High schooler yanks MAGA hat off classmates head, slaps teacher, earns suspension

Maybe she used rhetoric first, and came to the realization that it wasn’t very effective against someone wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. Maybe that’s when she executed plan B.

All we know is what she is being punished for.

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No, it’s just ordinary, regular old redundant redundancy.

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I find it interesting that some people (including the martinet idiots who think this merits criminal charges) are entirely prepared to treat this situation and the kids involved the same as if they were adults in opposing protests and not kids who got into a fight at school.

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you mean, before the event?

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If they do want to make it all about the politics then they have to acknowledge the message someone is trying to send by wearing that MAGA hat. One can acknowledge that without making excuses for or downplaying either Butler’s actions or for what is arguably an over-reaction to them by the school and/or the authorities.

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American politics have gone well beyond civil disagreements.

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What will it take for people to realize that tump rallies are really just Klan rallies with red hats instead of white?

Can you imagine kids wearing white hoods to school?

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Last night Saido Berahino scored his first goal since the end of February 2016. No one knows if this means it’s the end of the event and things are going to get better or if it is the start of the end times.

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I agree 100% with this. The school handled it badly from the beginning. But I certainly sympathize with the parents not wanting their kids turned into political footballs by angry people on the internet with empathy deficits.

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MAGA? My Attorney Got Arrested!

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If conservatives want to do that in this instance, they open themselves up to a discussion they might not want to have about the motivations of the other party in the fight for wearing the hat in the first place.

There’s a difference between acknowledging something (e.g. the U.S.'s shameful history of interfering in foreign elections) and using it to excuse or minimise a bad act (e.g. Russian meddling in the 2016 and, it seems, 2018 election). The former is an in-context observation, the latter is whataboutism.

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edited out “feel you’re”

it’s good to state assumptions. what’s obvious to one person isn’t obvious to everyone.

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Okay, the clarification is appreciated.

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You can’t lay hands on people or their stuff.

Actual prosecution sounds like more idiotic zero tolerance policies. Something like this sounds more like a detention/suspension sort of thing, IMHO.

Also worth considering, as I am sure there is already a plethora of rules for dress codes - is including political clothing with specific people and/or parties. Exceptions allowed during certain weeks, perhaps during election weeks as something special. But if Hillary/Trump/whomever on clothing is going to cause that much conflict, leave it at home.

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I doubt the school would allow a swastika or a picture of a burning cross to be worn in school by its students. Which is to say that I’m sure the rule allowing political messages on clothing is not absolute. The problem with the MAGA hat is a lack of national consensus on its message. After all, there was surely a time in pre-WW2 Germany when there was no broad consensus on the message of the Nazi swastika, yet now it’s widely repudiated. I’m not sure a blanket prohibition on political messages on clothing is necessarily part of the correct solution, though I understand where you’re coming from.

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No the Republicans don’t, but after all these years we expect it from them.

Reactionary has a meaning in politics that only applies to the Republican Party and it’s supporters in this context. Given that the status quo ante is seriously detrimental to many people to the point of deportation, torture and murder there is a valid reason to resist it.

From the clips I have seen of the video (on some dodgy far-right youtube channel, so no link, but they are easy to find) it looks like a storm in a teacup.

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Umberto Eco may be of some help.

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Hitting is wrong. That’s what the bad guys do.

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They’re individual decisions based on a lot of factors. As someone in a position of relative privilege I still have the luxury of not being at the bat-swinging point yet when I say “No quarter for fascists, no excuses for those who wittingly or unwittingly vote for, support, or enable them.”

However, as someone who also recognises my own privilege I am also going to extend some understanding to someone without that privilege who punches the occasional Nazi or knocks the MAGA hat off some junior bigot or destroys a Hollywood star – as long as they accept the lawful consequences for doing so.

The heartening thing I’ve observed is, most of those who’ve done these things so far have shown a no-regrets “worth it” willingness to take those lawful consequences when they’re caught in the act. Butler seems to be an anti-fascist of this calibre. When American society gets as lawless as Weimar Germany’s I’ll worry about running street battles, but not yet.

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This is the crux of it. Whether we are there or not there, the objective of the fascist is precisely to goad us into violence so they get their excuse to do the same. Which is why we must never sink that low … … until we have to, of course (see Hitler and Poland, for example - it helps if their ‘violent’ action is widely recognised as such, not in reaction to others’ violence, and can only be remediated by physical resistance).

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