They LOVE to see regular folk struggle for the scraps that they throw down..........

A very good theory. It is also the same ideology that thinks trigger warnings are for wussies, instead of being information given to people so that they can themselves choose whether they want to engage in it at the present moment. Anything that make people better able to decide what they will accept is dangerous, apparently.

Used to be, a bully getting smashed in the mouth was seen as a normal thing and a lesson learned.

Like Ralphie making Scut Farcus cry.

Today Ralphie would be expelled and possibly looking at jail.

And though it is wrong, our entire culture is saturated in contempt for perceived weakness.

We have to end zero tolerance and allow kids to start fighting back again.

"I'm going to tell on you! Because you're mean to me! wahhhh!"

Worked...never.

And again it is our culture and it is WRONG. But...still.

Everyone hates that whiny, little milquetoast kid that runs to Mommy/Teacher to fight his/her battles.

That is never going to work.

It runs counter to our cultural mindset.

"You are the only one that can prevent yourself from being bullied."

This is the template we have to work from.

First Step?

At least return to a state of mind where every scuffle between kids is just that. It is not an incident that needs ro be reported to law enforcement. And some kids earned that black eye.

"You are the only one that can prevent yourself from being bullied."

It may be wrong. But it is true.

In this power is all saturated culture.


On edit. It was Scut Farkus not Snark Farkus.

Still a shitty name.

Wondering whether he was jaundice.

Love Jean Shepard!

You seem to have no idea how organized and relentless kids are at bullying now. It's not like the 1950s or 60s or 70s or whenever you grew up (I deduce from your join date you are at least 32). It's not about "scuffles".

The kids plot to get the child into compromising situations of one kind or another, make videos & cell phone pictures (even child porn), and then blackmail the kids.

They shun the child completely for years and enforce in-group / out-group cliques with great precision.

They extend the bullying far beyond the schoolyard into all aspects of the child's life: social, sport, shopping, everything. They post onto a child's facebook page, twitter them to death, instagram all their pictures, hunt them down online, cyber-stalk them.

Violence is NOT the solution, even when it is possible which is not always due to disabilities and gangs. Violence begets violence in a never ending cycle of escalation. Busting somebody in the chops is not a good lesson for the bullying victim, for the bully, or for the rest of the children.

Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr. for a progressive viewpoint: "That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing."

I'm sure the phone did as well.

And let's not leave out the postal service while we are at it.

Imagine a bully having to hire a personal courier to deliver a mean note.

Every generation goes through a phase of thinking no generation has had it as rough as theirs.

Thankfully, most people outgrow this.

Patterns of bullying are something that have not changed in thousands of years.

As an example, the fable of the kid in the coat of many colors whose own (half) brothers plotted to kill him, but then just threw him in a pit then sold him as a slave? Dipping said coat in goats blood and telling their father he had been killed by beasts.

Oh, but they didn't post if to FB so that doesn't count?

Do not try to tell me that bullying today is in anyway worse or even essentially different than it ever has been.

Culling a perceived weak one from the herd, humiliation, escalating ostracization as the meekness is publicly exploited. Run to teacher. Run to your mommy. As in my earlier response, even though it is wrong...and it is very, very wrong.

Culturally we view weakness with contempt.

And sadly enough, violence sometimes could be a solution. Nothing ever was as effective in convincing someone to leave you alone than "busting them in the chops." Or the nose, actually.

A bloody nose gives the message to move along to easier prey.

All acts of violence are treated equally under zero-tolerance now. Self defense is a punishable act. Taking away the right of self-defense was wrong.

I can understand who an alpha female would not have much experience of or sympathy for F, K, X or Z females/males/TGs.

Culturally, in the progressive culture we are building, we view weakness in one area as not a reason to "cull a person from the herd". We recognize that a person, might for example be suffering from some autism spectrum disorder issues, will often have other talents and abilities worth preserving and promoting and not to be "culled". That is if one needs a reason other than "that person is a human being".

And you have no idea for the reason of my screen name.

So you can take you little sanctimonious attitude and shove it up your ass with a pine cone dipped in kerosene as a chaser.

Rhetorically of course.

But the popular culture is reality.

Good changes have been made.

Teaching kids to appreciate differences in people is great. Autism awareness is light years beyond what it was when I was a kid. It was barely even recognized. Seen as extremely rare.

Also there is more empathy for other kids who are obviously challenged physically, mentally or otherwise.

But I still stand by my opinion that among peers of equal standing. The only real way to avoid or stop someone from bullying you is to do it yourself.

Crying to the teacher or Mommy is going to make matters much worse for the kid. Especially.

Especially.

If the adult does actually intervene.

Just how do you propose to implement this "peers of equal standing" thing? Do you propose:

1) Encourage all kids to fight and then after the fact judge their "standing" for equality (strength, size, reach, weight, etc.). If kids aren't equal standing then apply a punishment to those kids but not if kids are "equal"?

2) Test all the kids for speed, agility, healthiness, strength, etc. and then issue them Battle Ratings like online computer games? Only kids with equal battle ratings can fight.

Just how equal? Are some kids more equal than others? If they are within 5 pounds of each other? 2? 10?

How are these fights to be allowed? Only supervised with referees? Only hidden out of sight? To the first knockdown or to the first punch landed? Kicking allowed?

What constitutes a fight? Pulling a pigtail? A sudden sucker punch? Baseball bats starting at 20 paces?

So adults should not intervene? Unless there is a death or an ambulance must be called?

Utterly impractical. The schoolyard fights of dreamy rose-coloured past golden eras are gone forever.

The one thing I can't get past.

You are eager to apply your pro-violence policy. You think this is Looney Tunes cartoons with you as the Roadrunner and me as the Coyote? Or are you Elmer Fudd?


I see, you want to have your cake and eat it too. Vicarious violence. Leave the real violence up to kids?

Your lesson to kids: Never call on authority if you are a victim of assault (threat of violence) or battery (actual violence) or blackmail or libel or slander. Instead, go beat up the other kid and bring an "equalizer" if you are weaker or smaller.

So when they suddenly turn 18 they will magically unlearn these lessons and call authorities when a crime is committed against them? Or they will take to heart the violent lessons you would have them learn and escalate retaliation with more powerful adult techniques of violence?

Either way it is utter nonsense to suggest teaching kids to respond to bullying with violence.

and think nothing is wrong with it

They don't have to worry about discipline if they allow the students to establish their own pecking order. That way the bullies keep everyone else in line and the only time the administration has to get involved is if a bully actually challenges them.

And to anybody who claims that fighting back is the only way to keep from being bullied I say bullshit. I was bullied constantly my first year in high school and I fought back every time. The only reason it stopped is I grew 6 inches and put on 40 pounds between my first and second years, and I no longer looked like somebody the bullies wanted to fuck with.

Plus, letting the victims' peers do the bullying for them takes away their dirty work.

In my experience, schools with bad bullying problems tend to have them from the top down. The superintendent is a bully, the principal is a bully or looks the other way when staff members bully each other, and then the kids pick up on it and get away with harassment and bullying until they pick on the wrong kid with the right connections.

I think most people don't want to do something until they are affected personally. Americans can be really lazy citizens.

Being in favor of self-assertiveness does not imagine a world free of bullying. Such a world is not humanly possible. Appealing to the authorities as being capable of providing such world flies in the face of all observed human history. Not only can the authorities NOT provide a world free from bullying but the bullies themselves will seek to become the authorities.