Brickbat: I'm a Pepper

A student at Missouri's Liberty Middle School was suspended for three days, and his mother was advised to search his room, after he posted a photo online of Dr. Pepper cans he had laid in the shape of a rifle. "We have enough information to believe the video has caused fear to at least one student and understandably so," said Mountainview-Birch Tree School District Superintendent Lana Tharp. "The safety and well-being of our students is our top priority and we responded swiftly to address the concerns."

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

We have enough information to believe the video has caused fear to at least one student and understandably so...

"...as we've worked very hard to stoke irrational fears in our children."

[Vernon Depner]

Irrational fear has been one of the most destructive forces in our society for decades now. It started in earnest in the 1980s with the Kids On Milk Cartons and has become steadily worse, hitting a crescendo during COVID Fascism.

[Eeyore]

I think every generation has at least one nothing-burger panic. Covid really did take the prize for ridiculous response.

[Vernon Depner]

No, it really is getting steadily worse, and that's not an accident.

[Trollificus]

I dunno if it's any more deliberate than it was back in the days of the "Red Scare" or the "Negroes are gonna smoke marijuana and rape your grandmother" scares. I think they see an opportunity to be more universal and more convincing with their fearmongering and misinformation, using social media.

And that may be justified. The worst aspect of the more recent abuses is
A) The absence of even the pretense of "objective journalism" in Current Year news media. They used to teach it, and at least pay some lip service to the principle. Now...willing and eager propogandists and liars.

B) The use of sophisticated techniques taken from marketing and intelligence psy-ops to tear down the shared idea that truth exists, however hard it might be to discover. Very kafkaesque, to have misinformation organizations identify their opposition as the source of misinformation/disinformation.

C) There was, in the past, a critical mass of Americans who loved the country (if not, always, the government) and had a moral center that made them reluctant to lie, steal or cheat. Sadly, I don't feel enough citizens actually share that moral center today. Not saying there wasn't fraud, theft, scams, dishonesty, etc 'back in the day'...but you could count on most people to at least recognize it was wrong. Today...not so reliably.

[SRG2]

The one fundamental difference is that unlike all the other stokers of fear, Covid really did kill large numbers of people.

[swillfredo pareto]

Covid really did kill large numbers of people.

A very specific and identified demographic was at risk. The point is not how many people died with Covid, it is the irrational, unconstitutional and broad responses, designed to stoke fear and make people easier to control. Same as the school here.

[Vernon Depner]

It contributed to the deaths of some old, infirm people who would have been dead soon anyway. Many of those deaths were further hastened by inappropriate treatments or denial of effective treatment or prevention. And, many deaths from other causes were falsely attributed to COVID. It was never an unusual threat to the general public. Just like children being kidnapped by strangers was never a significant threat.

[Don't look at me!]

The one fundamental difference is that unlike all the other stokers of fear, Covid really did kill large numbers of people.

Can’t be, we had masks and 100% safe and effective “vaccines”.

[Idaho-Bob]

You mean the virus created in Chinese lab, funded by Fauci? That killer of large numbers of people?

[Incunabulum]

Well, actually, it didn't, but you go on.

[Eeyore]

"CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story contained a Facebook post from the Mountain View/Birch Tree School District. It referenced a different incident and not the one mentioned in this story. It has been removed from this story."

Apparently posting pictures of soda cans is a reoccurring problem for this school district. Someone needs to make sure the stick they diddle themselves with isn't still shoved up their ass when they go to work the next day.

[r]

We have nothing to fear but . . . kids making rifles out of pop cans.

[Wizard4169]

No one needs high-capacity assault soda.

[EscherEnigma]

Hey, they got to train them young to fear vaguely gun-shaped things. You never know which of them might grow up to be a cop, and they need to know how to see a gun any and everywhere, regardless of whether it exists.

[Michael P]

According to the story, the kid arranged the soda cans into the shape of an AK-47 rifle specifically. It's actually impressive that he would be able to distinguish it from similar-looking long arms. His skill and attention to detail should be rewarded, not punished!

[Chumby]

I’d call it an AKM given the soda can optic on top and the original -47 variant was absent of that. But given media’s poor track record on these, including calling Act Blue donor number two’s Bubba-ed SKS an AR15, and AK47, and ostensibly an AR47 it isn’t surprising.

[Eeyore]

Thank god he didn’t take a picture of a toy gun and post it online. The fear could have caused actual fatalities.

Are toy guns illegal yet?

[Chumby]

Iirc, a student in Maryland hot suspended for chewing his sandwich into the shape of a gun.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

It was a 23 caliber

[Chumby]

Sunset the taxpayer coerced funding of the public education industrial complex. Today. Let each parent decide how many trannies they want in the incorrect restroom and how many students that chew a sandwich in the shape of a gun should be suspended. If the school doesn’t meet their standards, then the parents take their kid and their checkbook to a different school.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

I blame Gibby Haynes

[Jerry B.]

Nah. That's a model of a wrecked train made up of petroleum tanker cars, and a protest against Big Oil.

[Chumby]

Thankfully, the soda cans were not used to make a confederate general statue.

[Chipper Chunked Chile Con Congress (ex NCW)]

"I'm withdrawing my child from this 'school'. It is clearly run by complete fucking morons, and I doubt their ability to teach anything."

[BikeRider]

Instead of a pop can rifle sculpture, he should have painted "kill everybody" across his face. Based on college football, that's just cool instead of frightening.

[Social Justice is neither]

Were they afraid of a soda pop pop pop attack on school grounds?

[John F. Carr]

A high school in my area notified parents that children were looking at a picture of an Airsoft gun at school. I think one of them even said the g-word. We need a Junior ROTC program.

[mad.casual]

his mother was advised to search his room

“Fuck off, slaver.”

Seriously, this part makes me want to slit throats. I don’t disagree that the rest is drifting outside of lanes, but somebody complains to the Principal or admins, the complainer isn't going to accept no reaction and could/would just escalate.

But 'you need to search your child's room' is 100% straight up ‘presumption of guilt’, ‘illegal search and seizure’, ‘fuck your autonomy’, ‘not only does your kid belong to us but you as proxy’, ’90-degree turn out of the path of travel’ bullshit.

I’d almost want to reply on social media that “I did a search of the whole house and this is what I found.” and post a pic of a turned up mattress, empty beer cans, spent cartridges, guns, porn, and the promo and/or campaign materials of whatever admin wrote the promo material with hearts drawn on it and say “You should’ve stayed in your lane. Now the ball’s in your court you oppressive, wannabe-totalitarian motherfucker.”

[Uncle Jay]

"The safety and well-being of our students is our top priority and we responded swiftly to address the concerns."

She's right.
Just look at how many people have been killed by cans lined up looking like a rifle have been killed in the past few days alone.

[markm23]

WHY do we let people like this anywhere near children?

If there's an actual child who was frightened of an arrangement of pop cans, they need therapy, badly. But the adults who either took this fear seriously or (more likely) created it should be institutionalized. Those who hired them should be fired and barred from ANY supervisory role, including assistant night manager at McDonalds. Any school that ever gave them a degree or diploma should be investigated for how they could pass someone so devoid of reasoning ability and so delusional, and shut down unless it is found that these graduates developed their psychiatric symptoms after graduated.

[TangoDelta]

Anonymous complaint so you can't confront your accuser. Check!
Distinct lack of due process. Check!
Authoritarian punishment without a real remedy. Check!

So literally a red flag law for middle school. Oh wait, maybe it's a red can law.