However, reading down the thread I came to a post by some jackass with the username "hawkeye10" which really did piss me off a lot. He detailed how his ideal anti-bullying treatment would be to leave the victim alone and make them sort out their problems alone, and that bullying and hazing serve critical societal functions. YEAH FUCKING RIGHT! He just seemed to deem it as a "rite of passage" which many people would have to go through. What a load of crap! Nobody should have to get put through bullying at school. Critical societal function my fucking arse! Bullying has the potential to destroy brilliant minds, ruin self-esteem and confidence and even drive people to suicide FOR ABSOLUTELY NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON. Victims should be more than entitled to any help they can get! A lot of the people on that thread are just stuck up their own arses, thinking that just because they punched a bully back in high school and managed to stop their bullies that way, the same will apply for us all. BULLSHIT!
I myself know from having gone to a rough inner-city high school for half a decade that any attempts for me to fight back would have resulted in even worse physical and emotional torment. By doing so, I would have provided these thugs with a decent reason to unleash some real hell on me, which they already did bad enough without any action on my part! We're all supposed to fight back and solve our problems that way. What if one of your bullies is over six feet tall and heavier than a fully-grown man by the age of 15, which one thug who picked on me was? Would taking a pop at him solve anything or even get anywhere? WOULD IT FUCK!!! Sometimes people have no choice but to stand around and take the shit they are given because they know that their bullies desire the potential reaction. Perhaps the high school thugs over in America are instantly subdued in shock whenever they witness one of their targets defending himself but where I went to in central London, that was precisely what they were aiming for. They wanted me to lash out so that they actually had some form of a reason to go at me even worse! So fighting back just won't solve all of our problems! Cycloptichorn and co. obviously had it relatively easy!
The way I see it, emotional torment and immense anger in me were a preferable alternative to physical brutality. The bullies at my school would hang around in groups a lot. That's how they felt more secure about themselves. That's how they'd put the fear of God into me - by numbers and social status! Hawkeye10 most kindly gave the kind suggestion of hitting the group leader, if there was a distinct one - yeah, like that'll fucking work! His mates would be real fucking idiots not to pummel the hell out of you for that, and they sure as hell would have done to me! Hawkeye10 is talking out his arse.
A few pages later in the thread, Earl came onto the scene with his story about the football player who defended the smaller, weaker kid against some goons who threw a projectile at his head which could have easily knocked him out. I fully respect that football player's decision. I fully believe that the more popular people that have the capacity to do good for their lesser-popular classmates suffering from bullying which they're quite clearly unable to defend themselves against should come and assist the less-fortunate students if they have any sense of moral decency about them! They're not putting themselves at any risk by offering a hand of friendship to those who need it the most. It's an admirable decision that they deserve to be commended for. Unsurprisingly, hawkeye10 quickly went and put down Earl's story saying that the football player SHOULD NOT have helped the weaker student because it was an example of "promoting the victim culture" by not allowing the victim to fight his own battle - this is what his post said:
BOLLOCKS! Do you want to know the four words that pissed me off the most about that paragraph? "Victims must be victims". FUCKING RUBBISH! Victims usually have done nothing to deserve any of the torment they get. They're being subjected to intense harassment for absolutely no justifiable reason. Oh, perhaps they don't have the same admiration for a bunch of stupid overpaid morons running round after a ball on Saturday, which seemed to be good enough reason for the bullies at my high-school to have at me! Victims are entitled to any help they can get. If they had the ability to handle it themselves, they wouldn't be victims, but SOME STUDENTS CAN'T, and it's not their fault! Furthermore, how are they supposed to help themselves with their weaknesses if they're constantly being harassed without the slightest bit of support from ANYBODY? It is absolutely NOT FAIR what is happening to them. I'd understand what hawkeye10 was saying if said victim had brought negative attention on themselves by means of antisocial behaviour but he's more than likely applying the same beliefs to hardworking students who do nothing bad to anybody else, but have been chosen to become subjects of abuse and mockery by those who cannot tolerate differences between people. This leads me to believe hawkeye10 was a bully in school and still may be a bully in the workplace. He probably thinks he was helping other students by picking on them in order to make them see their own weaknesses. He has actually said that bullying serves a good purpose in society.I am confident in this case the victim did not learn a thing. This is an example of promoting the victim culture, which will in time do us in if wiser heads do not prevail. It was noble for the knight to protect the damsel, but everyone was clear that this is only because the damsel was weak and thus required others to come to her aid. I am not willing to concede that victims must be victims and thus their weakness needs to be assumed and actually reinforced.
NO IT FUCKING WELL DOESN'T! In my experience, bullying is NOT done to help people build on their weaknesses. It has absolutely NO redeeming aspects if done to a person who has done nothing to deserve it. Bullying doesn't let people build on their weaknesses; instead it makes them feel ashamed about them and become even weaker as they are subjected to more and more torment for the mere amusement of certain intolerant people. Listen to this, hawkeye10 - there is absolutely NO justification for bullying! It's frankly disgusting how some young people can do this to others and I should like to see harder restrictions on it being implemented! Anyone who believes it has a useful purpose and builds character is a bona fide, 100% FUCKING IDIOT and those who spew that bullshit on that thread are more than likely ex-bullies themselves who have absolutely no adequate way of justifying what they did.
There is probably more to point out, but I won't bother. Actually I will point out one more piece of bullshit I found on the page after the aforementioned incident:
CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! Bullying is not free speech; it is harassment and deprives others of their free speech! I bet this person would describe the policies of the Nazis as "free speech" as they were expressing what they wanted to express! Frankly, anyone who just dismisses bullying as free speech is a bully themselves. They're supporting the idea of young people getting harassed and excluded for no good reason and think it's acceptable because it allows one side, the bullies, to express their freedom of speech and rights. But they're not letting the other side having THEIR freedom of speech. Therefore it isn't freedom of speech, but discrimination and an unequal system, and ABUSE!Bullying need not be criminalized, because it essentially amounts to right to free speech.
I think that was probably the longest post I've ever written for this website. But man, I was unbelievably frustrated by some of the total bullshit on that thread. Earl was dismissed as being an overly emotional whiner who "couldn't let go" because he chose to speak out against people condoning the unjustified harassment of young people in schools and even going so far as to describe it as a good thing. And that forum claims to be for INTELLIGENT debaters. Man, those people have sure wound me up. I need a good night's rest now.
Best regards,
i_like_1981