GOP House leader's teenage son is caught on camera doing a Nazi salute next to a German WWII fighter

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

GOP House leader's teenage son is caught on camera doing a Nazi salute next to a German WWII fighter plane - forcing them both to apologize and sparking calls for her resignation

Oregon Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson' is facing calls to resign after a photo surfaced of her son giving a Nazi salute - a gesture both have since expressed regret over

Leading the charge for Breese-Iverson's nixing is The Oregon Diversity Project - a 'Black femme led group' devoted to helping people of color in Central Oregon

Elected as representative in 2019, Breese-Iverson, has since issued an apology, along with a photo of a handwritten apology from son Alex - a high school junior





https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12163451/GOP-House-leaders-son-caught-doing-Nazi-salute-photo.html

[ZonkerHarris]

1. Nazi Family Values

[NotVeryImportant]

35. Basically...

He learned it from somewhere...home.

[Hortensis]

2. Teenager. nt

[Captain Zero]

3. Dumb Teenager.

[Hortensis]

5. Yep. Perhaps adolescence should be classified as a mental disorder. :)

I have no other explanation for some of my memories.

[Rhiannon12866]

11. My aunt used to refer to it as "that God-awful age"

And I tend to agree, especially the very early teens...

[leftyladyfrommo]

19. And I can't seem to forget every one of those stupid

Things.

And poor Jane Fonda.

[Aristus]

25. He doesn't look like some stupid, impulsive thirteen year-old.

He looks like an adult nineteen year-old who knew exactly what he was doing, and made sure he was posing next to the swastika when the pic was snapped. "I didn't know what I was doing". IMO, that plane will fly before that excuse does.

[Hortensis]

28. Aristus, 19yos are NOT adults, not biologically.

Adult brain development isn't reached until about 25. The most erratic, dangerous period, when the largest numbers actually manage to kill themselves and others with adolescent stupidity, is in the 20s.

Btw, 19's just a number you pulled out of the air to build a case on. Fwiw, his parents have been married 17 years.

Shouldn't people who have achieved full brain development (many never do) avoid trying to manufacture reasons to justify thinking as poorly as possible of others? Avoid actually exploiting ignorance as a "positive" to facilitate what shouldn't be?

Man, if we could beat that one, we'd be a different human race. Imagine a world without MAGAs, or maybe with just less mean ones. For flavor, but not mean enough to be willing to do real harm to others.

[Aristus]

30. My point is that is wasn't some squeaky-voiced kid who couldn't really comprehend the meaning of

his actions. What he did, he did deliberately, and his letter of contrition is about as authentic as a three dollar bill. I don't think it's out of line to suggest that this ape will never achieve full brain development. But that doesn't mean he should get off with a scribbled letter.

[inthewind21]

31. Agreed

Funny how "he's just a stupid kid" for this, but he is damn near or already at voting age. So, is his brain developed enough to vote but not enough to not be responsible for stupid shit like this? Is THIS those "young people" we are depending on to vote and the same young people we should be listening to and taking seriously?

[Hortensis]

44. My goodness. In case you had trouble reading the handwritten apology:

“When I was on a field trip with World War 2 planes, I walked past a plane with a Nazi symbol on it, and posed for a photo that my friend took and posted. It was a dumb mistake. I really get that now. Doing something bad in the moment without thinking can cause harm. I apologized to anyone that was offended and have accepted the punishment handed down to me by the school and my parents.”

So that follows other apologies to some. Of course a 16ish-yo understood Nazi salutes are bad, whether he was well informed at that point on just why or not. That's undoubtedly what made it intriguing.

Of course there are his other moral failures of bad handwriting, born to parents who aren't poor, having a mother who's a Republican ( ) congresswoman, etcetera, that the apology doesn't cover.

But he has apologized, apparently multiple times. And, let's face it, whatever the truth, he could hardly feel LESS contrition than some of the adults who've chosen to believe the worst about a kid they don't know.

Come on, maybe assume the kid has a chance of turning out to be a decent person -- like you and even wish him well. Even if he did later turn out to have been a nascent Nazi (very unlikely, btw), what's to lose?

And now I've answered your responses to my post, so let's let this be enough.

[Disaffected]

33. Wow, no benefit of the doubt

given here. Were you not yourself a teenager at some time?

[Aristus]

34. Doing shit like this? No.

Long before his age, I knew how evil and awful the Nazis were. I had intelligent, well-read parents who taught us to learn history, and then learn from history. It would never have occurred to me that doing the Nazi salute while standing next to a swastika would have been anything anywhere in the Galaxy close to a good idea.

[Disaffected]

36. So, the kid did not live up to your standards

and upbringing. Does it not occur to you that it may simply have been a dumb, impulsive act that most teernagers are susceptable to or, perhaps who did not have the benefit of "intelligent, well-read parents"?

Sorry, but this hang-em high, rush to judgement is not on.

FWIW, I as a teenager once did something similar. It was an immature, impulsive act which I regretted almost immediately. I did however learn something from it (and I hope the kid in this case did as well).

[Aristus]

37. I don't think my standards are impossibly high. Just those of decent people.

The Nazis should be at the bottom of everyone's list of acceptable role models. That's not an impossible bar to clear.

[WarGamer]

39. High school Junior... probably 17

[Aristus]

41. I was seventeen when I raised my hand.

It was to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect it from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Although I got out of the Army thirty years ago, that oath never expired.

[Cha]

43. Not all "teenagers" are Stupid ASS

wannabe Nazis.

[RandySF]

4. Learned behavior?

[Snooper9]

6. I'm almost as offended by his penmanship vs douchebag nazi salute

He is fucked as far as working at a fortune 500 compnay in the next 20 years.

Hope he learns to MIG/TIG weld or knows what schedule 40 is....

[wnylib]

7. Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a party when he was a teen.

[quakerboy]

9. And I doubt many of us here would elect him or his parents

[madaboutharry]

15. He was well out of his teens when that happened.

I will always be on #TeamSussex. But Prince Harry was not a teenager when that happened. He regrets that bit of stupidity to this day.

[wnylib]

23. I guess I thought he was still in his teens because

it is the kind of dumb thing that a teen would do.

[madaboutharry]

29. Lol!

I bet he would agree with that assessment!

[KS Toronado]

8. Unusual signature for a teenager

He hoping on becoming a doctor?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Teens are too ignorant to write cursive and ignorant of a real Nazi salute

But this teen was too hateful to know how stupid it was to even attempt one. That must not be forgotten or swept under the carpet even if such a slack salute is stupidly flawed.

Further, they haven't been taught or ignorantly refused to learn how to write cursive handwriting. Instead they are reduced to awkward block letters like a second-grader.

But really, that teen didn't become hatefully ignorant by accident. Negligent parenting or, worse, hate-teaching parenting is all too common in today's RepubliCON party.

[KS Toronado]

24. So true

" that teen didn't become hatefully ignorant by accident."

[Rhiannon12866]

12. Was he having a tantrum or is his writing always this illegible?

He looks a lot older than first grade...

[jaxexpat]

13. Possibly most amateurish cover-up by a Republican I've ever seen. Exceptional, really.

Resignation:
>Ours because we've grown beyond shock and outrage. We're way into the "sigh" stage.
>Hers because she and all her "ilk" just need to get away from our government.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Rich white teens get nazi school tours. Poor blacks get their history erased from textbooks. nt

[Girard442]

16. That apfel didn't fall far from the tree.

[Aristus]

26. Das habe ich gesehen!

[Bleacher Creature]

17. He apologized to anyone who was offended, so all good!

Honestly, what's the point of even apologizing if you're going to go with a non-apology apology?

[SKKY]

20. They doth protest too much...

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

21. The grow up so Fascist.

[tanyev]

22. Reading mom's Tweet and the teen's written apology,

I expected to see a photo of a 13-14 year old. Nope, that's a young man who should definitely know better.

[Aristus]

38. Evidently, "knowing better' is an impossibly high standard.

So the Hitler Youth marches on...

[Johnny2X2X]

27. GOP has a Nazi problem

No idea about this poltiician, but her party has been courting Nazis and White Nationalists for decades. I still don't think we have come to terms with the fact that there are actual large groups of people in the United States who wish Germany would have won WW2 so we could have had a racially pure world. There are people who are dead serious in that they wish Hitler had succeeded and too many of those people have flocked to the GOP, especially with trump heading it.

Would be interested to hear if the mother supports extrteme MAGA positions or if she's one of the few reasonable Repubs. If she's a true MAGA, this was very likely learned behavior by her son, not just a teenager goofing off and making a mistake.

Godwin's Law no longer applies when you have real life Nazis and Neo Nazis who have been given real power by a major political party.

[Wingus Dingus]

32. Kid doing something dumb, as kids do. The House Leader issued

a good apology.

[Goodheart]

40. Agreed. This is nothing to make hay about.

[Cha]

42. JHC.. WTF!