Well said. I’m glad someone said it.
Thank you.
For some reason bullying isn't taken very seriously. It's this whole "boys will be boys" "it's always happened" thing. "Everyone gets bullied," and those are just "growing pains."
A few years ago I read an article on Jewish World Review (I forget the author, but I think it was Paul Greenburg) about a boy who was cruelly bullied for no apparent reason. He was just one of those people everyone goes after. The things done to him were absolutely heartbreaking. And why? He wound up committing suicide. And he was a good boy too, volunteering to help people (I suppose that makes him a "liberal?"). And after he was dead none of the students (who either participated or didn't say a word of protest) had a bad word to say about him. So why did they torment him???
I think the same people who apologize for wedgies, swirlies, and other forms of physical and psychological torture (for that's exactly what it is) in the name of "conservatism" are the same people who tend to defend conservatism in purely social Darwinist terms: "The cowards never started, and the weaklings died on the way!"
The fact that no one has ever tried to stop it doesn't mean that bullying is "all right" and that only a "liberal" would be horrified by it. As a victim myself, I can assure you that the "bullying" you see portrayed on television is nothing compared to what it's really like. I'm sorry and ashamed that there are conservatives out there who feel compelled to defend bullying and public humiliation of children because they think anyone who complains is a "liberal crybaby."
Most victims suffer in absolute silence, and the "good" kids are the primary ennablers because they refuse to do a thing against it (no social penalties are ever visited on the offenders). Perhaps if there had been more "crybabies" long ago something would have long since been done about it.
And no, I am not a utopian advocate of "changing human nature!" Sheesh, if you don't have to be a homosexual, you certainly don't have to be a bully!