bullying solution

So, if you’re listening to one particular narrative in our culture, you’ll hear a new social problem.  Apparently it has led to a number of suicides, which in spite of what I have to say below, I do care about.

I was in a public school recently.  Decking every single wall like a bill-postered wall in a London ghetto are signs denouncing, not drugs, not teen pregnancy, not rebellion, not evil

not blood-thirsty video games, not gangs, not binge drinking, not cuttings, tattoos, body piercings, implants, not bulimia/anorexia, not tanning,

not racism/sexism/ageism, not over-eating, not masturbating, not skipping school, not failing to do your homework, not polluting the environment,

not water-boarding, not pole-dancing, not transcendental meditation, not cock fighting. 

But bullying.

Friends, is there any real difference between bullying and natural selection?  Ironically, the same public schools that are fighting to teach evolution, fighting in some cases against anti-evolutional cultural forces, are also denying the real world evidence of that biological megatrend in their own context.  Natural Selection, in which they trust, could be happening unhindered, if they would simply let it.  Validation of science classroom dogma under their very noses.

There are a few kids, fewer say, that the number of people killed by shark attacks, who have committed suicide in the wake of a bullying incident.  Who knows.  Perhaps they were bullied for months, years.  It may have been a 24-hour-a-day situation.  It may have involved the Internet.  And these helpless victims, did they do anything about it?  No.  Fight back?  Oh, they tried.  After nobly walking away the first few times, they engaged in a scuffle or two, perhaps left some nail scratches in an arm, or a juice stain on a blouse.  But it didn’t end.  Until, it ended for real.

Of course, we all can imagine that feeling, perhaps we remember it too well from when we were 13:  “I’ll just KILL myself.  Ha!  Then they’ll feel bad.”  Yes, well, that is some epoch-making logic there, friends.  I’ll be dead, but then they’ll be really sorry.  And the winner of that little standoff is….?

So, my favorite American state, New Jersey, has enacted a zero-tolerance bullying policy.  Counselors are brought in from around the world.  1-800 hotlines are established.  Lectures in the school amphitheater are scheduled, with MANDATORY attendance, or by-golly, we will kick your ass if you dont attend.  And give me your lunch money.

So.  On one hand, we have Natural Selection, a process striving manfully to do it’s job, to thin the herd, to improve the gene pool.  And on the other hand we have the Bible-literalist-Creationist-inspired, “nobody should ever have to bleh, bleh, bleh.”

Once again, we are in a smackdown between faith and science.  Only this one seems to have no thoughtful resolution based on dispassionate consideration of the facts as they relate to one’s <scrunch nose> Wirld-vyoo.  Secularists upholding values of compassion, friendship and community, and me the Christian, wondering what ever happened to Survival of the Fittest?

I say, let the wimpy kids learn to MAN UP.  Let the bullies do what they have done since cave man times.  Challenge the wimps.  Spur the runts to either make it in this tough world, or fall to the fickle hand of consumption, distemper, or winter.  A little butt kicking at school, and they’re ready to commit self-immolation?  Good grief.  Maybe Daddy didn’t do his job at home when little Reginald was growing up – teach that boy some self-respect…no, just plain BALLS.  Defend thyself, or feel the sting of my blade.

How about going and punching that bully in the nose?  How about school hallway posters that say “Kick a bully’s ass today!”  “Show a bully you got a pair!”  “Stomp dat bitch what’s given you dookie!” 

What’s wrong with that?  What if that bully insulted your mother?  Would you just wither like a lily in the noonday sun?  No!  Go and fight.  Defend your mother’s honor!  Protect your sister from jerks and their cat-calls.  Since when did niceness overrule all civilization?  This attitude led Hilter to power in 1933!