He was a creepy punk in high school, then he went on to impersonate a State Police officer--creepier yet--now his creepiness is in full flower with that heinous laugh of his and his utter inability to relate to anybody as a human being.

Diane
Anishinaabe in MI & mom to Taz & Nigel, members of Dogs Against Romney, Cat Division
"Dogs Aren’t Luggage--HISS!”

And your personality is not fully formed by the seventh grade.

is portrayed in that video. No one's asking them to go to cocktail parties and read the New Yorker, what people recognize is that this isn't normal or acceptable even for that age. And the poster was right, I don't see a lot of calls for understanding of Rmoney's sadism on the grounds his brain wasn't fully developed etc etc.

I just don't think they should be getting death threats or classified as irredeemable sociopaths. Everyday, "good," people have incredible capacity to hurt others in the right environment--look up the Milgram or Stanford Prison experiments for proof of that--and what I see in many of the comments and actions responding to these boys reflect the very same human nastiness that these boys themselves displayed. What disturbs me so much about Romney's action is that he has displayed no remorse for it years after the fact. If these boys are capable of feeling remorse, accepting some consequence (that perhaps doesn't quite rise to the level of death by firing squad, if that's all right with the Internet folks), and of learning from their behavior (which we have no way of knowing, because even if they do apologize to her in person, the media can't record an underage person without his or her parents' consent), then that should be enough.

We are in some weirdo punish-to-the-max cycle, coupled with a deeply stupid notion that everyone's personality is set by the time they're like, eight years old or something - and if you're "bad" then, well, you're a "sociopath" (a word thrown around with such non-knowledge and frequency that one can only explain it as ideological shorthand), and a "sociopath" will never change (so say the brain-scans which nobody understands), so whatever happens to you, oh well.

This is the seeming belief on liberal political boards! Rehabilitation? Forget about it. Torture! String 'em up! Place in a cell with "Bubba." (Oh, you'll get the "I'm not saying I support it, but I won't shed a tear" dodges, but these do little to hide people's obvious desire for sexual violence as punishment). One mistake, and you can be thrown to the wild dogs. These are our new American principles. From the liberals! You wonder why Reagan won? He turned us into a nation of vindictive assholes.

on to become veritable pricks in adulthood. AFAIK, not one of them ever 'grew out' of it. OK, maybe one did, but he later turned out to be gay (not sure that matters but just in case it has significance).

I do agree with you that 'sociopath' gets thrown around an awful lot here, perhaps as a proxy for 'fascist'. And I also agree with you that we seem to be in a terrible 'punish-to-the-max' cycle. But I remain decidedly pessimistic about bullies ever growing out of it.

The same self-centered culture that makes it possible for little children to torment an elderly lady who is there to watch after them is the same self-centured culture that lost interest in understanding human behavior and now seems to believe that getting even is more important than changing behavior. Cursing the darkness is more important than lighting candles.

I guess there's no room for us bleeding hearts anymore. We have become a scorned species even among liberals. Just what's so bad about peace, love and understanding?

He said that, in his opinion, reality TV has a lot to do with the mood of the country these days. That producers and directors encourage anti-social behavior and bad attitudes and acting out and even fisticuffs and other physically-violent encounters because it makes for great TV and great ratings. That may indeed be part of it.

Like, for example, I wonder how many teenage girls assume that if they get knocked up during high school, well, somebody'll just give 'em a reality show and that'll solve everything! And they'll be FAMOUS!!!! And they'll make lots of MONEY!!!! YAY! Just like those pathetic miscreants on there now - I think one of 'em (some creature named Amber I think?) even got sent to jail or something. I do know for a fact that this was indeed something the Octomom assumed. She figured because she had a veritable litter of babies that she'd be able to support them just fine because somebody was surely going to sign her to a reality show! I remember reading this and really getting pissed off about it. She pointed to the whole "Jon and Kate plus Eight" show and figured - "well, I can top THEM! I'm gonna get signed any day now, 'cause if eight is good, 14 is BETTER! Fame and fortune here I come!" And what happened? NOTHING. She's rotting in some cheap suburb out here somewhere and just barely getting by, with all those kids running wild all over the place and poorly supervised and few if any friends or others to help her and she's forced to do porn and stuff to make a few bucks just to be able to go to the grocery store. I feel very sorry for the kids involved, since they never asked for this. But I don't have much sympathy for her. Reality shows are like fairy godmothers. They're not around every corner and very few people actually meet one, much less gain anything from such a meeting. And they don't just magically show up simply because one THINKS one is deserving. That only happens in the movies.

There's so much out there now in society at large that encourages and rewards bad behavior, and stiffs and scorns good behavior. The good guys are usually depicted as nerds or dolts or losers - the ones you laugh and sneer at. The bad guys are the cool hip edgy, even sexy ones who break the rules and cut the corners and beat up on people and terrorize and intimidate others, and get away with stuff. And that's looked on, in general, as something good, positive, admirable, worthy of imitation. I mean, look at Rihanna and how she just still gushes over that Chris Brown asshole - and he's a frickin' BATTERER! But it's so outlaw that it's just cool! And those assholes all grow up to be mitt romney and george w. bush. Except that most of 'em don't have that kind of money so they're just plain ASSHOLES.

Used to be I didn't like seeing the media get blamed every time something went wrong in society. Full disclosure here, I spent all of my career in the media as a reporter, news anchor, interviewer, talk show host, writer, producer, and sometimes engineer. But I no longer feel that way - that the media isn't to blame. It is. Especially since there are so many kinds of media, information brokers and brokerages if you will. Information could be factual or fictitious, print or broadcast or cable or web, news or entertainment, but it's information. Period. It's all input. Input coming at your brain, your eyeballs, your ears, your skin, your mouth, any way in that will cause a reaction or response.

And I think the over-arching messaging that seeps in through the pores is a get-rich-quick, confrontational, gimme-gimme, make-me-an-overnight-star-'cause-I-don't-wanna-have-to-work-that-hard-for-it, in-yer-face, stir something up, bad-is-better, raunchier-is-better, nastier-is-better, meaner-is-better, sneakier-is-better, provoke merely for the sake of provoking, crime does indeed pay - and pay BIGTIME, dumber-is-better, and certainly richer-is-better (and it doesn't matter how you got rich, either!). I think that's delivered via all kinds of in-flow, whether it's "American Idol" or Howard Stern or Chris Brown or "South Park" or the Kardashians or "Girls Gone Wild" or whatever sports bad boy it is this week or "Apprentice" or whatever-the-hell it is, ALL of that pushes it farther down the pop culture sewer pipe. When I was a reporter, I had a supervisor who wanted that envelope pushed until we ripped it up. His day was MADE if he'd driven into work in the morning and heard something used on his local raunchy "Morning Zoo" radio show that turned out to be ours. That was like the proverbial apple a day that kept the doctor away. You were golden all day long if something you'd left overnight for morning drive was used by Howard Stern or any of 'em - now I suppose it'd be Ryan Seacrest also.

It's what turned the cast asshole in any given show from the negative example into the hero. Eddie Haskell was never to be looked up to on "Leave It to Beaver." NOWADAYS? He'd be the freakin' HERO! He'd get his own spin-off series! His own action figure! His own video game! They'd give him a recording contract and a development deal and you name it. Then he'd become like Ryan Seacrest spinning off himself and other rude, nasty, in-yer-face or weasely, sneaky-ass, what-shitty-and-near-criminal-behavior-can-I-get-away-with characters into a host of reality and other shows ad nauseam, and he'd be an obscenely rich man.

That avalanche dumps all over us every day. I think over time it has, and has had, an effect on society in general, the pop culture, and the national zeitgeist if you will. Just my opinion. It's an industry I used to work in, and cover (AND apologize for), and I think it carries a lot of the blame.

I think it's horribly nasty what those kids did, just like many of the things I saw kids do, and many of the things that were done to me. But it's also horribly nasty to hold a 13-year-old to the same standards as an adult. They can't vote, drink alcohol, or engage in other adult behaviors for a reason. Our brains don't even fully develop until we're 25. What sense does it make to assume that they are completely set and beyond the hope of intervention? Particularly given that many bullies (not all of them) behave that way because it is the behavior that has been modeled to them--often they are verbally and physically abused at home. More viciousness is not going to teach them empathy.

I feel this reflects a larger problem in our society, namely our thirst for retributive justice in all circumstances. Young people do stupid, insensitive, destructive things--like being involved in a fatal car accident due to careless behavior, or even vandalizing something--and though they are often consumed with remorse, or capable of learning and growing from their mistake--though there are a hundred ways that their punishment could be structured in a way that would heal the victims and allow the transgressors to ultimately benefit the society they have wronged, our solution is to throw them in prison for an interminably long time, because it makes us feel better in the short term. We have a system set up in such a backwards way that the legal risk of offering a sincere apology for such mistakes precludes the moral and social benefit of doing so.

There are better ways than this. It is time to move towards restorative justice.

It is deeply disturbing to me.

Kids can be stupid little savages (read Lord of the Flies if you don't believe me--Golding nailed it) that need moral guidance. If the adults in their lives model punitive and destructive behaviors, what can you expect? No justice, only punishment. It seems to be the only thing some of us can understand. How far removed are we from lopping off someone's hand for stealing bread? Answer: not very.

Even our everyday vocabulary is peppered with violent words. We're "combating" this, or "battling" that...we don't even realize how bellicose we've become. We're completely inured to the usage of this vocabulary.

Apparently, you can't just "reduce" or "eliminate" school bullying. You have to "combat" it--a supreme irony if ever there was one.

Don't even begin to try and justify the behaviour of those horrible kids. This is beyond what you are trying to say as mitigating factors.

That woman is their for the kids benefit. She is their to help them, and to help make sure they are safe. They respond to this by making a fucking game out of making her cry. To get emotional satisfaction out of the destruction of someone else's sense of self-worth, sorry, that doesn't even get a shade of a pass from me. It just affirms the little bastards as veritible shitstains and shouldn't be afforded any leeway whatsoever for "juvenile indiscretion".....

In other words, that behaviour is completely unacceptable, and you are about to go on a long ride that will show you without a doubt just how much you DON'T want to hear the phrase "completely unacceptable". These horrible kids are more than capable of taking responsibility for what they did. To say otherwise is to suggest they are still wearing diapers.

I never said there shouldn't be consequences for the kids. I said that thirteen-year-olds are not at the point of being irredeemable sociopaths, and that thirteen-year-olds and their families should not receive death threats. I have no interest in "going on a ride" with you. I don't see you as an enemy, and I don't see this conversation as a battle. I will be glad to have a mutually respectful conversation where we exchange our perspectives with each other. I understand that this is an extremely upsetting topic.

I will tell you a little about my background or what informs my opinion. I got a little taste of every form of abuse as a child from the adults in my life, as well as many of the kids. I know exactly how savagely painful it can be to be on the receiving end of this kind of behavior. I also know that thirteen-year-olds do not have a fully developed capacity for moral reasoning or empathy, and that kids often act out as bullies when they are victims of abuse.

I wouldn't define myself as a bully, but there were definitely times that I said cruel things, and even behaved violently (I was home-schooled until the eighth grade, so this was mostly with siblings and cousins, it was no less difficult for those who had to endure it). I did grow up to regret and account for those actions where I could, but it certainly wasn't because of the older people in my life who bullied me in return. It was because of the people who demonstrated the traits that would prevent bullying, such as empathy, a commitment to justice, and respect for others.

Every bully I know who did not suffer at the hands of another bully did not grow out of it.

The only ones I know who "grew out of it" weren't really bullies - they were the hangers-on of a bully, going along with it to be cool. Like the people who held the kid down while Mitt cut his hair. They didn't instigate the attack, but they went along with it.

but in context and I have been following it for a few days and reading the responses that supposed to be from him. I think it probably is.

Yes, course rudeness and violent rhetoric has become the norm and the likes of Fox News have been leading the way. I also wonder if the moral and emotional coldness as well as the language of cartoons such as South Park might be playing a role?

are experimenting themselves with inflammatory words and violent threats. They're running off at the laptop.

Then you have the 101st Chairborne who are anywhere from twenty-something on up - male or female - who live on disability ( not a thing wrong with disability payments unless you're trying to vote yourself out of yours and you need them to survive ) or mooch off family and who are so bored they spend all day trolling sites stirring up trouble. ( Again, living with family while you get yourself together is cool. Spending all day making violent, racist comments on internet forums is probably not cool.)

Then you have those who empathize with the bus monitor -maybe she reminded them of someone they love or of themselves being bullied - and they have just had a primal, human breakdown of compassion for the aggressors. It happens.

Maybe the best we can do is be like Karen. Let people vent, get it out, and they will be left to deal with their own words.

Did you seriously just bring up a show CLEARLY AIMED AT ADULTS as some sort of justification for shitty behaviour in minors???


Did you enjoy paint-chips in a house built before 1978?

Or are you one of THOSE people who see animation and simply assume its kids stuff...... and park your kids infront of it. OOoooooh, look at that, some one else can say ridiculous things too. Or are you one of those other people who think everything dealing with entertainment should be child safe because you are a bad parent and can't raise your kid yourself..... ooops, I did it again.

I think those children in the video are badly behaved and should be punished. But I do wonder about some influences that children pick up from TV and video games. Even more, I wonder about the culture of incivility and how children see from the Internet and elsewhere how many adults are uinable to discuss something in a rational and polite tone even at times on liberal forums.

But not all of them are. I don't like the idea that it is "normal." I was never cruel and would never have even thought of doing such a thing as a child. So were many of my friends.

We should stop excusing these people on the grounds it is natural for some people to be savages, and the rest of us have a duty to learn how to handle them. No, they are the problem. That's what is good about this being exposed. It could have happened many times in the old days before people had cameras on them at all times.

The point is that responding to bullying by even more savage and threatening bullying, and that denying the scientific reality that thirteen-year-olds have not reached full cognitive and emotional development, is not the way to solve the problem. They need to suffer consequences, certainly. They need to be confronted in an unmistakable way with the pain that their words cause. But given that many bullies are copying the behavior that has been modeled to them--verbal, physical, perhaps even sexual abuse--they need to see that there are other and better ways of resolving problems than intimidating and dehumanizing others.

I think some intervention (short of execution) might help some of them.


--imm

Control their behavior by whatever means necessary until they grow out of it.

Most of the reason we adults don't all... well at least not democrats... act like this is not because we "learned a lesson" but simply because we grew up.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468

They made at least one earlier and put it on YouTube as well but it didn't go viral like this more recent video.

I remember doing some mean things when I was a kid. I grew up in a big family. We fought each other or the neighbors. But I don't ever remember us going after an adult like these kids did. And making a video is just beyond sadistic.

Some nasty little jackasses put their cruel fun up online and it bites them in the ass. The Internet is sometimes a wonderful expression of collective outrage and even compassion. Without that, who was going to tell these punks to stop and get any reaction? Apparently no one. And no one was going to help poor Karen Klein. She was the victim, and we ought to remember that.

Sounds like, with a little motivation, you might be down for an old fashioned organized online lynching if you personally felt it would be "a wonderful expression of collective outrage". Slippery slope.

to even in passing liken what happened to them to some deserving bullies getting called out by people online.

Last edited Wed Jun 27, 2012, 05:58 AM - Edit history (1)

called out online and they should be firmly punished. Will you agree that little 7th grade boys receiving thousands of obscenity filled and even violently sexually suggestive death threats as well as thousands of messages calling upon these children to kill themselves is just a little bit disturbing?

...obviously. It's all so very clear to you. Unfortunately for the cause of moral rectitude, in the real world things aren't so clear cut and others may have a different moral framework than you do - including facts you may not have access to. Lynching and vindictiveness are the wrong answer - online or otherwise.

Do you love a public hanging as much as you love a mystery?

whose messages are far, far more violent than the other's? I get that you're trying to rack up street cred by being holier than thou with someone newer than you or whatever, but you really need to slow your roll. You're the only one talking (a lot) about hanging people.

I've probably seen more of the damage righteous moral outrage can do - online and off.

to a fund for her vacation and retirement:

Lets Give Karen -The bus monitor- H Klein A Vacation!

http://www.indiegogo.com/loveforkarenhklein

Current amount raised: $654,662.

In 10th grade, I became very good friends with my 7th grade bully. By that time, she had split away from the head bullier (as had a most others in that group) and apologized to me and a few others. Quite simply she became a leader of her own actions and ceased currying favor with the powerful.

Such a culture of hate, revenge and viciousness we have created and people wonder why our kids behave as they do.

Kids are cruel. Granted she didn't deserve what they did to her, but they are after all kids. May I suggest to some to watch that old movie To Sir With Love, and see if you see some of the same behavior but only in the 60's. Today's kids text more than talk these days, so most of the time the things they say aren't to ones face.

Oh, and they were approaching summer vacation. Some kids think 3 months is a lifetime, so do what you want those last days of school.

We had this on our main tv news channels here in the UK.

I feel about 100x worse for a lab rat in a cosmetics product testing lab than I do for any of those kids.

Perhaps that is what it took to make them straighten up. Perhaps this will create public awareness about such behavior. After all these little seventh graders are the ones that made the video and posted it on the Internet. I certainly think they need to be punished. I just don't believe that it is a good thing that they are receiving thousands and thousands of obscenity filled and even violently sexually suggestive death threats as well as thousands and thousands of messages calling upon these children to kill themselves because their lives are already over and that they have no chance for any future no matter what they do. Maybe a spanking and being grounded with some extra chores would be more appropriate - just saying.

I am not as familiar as most with this story.
Have the parents of these kids been notified of this behavior?
Have school officials been notified. Seems to me at the least they should be removed from the bus - let the parents figure out how they get to school.
Also seems that if parents don't stop this behavior now, they will have problems for a long time.