this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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I'm inclined to agree with your presumption of idiocy instead of malice; that the driver just didn't know the connotations of "Lolita". Yet the word still makes parents think their kids are being preyed on all the same. I'm not judging that this is what the driver meant to do, but it is something that would make parents not trust the bus and harm the children forced either to wake early and walk to school or contribute to the emissions in their air.
It's still possible the driver is given a second chance at bus driving. And in the worst case I doubt the driver would not be able to find employment in public transportation.
That's a problem for the parents to solve themselves without forcing their judgment onto someone else who has nothing to do with their assumptions. If that means they have to change their own morning routine, then so be it. That's their decision to make. What wasn't their decision is to dictate the actions of the bus driver.
I'm directly criticizing the parents for how they handled this. They are in the wrong for what they did.
This man did nothing wrong on his actions and yet was punished due to the shortsighted assumptions of judgmental people.
Just like how the driver probably didn't know what "Lolita" meant, the parents probably didn't know about the Lolita fashion trend. You're also forcing your judgement onto the parents for making the logical decision based on only the information that was available to them here. If one doesn't know it's a fashion trend, I don't see any other likely explanation for putting up a sign saying "Lolita's Line" other than the driver being a predator or maybe the driver just repeating out loud whatever they hears others say, which isn't good for children with ears either.
No. I am judging the parents on their actions, not on assumptions made of their intentions and hypothetical scenarios of what they "might do". That's the key difference you seem to be missing here.
The parents did not make any logical decisions, because they did use logic to reach their decision. They made assumptions, leaps of logic, out of ignorance and decided to act on them in haste, even though the driver had done nothing wrong. Just because you cannot see any other reason for them to do something doesn't give you the right to make assumptions and then render judgement based on them.
Judge people for their actions, not for perceived intentions.
So did the driver. The driver made assumptions that there were no additional connotations for "Lolita" the fashion trend out of ignorance and hung a sign they assumed wasn't disturbing but was for reasons they did not know. If you're just judging people by their actions, the driver's intentions you have detailed should hold as little weight as the parents' intentions. And what the driver did was stupid and caused harm, intentions aside.
The parents expressed their care for their children in the avenues they preferred to do so.
Assuming you tried to avoid a double negative and instead meant "There's nothing wrong with them making assumptions of other people": Again, I'm not blaming him for making those assumptions. But he did believe it would not cause harm which most likely turned out to be wrong. And that was, in your narrative that I agree with, based on the reasonable assumption that there's no ulterior connotation to "Lolita".
You can argue that Japanese Lolita fashion has little do with the infamous book, but that doesn't shake the fact that we are not in East Asia but in North America, where "Lolita" is intensely associated with the book and pedophilia. The parents made a reasonable assumption that this is what "Lolita" meant. There's no difference here between the amount of assumptions made by the driver and the parents.
From the reasonable conclusion that their driver is a predator?
That's an assumption. It's still possible the driver is given a second chance at bus driving. And in the worst case I doubt the driver would not be able to find employment in public transportation.
That's also an assumption. I don't see any reason why the driver would not cause parents to not trust the bus and harm the children forced either to wake early and walk to school or contribute to the emissions in their air.
Again, there's the harm. The pollution doubling as half the bus goes to school in a car instead and being prevented from talking with friends on the bus, especially those with whom one does not share a lunch period. And your assuming that all the parents have the time to drive their children to school without conflict from their work commute.
The parents made misguided assumptions of someone else and dictated how that person could express themselves. Fuck those parents. Period. Your wild logic to justify their behavior is utter bullshit.
No, that's the opposite of what I was saying. You clearly lack reading comprehension based on this entire thread., so no surprise you misinterpret me. There is everything wrong with making assumptions of others. It's a bad habit people need to stop doing. People who do so are in the wrong. Period.
Except there is, because the driver was making no assumptions of anyone. His actions were not based on the decisions of other. He was simply expressing himself in the way he saw fit. As he has ever right to do. Every individual on this planet has the right to express themselves independently of how others around them might perceive them. Only the parents made assumptions of the man and his preferred method of personal expression and then acted in a way to deliberately restrict this man's ability of personal expression.
The following argument is based on the parents being justified in their assumptions, which they weren't, so this argument is invalidated. That was not a reasonable assumption. It was an ignorant assumption rather than actually observing the actions and seeing that no child was harmed.
No, it isn't an assumption. Read the article, it is directly written in it. He no longer drives that route. That route was his position, which he no longer occupies. The rest of what you said is irrelevant to my point.
No, this also isn't an assumption. It's the negative. Until you can prove with evidence he did harm, then the negative is always considered true. This is called the "benefit of the doubt". Learn it.
They were not forced. Parents were perfectly able to choose to continue letting the kids keep riding the bus. The harm of emissions from not letting the children take the bus is the fault of the parents, not the driver. If the parents can't drive their kids to school, then they should learn to cope that other people have the right to be different. Don't shift the blame.
Then what you said doesn't make any sense. I agree nobody needs to make assumptions. The driver didn't need to, the parents didn't need to. But my argument is they all did.
Of course they were. "You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.", said a famous person whom we all know thanks to the context we live in. The basis of whether we do anything is whether it would be good for ourselves, no matter if that means it would be better to someone you're close with or that the backlash from incongruence with society's expectations is too little to worry about. Here, according to your narrative which I agree with, the driver assumed that the views of others and superiors wouldn't change except maybe someone'd bad an eye or avoid looking at them. Instead, parents were scared to have their children ride the bus.
Didn't you say that the driver probably didn't know the pedophilia connotations of "Lolita"? How is that "Lolita" is a normal word without such connotations not an assumption?
The story would be very different if parents were primarily concerned about the driver's dress, in which case I would agree with you. But, instead, the story here is with the sign.
How were they supposed to know "Lolita" referred to the fashion trend?
That's all it says. You assumed it meant he was fired when in fact it could've been a suspension or a transfer to some other route, just as the parents assumed "Lolita" meant what they were taught it meant growing up. The article doesn't even seem to know what gender the driver is.
To do that you need possibility for doubt. What is the reasonable doubt against the negative effects I mentioned occurring?
And this is all predicated on the assumption that the driver was in fact referring to Lolita fashion. If I need to prove there was harm, you also have to prove they was just making a fashion statement.
Yes, absolutely. We have the right to express ourselves. But we aren't entitled to employment in any position we want at any company we want regardless of how we express ourselves in public while representing that company. "Dressing in flashy attention-seeking outfits and displaying a sign that says Lolita" isn't a category that's protected from employment discrimination.
The dude isn't facing criminal charges. Just normal workplace consequences that anyone should have expected regardless of whether you feel it's right.
Yea gonna disagree there. A company shouldn't have the right to end employment over inconsequential differences. That is not their authority.
So long as the individual is doing the job, which is simply to drive a bus in this case, everything else is irrelevant and companies should go get fucked for trying to dictate that. How he dresses has nothing to do with his ability to drive a bus and shouldn't be allowed to be a factor in determining his employment.
The entire point is he shouldn't have had to face any consequences for something so benign.
It's not "inconsequential" if it causes friction with your client. You can say "this is fucking bullshit and fuck anyone who disagrees" as much as you want because you're an uninvolved keyboard warrior, but the employer has to be pragmatic.