Posted on 02/11/2014 3:49:14 PM PST by The Looking Spoon
I've actually thought about this in a more serious way than this graphic presents. While I understand why anti-bullying campaigns have been springing up I'm noticing that like with all the other "isms" out there people are starting to misuse the term in the same way the left uses "racism" to squelch discussion they don't like.
Only yesterday I was part of a Facebook thread about politics where a liberal friend whipped out the "B" word against a conservative friend in reaction to him saying something the liberal friend didn't like.
My conservative friend was displaying a different "B" word...backbone. Yet rather than take on the merits of what he was saying the liberal friend rested their case on his being a "bully" and then washed their hands of the discussion.
I've been noticing it in political discussions on TV a lot more too, I could be wrong, but the pendulum has only begun to swing, so I think we'll see A LOT more of this tactic before it gets better.
As with everything else with good intentions I'm not sure (speaking from my own experiences) that the anti-bullying movement is doing kids any favors. Life in the real world can be a big kick in the nuts sometimes, the kids who learn it early have a good head start on figuring that out.
There is some truth in it.
Just send a kid to school with a pro life message on a shirt and see what bullying is acceptable.
Using words in an attempt to cower a person IS bullying.
This echoes our conversation about judgmental non-judgment.
I was “bullied” in 4th grade (normal kid stuff actually, now its called bullying) One kid would mess with me while his friends laughed. When I finally had enough, I split his lip. As he stood there, more stunned at my reaction then hurt, I kicked him in the balls. Then he was more hurt then stunned. He never bothered me again.
My experience was a little different. I got tired of my bully and punched him in the face. It didn’t faze him. He proceeded to beat the crap out of me. I lost that fight, but like you he stopped messing with me. Standing up to a bully works wonders. They usually move on to someone new.
Yep - Yannick Labrie used to beat the heck out of me. Then I fought back and he wept like a baby. (Well, we were both weeping and punching each other through the tears.) Nobody knew what to make of that - the whole 6th grade stood around - and Yannick and I became friends for a short time after that, as if we were both cleansed of sin by lame fire.
Discussing this at this level, on this most conservative of all sites, shows just how emasculated we all are as a culture.
Always was the tallest kid in class.
Every year the shortest one would bully me. Was awful. Every year, every summer, every Sunday I would dread going back to school.
Until 10th grade. That year’s bully, after months of it, waited in the parking lot with his belt in hand.
Something snapped in my head. I went on auto-pilot or something. I grabbed his belt, tore it into pieces, grabbed him in a head lock and proceeded to pound his head. After a few minutes I dragged him to the dean’s office (who was my confirmation sponsor because Dad was playing the organ at church). Never got bothered again. Too bad I waited until 10th grade.
The schools are becoming bullies, period. Systematic abusive treatment for minor normal cultural behavior IS bullying.
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