceivable POV. But this is not the only military or former military or police person I've heard who was dubious that the solution to gun violence was more guns.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Joe Walsh]

People who know stuff and have relevant real-world experience tend to be biased against this administration.

 

[wcw43921]

On 2/22/2018 at 6:37 PM, Pattern Ghost said:

Heard on the radio, the School Resource Officer on scene was suspended for not going after the shooter, then quit. Story.

 

I have kind of mixed opinions on this one. One the one hand, going in would have been the right thing to do. If that was my assignment, I'd have gone after the shooter without hesitating.

 

On the other hand, you normally can't force a police officer to put himself in harm's way. I also heard (not confirmed) that the officer was only armed with a pistol. That compounds the issue. Someone guarding against armed riflemen should have access to a rifle or shotgun, preferably a rifle.

 

ETA: Just read in one of the articles linked on the same page as above that the campus was 45 acres. That's . . . a big school. And they had one guy assigned to guard it.

 

Apparently, he was not alone in waiting outside the school.

[dmjalund]

Am I naive in thinking that one of a police officer's jobs is to put themselves in harm's way?

[IndianaJoe3]

2 hours ago, dmjalund said:

Am I naive in thinking that one of a police officer's jobs is to put themselves in harm's way?

 

You might be. OTOH, running onto the campus and hoping you spot the shooter before he spots you strikes me as a low-percentage strategy. 

[wcw43921]

Maybe--but as one of Murphy's Rules Of Warfare says, "Anything you do can get you killed, including doing nothing."   If you're going to be killed, it might as well be doing something rather than nothing.

 

Besides, it was my understanding that waiting outside to assess the situation was shown not to be a viable strategy after the Columbine shooting.  The police then and there waited to go in, and more kids ended up dying as a result.  From that moment forward the strategy was to go in as soon as possible.

 

Or am I mistaken?

[Zeropoint]

As far as I can tell, you're correct. Cowering outside and waiting for the shooter to finish and come out is not the optimal strategy for saving lives . . . at least not the lives that the cops are supposedly sworn to serve and protect.

[Ragitsu]

There is one angle to this whole "arm the teachers" suggestion that people are rarely bringing up. Just how mentally damaging it is to have teachers ready to shoot to kill 24/7 when their potential targets are, most of the time, students they are currently working with (trying to form a functional mentor-pupil relationship with, even!) or former students? Cognitive dissonance of the harshest extreme is the likely end result of such a policy being officially instituted.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

You might be. OTOH, running onto the campus and hoping you spot the shooter before he spots you strikes me as a low-percentage strategy. 

 

Nationwide policy for school shootings after Columbine* is to converge on the shooter without waiting for backup.  Presumably, if these guys had a problem with that strategy, they should have brought it up sooner.  Especially the dude who was hired as campus security.

 

I do sympathize with these officers to the degree that rushing into an active shooter situation takes a significant degree of courage.  It's an unfortunate time to discover that you don't have what it takes.  Still, if four trained, armed LEOs couldn't stop this particular shooter, what's a social studies teacher supposed to do?

 

 

* In which the SWAT team set up outside, waiting for hostage negotiations to start, while around a dozen kids in the library were executed.