Boy sent home because of hat.

MA-Caver

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Ok this is just about as stupid as stupid does on a school's ZERO tolerance as you can get.
A child given a project to show patriotism has a ball cap and those plastic army soldiers glued onto it along with the American Flag... He wears it to school and is sent home because the soldiers on the hat have guns.
I cannot even PHANTOM just how this would be construed as dangerous or even harmful.
Kids know soldiers fight, they know they fight with GUNS... the green army men have long since been molded into ONE PIECE with guns... the army men represent (typically) U.S. soldiers because they're molded in green (or lately tan colored) plastic.
Watch the video and be appalled as I was.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/toy-soldiers-run-afoul-of-school-s-weapons-ban-20386822

I mean give me a friggin break here.
 

elder999

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Ok this is just about as stupid as stupid does on a school's ZERO tolerance as you can get.
A child given a project to show patriotism has a ball cap and those plastic army soldiers glued onto it along with the American Flag... He wears it to school and is sent home because the soldiers on the hat have guns.
I cannot even PHANTOM just how this would be construed as dangerous or even harmful.
Kids know soldiers fight, they know they fight with GUNS... the green army men have long since been molded into ONE PIECE with guns... the army men represent (typically) U.S. soldiers because they're molded in green (or lately tan colored) plastic.
Watch the video and be appalled as I was.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/toy-soldiers-run-afoul-of-school-s-weapons-ban-20386822

I mean give me a friggin break here.

You still think you live in America? That place doesn't exist anymore......
 

MJS

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What a bunch of paranoid *******s. Amazing, really amazing. Nothing wrong with what the kid did, but its the paranoid teachers that are worried about the message that its supposedly sending. I mean really, isnt there something more pressing than this, that they should be worrying about?
 

baron

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You still think you live in America? That place doesn't exist anymore......
It sure is not the America I was born and raised in. Man we all had play guns as kids and we survived. Father had all kinds of guns in house and he taught us gun safety and how to be responsible for our actions.
 
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MA-Caver

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It sure is not the America I was born and raised in. Man we all had play guns as kids and we survived. Father had all kinds of guns in house and he taught us gun safety and how to be responsible for our actions.
Same here and as an older teenager I learned from professional gun-safety instructors as well.
They let a few outweigh the many and think that every kid has the potential of being another Columbine type attacker. Yes it has happened in other schools or other students got caught before they could initiate their own reign of terror among their classmates but, uh... how many millions of students are in below college level schools today?
Recognizing the signs of students who are becoming disturbed/distraught helps ward off many potential shooting incidents. Recognizing signs by both educators (teachers and school staff) and parents.
 

Carol

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Rhode Island schools just...suck. 5 of the 6 New England states are "better than average" or "much better than average" for education. RI is "worse than average".

Then there's Central Falls, RI. Teachers are getting paid $70-80K per annum to work 9 months a year can't produce kids that can pass a damn test...and they think its unreasonable that they be fired over such a minor detail.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/central_falls_meeting.1_03-24-10_DPHSMAF_v14.3b316d7.html

Then there was this stunning display of sportsmanship...by both the players AND the fans...demonstrating that violence is an acceptable way to end a one-sided sports matchup, at least if its a championship.

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_wpri_providence_high_school_girls_soccer_brawl_20091109_BRT

Way to represent, Little Rhody :rolleyes:
 

Blade96

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christ, we had play guns, play knives, baseball bats, and nunchucks when my bro and i were small. nothing happened to us. seriously, wtf....
 

Bob Hubbard

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True, but the PC craps getting crazier.

If I was a school kid today, I'd have been expelled as a sexual predator because I used to be a hugger, a drug pusher because I would bring asprin for my headaches, or arrested as a violent terrorist because I'm a computer geek who once hacked the school lab computers and wrote a wargames sim.

Never mind saluting the Obama logo some insisted on...I used to sit and read Star Trek during the indoctrination loyalty oath, err I mean "Pledge". I also hung out with religious fanatics and plotted war with them (bible club and chess club were the same folks).

I mighta been executed for arms dealing after all the finger guns and bang-bang motions I did.

Yeah, its nuts. Now remember to pack your kid with at least 6" of approved foam padding, that their helmet and body pads are correctly installed, and that you've removed their independence circuit prior to sending to school.
 

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Remember kids: pretending things like poverty, racism, and pollution don't exist won't make them go away, but pretending that guns don't exist will totally work.

That needs to be a bumper sticker or something.
 

Empty Hands

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True, but the PC craps getting crazier.

I don't think political correctness (whatever that is) is even really part of it. We are in the middle of a paradigm shift in the way that children are perceived, raised, and the expectations and values put on them.

Some parts of it, like the hysteria over sex offenders, looks exactly like a widespread moral panic. Maybe the rest of it is part of that moral panic as well. I'm not that old, and even the things my parents let me do at a particular age would be considered irresponsible now - and my mother was very protective! For lack of a better way to describe it, children are considered more "precious" now, and it reverberates into all areas of society.

The craziness at the schools is merely amplified because that is an area of our society solely concerned with children, which reflects the attitudes of the parents which are a big part of the school system. The schools also have the lawsuit culture that intersects with the changing views on children to produce even more nonsense.

The thing of it is, these shifts and these widespread social panics are nothing new. The topic just changes. In the 80's there was a huge moral panic over Satanism, when there was no real evidence that it even existed. There was panic and hysteria over communism for decades before. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was widespread hysteria and fear, particularly in the South, over what blacks were up to - rise in a slave rebellion or marry your daughter, and no one knew which was worse.

We are strange creatures.
 

Tez3

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Maybe he shouldn't have glued real guns on the soldiers..............
 

The Game

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Soldiers are bad. They have guns and kill people. Everyone should get rid of their guns. Then there would be no need for guns. Because no one ever died before there were guns.

Hold on a sec, I need a few more hits from this bong.

Maybe a couple cracks to the head too.

Ok, and this shot of Jack.

Ok, back to guns r badd.


I hope you people get the sarcasm here. I might lose respect if you don't.
 

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Did the school overreact? Possibly, but we can choose to try to understand the position rather than just dismissing it as stupidity.

The project was on patriotism, not militarization. Many Americans don't understand that positioning those two importantly distinctive things together can be, well, problematic. You don't have to support increased military action and military spending in order to support your country. You can support the flag without the need for a soldier with it.

Frankly, many people around the world find this unabashed reverance for the military a little chilling. You find this type of meshing of national pride and military might in North Korea and China and the USA, but not in France or Germany or Denmark or Canada.
 
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MA-Caver

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Did the school overreact? Possibly, but we can choose to try to understand the position rather than just dismissing it as stupidity.

The project was on patriotism, not militarization. Many Americans don't understand that positioning those two importantly distinctive things together can be, well, problematic. You don't have to support increased military action and military spending in order to support your country. You can support the flag without the need for a soldier with it.

Frankly, many people around the world find this unabashed reverance for the military a little chilling. You find this type of meshing of national pride and military might in North Korea and China and the USA, but not in France or Germany or Denmark or Canada.
That may be true but America's might has not only been industrial and population and our basic freedoms but our military strength as well. The Red in our flag represents the blood that was shed for many to maintain those freedoms we hold so dear.
This website gives one interpretation of the colors...
http://www.funmunch.com/events/usflagday/colors.shtml Charles Thompson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, reporting to Congress on the Seal, stated: "White signifies purity and innocence,
Red, hardiness & valor,
and Blue . . . vigilance, perseverance & justice."
For me valor is the aforementioned blood shed, (dunno about the white however :rolleyes: )

This other website (among many) has this explanation
http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-flag/usa-flag-meaning.html
The colors also have some meanings in the flag. The color red is symbol of courage , enthusiasm, valor, blood and life. Then the color blue represents the azure sky and symbolizes the respect for God . The white color in the USA flag on the other hand means the purity and peace .
So military is important part of who we are. That which we are ready to defend. I do support our military but not ALWAYS the causes in which they've been sent to fight.
 

Tez3

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Did the school overreact? Possibly, but we can choose to try to understand the position rather than just dismissing it as stupidity.

The project was on patriotism, not militarization. Many Americans don't understand that positioning those two importantly distinctive things together can be, well, problematic. You don't have to support increased military action and military spending in order to support your country. You can support the flag without the need for a soldier with it.

Frankly, many people around the world find this unabashed reverance for the military a little chilling. You find this type of meshing of national pride and military might in North Korea and China and the USA, but not in France or Germany or Denmark or Canada.

Reading this I was thinking that's a damn good point, I for one hadn't thought of it this way. Tbh I hadn't seen it as anything other than Americans love for weapons which is actually how many see America. It is seen as a militaristic state with the people in love with their guns more than anything else. Now whether this is a true perception or not, is a different matter of course.
 

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