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Overusing the 'bully' label
pioneer press ^ | 3-23-13 | susan eva porter

Posted on 03/24/2013 11:01:32 AM PDT by TurboZamboni

Admittedly, digital media amplifies some of their mistakes and pours salt into wounds, but the behavior and reactions aren't new. What's new is our reaction to childhood aggression -- and our increasing impatience with children and readiness to label them when they make certain mistakes or experience pain.

What caused this shift? In a word, Columbine, but not for the reasons many believe.

Dave Cullen, in his book "Columbine," wrote that after the 1999 Colorado school massacre, the media crafted the explanation that shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been bullied. They apparently hadn't been, but the nation -- fearing a repeat of the tragedy -- adopted a zero-tolerance attitude toward many normal, albeit painful, aspects of childhood behavior and development, and defined them as bullying.

As a result, behaviors such as social exclusion, persistent unfriendliness and a nasty remark on Facebook have become intolerable acts that cause grave victimization.

(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bully; bullying; columbine; facebook; homosexualagenda; schools
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1 posted on 03/24/2013 11:01:32 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
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To: TurboZamboni

NPR is worried about too many people on disability and the Pioneer Press is worried that our culture might be too worried about bullying? Has hell frozen over? Why have the propagandists decided to espouse conservative ideas? Something is rotten in Denmark.


2 posted on 03/24/2013 11:07:39 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: TurboZamboni

I have a 5 year old daughter. I saw a commercial about bullying that I found totally ridiculous. They were saying that a girl was being bullied because two other girls were ignoring her at lunchtime. Give me a break. Bullying is getting in somebody’s face, pushing them around, and/or hitting them. Ignoring somebody is not bullying.

Sometimes people just don’t like each other. The way I see it, ignoring them is the best thing you can do. I guess I’m antisocial, I don’t see a need to smile and talk nice to EVERYBODY.


3 posted on 03/24/2013 11:11:41 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: TurboZamboni

New Progressive Dictionary

Bully - BULL-ee n.
1. Someone who disagrees with you
2. Someone who doesn’t smile at you


4 posted on 03/24/2013 11:14:46 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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To: TurboZamboni
What's new is our reaction to childhood aggression

I remember when I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade, must have been 1953 my brother hadn't been hatched yet, I was bullied.

There was a hoard of post WW2 boys attempting to establish a pecking order. I was challenged by a Red Headed spot head. My Old Man had a rule, always fight back or I will tan your a$$, so I fought back and won. The Red Head came whining afterwords about me almost breaking his face, never had a problem there after.

5 posted on 03/24/2013 11:19:04 AM PDT by Little Bill (A)
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To: blueunicorn6

A lot of liberals think that conservatism is dead. Deprived of the accountability imposed by a natural adversary, sensible liberals will have to tend to their fiscal house themselves. I see it daily in my very wealthy town; few admit to being Republicans but almost everyone is zealous to protect property values, not accrue unfunded liabilities, and guarantee a proper return on investment on the tax levy.


6 posted on 03/24/2013 11:22:05 AM PDT by only1percent
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
I don’t see a need to smile and talk nice to EVERYBODY.

Well, there's one place where maybe you should and I just came from there, church.

(You big bully)

7 posted on 03/24/2013 11:23:23 AM PDT by Graybeard58 (_.. ._. .. _. _._ __ ___ ._. . ___ ..._ ._ ._.. _ .. _. .)
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To: TurboZamboni

8 posted on 03/24/2013 11:25:01 AM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Little Bill

OMG - didn’t you realize that you probably caused this poor soul to suffer from years of PTSD? By your refusal to lay down and let him beat you, you have permanently damaged his self esteem.

He is probably now a lowly, homeless person with no sense of self worth. He is a lost soul amongst men.

The proper course of action would have been to go tell the teacher, so she could counsel him, so he could then have all his buddies join in, thereby ensuring the mental health of a whole gang of, I am sure, fine young men. /S


9 posted on 03/24/2013 11:27:39 AM PDT by msrngtp2002 (Just my opinion.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
Girls hang in gaggles and will rip the heart out of any other girl in order to be first hen. Guys pound on each other and can be friends after wards. Girls on the other hand destroy the competition, shunning, rumors, and other general nastiness. Men get physical women use words.
10 posted on 03/24/2013 11:28:45 AM PDT by Little Bill (A)
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To: TurboZamboni

I’m sick of the bullying debate, it’s ridiculous.

I was bullied as a kid, but you know what I got over it. I learned you had to take it in stride (since God forbid you give them what they deserve).

Bullying isn’t going to ever go away, despite all the grandstanding about how we need to “End Bullying Now”.

We were probably better off when corporal punishment was allowed and bullying got checked before going to the extremes we see today.

A good slap upside the head prevented parents from stabbing kids, or horrifically abusing kids to the point of suicide.


11 posted on 03/24/2013 11:30:34 AM PDT by Shadow44
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To: msrngtp2002
He probably became a hippy and and now hangs out in Bath Houses. Teachers in those days could careless, unless permant damage was done, Boys were Boys.

Given the choise of me not accepting the challange and my Old Man tanning my a$$, I would have fought them all.

12 posted on 03/24/2013 11:39:00 AM PDT by Little Bill (A)
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To: Shadow44

I ended up becoming friendly with two of the kids bullying me. The others turned into decent human beings by the end of high school.

Of course the school should intervene when there is serious bullying going on, and not let the inmates run the show as they often used to, but there is no need to have records following the bully up the grades.


13 posted on 03/24/2013 12:47:43 PM PDT by heartwood
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

That really cheapens the usefulness of the concept of bully. Bully is someone who does something so bad that it ought to be punished.


14 posted on 03/24/2013 1:05:03 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Little Bill

What has happened to godliness. Has it all been replaced with smash mouth spirits?


15 posted on 03/24/2013 1:07:55 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

Language has been distorted to the point where it is hard to know what people are talking about.

Think back to the debate about “torturing” al Qaeda members. The media, by using the word torture, put the forced wearing of a dog collar on the same level as mutilation.


16 posted on 03/24/2013 1:09:10 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I don’t understand what you are saying. My Grandfather was an Elder in his Church, he taught me that there are times when you don’t turn the other cheek.


17 posted on 03/24/2013 1:17:21 PM PDT by Little Bill (A)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

“Ignoring somebody is not bullying.”

I hope for your daughter’s sake you figure out that the above is exactly how “nice” girls from “nice” families bully other girls. Unlike boys, they use isolation to establish and enforce the savage pecking order. And to a kid, it’s every bit as vicious as a right-cross to the jaw.

You sit alone at lunch day in and day out trying to choke down a peanut butter sandwich, your shame and humiliation on display, and then tell that kid it isn’t “bullying.”


18 posted on 03/24/2013 1:18:19 PM PDT by Blue Ink
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To: heartwood

Yeah my old nemesis from when I was little actually grew up a lot in Middle School. He even apologized to me for all his antagonism, and I gladly accepted and was amazed at his changes.

Others stayed being the thugs they were, but the reality is that there’s just rude and immoral people out there.


19 posted on 03/24/2013 1:21:35 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

This bullying hysteria is their latest thing to keep all those helicopter Mom’s scared shiteless.

Remember when it was all the day care people? After the scare, that turned out to be nothing like all the scream was about.

This must be some type of phy-ops.

Yes, there is real bullying, but it certainly ain’t little girls snubbing one another.

The way we quite successfully dealt with real bullies was to stand up to them or stand up to them for a friend, bullies are not interested in a fight.


20 posted on 03/24/2013 4:57:44 PM PDT by X-spurt (Republic of Texas, Come and Take It!)
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