After columbine my school banned all black clothing. And forbid boys picking up sticks in case we used them to pretend they where weapons.
I remember something about trench coats. Then those got banned.
Guns were never banned though!
I’ve seen security in European schools. Usually in the morning, due to congestion traffic concerns.
A MAGA IMMIGRANT in Amsterdam? ewww, I wish we could close our borders to the likes of them.
Their Insta now says they’ve moved back to the States permanently. And also that their pronouns are they/them, which is super baffling next to “MAGA.”
They haven’t figured out that the entire movement that’s their entire personality hates people like them?
That’s hilariously sad!
I like how Lily tells us she’s not worth bothering with in her username.
You know what would be weird? A president of USA doing anything that trump’s doing…
I’m not sure yall get the joke. It’s funny cause 13- 17 year old angsty males in the us have unlimited access to military grade weapons. These bitch ass losers, I mean kids, then take these arms, designed to take out isis and sudam and murder a bunch of 5 year olds with them. Do you get it now?? It’s hilarious ! ♥️♥️😂 🤩 ♥️ 🔥🔥🔥
This thread is Poe’s Law-ing the shit out of me
No, no, no. These weapons pale in comparison to basic infantry in the modern military. Not only are they way overkill for anything a law abiding citizen should ever need for recreation, they would also be useless in the case of a 2nd Amendment related coup of the corrupt government.
Are you saying an AR-15 can’t take out an attack helicopter at 2000m??
This was a troll account. It was a Dutch guy pretending to be MAGA to point out how arrogant Europeans are. He succeed thoroughly
Is it arrogance when you’re just correct?
When its all made up? Yes. Yes it is
What’s made up? That the US has school cops and Europe doesn’t?
Im not sure which bits would be getting made up in response to this. Americans need hella security because school shootings are real. Europeans need minimal security because they simply aren’t. Its a risk assessment thing. I dont think any of our schools, either side of the pond, are secure against ICBM attacks, because theyre unlikely to actually happen.
I meant the entire post history of the troll. I followed their page early on and anyone complaining like this wouldn’t go to Europe in the first place. Its false outrage about topics anyone who’s left the country would never complain about being in the Netherlands
“Expat” is my favourite dog whistle. Because “migrant” is only used for brown people, or other undesirable minorities for racists.
From my own experience as an immigrant in The Netherlands and Britain, “expat” is generally used by Americans and Brits when living abroad and pretty much nobody else no matter what their skin tone. I mean, I’ve seen on or two Ozzies using it but it’s way rarer with them and I suspect they were just copying the Brits and Americans. The New Zeelanders I crossed paths with weren’t “expats” and neither were the Canadians. Similarly I never heard any of the other Europeans immigrants there refering to themselves as “expats”.
I think “expat” is more a thing of people who thing they come from a “great country”, as if somehow it’s a priviledge for the other country to have them there.
I think “expat” is more a thing of people who thing they come from a “great country”, as if somehow it’s a priviledge for the other country to have them there.
This is it. If you move from a “better country” to a “worse country” you are an expat (because you think you are something better than the lower people you live among). If you move from a “worse country” to a “better country” you are labelled as a migrant (by the “better” people you live among).
Well, in my experience it’s the immigrants themselves doing it and never the locals.
Further, even in a poorer European country like Portugal I’ve never heard say, Germans or French calling themselves “expats” even though those are much more wealthy nations - it’s pretty much only Brits and Americans living there who speak of themselves as “expats”.
I think the use of expat is specifically a thing for people from countries were national delusions of grandeur are widespread (which I know for sure from direct experience is the case in the UK and seems to very much be the case in the US) rather than merelly the coutry of origin of the migrant being “better” than the host country.
Also these experiences of mine I’ve mentioned are in some cases from way back in the 90s - this shit was already done over 2 decades ago well before the recent anti-immigration sentiment in the West.
I would have said the two words are different by perspective. An “expat” is talking about where you’re from. An “immigrant” is talking about where you are. Also, if you start talking about 2nd generation immigrants, then “expat” can’t be used at all, which means it is narrower in scope, too.
I know there’s some opinions on this, but I would consider this to be the case. Many people don’t have so much pride in their origins to consider using a term like expat, then there’s Americans, who’s entire identity is based on where they were born.
So it makes sense that someone from America living in another country would identify as an American expat, while everyone else is just, immigrated to where they are. Not enough focus on what country they came from to bother with an expat definition.
Makes me think that American expats are looking backwards, while other immigrants are looking forwards.
In my experience people will use “immigrant” to talk about were they’re from by referring their nationality (i.e. “I’m a Portuguese immigrant”) or explicitly adding a “from” and then using the country name (i.e. “I’m an immigrant from Portugal”).
If talking about where they’re an immigrant in, they will explicitly use “in” (i.e. “I’m an immigrant in The Netherlands”).
Even though “emmigrant” is about where you were born and aren’t living in anymore and “immigrant” is about were you went to, in my experience emmigrant is only ever used when physically in one’s country of original and talking about living elsewhere (i.e. when in Portugal I would say “I’m an emigrant” whilst when in The Netherlands I would say “I’m an immigrant”).
It’s funny since as I’m writting this I remembered that when I first left my country of birth to go live abroad it actually took me a while to figure out the proper usage of the whole immigrant/emmigrant thing.
As I said, I was an immigrant in The Netherlands and worked often with other immigrants from all over there (mainly because until I learned Dutch I could only work in English-speaking environments and in my area - software engineering - those attracted immigrants), and most people would use “immigrant” when talking about were they came from (i.e. “I’m a French immigrant”) and I only ever heard expat used instead of immigrant by people from Anglo-Saxon nations, overwhelmingly Brits and Americans.
That said, “expat” was used as a single word combining both “immigrant” and “emigrant” - in other words, unlike with the immigrant/emmigrant pair, the single word expat is valid both when one is physically on one’s country of origin and when one is physically in one’s host country: when I lived in Britain I did hear Britons saying that they were “expats” and meaning it as “living elsewhere than Britain”.
And yeah, 2nd generation don’t call themselves expats, but they also don’t call themselves immigrants. It’s only people from outside talking in general about people who are the direct descendants of immigrants in a country who will use “2nd generation immigrants” for the groups as a whole. Calling somebody who is a national of that country and has immigrant parents “an immigrant” in that country is only ever used as an insult by Far-Right extremists.
She has “MAGA” in her display name. Why listen for dogwhistles when there’s a red alert siren?
BTW I had several teachers that described themselves as expats from the UK or US, and they were alright.
There is technically a difference in the definition, but mostly people use it exactly as you’re describing.
I’ve really had to catch myself when I notice myself using it.
But honestly it’s so expected that people can get confused when you call yourself an immigrant (and you aren’t doing it to make yourself a martyr somehow).
I hate the word for the reasons you’ve said, but I know a lot of black Americans in Portugal that refer to themselves as expats.
Feels to me that the line is drawn along economic privilege lines rather than simply race.
“No war but the class war” strikes again
There’s also this level of like, still identifying as being primarily of the country they’re from, like a rejection of assimilation into the place they’ve moved to. I’m not saying that’s inherently good or bad, but, it’s an interesting dynamic, and an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.
an option that a lot of immigrants don’t have.
Especially when a lot of the same type of people will throw a fit if an ‘immigrant’ doesn’t do everything they can to assimilate.
Because these people think they are “better”. So when a wild barbaric immigrant shows up, they want that person to assimilate, but when they move among the unwashed lower folks, they don’t want to assimilate themselves, because it would be a step down in their eyes.
(I am talking about their view, which I very much despise, just as a clarification)
Wherever white people get mad at black people you hear the word “thug” thrown out a lot and i always wonder if they’re just using that word to substitute another one they’re not allowed to use publicly.
For us latinos it’s immigrant.
The truth hurts.
Shots fired
I remember the exact day they closed up the college with fences and the look on the face on the children who started to feel like prisoners. I also remember the day they started to locked all doors but one to inconvenience potential invaders in high school forcing surveillance on who’s coming and who going on grown teens.
Have you heard of “induced demand” courtesy of the FuckCars community?
Well, the same applies to violence.
If you have police on campus people subconsciously expect violence. It’s a self-fullfilling prophecy. The more security theatre you add, the more actual security you’ll need.
Normalizing shootings by giving them such media attention also doesn’t help, if the prospective shooter craves it. Neither does the fact that it occupies a large part of the US public consciousness.
Some kids do it because others have already, and because school shootings are such a hot media topic.
Why is this a picture of grass?
That’s where the fence goes
metal detectors and xray scanning of backpacks made me feel like I was going to prison lol
Honestly I believe it’s to train the younger generation to accept a police state and continuous surveillance.
I think the most security I ever had was the gates being locked between opening and closing times. This was during primary school. Britain sucks but at least it’s not America.
I can’t imagine going to school like that bro.
Like is it scary and you always wonder if some lunatic is going to come and shoot it up or no?
A lot of this is overblown really. A few things:
- The vast majority of school kids in the US will never deal with an active shooter situation.
- 43% of school shooters in the US are themselves active students
- Only 20% of school shooting perpetrators had no affiliation to the school, meaning that ~37% of shooters were former students, teachers, or parents.
- From 1999 - 2023 there were a total of 131 school shootings, but in 2024 alone there were a reported 332 school shootings.
- These are some terrible numbers, but statistically it’s a rare thing. There are approximately 130,000 K-12 schools in the US and ~75 million students per year. If we assume all schools have the same chance of having a school shooting (they don’t) they would have a 0.2% chance that your school will have a shooting that year or 4% chance that in your k-12 years that you would be at a school shooting.
When people talk about school security in the US they often don’t consider how litigious and risk adverse the US is. You don’t lock doors, build fences, and hire security guards to protect from such a small risk chance, if they actually cared there would be a greater emphasis on mental health. No, they do these things to minimize risk, lower insurance rates, and ward off lawsuits.
The defense writes itself,
“Hey, you can’t sue us for your child’s trauma, we did everything we reasonably could to ensure that a shooter couldn’t get into the school. We built a fence, we locked the doors, we made the kids wear clear plastic book bags, we used a metal detector, we hired a guard, we expelled kids who made threats, and we called the police on people who aren’t allowed to be here. If a kid then sneaks a 3D printed plastic gun on site and traumatizes the students it’s not the school systems fault.”
The US is crazy litigious, especially if a government entity is involved and someone might get a pay day. In my area a high school girl and some similarly aged boys ran away from school while at recess to a forest a mile or two off site. The girl then said she was sexually assaulted by the two boys, called her mom and was picked up and taken to the hospital directly (never came back to the school). The school had reported the girl missing, but only found out about the sexual assault after the mother filed a police report and the police reached out. The school cooperated with the police and reached out to the girl and her mother asking if she was ok or there was anything they could do, but the mother refused to answer their (the schools) phone calls or cooperate with the police. A year later the mother sued the school, the school system, the municipal government, and the police each for several million dollars for allowing her daughter to run away from school and for not protecting her from sexual assault in an offsite location. This lawsuit went on for over a year before the judge dismissed the case.
Oh cool.
Can you give us the statistics for school shootings in Europe so I can compare?
Dude, don’t start bring out statistics sticking up for america in the school shooting department. I can’t figure out your reasoning to defend American on this topic.
You don’t seem to have read my post…
I read it. You’re saying generally, “it’s not as bad as it looks.”
That’s not the take away you should be getting by any means. Yes, school shootings are more common in the US than the rest of the world, but they are statistically very very rare in the US. The reason why schools in the US react so dramatically for such a rare event is because they are trying to protect themselves from liability and lawsuit, not because they are trying to protect students or help troubled kids.
I mean, I also worry about getting beat up by bullies… 🤷♂️ (its whatever, at least dying form gunshot wound is a cooler way to die than getting kicked in the face, luckily for me, neither happened (although the bullying definitely did happen, just not as violent as I imagine it could be))
I’m sorry you have to go through that bro.
What I learnt about bullies is once you smack them in the face most of them will think twice before bullying you again.
Bullying is often in the form of low-level violence combined with verbal and other forms of harassment committed repeatedly by folks who enjoy it.
There is little hope of beating it at the same level of intensity and for reasons of culture and not prosecuting thousands of kids adults avoid dealing with low intensity harm between kids even when over time it is intolerable. Beating up the bully requires one to be capable of such when the bully may be larger and physically imposing and part of a group then not getting treated as the guilty party afterward for being the one who actually caused real harm as if the harm of years of harassment aren’t real.
Its great your solution worked for you but for lots it would mean bully and friends get to beat you without consequence and you get in trouble reinforcing the game.
Its quite frankly on average a bs solution. The actual one is to pay attention to who is a pos and kick the 1% worst pos to shit schools so 99% can learn in peace.
Beating up the bully requires one to be capable of such when the bully may be larger and physically imposing and part of a group then not getting treated as the guilty party afterward
I was small for my age up until 10th grade. Bullies would look at how small I was and decide I was an easy target, so they would start in on me. One thing you have to realize is that bullies aren’t bullies because they are tough and good at fighting, they pick on the smallest, ‘weakest’ kids they can find- so being a great fighter isn’t nearly as important as being willing to fight back in the first place. The point isn’t to beat them up, it’s to make them think twice about picking on you. If there is a chance they will get hurt, even if they end up winning the fight, they will always just move on to the next victim who wont fight back.
Between 5th grade and 10th grade I got into 1 fight every year. A kid who didn’t know me would try to bully me, and I would defend myself. I never lost a fight, not because I was a badass or anything, but the teachers would break up the fights before it progressed too far. I would always get in trouble with the school, but never with my parents who taught me it was ok to defend myself (but not start fights). When word got around that about the fight, I wouldn’t get picked on the rest of the school year. When the next year rolled around it was either a new student, or I was the new student. Someone who didn’t know me basically who would try to bully me.
You just have to ask yourself- would you rather accept the bullying and allow it to continue, or risk getting beat up by fighting back and getting in trouble- but putting a stop to it.
Perhaps I should have highlighted that it’s not a viable option for everybody.
I would say that your solution is also pretty shitty. As bad as bullies are many of them are doing because either they’re getting bullied / hit at home and so they act out in this way or have other issues.
I don’t think sticking them all together is the solution, we should be trying to understand why someone is doing that and see if we can make positive changes. When I say we I mean the education system.
I’m tired of having empathy for pieces of shit 99.5% of people aren’t trash and we would be better on average if we dropped them in the bin.
Yea schools will always side with the bully or just look at the one incident in isolation not as a pattern of abuse.
Also the school system just doesn’t work, like one time I reported a kid for talking about bringing a gun to school and it got turned around to ME threatening to bring a gun to school. Then that was a whole feasco that me and my parents had to deal with.
Well that I did. I defended myself against a bully who started a fight with me, then the school admin sided with the bully and call the cops on me. Luckily my mother naturalized as a US Citizen so I, being under 18, derived Citizenship status form my mother, and so I was safe from potential deportations, but like jesus christ wtf.
Fuck that school admin. ACAB.
The fact that you can even be considered for deportation over that is so dumb. That’s a child, like not an adult with adult capacity.
Well to be fair, no formal deportation procedures were ever initiated, so idk if that was actually possible (but had I not been a Citizen, it would’ve shown up in the files if I went through naturalization, so the USCIS Officer could potentially use that to determine “Crimes of Moral Turpitute” or that it indicates bad “Moral Character” and try to delay or deny naturalization, so it really depends on if you roll the dice and get a Obama appointed USCIS officer, or a trump appointed one). But that was during trump term 1 so I already got a bit paranoid. trump term 2 definitely would’ve attempted to use that as an excuse.
It’s sad that the school did that and sided with the bully, but at least you stood your ground.
It’s shocking that teachers over there seem so quick to call the cops which is sure to escalate any situation. We had fights in school in the UK and never had cops called. Maybe that’s changed now with knives and stuff, but 🤷♂️
I’m in the US. Got a text from my son, 12th grade, the other day at 12:09pm that said, “we just had our sixth fight today”
To clarify, he did mean 6th of the day, not the school year. He goes to the worst highschool in the area. Anyone with the capabilities gets their kids in a different school. We do not have those abilities. On the upside, he’s learning how to avoid conflict and enjoying his phlebotomy class. He’ll even be a certified phlebotomist by the end of the year (assuming his teacher can get access to funding for supplies that she’s currently disappearing from her hospital job)!
*I’m donating blood tomorrow at the local bank. Usually donate a few times a year, but scheduled for tomorrow for a specific reason. I have name and phone number of his teacher, and a list of supplies. I’m donating now to give me an excuse to ask for a supply donation from the blood bank. It’s a long shot, but the answer is always no when you don’t ask 🤷♀️
How big is the ocean between Europe and Russia?
