oldr_n_wsr wrote:Years ago bullies eventually got their due. Sooner or later those geting bullied, or those of us who had witnessed the bullying (and to our fault did nothing most of the time) finally got fed up and the bully was "fixed". No intervention from adults/teachers/administations.
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It would be nice to think that was true but I doubt if it was. Bullies often got away with it and then became abusive and cruel adults.
I agree that often kids should be given a little latitude to sort things out on their own but often they need intervention. The larger, stronger, crueler, and more violent can often dominate both as children and as adults.
I watched that video of Casey again today with a slightly more objective eye. I do think that there is more to it than we're being shown. Casey's body language before the body slam does not seem to be that of somebody who is submissive or cowering and his actions after the slam IMO don't seem to be those of a non-violent person who 'just snapped'. If the story we've been told is 100% accurate I would not have expected such a measured response from him... indeed he shows very little emotion.
Of course when he finally did walk away (which was when the bigger boy seemed to challenge him) he walked like John Wayne...
Why is it that when Miley Cyrus gets naked and licks a hammer it's 'art' and 'edgy' but when I do it I'm 'drunk' and 'banned from the hardware store'?
I can't afford the MB to watch videos online so appreciate the descriptions. I am remined of a time when I was about 8 or 9 and a kid came for me on the street wielding a lump of wood 'bout like a baseball bat. I could see my parents walking along and coming up behind him. My mother made as if to come forward and my dad took her arm and said "no". So I moved toward the kid because I didn't have any choice. I figure one of us would have ended up really hurt but didn't intend for it to be me. But good old mum intervened anyway and the boy ran off. "Bren" said my dad, "I wanted to see what he would do" (meaning me). I kind did too. Oh well
Years later a kid named Dominic McHugh and his buddy Jones bullied me. McHugh stopped after I grabbed him at the top of one of the Downs and pulled him over so that we both (unfortunately) went rolling downhill in a hug of death. It ended up with him on top - damn it. But that was that. Never bothered me again. Jones on the other hand kicked me in the balls in the lunch queue. My mother got the story out of me after I made her promise not to tell dad. Of course she did and he called the school and Jones got six of the best and his parents got an explanation. He threatened me (sotto voce) after that but nothing happened.
I always found these things scarey but they had to be confronted. Some kid whacked me a good one on the chin over a misunderstanding. When I got back up and stood exactly in front of him and said "Good punch" (being much too sensible to hit him - he was a monster) he was unable to do anything but turn away muttering. I on the other hand hurt like blazes.
Confrontation doesn't always work but this kid in the video reminds me of another group of kids who used push me and others around at the local playground. One day I was sitting on a swing and the smallest of that crowd came sauntering up and said "Get off - that's my swing". He made a mistake - being alone without his big friends. I had him by the throat and bent backwards over the bottom of a slide before he knew what was happening. He agreed never to bother me or my friends again even with his pals - dishonour being better than death which he knew I meant full well.
In this last instance I would say that I "snapped" just as I did with McHugh who was tall and tough. So the size of the bully on takes on may not be at all the guiding factor. But it helps that in the case of the smaller one, I was the one on top.
Meade
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Sean wrote:I watched that video of Casey again today with a slightly more objective eye. I do think that there is more to it than we're being shown. Casey's body language before the body slam does not seem to be that of somebody who is submissive or cowering and his actions after the slam IMO don't seem to be those of a non-violent person who 'just snapped'. If the story we've been told is 100% accurate I would not have expected such a measured response from him... indeed he shows very little emotion.
Of course when he finally did walk away (which was when the bigger boy seemed to challenge him) he walked like John Wayne...
I recall a time when I was in grade school (7th grade) when I reach an"that's all I can stands...and I can't stands no more" moment and snapped and put a kid (who was bugging/trying to bully me) into the ER. I was a always on of the biggest kids in class and my parents always counseled me to watch my temper because "you'll really hurt someone"; when that moment came I didn't care at all and wanted nothing better than to hurt him bad, maybe even kill him. No cowering, just pure unadulterated, white-faced rage; it took a lot of people to pull me off him and, after i left, the ambulance came for him. It's not a thing i am proud or ashamed of, but it did show me how everyone and everything has a limit, including me, and we all should be aware of this. I think the same thing easily could have happened to this kid.
And FWIW, after that I got the reputation of being crazy and no one started with me fearing the same thing. As for the school, I think I may have had to write a composition on why fighting was a bad way to settle disputes (after that fight and the result, i just lied and spouted the party line).
yeah those essays - 500 words on why I should not ..... whatever. Piece of cake eh?
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
I had a similar incident on the road with a jackass who was was deliberately fucking with me. Rage took over he was either going to let me by or I was going to put him into the wall. We were both lucky he relented.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.
Bullies often got away with it and then became abusive and cruel adults.
Possibly because they continually got away with it.
In grammar school (Catholic) I was always bullied. I was at hte far end of the district and never really saw my classmates after school so I was friends with nobody in grammar school. When I went to public high school (not with the same kids in my grammar school as I was in a different school district) I vowed never to be bullied again. Being the "new kid" as I was a transfer in, I knew next to no one in the school, and was picked on. After being picked on for the second time, by the same group, I punched who I thought was the "ring leader" (and was not the one who picked on me that time) right in the mouth. Lots of blood, really hurts and he had braces. Never did those guys pick on me again. Had a few more altercations in the first month or so at the new school but after that, none what-so-ever.
