Warning Signs
POSTED BY: Jongsstraw
UPDATED: Sunday, April 29, 2007 19:28
VIEWED: 14532
PAGE 5 of 15
Quote:I wouldn't say I 'bested' him, I think he just saw me as crazy and maybe dangerous...
Originally posted by SignyM:
RE the bully that you bested- just OOC did he stop bullying altogether, or did he just stop bullying YOU?
He never again bullied me (or in my presence), but I'm sure he found an outlet away from me (we went to different schools).
EDIT: To tell the truth, I remember worrying that he might beat me up for my little wig-out, I wouldn't have my knife with me all the time. Imagine my happy surprise when he just never talked to me again, heh heh.
Crazy, knife-weilding Chrisisall
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Finn, smell what you're shovelling.
I am one of the few who speaks up for PN's right to be here, so be *damned* to you if you think I wanna silence anyone - if anything, imma trying to educate you, or at least get your to understand other viewpoints on a situation, and if I don't think someone is capable of rational debate on a topic, I don't bother debating it with them.
The viewpoint you are expressing, in your post, is *exactly* what creates these people, and exactly what will continue to do so.
Prove to me Cho was *born* like that, go on, try to prove it.
Something happened in between the womb and his suicide, the exact details we don't know, can't know, and likely never will know, but continuing to espouse the belief that people are born like that so it's a waste of effort to do anything about it is lunacy.
Why don't you tell me what the *cause* of those structural and chemical abnormalities are, eh ?
Why don't you ask Doc Perry what causes them ?
You won't like the answers, but it's something we all gotta face up to, cause it's a boomerang WE throw, every day - and sometimes it comes back.
As for bully-types, I would say it depends on how soon you get to them, by the time these punks reach high school, they've calcified in a behavior with almost endless positive reinforcement, that is practically celebrated in our society, you really think mere words are going to change them ?
I will not go into details about it, but yeah, I ran up against them too, and the good ole boys game of being punished by the school for mere self defense to the point where I honestly believed at the age of 11-12 that they were in downright collusion with each other.
The only thing that kept me safe, kept me sane at all, was an absolute willingness to resort to violence far and away beyond anything you would ever even dream could come from the mind and heart of a child - which yes, caused me to be left alone, rather very severely alone, by everyone, but it was preferable to having my ass kicked every day.
And when I finally broke free of that hateful system at sixteen, with GED in hand, it would take more than a decade to slowly emerge from the bitter wall of hate, rage and violence that I kept the rest of humanity at bay with - not sharing the details of that beyond the fact that love really does conquer all, and the strongest force ever on earth is mercy.
And one thought to ponder on, for Chrisisall.
Now suppose, just suppose... that after that incident the cops show up at your house, take the knife, charge you with assault and battery, which goes to court (eventually) and gets you stuck with community service...
And on top of that, the next day, you run up against punk boy and three of his friends laying in wait, mocking your for being disarmed, who then proceed to kick your ass into an ER visit, and when YOU try to make an issue of it, it's dismissed as just boys being boys.
Put yourself back in that moment, just for five minutes, and think about how you would feel towards the people who blamed you, and shamed you, for your own defense, who disarmed you and handed you on a plate to them, and put yourself in that frame of mind for just five minutes.
You'll never again wonder why these folk do what they do - you will know.
Vilification of self-defense is but the smallest part of it, but make no mistake it is a part of it indeed.
If you'd like, I have a set of editorials written shortly after Columbine I could dig up and share, one of which I will post immediately after this.
One might find them quite informative.
-Frem
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(originally written sept 2002)
Death At 3PM
by XXXXXXXX
School lets out at 3pm.
http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/9911_1/vio1.html
http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/9911_1/vio2.html
These charts show without one ounce of doubt, that school is a contributory factor in crime...and here's why, tho no one will admit it.
A student often harrassed by his peers more often than likely...WILL BE ARMED, once he returns home and gets out and about.
But on his way home from school, he will not be, nor will he have neighbor/parental support to back him up...by demanding that our children come to school unarmed (which is rational, and understandable) - we then take some responsibility for protecting them from harm.
The same principle applies at, say...Social Security...the sign on the door clearly indicates you must leave your weapons behind to enter the building, and beside that door is an ARMED guard...the presence of whom I find downright comforting when I have left my weapons in the car.
If I must be defenseless by the rules of the organization I am entering, it is their responsibility, morally...to defend me, period.
The SAME applies to schools...the child appearing at the bus stop to confront six larger kids who are going to kick the shit out of him does so unarmed because it is the schools policy that he not board the bus with a weapon...but where is the school when his safety is now endangered because he is unarmed ?
And on the way home, many times it is a "race" to get "home safe" and more than likely armed....before your aggressors get to you - where is the school then, by who's demands you are unarmed ?
If the school is going to demand compliance with certain rules that cause increased risks to their students (and usually FROM other students) - then the school is going to have to take responsibility for what happens to them....even if it's off school grounds, even if it's after school.
Now, consider well the mindset of the tormented child - the school demands he be certain places at certain times, and unarmed...and his tormenters know where he will be, and that he will be defenseless....and as well most of them know the teachers are going home and the school will not take responsibility for anything that happens after school or off the property.
In the mind of the victim, the school has "set him up" to be abused, and therefore a knowing and willing participant, especially if he's brought it up with them and been told there is nothing they can do after-hours or off the property.
And the sick thing is...the child is correct, the school places him in such situations, and then refuses to take their share of responsibility for what then happens to him.
Yet, now...if it was an adult, a stranger...they might act, but as long as it's students from the same school, they do nothing, how convenient.
What needs be done is to make the school system legally and financially responsible to some degree in cases where harm comes of it, for it is by their mandate the student is in this place, at this time, and not armed - and therefore easier to victimize.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
...according to you no body that you know of has ever improved by criticism, huh? You don’t get out too much do you? That’s pretty much how the entire professional world works, and it works the same way in a social setting too. Let’s use simple example to get you on the same page: you and some friends are socializing at a party, some guy walks up to you and starts talking about how he wants to have sex with some 8 year old boy in Bangkok. You offer no criticism? You politely and opening accept him for the beautiful inner person that he is?
Heh... you make it sounds like schoolyard bullies are the valiant enforcers of our moral code. Give it a break, it's nothing like that. It's about meanness and insecurity and fear. You can find social settings like this in the professional world, companies where many of the people have yet to grow out of the games they played in school. But they're easy enough to avoid for those of us who have moved on.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Finn, I also defend PN's right to be here and have done so in the past.
And thank you Frem for that heartfelt post.
---------------------------------
Perhaps passion will sway where reason cannot.
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Quote:I've done that, Frem- wondered about it, that is.
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Put yourself back in that moment, just for five minutes, and think about how you would feel towards the people who blamed you, and shamed you, for your own defense, who disarmed you and handed you on a plate to them, and put yourself in that frame of mind for just five minutes.
What scares me more is, what if I had stabbed that jerk? Even if I did no more than a flesh wound, I might have gone down an entirely different path than I did. But for the grace of Buddha, I might have become an anti-social nutcase, waiting to exact revenge on the system that twisted me. None of us are above straying to the Dark side, given the proper motivation. Peeps that would dismiss society's role in creating Cho's are reacting to the inner fear that they could have become one, IMO.
Nature, nuture, I'm the guy with the gun...Chrisisall
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Quote:
But for the grace of Buddha, I might have become an anti-social nutcase, waiting to exact revenge on the system that twisted me.
Well, I suppose a confession is in order.
You see, I came awful damned close to *doing* exactly that, but... it would not have been enough, and it would not have changed anything - I had a full-on eureaka-class epiphany one day, just out of the blue while thinking dark thoughts on the matter, and decided to exact my revenge in a fashion that had not occured to me before.
Strike at its roots, crush it's evil seed, and break it's ability to create monsters.
I've moved on past revenge as primary motive, but where we are, where we ALL are, even in our disagreements over the details, in this thread, is somewhere I have been hoping to see for nearly twenty years.
I am shocked, stunned, and gratified that this topic can finally be discussed in such a fashion, because for the most part attempting to address this particular topic hasn't exactly been a smashing success getting it across to the general populace, and I still have doubts about most folk being willing to face much of it.
Believe me, the site I originally wrote most of these editorials for was buried in hatemail over it, of the how-dare-you-try-to-understand-them stripe.
Maybe we weren't ready, maybe we are now, I dunno, but a man can hope.
I can hope for the day we don't murder the humanity of our children.
If I live to see that, I'll die a happy man.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Two brief observations.
Closest I've come so far to an irrational shooting was a road rage incident that finished outside an office where I was working. Apparently some guy cut up another guy on the freeway so the "injured party" followed him off the highway, waited until he had stopped at the light outside our office block and shot him.
Now from Sarge's perspective driving around here can be especially vexing, highways don't have consistancy as to the structure of ramps, signs often give little or no notice of required lane changes. It would be true to say that the "system" makes driving more stressfull than it needs to be, and that's before we consider any other pressures in the shooter's life. However, everyone here lives with those pressures and we don't shoot each other that often, which also addresses Finn's point.
If we did what Sarge suggests and change the system, be it high school or high way we could probably reduce the pressure and I believe reduce the incidents. However, I don't think that pressure is the sole cause of these kinds of incidents, I suspect that some people over time build a world view that sees even unrelated events as victimization and they will view almost everything as a slight against them.
I also wouldn't take Cho's view as being definative. There was an incident in my life about 10 years ago, one of those situations where the line between personal and business relationships became blurred and ruined a friendship. Had you asked me about it then I would have been absolutely certain which party was in the wrong and who "victimised" who. I was in an interlectual "black hole" where my conclusion warped reality around it to fit. Viewed now through the wonders of 20-20 hindsight I can see I read more into some situations than the actual data justifies. If you believe yourself to have been "wronged" then the smallest inconsiderate action becomes a "dis" and you no longer believe in honest mistakes. What Cho saw as victimisation may not have been things anyone else would have even considered. Cho could see himself as victimised because he saw himself as a victim, and he believed he was a victim because he was "victimised."
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Quote:Look at movies like Spider-man 2, where Doc Ock isn't merely evil, he's a pawn in forces only partially of his making.
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
the site I originally wrote most of these editorials for was buried in hatemail over it, of the how-dare-you-try-to-understand-them stripe.
The pure-evil bad-for-badness-sake guy is getting harder to swallow for many.
Understand the motivation, and you understand (even if you can't condone) the actions.
Humanizing humans has never come this far, as far as I can see. But we do have farther to go.
I was lucky in Junior High to have idolized Bruce Lee, and study martial arts in earnest- bullies we of absolutely no concern to me at the High School level- but I saw my share of picked-on kids go the druggie route to escape...I could be all "Well, I took control of my life...", but I recognize that I was also lucky, too.
'Kicks like a girl' Chrisisall
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Quote:Okay, there was definitely a screw loose, but society could be set up to not loosen more an already loose one... Okay, crappy analogy- but you get what I mean, right?
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Cho could see himself as victimised because he saw himself as a victim, and he believed he was a victim because he was "victimised."
Loose Chrisisall
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