Brickbat: No Empathy

In California, officials at the Life Learning Academy have suspended Courtni Webb and are threatening to expel her. Webb authored a poem about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in which she wrote, "I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger." School officials say that violated their zero tolerance policy on violence or threats of violence.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

School officials say that violated their zero tolerance policy on violence or threats of violence.

I wonder how they'll stop her from coming back to class then.

[Zeb]

Good one.

[invisible furry hand]

officials at the Life Learning Academy have suspended Courtni Webb and are threatening to expel her

To be fair, that's a pretty useful lesson for life

[Ted S.]

The bullies aren't the fellow students; the bullies are the "responsible" adults.

Usually agents of the state, too, although with a name like "Life Learning Academy" I have a feeling this is a private school.

[invisible furry hand]

Nowhere did I suggest she was bullied by other students and that this was the lesson. Clearly the life lesson is that people in authority will abuse it.

[Ted S.]

I didn't mean to imply that's what you were suggesting.

It's just that we get story after story showing agents of the state being bullies. I don't know how many of them I've had to comment on and point this out.

Your comment was just a convenient spot in the thread to point this out. What with being at the top and all, it's not likely to get buried by a bunch of people going off on what guns they're buying.

[Heroic Mulatto]

It's a "reform school", actually, which might explain why they got their panties in a bunch.

[invisible furry hand]

Life Learning is located on Treasure Island, a former US Navy base that sits in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.

OMG, Kiddy Alcatraz!

[BuSab Agent]

Nah, TI is remarkably easy to escape from. The whole island is a pile of rock, dirt, and concrete connected to Yerba Buena Island through which runs the tunnel portion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Tunnel, so you can walk off the island if you don't mind dodging traffic. (I lived on Treasure Island in the early 80's)

[Fatty Bolger]

Yep.

The Life Learning Academy is a San Francisco Unified School District charter school serving high-school aged youth who have been involved in the juvenile justice system, or who face challenges including serious school failure, gang involvement, poverty, abuse, and substance abuse.

[JeremyR]

She also has a (faint) hitler mustache, I'm surprised they didn't expel her for that.

[invisible furry hand]

you know who else had a Hitler moustache...

[Whiterun Guard]

Frida Kahlo?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Doesn't count. Wasn't under her nose.

[Whiterun Guard]

Can I change my answer to Diego Rivera? Cause I'm pretty sure it was under his.

[heller]

Michael Jordan

[WTF]

"I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger."

How is that a threat of violence? Whe did she threaten? Where does she say that she intends to commit violence? This is idiotic.

[Matrix]

Honestly... just because you understand something or why someone does something does not necessarily mean you empathize with him/her or support what he/she did. It certainly does not mean you feel the same desire to do so.

[PS]

"For example, the only person I can think of would be like Stephen King. He writes weird stuff all the time. That doesn't mean he's gonna do it or act it out."

Not a bad analogy, actually, although expressed in a poor fashion. I'm sure being suspended will help her with eloquence.

[Drake]

I understand why Minutemen pulled their triggers at Concord and Lexington. Is that violence or threats of violence?

[Whiterun Guard]

Dude, they were soldiers. And, like cops, knights and barons, a protected class. They're allowed to kill whomever they want, so it's apples and tangelos.

[Radioactive]

NO,NO,NO...apples and nectarines; you idiot

[Whiterun Guard]

DAMMIT, I always get those mixed up.

[Jubal Harshaw]

Dude, they were soldiers.

Soldiers? Minutemen were teams of partisan militia.

[Whiterun Guard]

If they were militia they would have been arrested. History seems to invalidate your hypothesis.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Ok. For that you get a (Shake Dat) Ass on the Internet.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"Dude, they were soldiers."

No, they weren't.

[Whiterun Guard]

Please. They were state trained and state compelled. Many of them were paid by the state.

You can call them 'militia' all you want to, but they were soldiers.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The soldiers of the day had a dim view of the ability of the colonial militia. If they were soldiers, that would have been their career. They mustered regularly, yes; but they were, by definition, irregulars.

[Whiterun Guard]

They were sanctioned by the state*, so that is all that matters in allowing them to have weapons and kill people.

*Despite the fact that the state was in open rebellion against the other state.

I see your point, but I'm aping a progressive, not a military historian.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I see your point, but I'm aping a progressive, not a military historian.

You don't toy with the emotions of a grognard.:)

[robc]

I was only familiar with definition #2.

Good to know that #1 exists, it makes #2 make more sense.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Napoleonics! The heart of wargaming.

[Ted S.]

I only knew definition #1, and that the name came from Napoleon's soldiers.

Of course, I was never into the war boardgames.

[Whiterun Guard]

Obviously they've determined she's already completely indoctrinated, and there is no use to further educating her. Her vote is secure in perpetuity, therefore she is just taking up space in the class.

[Ted S.]

"I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger."

It was the violent video games wot done it!

[sarcasmic]

Would there have been a problem if she had empathized with murderous cops? I doubt it.

[Anomalous]

"I understand the killings in Connecticut. I know why he pulled the trigger."

This was a poem, right? What word did she use that rhymes with "trigger?"

[BuSab Agent]

Embigger?

[GILMORE]

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