When I read a few weeks ago when david claimed that the real heroes of 9/11 were the hijackers, and the firefighters shouldn’t be thought of as heroes, I almost stopped reading this blog. But I think blank hit the nail on the head, david isn’t playing with a full deck. If only there were an ignore function here as I do enjoy the the discussions and they provide insight. Paul Theodoropoulos being one of the writers I look forward to reading. But I have to wade through comments like davids.

But I wonder if david actually believes in his insane rantings, or if it’s some sort of troll. His writing is amateurish rubbish at best, yet it strives to be something that it isn’t. He writes like someone that dropped out of high-school, yet years later is trying to sound like someone of knowledge. The content of his writings betray his actual education though.

Hoo boy. So the liberals are to blame for this kid making an asshole out of himself and then having to be embarrassed, huh? Personally, I think it’s all Dumbya’s fault, him and his Axis of Evil (Heart Attack, Rove, and Fall-Boy Scooter).

>>This is where we get our world leaders today.

Can’t argue with that. Just look at the White House.

Tod, you are exactly right. Part of the problem are Liberals who say that there is no hierarchy of Consciousness therefore teachers have “no right” to enforce discipline, respect and righteousness because bullies have a right to self-expression. Usually, what teachers do is GRANT POWER to bullies by putting the strongest bully in a leadership role to control the class. This is where we get our world leaders today. They get promoted by us. When I was in 8th grade I got punched on the nose by a bully. To this day my nose is crooked and I can’t breathe straight. Well one day he started trouble with a teacher–the wrong teacher. The teacher awed the class by picking up the student bully from his desk and hurling him against the door with a blow that knocked that kid out of his senses. That teacher would not take bullshit from that kid. The BIG difference is that after that day the teacher formed a FRIENDSHIP with that kid. That kid learned to respect this particular teacher although he still beat up on kids outside. The teacher didn’t care about the bully’s outside life but in HIS classroom there was going to be only one ruler–teacher.

If you so “over” your teasing, why did my gentle barb piss you off? That’s obviously the reason I planted it.

Maybe teasing isn’t the character builder you might pretend it is? This is of course the point to the whole post. Thanks for being so predictable.

I do so enjoy your posts BTW.

Peace baby.

First of all, I don’t like using a lawsuit to resolve this. I don’t like people going to court and demanding large sums of money any time they’re wronged. Occasionally it’s appropriate. In this case, it was not.

However, some people are extending this into whining about bullying in general. It is NOT a character building experience for most kids, it is NOT boot camp for real life, and it is NOT all about victimhood. Just because some kids can bounce back from this sort of thing doesn’t mean all can, or even most. Kids who are constantly bullied in school are more likely to develop clinical depression and have low self esteem into adulthood. There are kids who have in fact killed themselves over this. Maybe there was something in them that made them more prone to it, as obviously most kids don’t do that, but some have pointed to the high school experience in their suicide notes, not to other things.

Adults tend to minimize it. They use phrases like “picked on” while the kids use words like “torment.” Perhaps they unconsciously whitewash their own past as it gets further away from them and the sitcom version of it slowly nudges out their own version. Or perhaps they were never really at the bottom of the ladder so they don’t know how bad it can really get. I remember reading message boards after Columbine with kids relating their experiences and getting very upset because it brought back some very unpleasant memories. (To clarify: kids everywhere relating general high school experiences, not actual Columbine kids.)

It’s boot camp for real life? It’s nothing like real life! In real life the dicks are easier to get away from. Maybe you have a bad boss or coworker, but not someone who can verbally and physically abuse you every day to the extent the kids can, and with as little recourse. One of the problems that causes the serious depression and possible suicide is that they feel it doesn’t end, that it doesn’t get any better. One of the things the older people on the message boards were trying to impart was that real life WASN’T like this, that it ends, that adults don’t treat each other this way.

All of this is not to be confused with the “let’s never do anything to lower their self esteem” crowd. I don’t buy that. I don’t believe that everyone should get a trophy, that no one should get a bad grade, that kids should be protected from any and every kind of negative experience they could possibly face. But I do think the kind of bullying that some people are subjected to is completely unacceptable. Maybe most people don’t understand what it’s like being at the bottom, so all they have is the sitcom version of it. I wasn’t at the bottom, but I was close enough to it to be miserable, and I shudder to think about how bad it is for people who had it worse.

Does what this kid went through reach that level? I don’t know, it’s beside the point now. What I’m responding to is the people minimizing bullying in general, the “it builds character” or “it’s boot camp for real life” or “it’s all victimhood.” Though rereading Josh’s comment, he does say we need to stop vicious bullying and I agree on not protecting them from every little thing, so maybe we’re not too far apart after all. But that boot camp remark still REALLY rubs me the wrong way. I just think it’s a serious problem and want people to take it seriously. Some schools have, and have started successful programs without getting into the airheaded stuff, and we should be reproducing those programs around the country.

If he would have played up to being a jedi when kids would chant “star wars” at him he could have had crowds eating out of the palm of his hand. Envision this:
He walks into the school cafeteria where all his peers start yelling and chanting at him “hey star wars kid!” – He should have grabbed a broom handle and jumped up on a table. I bet everyone would have loved him.

He caused his own depression by going into seclusion.

Hey, just like I say to Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson, if you’re doing things you don’t want other people to know about DON’T MAKE A F*CKING VIDEOTAPE OF YOURSELF DOING IT. And if you do, DON’T LEAVE IT ON THE SHELF AT F*CKING SCHOOL.

Jeez.