The next Star Wars movie will be influenced by this... (1 Viewer)

[chris_everett]

I know I'm going to regret posting this....

A certain amount of 'bullying' can and should be an expected part of growing up, and that's fine and dandy; however, there needs to be some limits to it, and there also needs to be some consequences to it. Do we force kids to stand up for themselves by engaging in violence to get a bully to stop? I don't like the lesson that sends (violence solves problems). To say that they should stand there and take it seems equally destructive, as the bully won't stop, and for a kid without the adult experience to know that he's better than that could be devastating. The problem I see is that there is no rule of law present in schools, and as a result we are left with the law of the jungle. That might teach kids to survive in the jungle, but that's not where most of us live. If half the stuff I saw in schools happened in an adult workplace, you'd be up to your eyeballs in criminal cases, (assault, threats, etc) to say nothing of the civil ones. Now clearly, we don't know much about this case in particular, so everything I've said should not be taken as applying to it specifically, but rather regarding bullying in general.

 

[Ricardo C]

I agree completely. There's bullying and then there's bullying, if you know what I mean.

 

[Max Leung]

Yes, I agree that bullying, and the responses to bullying, can get way out of hand. A kid that confronts a bully and shoots him with a gun is obviously going overboard. Ditto with the bullies in a Japanese school that murdered a boy in grade school several years ago...they wrapped him in one of those gym mats and sat on him until he suffocated to death.

At least in my time in school, there was absolutely no support from any parents or teachers in my (Catholic!) school, some of whom were racists themselves, and the rest apathetic or "don't want to hear about it". Instinctively, I knew I had only myself and a close friend to depend on. There is only so much "sitting there and taking it" that I could take, you know.

Parental intervention is often ineffective in bullying cases...you know how love is blind? And, having your own parents step in can sometimes make things worse, telling all the kids that you have to cry to mommy and daddy for help.

Personally, I don't think any of the current bullying intervention programs will work, simply because all of the well-intentioned people running these programs have very little knowledge of the bullying process. A bully isn't just one kid, it's a gang. The best way to "fight" bullying is very simple -- get together and form your own gang. Bullies always go for the kids who are alone with no friends -- divide and conquer. Bullies don't always operate alone either...it isn't uncommon to see two or three gang up on a lone kid. That is why you see a lot of bullying done after school, when the victim's friends have all gone home. Easy pickings...no one to help defend -- although if the victim's friends are well-organized, the bullies will face the consequences afterwards.

I don't favour a policy of appeasement in dealing with bullies. But I also don't think mowing them down with machine guns is the answer either. Moderation is the key. I loved my friend's twisted psychological attacks when she was bullied in school -- imagine a sweet-looking Japanese 10 year-old girl bring a 13 year-old white boy to tears with a simple swipe across the face with a shoe (superficial damage but he was afterwards teased for being beaten by a girl).

(Anyone remember those ridiculously stupid anti-bullying commercials suggesting that you "just walk away" when you are bullied? And that that will solve your bullying problems? Man was I pissed when I saw that...I had tried a similar "strategy" as a kid, and I quickly learned it is a stupid tactic. And how the f*ck do you run away when you have a kid twice your size holding you up against the chainlink fence? "Walk away"? WTF solution is that? Those ad-makers should be shot.)

As for the lightsaber kid...well, I'm sure all the gritty details will come up in court. There are graceful ways of handling the situation -- suing isn't my idea, but hey, everyone deals with bullying differently right?

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Why should he poke fun at himself for the amusement of the kids who would otherwise bully him?

The kid I was talking about (overweight and funny as hell) does the same stuff that our entire groups of friends does (which has literally all kinds of kids; one kid is asian, another had a white mom and a black father, one is tall and skinny, one is relatively poor, but we're still friends anyway). We're all goofy nerds and geeks, so we joke around and nobody among us really cares. Everyone likes this one kid because he's funny and he actually has a good personality beyond that.

Back on the topic...

I think that Ghyslain should pursue legal action against the kids that put the video on the internet if he is really emotionally hurt. What they did is very cruel. Then again, the same thing could be applied to people whose exploits end up on America's Funniest Home Videos or Candid Camera. And to be honest, it was in some way Ghyslain's fault; he didn't pull the tape out of the camera before he gave it back.

 

[MikeAlletto]

As for the lightsaber kid...well, I'm sure all the gritty details will come up in court. There are graceful ways of handling the situation -- suing isn't my idea, but hey, everyone deals with bullying differently right?

Plus if they win it pretty much guarantees that they have successfully destroyed 4 entire families while bettering their own family financially. All over a little 2 minute or so video footage. Sounds really stupid when put into perspective doesn't it.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

I've come to expect comments like his from people around here .

I hope you meant "from certain people around here" and are not simply painting a broad stroke to some somehow invalidate or belittle the opinions of anyone who happens to disagree with you.

 

[chris_everett]

What's the alternative Mike?
As much as I like the idea of punishing these kids for taking the tape, I think that you would agree that the this is going to have virtually no consequences, and not really fit the crime. Plus, the fact that such a crime was commited in this case is an exception.

So what are we left with?
The way I see it, these are the options kids have when pushed into a corner:

• Sit back and take it
• Buy an AK-47, and rock and roll
• Have their parents sue everyone in sight

For all of our comments, we haven't moved beyond these three alternatives, and I think we all agree that none of them are all that good.
Not to sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but kids's need rule of law too, just like everybody else. An equitable system to assign blame, provide for punishment, and to compensate the victims. The regular courts aren't the right system for it, where kids aren't even considered to have standing in such cases. So we need something similar for youth.

IMHO

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think that the parents should have the right to pursue some sort of action against the other kids because they did what they did in order to hurt the other kid. Picking someone last in dodge ball (we can't even play THAT anymore) is due to physical inability, not malice. In this case, the kids put the video on the internet for the sole purpose of mockery. Because of how far it has gone and that what they did went into the realm of the internet (which makes things spread like wildfire), they should be punished through some legal means.

And the kids didn't steal school property. The video was shot at school, but the tape remained inside one of the other kids' basement inside his camera that Ghyslain borrowed.

Should they win the case? Yes, but being a civil case, they should be awarded only $1 in damamges.

 

[Scott L]

Putting myself in Ghyslain's shoes I would feel like sh*t if I saw a video of myself on a popular joke website. Though I would feel hurt at first I'd get over it soon enough. But with all the "remix" videos the same feeling would come back again, it just shows the popularity of it all. I too was bullied in HS being a short minority but the racial slurs I heard are minor compared to this.

I still don't think sueing is the answer, just apologies from the 4 kids who put the vid on the net. In the future I hope Ghyslain will be laughing with his buds at the videos rather then laying in a psychologist's chair.

I also don't think violence or bullying the 4 kids is the answer either.

 

[MikeAlletto]

I hope you meant "from certain people around here"

Yeah of course thats what I meant. Not everyone. I left out a word there, my bad.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

OK, I'm confused. If the four kids hit him with a hammer and turner him into a quadriplegic, should he have the right to sue? Even if it "ruins" the four families? Should he be able to sue for medical alone, or should they include pain and suffering?

OK, knowing that emotion damage is harder to measure than physical damage, do you believe that it is possible for one person to afflict emotional damage on another to the point where it would be irreparable? What about cases of extreme child abuse, rape, and pedophilia?

If it should be allowable for kids to sue in cases of extreme physical abuse, and if it is possible to cause extreme emotional abuse, then we have to allow for the POSIBILITY that these four kids caused extreme emotional abuse and that the family has a right to sue.

The question then becomes one of severity. You argue that worldwide ridicule is nothing, and that the bad parents are just trying to line their pockets. If you are right, then the courts will likely award them with nothing (or possibly one dollar as somebody suggested), and there is no change to the status quo (feel free to raise your children as bullies). On the other hand, if the court learns that irreparable damage has been done, then the courts may find in favor of the family.

I personally don't have enough information to know whether irreparable damage was done in this case or not, and neither does Mike. I do trust that all of the truth will come out in court, however, so I'm not too concerned about the outcome.

 

[MickeS]

I've always wondered why the law should not protect teenagers from bullying, when it protects adults from it. Anyone got a good answer to that?

 

[andrew markworthy]

Bullying is abuse, simple as that. Anyone who says that it's natural is deluding themselves. 'Bullying is a natural part of growing up' belongs with 'a woman's natural role is in the home' as a Neanderthal piece of philosophy.

Bullying demeans everyone. The bully will get so far with their antics, but one day reckoning will come. Lack of friends, a statistically much higher chance of failed relationships, everyone hating them behind their back. The bullied? Obviously they suffer at the time, and for some, the emotional scars will remain. Of course, the argument from some folks is that they should 'grow out of it'. Presumably people with this view have the same heart-warming view about the mentally ill ('hey buddy, so you've got clinical depression - why don't you just have a couple of beers and forget about it?').

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Frankly, you don't sue the bullies

You get even

You show them what your "lightsaber" can do by cracking it across their heads. Then they'll learn to leave you alone the only way they ever learn: physical pain.

I know this from years and years of surviving school. When you laugh with them, they laugh at you more. You can spout off all of the niceties you want, but in real life most of them don't work and just lead to drugs and suicide.

 

[Scott L]

I've always wondered why the law should not protect teenagers from bullying, when it protects adults from it. Anyone got a good answer to that?

Adults are old enough to know it doesn't matter what some people think of them. Teens are at the key age where they are self-conscious about everything they do or say. Some kids mature faster than others and realize they don't need violence or revenge to get back at bullies.

Plus the law protects both from "bullying" but in HS you are more likely to be labeled a rat if you point fingers at other people. If you pants (aka- flag, pull down someone else's pants) in HS you may get a detention. You try that shit at the office you're looking at jail time.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

Teens are at the key age where they are self-conscious about everything they do or say.

Very well put. This is why I can imagine that world-wide ridicule may be a hard for some to handle, and could indeed amount to more than just "nothing".

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but it's not always practical. What if it's a group of bullies (as Morgan points is often the case)? What if they are really big and your chances of hurting them in any meaningful way is really small?

Guess it's time to take something like Akido, Tae Kwon Do or something else that'll negate the size advantage. Akido is very effective because you learn strike points that will disable them for 5-10 minutes at a time while they concentrate on breathing. Typically you only have to do that once or twice before they start giving you wide berth.

Most bullies I encountered would come at you in a group, but very rarely more than one at a time because it wasn't proper etiquette for multiple attackers. In the rare instance it was, they had no coordination and typically tripped each other up. A simple sidestep was usually enough to allow an opening for a critical strike

I realize it is "uncivilized", but it IS real life. I would have much rather not fought anyone in school, and in some cases waited YEARS to act. But when I finally broke, only one ever made the mistake of doing it again.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

Most bullies I encountered would come at you in a group

Very true, which is also part of the reason why standing up to a bully will more often than not earn you a good whooping. There is a feeling that if you just stand your ground that the bully will move on (and that does work in some cases), but a bully cannot stand down in front of his friends because then they'd loose respect for him, so at the very least there will be at least one fight. Of course, the real question is whether they will leave you alone after that or not.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I studied Aikido, am a black belt in Tang Soo Do (which is very similar to Tae Kwon Do), and also helped teach martial arts to kids. Once again, I am not disagreeing with the concept of hurting the bully, but it takes YEARS to master these moves well enough to use them in a fight. I almost wouldn't recommend it until you approach the black belt level, because trying these moves when they are not automatic and well executed is pretty much the kiss of death

Agreed there, most people make the mistake of trying flying kicks and then are suprised when I just grab their foot Frankly I don't think most people WANT to have this stuff be automatic in a fight, but if the situation is serious, they CAN learn to at least execute the moves properly should the chance arrive. But they should start learning at 6 for all the other benefits of martial arts, and when/if the need arises, then they know how to end it

 

[Micheal]

This is ridiculous! Children should not have to fight other children just become some kid with low self esteem wants to pick on someone in order to try and make themselves feel better. Bullies are pathetic. Resorting to violence just to prove a point is plain stupid! All you are doing is dropping to their level. Where would we be in the world if everyone thought that beating the crap out of someone when bullied was a valuable lesson?

This is why kids who aren't strong enough to defend themselves resort to balancing the odds with the aid of a gun.

When are we going to try and stop solving violence with more violence?

Sorry, I had to say something. {end rant}