Wait, wait, wait, hold on... different characters and different situation, to you, equals the exact same thing? Jaysus. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and American Psycho are the exact same thing by those standards. 0/10 back to criticism class

From a practical standpoint, I can sympathize with the school; they're not equipped to babysit a generation of desensitized and hyperstimulated children. On the other hand, from an equally practical standpoint, this was downright idiotic of them - it's an easy win lawsuit in most places, if the parents care enough to make a stink.

I'm not terribly upset by all this; it's easier to remove a source of conflict than to teach children not to be shitheads when their parents have been drilling shitheadedness into them for their whole life. But it's also sending very much the wrong message to all parties involved, and it's almost certainly illegal.

They've always been in the background, as little in-jokes, but now the writers are apparently ACTIVELY DOING A FRINGE CROSSOVER. I can only dream of someday having that kind of creative freedom.

[i]you're welcome[/i]

The good news is, you weren't. The bad news is, you completely failed to get it.

Sounds like playing as the horse from Shadow of the Colossus. Sounds good.

Sometimes, we have to face the unpleasant truth that people who identify with the same movements as we do can do awful things. Take anarchism, for instance: peaceful communes of equals living to respect one another under the same umbrella as nihilistic bomb-planting psychopaths. Or Christianity: the Crusades happened, but so have charity works to help the needy. Or, hell, bronies: plenty of charitable works and community, but there are some who are frankly unpleasant people. Do with that what you will, I suppose; plenty of people think refusing to be labelled will save them from association with people they don't like, for instance, while others maintain that they will not change who they are because some jerk over yonder thinks or enjoys similar things.

So online bullying is irrelevant to the discussion? : Feminism is incidental - it's an excuse to marginalize and harass in this instance. It could be swapped out with almost any ideology. There's nothing special about it. I brought it up as an example because tumblr's corrupted and witless version of it likes to brony bash. I'd rather not even call it feminism when it's them, but they want to be known as such. And their version is indeed about bullying people. Also, arguing about what happened in cases like this is the only way to start ending it - "it" here meaning the dehumanization of the "other," whoever the "other" might be.

Incidentally, I loathe that "feminism" has become a buzzword that signifies to most people that it's time to shut down their brain, take sides, and start posturing. It's ridiculous, and it's bad for social progress when nobody can talk reasonably about said social progress. Modern politics, I guess. Go hyperbolic or go home. I suppose that's what works, in the short term. Makes it difficult to identify as a feminist when I know an entire branch of the movement - inasmuch as it is a movement, which is I suppose debatable - wants to see me ostracized, mocked, and/or dead. Compared to the problems faced by people identifying as trans, of course, my occasional issues with certain branches of feminism are absolutely minor.

Of course they're not! Jesus, some of the most brilliant philosophers of our time have been feminists.

None of them, however, are the ones on tumblr bashing bronies.

Shit happens. I haven't had any food today, so I'm probably grumpier than normal, but here's my take: welcome to Dehumanization 101 - if you've got an ideology or opinion or belief or even just a thought, you're probably doing it and are convinced that you're both in the right and probably also the real victim! And apparently it's language's fault, or something. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129521.50...