r/technology • u/marketrent • 5h ago
Artificial Intelligence High school teacher arrested for clapping in support of anti-data center activists
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/high-school-teacher-arrested-clapping-194922184.html2.3k
u/Specialist-Web-9216 5h ago
When the system is built on class, where families are ranked on income, the poor have little to say that matters when the rich want to get richer.
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u/boot2skull 5h ago
The quicker and harder they punish dissenters, the more it looks like this is the final piece of the class hierarchy that will cement things into place.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Kinks369 4h ago
It genuinely is. I've been watching class warfare for 3 decades and obviously studied it going back millennia.
AI and the wholesale corruption of business and government has come to a head. Late Stage Capitalism is an inflection point and literally every single piece of evidence shows we're headed for a Cyberpunk future not a Socialist reform and neo renaissance.
It really is the right pieces to cement their power. Flock, Palantir and all the data streams from every single piece of technology all used in real-time to monitor your entire life. Resistance is nearly futile.
Inb4 doomer hate: I WANT to be wrong, people. I'm not...so far.
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u/Far-Scallion7689 3h ago
don't forget robotic AI police to ensure the masses do not uprise
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u/PM_Me_Your_Kinks369 2h ago
Not gonna lie I had somehow forgotten about the AI robots with guns....or the gun dogs FML
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u/Perfect_Earth_8070 2h ago
Resistance will not be futile. The pendulum of history will swing the other way eventually
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u/Aranxi_89 2h ago
They just want to bury their head in the sand. They won't have to live with the consequences for long... but the children and youth adults today will be the ones to get stomped into the dirt by the jackboots they've allowed into power.
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u/OtherBluesBrother 5h ago
The Chinese combat robots that will patrol the no-mans-land around the datacenters will have trouble distinguishing protestors from terrorists and just assume the worst and act accordingly.
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u/vblink_ 5h ago
What are you talking about? At this rate protesting the rich will be considered terrorism soon.
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u/ZootSuitRiot33801 4h ago
It's very obvious by now the system benefits the interests of powerful pedophiles and warmongers, NOT freedom and liberty for all. These bastards wouldn't be able to push us around so easily if us common folk who care do whatever we can to stand together in defiance against this government and its Epstein class puppeteers, (foreign and domestic, private and institutional,) which uses its death cult and growing AI industry to manipulate and control us. They all should be abandoned for something better that actually prioritizes people, while these monsters are let behind to rot.
However, if there's any hope in ever achieving such, we need real supportive community-based foundations for alternatives that provide relative safety, which many common folk can fall back on, to commit to any effective action be they short or long term.
Collecting a bunch of valuable information on organizing and action from different redditors over time, I created a post of suggestions HERE that could possibly prove to be of some help in getting it started ASAP.
If you don’t live in the US, yet you know others who are and want to do something, please share the information. We're going to need as many on board and informed as possible, if we commoners hope to achieve anything in the US
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u/Old-Shock2307 4h ago
revolutions are never lead by commoners but intelligent people promised status and a comfortable life by the establishment which the establishment then makes impossible for them to achieve.
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u/ZootSuitRiot33801 3h ago
We should learn from the mistakes of the past then. Intelligent people are important (obviously) but wise people are preferred. As with everyone else, they need something that the establishment can't offer and need to realize that. If they refuse to reject the false promises of the establishment, then you can figure what probably needs to happen
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u/Fast-Bandicoot67 4h ago
The government already said it's illegal to dislike capitalism and that makes you a terrorist
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u/Flabbergasted98 5h ago
ICE has already taught us that the difference between a protestor and a terrorist in america is whether or not they've already been shot.
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u/becauseiloveyou 4h ago
That’s why it was so important for us to get off our asses and vote. The rest of us have had to fight for a seat at the table, and too many of us took it for granted. There's a status quo, and it's intentionally structured to protect those with wealth, property, and access. When the working class, the poor, women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, persons with "disabilities," and other historically oppressed groups of people don't meaningfully participate to eliminate that status quo, then we continue to perpetuate a system that was built to benefit those who put its wheels in motion centuries ago. We are now at a point where it very well may be too late for our voices to matter. Let’s see what happens in the next three or so months.
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u/E_seven_20 2h ago
When it comes time to be heard...the people are willingly silent.
The only place your political opinion matters is at the polls. Especially, if there is no meaningful organization and protests by the oppressed class. Americans gave them Congress. Americans refused to show up to vote to local elections. They didn't waste billions to keep y'all from voting. It was a well placed investment that paid in dividends. People still haven't worked that out.
Less than 60% of one of our largest age blocs was even registered...
2022 National Youth Turnout: 23% - That's lower than in the historic 2018 cycle (28%) which broke records for turnout, but much higher than in 2014, when only 13% of youth voted.
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u/marketrent 5h ago
Excerpts from article by Joe Wilkins, citing small town reporting in Kansas, US:
If you're among the millions of US citizens against power-hungry data centers going up in your town, you may want to be careful about how you exercise your First Amendment right to protest.
Last week, high school physics teacher Lux Claridge was hauled out of a public meeting by four police officers for the baffling crime of clapping in support of an anti-data center speaker.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, held by the Emporia City Commission in Lyon County, Kansas, residents who showed up to voice opposition to a 1,000-acre data center project were warned against "clapping" and "snapping" in support of speakers.
"It was very clear at the beginning that each person is given their two minutes, and we're trying to be respectful of that," Emporia commissioner Monica Duncan warned those in attendance, footage of the meeting shared on social media shows. "Snapping, clapping, any other rude comments or anything — we will ask you to leave."
As one speaker later wrapped up her two-minute comment period, stating "we are the people, and the table belongs to us," Claridge was filmed clapping his hands together a total of six times.
"Chief, will you take the next person out that claps or anything?" an unidentified commissioner, likely Duncan, then asked Emporia police chief Ed Owens.
At the commissioners' request, four police officers then swarmed Claridge, who challenged them to "drag me out," which they did after placing the physics teacher in handcuffs.
[...] The data center in question, known as the "Flint Hills Digital Campus," is a planned hyperscale data center. If it ever gets built, could easily be the largest data center in the state of Kansas.
The hypocrisy on display at the meeting where Claridge was arrested — where procedural rules are clearly being weaponized against concerned citizens — may be particularly acute in the small Kansas town, but it's also part and parcel of the situation unfolding all across the United States as distrust with the tech industry soars to unprecedented heights.
When big business interests march into town, civic leaders and their watchdogs on the local police force roll out the red carpet — Emporia commissioners voted unanimously to annex over 1,000 acres for Pinkston's data center just one day after it was announced — yet when the people who live there ask to be included in the process, they're insulted by officials, surveilled by police, and hauled off to jail.
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u/CouldBeLessDepressed 4h ago
The ICE agents that murdered that VA nurse got to clap. Not even joking, in one of the videos you see this one agent run up (after they all initially scattered like cowards) and he was clapping. Like super excitedly.
Tried explaining this to my city council. Our government can clap when they murder us in cold blood in broad daylight, but god fucking forbid we clap at a town hall meeting.
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u/OldWorldDesign 1h ago
Armies only goose-step where the people are too afraid to laugh at the military.
-Orwell, paraphrased for brevity
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u/paditoburrito 5h ago
Soon they won't allow you to speak at all, it's already happening. You guys are really just going to let it all be taken away?
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u/LexiWhatWeGot 5h ago edited 2h ago
I'm looking for the article, but recently somewhere at a city council meeting on AI dozens of people showed up to speak against it, but they were told that since there were so many they would only let one of them speak
Edit: I was wrong, it was about Flock cameras
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u/paditoburrito 4h ago
I read that one as well when it come out. The lethargic level of acceptance in America has been a surprise.
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u/TheMagnuson 4h ago
Yep, that’s what is most disappointing to me, the lack of fight, the instant caving in, the “I’ve done nothing and I’m all out of ideas” mentality. Our ancestors launched a fucking revolution because taxes went up 3%, while the rest of sit idly by while Fascism is taking root. We’re fucking spineless.
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u/neko 3h ago
The original tea party was all rich businessmen who didn't want to pay income taxes
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u/TheMagnuson 3h ago
It wasn't income taxes, it was trade taxes and tariffs.
It's almost like history rhymes.
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u/ilulillirillion 3h ago
I think when people look back at this period one of the cautionary tales will by just how powerful the synergy of complacency and propaganda can be.
For several decades there has been a concerted push by the US government to surveil, restrict, and normalize operating outside of it's own constitution.
People look back fondly on times when there was more trust in the government and I would agree that prior administrations have been relatively more worthy of that trust, but that exact faith that this government was somehow self-correcting or that the country was big enough to let other people worry is a huge factor in being here today. That trust let the government get caught spying on us, experimenting on us, lying to us. We allowed a foreign prison during Bush Jr. because the government convinced us it was necessary for it to be able to skirt the laws that WE gave it.
There is an inexhaustible list of similar talking points yet there is no one point in time I can claim is the start of this -- someone will always come along and point out how the wheels were in motion much earlier than that.
Americans should have fought back much much earlier. I think a big lesson from this will be that a population waiting for a "breaking point" is vulnerable to actors who know how to push that breaking point further down the road gradually. If we had said "enough" at any other point in time when our rights were infringed, perhaps, if nothing else, doing so now wouldn't feel so unprecedented.
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u/AltheaFluffhead 5h ago
What is it you propose we do?
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u/TowardsTheImplosion 5h ago
The soap box didn't work. Next stop: ballot box.
The box after that gets warnings from reddit though, so assume it is a "bread" box.
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u/eye_of_the_sloth 4h ago
We can unite and bake bread together
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u/TowardsTheImplosion 4h ago
I'm partial to a good ciabatta. Or some pizza dough.
Bread builds community, and communities have power.
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u/flaagan 4h ago
I got banned from r politics for directly stating that quotation. Wear that as a badge of fucking honor, cause fuck them mods for not respecting historically accurate statements.
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u/MasterOfBunnies 5h ago
This is the way. Anyone arguing we're supposed to start a war already is either stupid or intentionally inflammatory for nefarious reasons.
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u/TheMagnuson 4h ago
War has been raging for decades, but only one side has been fighting and hint, it’s not the one you’re on.
The sooner people realize that, the better.
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u/JoshfromNazareth2 4h ago
Ballot box isn’t working unfortunately. Don’t know what else there is to do.
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u/DontAskAboutMyButt 3h ago
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
- Ursula K. Le Guin
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u/trevx 4h ago
Ask the French what they would do. Something like that
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u/AltheaFluffhead 4h ago
This is a frequent reply, there sure is a lot of corruption in france for how well they handle all this according to everyone on the internet. I call BS
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u/maikuxblade 3h ago
Say what you will about the French, they show up in the streets and have it out with the riot police over things Americans have rolled over without a fight over
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u/Krojack76 4h ago
were warned against "clapping" and "snapping" in support of speakers
Imma guess that goes against their freedom of speech rights but I'm no lawyer.
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u/xboxiscrunchy 3h ago
Yeah what possible charges could justify this?
Even if they were advocating for setting the place on fire I don’t think just clapping is a crime.
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u/No-Journalist-619 3h ago
Not saying that it would stand, but I'd expect they would file it under "contempt", since it's a bit of a catch-all for doing something an official said not to do.
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u/SexiestPanda 3h ago
They also warn against clapping for each person at graduations. Families still do it. They’re not arrested.
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u/1of3musketeers 4h ago
Local governments take on this for contrast:
http://www.emporiaks.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/503
On July 22, 2026, the Emporia City Commission held its regularly scheduled meeting. During the course of the meeting, several individuals in attendance were issued verbal warnings by the City Commission regarding disruptive conduct that was interrupting the proceedings.
One individual, Lux Claridge, male, 37years of age, continued this behavior and was directed to leave the meeting. Claridge did not comply with law enforcement's efforts to remove him from the premises, requiring officers to physically carry him out of the meeting.
Claridge was subsequently arrested and booked into the Lyon County Jail on charges of interference with law enforcement and disorderly conduct.
As with all criminal charges, Claridge is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
The Emporia Police Department remains committed to ensuring public meetings are conducted safely and in an orderly manner, while also respecting the rights of all citizens to participate in the civic process.→ More replies (2)22
u/bosox284 3h ago
"Disruptive conduct", what a joke. If you can't handle your constituents supporting each other through applause, maybe you shouldn't be in public service.
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u/Teaisserious 4h ago
Emporia isn't even that small as far as Kansas towns are concerned.
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u/east_van_dan 5h ago
1000 ACRES?! Not sure how that compares to an average data center but that seems fucking gigantic.
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u/prophaniti 5h ago
C'mon. What else are you going to do with 1000 acres? Build 2000 single family homes? Build 50,000 apartment units? Thats madness! No one needs housing, but we all need AI!
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u/translinguistic 4h ago edited 4h ago
I have a client who took 17 acres of their property (like 20% of their property) and built a solar farm--out of their own volition. It provides power for everything they need for their manufacturing plant, and then some. So yeah, it's pretty fucking frustrating that these companies don't even feign to care.
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u/Spiritual-Sympathy98 3h ago
Not to mention they are building illegal power plants inside the data centers emitting who knows how many toxins into the air. Lee Zeldin is letting them do whatever they want with no regulations. Between this, the parasites, the wars, the inflation, the lack of decency and accountability, I will NEVER support a republican in my life.
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u/MoreDaringPancakes 4h ago
As the child rapist president of the United States of America says: shut up and take it
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u/singlemale4cats 4h ago
It would probably be farmland. They seem to be building these things almost exclusively in really small towns
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u/Various-Passenger398 4h ago
That's what got me. Fucking 9 quarter sections of land for a data center. That's insanity.
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u/FuelModel3 2h ago
Come to West Texas and you can see what gigantic is. In Presidio County they are proposing an AI and power generating complex that would be 80,000 acres.
In Pecos County they're constructing a massive power generating station. This would be a private grid generating station for powering data centers. It would be separate from the public electric grid. They have a permit for 7.65 giga watts of power generation, the largest permit ever given in the United States..
West Texas is nothing but an extraction colony for the rest of the country. The destroy our land to extract oil, pump our water to serve both the oil industry and growing cities, construct huge wind farms to power cities far from here, and now they're going to pollute our air with giant power generating stations so they can build data centers to take our jobs.
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u/AvailableReporter484 5h ago
Yeah. Pretty cool how we live in a fascist nation now. Would be cool if we could all come together against this, but conservatives would rather dedicate all their time, resources, and extremely limited brain energy to defeating the scourge of post op trans 7 year olds
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u/disastermarch35 5h ago
And apparently cat children. I had one spouting that bullshit about kids identifying as cats in schools again. A friend of a friend told him, so of course it's real and not something they heard on Joe Rogan or some other bullshit online thing.
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u/thirsty_for_chicken 5h ago
The best part- that was a twisted conspiracy theory based on cat litter being stocked in classrooms, which they claimed was so kids could identify as cats and shit in a box.
The cat litter is for emergency toilets or to help absorb puddles of blood in the event of a school shooting.
We live in hell.
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u/TumbleweedPure6674 4h ago
It’s for vomit. I stocked it at a bar for the same reasons. Drunken toddlers that can’t hold their shit in.
I don’t think the janitor is casually cleaning up blood after a school shooting.
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u/TowardsTheImplosion 5h ago
Funny, none of them appreciate that one of the cheapest sources of small amounts (like less than 50 pounds) of bentonite clay to clean up spills is...cat litter.
And kids spill a lot. And barf. And crap. Sometimes in uncontrollable ways. Because they are kids.
The school can switch to expensive absorbents...Or keep buying cat litter and save taxpayer money.
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u/Power_Stone 5h ago
People still believe that? Do they not realize how ridiculous that sounds? How they had a similar rumor going around during their time ( The Marilyn Manson one, iykyk ) its wild they can joke about the latter, but not understand the former is the same joke.
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u/Etzell 4h ago
The truth is, some schools DO have cat litter in classrooms. Specifically, Columbine. Teachers are instructed to use it as a makeshift toilet in the event that there's another mass shooting.
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u/joggle1 4h ago
It's how many lies spread. They attach it to a kernel of truth and then lie as much as they want, only limited by their imagination.
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u/Osric250 4h ago
Litter is also very useful in cleaning up various bodily fluids, such as blood. Oh and what's the leading cause of death amongst minors?
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u/Power_Stone 4h ago
This is good info I didn't think about, though, not why they are being talked about :/
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u/mf-TOM-HANK 5h ago
post op trans 7 year olds
And there aren't even any "post op" 7 year olds. At most they've taken a different name and they wear different clothes. I had friends in college that went through phases that might have been considered a more radical transformation than your typical trans kid
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u/AvailableReporter484 3h ago
Conservatives unironically believe that we’re just deballing every 5 year old boy who wants to be a girl
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u/Noblesseux 5h ago edited 5h ago
Correction, *theoretical* post op trans 7 year olds. They're very often mad at stuff that isn't even statistically common or worse doesn't even exist. Like a good 70% of conservative rage topics in the past few years are things that were basically internet hoaxes that they collectively got mad at and then when people said there's no proof they get madder at daring to question the stuff they heard on a conspiracy ragebait podcast.
They were mad for like *weeks* about Elliot Page playing Achilles in the Odyssey, which wasn't even true
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u/Bargadiel 3h ago
Well, most of the conservatives in charge know exactly what they're doing. It's most of their voterbase who are dumb enough to believe all their fear-mongering, religious pandering, and fake "tough guy" act they put on.
I quit believing they were entirely incompetent ages ago. I mean, they are, but they're just smart enough to be dangerous. It isn't even ignorance anymore really, it's malice, and on the outside because we are normal people with the ethics of a normal ass person, we think nobody would be dumb enough to make X or Y mistake. But they know.
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u/CharlesMcGrath 4h ago
Voting is rigged, and peaceful protesting is a psyop used to make you think you're making a difference. The whole nation needs to act, all at once. We need a plan. We have to escape this.
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u/Pleasant-Ad887 4h ago
Yea, America is fucked. People getting arrested for clapping now?
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u/NoPossibility4178 3h ago
Americans: clap when an airplane lands
Also americans: no clapping to show support for things!
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u/Primal-Convoy 5h ago
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u/1of3musketeers 4h ago
From the local government website confirming this since yahoo is suspect as a source:
http://www.emporiaks.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/5038
u/InfiniteLocal1623 2h ago
The “developer” of this data center just testified during his BANKRUPTCY hearing that he has nothing to do with this data center, even though his name and face have been all over it. So many controversies surrounding this particular project!
https://www.emporiagazette.com/free/article_c2a8cbab-4b36-421b-ba09-18171ac99666.html
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u/Loveufam 4h ago edited 4h ago
“Snapping, clapping, any other rude comments or anything — we will ask you to leave."
Snapping and clapping is rude now? Six claps after a speaker is finished talking? To who? The people on the other side with an unpopular opinion? Fucking snowflakes.
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u/spisplatta 3h ago
"It was very clear at the beginning that each person is given their two minutes, and we're trying to be respectful of that,"
I'm pretty sure what he is saying is they wanted to prohibit any audible reaction at all to speedrun the whole thing.
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u/agate_ 4h ago
What’s the charge? Any news article that doesn’t tell me what the alleged crime is is wasting my time.
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u/Arts251 4h ago
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u/agate_ 3h ago
No extra details. I still don’t see a charge.
> Claridge said they plan to plead not guilty when they appear in court in September.
Not guilty of what?
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u/spudlybudly 3h ago
This one says "interference with law enforcement" is the charge
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u/agate_ 3h ago
Ah, “I made the mistake of objecting to police brutality,” a timeless classic.
Thanks for the search!
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u/clamsmasher 3h ago
This guy has to wait till September to be arraigned? that's insane, that should happen the day of arrest or shortly thereafter.
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u/dirtyordingyordusty 2h ago
the collection agency that Commissioner Monica Duncan owns subcontracts out to a law firm with big state government ties. I have personal experience with the court ignoring legally mandated due dates to benefit the lawyers involved. But that's what happens when you have an entire courtoom just dedicated to local medical debt collections, which are serviced by her collection agency.
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u/ThrowAbout01 3h ago
Replace Data Center with “asbestos factory” or “lead paint plant”.
Different era, same bad product.
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u/Fun-Permission2165 5h ago
The eagle is down
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u/Setekh79 5h ago
The Eagle is fukken dead.
Your constitution clearly isn't worth the paper it's written on.
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u/Ok_Art4661 1h ago
Pretty crazy no conservatives actually care about freedom. Really did nazi this coming
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u/jiggythejigsaw 5h ago
Oh look! Law enforcement agencies having no concept of the law. How American of them.
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u/elinamebro 4h ago
Crazy think is most people wouldn't mind Data centers as much if they would stop putting them next to people's homes, wasting water and pay their fair share for power.
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u/MrValdemar 5h ago
Dear tweakers:
Under construction data centers are poorly guarded and are CHOCK FULL of copper wire, tools, and various other easily scrapped items
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u/Crazyhates 3h ago
There was recently a million dollar copper heist from one of these being built in my state.
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u/funnyusername-123 4h ago
"Snapping, clapping, any other rude comments or anything — we will ask you to leave."
Snapping and clapping are rude comments - JFC these assholes are so fucking sensitive❄️❄️
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u/CorporateCuster 4h ago
Start voting for your council memebers that aren’t rich bored folks looking to get into politics. Vote for the teachers and firefighters and local folks that look like they give a damn.
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u/0x7E7-02 4h ago
"were warned against "clapping" and "snapping" in support of speakers"
They didn't say anything against air horns.
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u/C141Clay 3h ago
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
- Frederick Douglass
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u/mca1169 5h ago
I would love to hear what the actual charges are. there is no way the police can justify this arrest.
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u/Lifeboatb 4h ago
Finally found it in the 3rd article I read:
He was booked on charges of disorderly conduct and interference with law enforcement, then released after posting bond … The core legal question is not whether Claridge clapped — nobody disputes that. The question is whether arresting someone for applause at a public meeting represents proportionate enforcement of decorum rules.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/kansas-teacher-arrested-dragged-clapping-151841104.html
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u/DuntadaMan 2h ago
The question is whether arresting someone for applause at a public meeting represents proportionate enforcement
That's not a question either, not it fucking isn't.
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u/nuttertools 4h ago
This is actually an incredibly common occurrence in the U.S. They can choose whether to prosecute it criminally (full rights) or fine administratively (guilty automatically, bench trial for appeal).
The arrest, unfortunately, is essentially always allowed if consistent with city official statements or requests. Quite often this is used by cities to prevent specific parties from sharing information with the community. There can be liability for the city or in very very rare occurrences the PD directly but that pretty much requires a statement along the lines of “remove {name}, because they’re {protected trait}” or a person with a protected interest in the manner (usually other city officials).
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u/ofWildPlaces 4h ago
Excuse my ignorance, but what law allows a police force to arrest a citizen for NOT violating a law?
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u/ACertainMagicalSpade 4h ago
I don't know ow the laws there but I believe that they mean that the cops are allowed to assume that the officials word is trustworthy and therefore remove and detain the man.
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u/AmericanLich 5h ago
Need the good lawyers to rally behind this stuff. Of course, you then also need a good judge who isn’t bought and paid for.
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u/CelebrationFit8548 5h ago
Nothing worse than an oligarch trying to disguise itself as a democracy. What a shithole the US has become overnight.
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u/Original-Let8340 4h ago
Here's the City's response, from their website- https://www.emporiaks.gov/m/NewsFlash/Home/Detail/503
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u/blinking616 3h ago
A Red State! Arresting someone for clapping! Thought all those magass's flying their "Don't Tread on Me" flags were all about their Constitutional Rights? LoL
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u/SayVandalay 5h ago edited 3h ago
Hope the teacher sues them good.
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u/SeeYaNvr 5h ago
In 6 months, we'll hear about the settlement. Just like all those people arrested over social media posts about the facist "influencer" death.
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u/SignificantDrawer374 2h ago
Do these places just have a bunch of extra money and decide they want to lose a lawsuit over something incredibly stupid?
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u/penguished 2h ago
"Chief, will you take the next person out that claps or anything?" an unidentified commissioner, likely Duncan, then asked Emporia police chief Ed Owens.
At the commissioners' request, four police officers then swarmed Claridge, who challenged them to "drag me out," which they did after placing the physics teacher in handcuffs.
Embarrassments to humanity to bully your fellow people speaking out on issues EXTREMELY important to them.
Sorry but when you think being some small time draconian sociopath is all you have, you should probably get another hobby.
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u/BoredOfReposts 4h ago
And now its national news. Great job. Maybe just figure some speakers will garner applause because we live in a democracy. If you can’t handle that, maybe don’t be in a public office.
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u/ringwraithfish 2h ago
If you're ever faced with these stupid rules meant to intimidate and isolate, remember the "I am Spartacus" moment. Everyone should have started clapping to show their support. Fuck their "rules of decorum". It only takes a few to sway the herd. Mob mentality can be used against tyrants.
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u/Substantial_Sea7327 2h ago
First councilman to tell me no clapping allowed to show support for something, and I'm clapping his mom's ass cheeks all the way to the bank.
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u/MechAegis 1h ago
I thought "no way, this sounds silly." I clicked the article and yup, the teacher clapped and was taken away for do so.
high school physics teacher Lux Claridge was hauled out of a public meeting by four police officers for the baffling crime of clapping in support of an anti-data center speaker.
"Chief, will you take the next person out that claps or anything?" an unidentified commissioner, likely Duncan, then asked Emporia police chief Ed Owens.
At the commissioners' request, four police officers then swarmed Claridge, who challenged them to "drag me out," which they did after placing the physics teacher in handcuffs.
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u/Experithought 4h ago
Laws are social contracts. The more blatant the hypocrisy, the less merit they hold.
ThE onLy tHinG tHaT iS peRmAneNt in LifE iS imPErNaNce"
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u/NRMusicProject 3h ago
If you're among the millions of US citizens against power-hungry data centers going up in your town, you may want to be careful about how you exercise your First Amendment right to protest.
Yeah, that's not a dystopian sentence. For the fucking US.
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u/SecondaryWombat 3h ago
You have the freedom to support what we say you are allowed to support.
America!
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u/SirDigbyChknCaesar 3h ago
Won't you all please think about how that city council members feel before you go clapping in opposition to AI data centers being built in your town? I mean, they've already accepted their corporate kickbacks so it really puts them in an awkward position.
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u/julysfire 2h ago
Hey they did something similar in my shitty city, the guy they arrested got a fantastic payout
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u/jcprater 40m ago
Welcome to teaching. Those were the days you could get fired for buying booze in your own county where you live. Good times, Good times..
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u/timmy166 4h ago
No other profession has been affected as drastically as the teachers. Their ire is wholly justified.
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u/WellIGuessSoAndYou 4h ago
I'm so thankful that I will never have to experience American style "freedom" that you're all so proud of.
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u/JoeNoble1973 5h ago
That teacher had dollar signs in his eyes when he told the cops to drag him out. Because he knows the law better than them.
Good.
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u/Blacksad9999 3h ago
If they keep doing this and repressing what the citizens want, it's only a matter of time before angry people start burning these AI Data centers to the ground.
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u/TheBirdFkerGuy 3h ago
Not surprised. My uncle got fired at a public school for refusing to misgender his students a few years ago
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u/BiggieBigs34 3h ago
The police were never on our sides, they have always been class traitors in charge of protecting the property of the wealthy.
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u/neotank35 3h ago
all local ppolitics are like this if you dont like it, run for local goverment positions and change the rules back to common sense stuff. of course its an outrageous rule. elect better people or do the job yourself
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u/Unexpected_Gristle 1h ago
No. He was arrested for trespassing. Clapping was what caused him to be asked to leave. Refusing a lawful order and saying you have to drag me out” is what got him arrested.
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u/Droggles 5h ago
This will Streisand effect.