How did the rest of the DU deal with high school bullies?

[Parisle]

--- Let's face it,... every school has them. Back in the 60's, things were a good deal different, for sure,... but bullies persist. It's a part of the human condition. We have one for president, now, eh? I could expand that by adding that he is a cowardly bully,... but then most bullies ARE cowards at heart.

--- I worry that democrats are the ones who dealt with bullies by squealing and whining to their teacher, or to the principal. Screw that. If you want something done right........

--- There was a terrible bully in my high school in the 60's. Having been set back a couple of times, I guess he was about 20 years old, and he terrorized the shit out of the rest of us,.. even put the catcher of the baseball team in the hospital for a month,... and baseball catchers don't tend to be pansies.

--- There came a day when I and three of my friends were stuck with this guy in the audio-visuals store room for a while,... his threats and belittling were constant. He tried to pick a fight with a friend of mine who has since gone on to become a brain surgeon. I exhorted my friends,... "it's now or never,.. four against one,.. let's do it."

--- We attacked the guy and beat the shit out of him. I don't mean an ordinary beating where the fight is over when the vanquished party surrenders. We had to ensure that this guy would never be a threat to us again. We beat him unconscious, and didn't stop there. We broke both his arms and all of his fingers. And I'm only telling you half of the picture. When questioned by the cops, we all said he had attacked us and we were only defending ourselves. The cops already knew he was a bad apple, and that was that.

---- Sit up and pay attention, DU. This is who you're dealing with now. This is the Bush-PNAC administration. You do NOT merely vote them out of office. You have to totally demolish them. You have to beat them so bad that their goddamned children are afraid to say their names aloud. The neocons have to be exterminated.

[Drops_not_Dope]

1. WTF

is your problem?

[Name removed]

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[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

5. Let me guess?

You'd break his arms and fingers.

[Name removed]

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[Kiouni]

17. too far.

[Name removed]

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[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

2. Um...they weren't a problem.

I pretty much was known as someone not to be fucked with.

[izzie]

3. Frankly as a pesty girl got it a lot. I came home with black eyes

I learned to use my wit, run fast and never went to the teachers or my father who told me I would have to handle it on my own with thinking. Since I was the peewee of the school and the bully's were the big guys something happened and the rest of the school ended up waiting for the bully's so I could get home with out getting more black and blues. I guess my standing up for myself made other brave also. Did I shame them into it?

[Hippo_Tron]

29. You got beat up by guys?

We had unwritten rules about not hitting girls.

[izzie]

34. I also had horses that they liked to aim stones at.

Frankly it was one family of boys and one family of their Friends. Nice to knew that most ended up in prison. My problem was when they pushed I always pushed back and then the hitting started. My sister fixed the horse business. She made them get on the horses and they could not ride so they were bully that could not do what we silly girls could do. These boys were real bully's and girls were fine with them. I swear what stopped them is that even other boys found it odd that a peewee of a girl would go at it with them. It just drove me nuts to be pushed out of line and all that stuff.

[Richard Steele]

6. They don't have eyes in the back of their heads, y'know.

Once he's down, you "put the feet to him".
Any part of him still moving- STOMP it.

It's times like that that make a bully
step back and take a moment to reconsider
his worldview.

[Buddyblazon]

9. When I was 14..

I punched the guy that had been bullying me for 2 years. He saw me in the hallway between classes when it was very quiet.

"I'm going to kick your ass after school today.", he said as he approached. I just kept walking straight at him...and promptly punched him in his teeth.

Needless to say...he left me alone from that point on.

I, however, never broke anybodies bones.

Remind me not to mess with you, Mr. Smaldone.

[Behind the Aegis]

10. This is one of the more disturbing posts I have EVER seen at DU.

:puke:

[Name removed]

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[The Anti-Neo Con]

12. Wow, yeah that is a pretty borderline post here.

The OP might "disappear" or at least get a reaming from the mods here.

[Name removed]

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[The Anti-Neo Con]

23. ???

I can't figure out what you're trying to say there.

Anyway, the point of my post was to be careful what you post here. I have been banned for making posts A LOT less inflammatory than what the OP made.

[Name removed]

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[Kiouni]

13. This kind of bull-headed

approach of saying you have to be tough and fight fire with fire is just redundant and quite honestly exactly what Bush and his administration have molded our country into. The fact that you see violence as being the solution or you story as some kind of fable is disturbing. We don't need violence and we don't need your approach either.

[TheBaldyMan]

14. I'll ignore the sweeping generalisation about DUers ... about bullying

the best wat to deal with a bully is to stand up to them, let them know you aren't afraid of them.

I didn't get bullied twice by the same guy.

[Behind the Aegis]

16. Wild guess here, but...

...I am guessing you don't have to resort to violence to let them know you are not afraid, unless it is an absolute necessity.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Sit up and pay attention, DU!!! Here's what you need to do:

Get an empty swimming pool.

First, get all the mystery johnny-come-lately people who post incendiary, self-congratulatory, "listen up DU" flamebait threads on one side.

Then, get all the drunk people who post head-scratching, Zen Koan-Like threads that make absolutely no fucking sense at 3 in the morning on the other side.

Give them all squirt guns filled with cherry cake frosting, and fill the pool with two feet of grape jell-o.

Let 'em at it.

[Behind the Aegis]

22. BEST. RESPONSE. YET!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[keopeli]

21. non-violence is absolute commitment to the way of love - mlk

I have never hit another person. As a kid, I was often the only white boy in my class. I was picked on relentlessly, especially on the playground. Eventually, I just spent recess in the principles office playing with the secretaries. I suffered frequent threats, sometimes with weapons, and was often hit, pushed and shoved. I still have scars from childhood episodes where I was picked on but refused to respond in kind.

I am no better than you or anyone else. I simply have never adopted the idea that hitting another person can be justified. In fact, it is in the face of adversity that I consider it most important to resist striking back.

This is how Martin Luther King, Jr addressed this dilemma:

The reason I can' t follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion. I remember some years ago, my brother and I were driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for some reason the drivers that night were very discourteous or they were forgetting to dim their lights...And finally A.D. looked over at me and he said, 'I'm tired of this now, and the next car that comes by here and refuses to dim the lights, I'm going to refuse to dim mine.' I said, 'Wait a minute, don't do that . Somebody has to have some sense on this highway.' And I'm saying the same thing for us here in Birmingham. We are moving up a mighty highway toward the city of Freedom. There will be meandering points. There will be curves and difficult moments, and we will be tempted to retaliate with the same kind of force that the opposition will use. But I'm going to say to you, 'Wait a minute, Birmingham. Somebody's got to have some sense in Birmingham.'

--Martin Luther King, Jr., 3 May 1963

Peace.

[Syrinx]

26. no need to resort to breaking twelve bones

It was my experience in school, that one forcefully delivered fist to the face convinced the bully that I wasn't going to take the crap. Okay, one time I blew a handful of salt into a bully's eyes. That worked too.

[Parisle]

27. Thank You, dicksteele

--- I'm a little surprised at getting piled on that way,... but your rational assistance is most appreciated.

--- This non-violent crap is confounding to me. It is a philosophical luxury for which its proponents have paid not a whit in effort. In 1974, I stumbled onto the occasion of a man raping a woman. Does anyone here propose that my violent respone was untoward? Should I have focused on rehabilitation?

--- Non-violence is a nice ideal. It is not an absolute. If someone is trying to kill me, then I would prefer to kill him, instead. Does that not make sense to any of you pacifists?

[Kiouni]

30. We are not pacifists.

Your abused bully would have learned his lesson about respecting others eventually without you and your 3 "friends" beating him unconscious. How do I know this? Because everyone learns this lesson in life. Your methods accomplish the same goals as we, the practitioners of non-violence but the other lessons of thought acquired are far beyond what you would learn from your fists. Stopping a rape is commendable but you balk at rehabilitation. I'll tell you what rehabilitation of sexual offenders stops more rapes then your interruptions ever will. Your methods are short-sighted, sir, but you will probably not understand what I mean by any of this because you start every discussion with aggression and the need to ally with "friends" to accomplish your goals.

[Parisle]

42. You didn't answer the question, (great surprise)

--- Intellectualize all you want. When the bad guys are shooting at you, do you propose NOT to shoot back?

[Kiouni]

46. The answer is....

eventually we won't have to. We don't have to light our selfs on fire to protest or march till we're dead to make a point we can simply state that the inevitability of our species and the hope for our society is peace. We can see it in the distance, why not embrace it. You say idiotic statements about how the American Revolution would have never happened had it not been people like you but you fail to realize the progression we have made as a society since then. America's Independence was predicted long before the war even took place with the simple statement of, "an island can not rule a country." With our "intellectual" (as you like to call it) approach we can see that clearly that violence only begets violence. Look at Iraq, who here would not deny that international diplomacy would have handled this situation far better then a war. Israel and Palestine is a great example as well. Suicide bombings on innocent Israelis seems to be changing the opinions of the world...oh wait, it's not, what a shock. If we (they) used dialog, respect, logic and the pursuit of a compromising attitude we could resolve even that seemingly impossible marriage. But currently the violence tactics on both sides are ineffective.
Now this wide scale look at non-violence would not work in your rape case because we cannot simply try and reach a compromise with the victim and the rapist. All though I might think a few oppressive nations might favor this approach. I will state that we need people like you. I'll admit it we need violent people but only to deal with other violent people. Clinically, I believe, men that use violence immorally and those that respond with violence irrationally are the same breed. I hope one day that both will change. And to dispel any snide remarks about us Duer'ss not seeing violence and living in an enclosed worlds I will tell you that I am a paramedic and have seen first hand the damages of violence. I have been in fights I have been beaten and I have wronged and I can tell you first hand it is not the solution and will only delay the inevitable.

[Behind the Aegis]

31. Strawmen!

In 1974, I stumbled onto the occasion of a man raping a woman. Does anyone here propose that my violent respone was untoward? Should I have focused on rehabilitation?

No one suggested such a thing because that was not in the OP, nor is it similar to the situation you painted.

Non-violence is a nice ideal. It is not an absolute. If someone is trying to kill me, then I would prefer to kill him, instead. Does that not make sense to any of you pacifists?

Again, no one suggest non-violence was an absolute, nor did you pose the question you are now asking in the OP.

Basically, you poorly extrapolated from the responses given.

[Richard Steele]

33. Please take all the "piling on" with a grain of salt. I do.

Many here fail to differentiate the situations described in posts
from hypothetical ideals, and respond as such.

If I had taken your post in that sense, I might do the same.

VIOLENCE is not fun, it is not the least bit pleasant for
anyone involved. But the sad fact is that it is still one
of the building blocks of our 'society', and not a one of
us goes a single day without it influencing our choice of
futures, whether we realize it consciously or not.

VIOLENCE shows itself only occasionally as we get older; the
PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR it imprints on us at an early age generally
suffice to maintain the accepted system well enough that the
actual violence itself is seldom necessary past adolescence.

And when it DOES become necessary, as it still occasionally does,
I find it's best to get it over with as quickly as possible, so
I can get home in one piece to discuss the intellectual ramifications
of "violence" with sheltered, priviledged DUers who have never SEEN any.

[Parisle]

38. Yeah,....

---Thanks again dick. Your insights and understanding go way above the smarmy little complaints of the pacifist ideological horde. With these guys behind us, there would not even have been an American Revolution.

[Name removed]

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[Richard Steele]

40. Some guys were NEVER behind us, but the Revolution happened anyway.

Never forget that. EVER.

[MonkeyFunk]

28. so you propose

to beat up those whose politics disagree with yours?

[Parisle]

32. No,.....

--- But I would put a serious hurting on those who would dispute the legitimacy of the will of 70% of the nation. Which fucking side of democracy are you on, anyway? This thread has shown me a lot about the DU,... and I am sorry to have troubled you people,...... but I'm glad that at least I now know not to trust you in the fight that's coming.

[MonkeyFunk]

43. The democracy

I respect doesn't involve beating people to a pulp - that's more of a fascist approach.

[EST]

47. Disputing the legitimacy of the seventy percent is a fundamental

tenet of the philosophy of this country. Being in the majority does not confer legitimacy, while ethical responsibility does. Respect for the minority and the opinions of that minority is a measure of a responsible human.

Nearly every heroic epic illustrates exactly that-the minority hero goes up against an entrenched majority and, by using all his gifts, manages to achieve success without necessarily resorting to the basest-that of "I'm tough so you had better do it my way."

In the heat of manufactured majority enthusiasm, the little poopsqueak took the country to war and there is now little doubt that was a bad idea.

The vast majority of this nation, while, perhaps, not actively racist, was definitely against a loud minority's demand to be treated like human beings and that anti-incrementalism stance was unequivocally correct. There were many who considered violence the proper reproach for such an uppity attitude. Thankfully,those types are in a minority now, although they are certainly attempting a comeback.

If this teaches a lot about DU, that's a good thing.

Sometimes, violence is unavoidable but, at all other times, it is execrable.

[Superman Returns]

35. muwhahahaa

wtf? seriously, what the hell is this thread about? And leave behind the aegis alone, I agree with him, the OP goes into murky territory that seemingly advocates deadly violence both on a personal level and against the government. It's uncalled for. A thread about dealing with bullies is one thing, but to revel in the fact that you beat a guy unconscious and then drawing a political conclusion from it is bizarre.

[Kiouni]

36. Great Pic! n/t

[Superman Returns]

37. thanks, I've got many compliments so far

Yet I'm not sure if its because DU'ers are Obama fans, Superman fans, or both?

[Richard Steele]

41. Well, then THIS should be a refreshing fucking change of pace:

WEB-HOST that pic yourself, dammit! You are sucking my LIMITED
photo-account bandwidth with that pic!

I've been REAL nice about this, but it's been WAY too long.
TOMORROW that pic gets deleted from my PhotoBucket account;
either find an account of your own to host it or kiss it goodbye!

If you don't know how, or what I'm even talking about, PM me...
or start a lounge thread asking for advice.

(Not really mad at you, just sayin'.)

[Superman Returns]

44. well, I appreciate you making it for me

and I believe I thanked you a great deal when you helped me out. Like I said, I'm not great with internet stuff, so I had no idea that it was doing what you said it was. I guess this was brought by my comments in the thread, although I don't believe that it was intended for you. In fact, I didn't even get to read all the comments. Nonetheless, its cool. I would believe you weren't mad at me except the subject of your reply kind of says it all. Its odd this would happen in a thread about bullying. No, actually not. Good day, sir.

[salin]

51. strikes me as over the top, as well.

[JNelson6563]

45. Advice I gave my brother

There were a couple of bullies after my brother when he was in his early teens. He told me he feared this one guy because he was "a crazy fucker". I pointed out what he just said that scared him....the fact that he saw the guy as "crazy". I told him that if he convinced them he was crazier than they, they'd fear him.

:toast: It worked.

Julie

[SoCalDem]

48. I was never bullied..(and I was a "teacher's pet"..go figure)

:)and I never bullied either I pretty much got along with everyone. One of my sons had an issue with bullying, but oddly enough it was a TEACHER who was the bully..

He was in 5th grade, and when I showed up to attend the ceremony for the end of the year, she announced (close enough so I could hear) that even though he was receiving the "student of the year" award, he would not be on the honor roll because she gave him a "u" on the bottom of his report card.

I talked to another parent at the ceremony, and HER son had had problems with that teacher. We went to the principal's office and found out that we were not the only parents who had complained. The principal even said "She does not get along well with BOYS".. We were dumbfounded that he admitted that to us.

Her contract was not renewed and it was a minor blip..but annoying, just the same.

[OneBlueSky]

49. become friends with the big guys . . .

you know, the football players, wrestlers, and other jocks who no one would dare pick on . . . when the bullies see you in their company, they tend to leave you alone . . .

interesting story from my high school days . . . at that time (1961-64), my high school had the biggest football player in the nation -- including the pros! . . . his aunt made his "uniforms", and they could never find shoes big enough for him (they even approached the local pro team with no luck) . . . the shoes had to be custom made . . .

the guy was a Native American who stood about 6'5" and weighed 380 pounds -- which was also his jersey number . . . not unusual in today's pros, I suppose, but unheard of back then . . . especially for a high schooler . . . he also happened to be a hell of a nice guy who, not surprisingly, won the state wrestling championship in unlimited weight class . . .

[H2O Man]

50. Quickly.

[TZ]

52. I was bullied but I never

ever wanted to be anything like them. What you may call "whining" to authority is what some of us did to attempt to actually help the person learn the error of their ways. Do you know that when I got older several people who bullied me hurtfully apologized and were very kind to me. Tit for tat has its place mind you, but I think reason and clear thnking and determination can accomplish more than "payback" however nice it might feel.

[LaurenG]

53. Locking

Flame fest.