Texas school shooting

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I prefer Jakki's thread...

a dirty little secret is that bullies are the de-facto enforcers for our top-down form of social order where the omegas are systematically squashed and punished as a sort of symbolic piñata, "at least i'm not like that poor slob" said by the legions of delta drones to keep them in their place.

But what if *you* are the victim of bullying?
I find it easier to roll on my back, feet in the air and say "Uncle". <strong irony>

Sounds like a plan.

Not everyone feels they can fight back the way you did.
If mental illness is involved, people are often blinded to better solutions.

These days, I would video capture the events and send a *copy* to the authorities, along with sending it to my, or my dad's solicitor/lawyer.

We are not all the same.
Life is not that simple.

The problem is that bullying is often insidious, like the frog in boiling water. It starts with subtle exclusion and the normal selection of friends who make us feel comfortable. Most of us don't set out to be bullies when we are little but if there's a classmate we don't like, we won't play with them unless it's forced. We shouldn't have to play with people we don't like, quite frankly, so long as we aren't being rude or purposely hurting their feelings. We should all be free to trust our gut instinct and play with whomever makes us feel happy. Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of children feeling ignored or disliked when the "bully" had no such intention.

As kids get older they might engage in overt bullying, but most of it isn't easy to spot. It's not like children go around threatening one another, or engaging in physical violence. Not to generalise, but girls can be particularly subtle with their behaviour. Sarcastic one-liners can be taken as jokes, and teachers can't be expected to monitor or stop every utterance from every child throughout their career. By the time kids are in middle school or high school bullying has moved online and it's out of the school's jurisdiction. It looks like gossip and gaslighting, but it's not severe enough to be reported to police. There's a fine line between students' rights as autonomous thinkers when choosing their friends, and the rights of victims who feel bullied. It's also hard to distinguish between bullies and victims, as most people play both roles at different times in their lives. Bullies have likely been victims, and victims have likely been bullies. Quite often it's simultaneous depending on the context or social pressure.

I think this is poorly understood in general but bullies often normalise bullying as well among their classmates so that on the one hand bullies are enabled by the lack of action of schools, teachers or their classmates but I have seen with my own eyes that even teachers promote bullying (Pepe and I both experienced this when we were in school here in Australia) and that classmates join in bullying and become bullies themselves. Group behaviour makes it hard to pinpoint what makes a bully as I have seen popular erstwhile normal functioning kids turn nasty when they think its ok to pile on the hapless victim. Many of the bullies from school I knew now hold positions of responsibility. I mentioned already that one particularly vile nasty bully who also like to torture and kill animals is now a prominent psychiatrist who is the head of mental health in the state he lives in.

Many bullies / psychopaths end up with positions of power. Competition and ego draw them to jobs where they're in charge of other people or other people's future. That's why there's such a high number of people with NPD in upper levels of government as well as healthcare, education, religious institutions, the media, and even entertainment (think: Harvey Weinstein, Phil Spector, etc.)

Group behaviour - yes that's another good point. It's not always intentional because again, kids are free to hang out with whomever they choose. They might not intend for someone to feel excluded but at the same time they shouldn't have to be friends with people they don't like. This doesn't mean they should be free to belittle anyone, or make their life miserable with any form of groupthink or slander.

Am not apt to agree with the idea of this being a gun issue, but a violence issue .

There is a famous psychological study that validates how people can become sociopathic.
It dealt with fake electric shock treatment, but the people who did it didn't know the "victim" was only acting.

If there were no guns, there would still be cars.

Ah yes, the Milgram study. This actually ties in with the point made by Isabella Linton about group behaviour which is the drive/need to conform and be accepted by your peers even to the extent of joining in bullying victims.

Milgram was interested in obedience to an authority figure - he found people were more likely to throw the switch and electrocute a perfect stranger if the person giving them the order was a person of authority/in power.

I think both theories can be intertwined in that a member of a group can feel compelled by their peers to act in a sociopathic manner in order to please.

Which brings to mind,

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... ana-school
"

By Christian Martinez Staff Writer
May 23, 2022 5:55 PM PT

After a driver struck and injured three children Monday morning near a Santa Ana elementary school, police found “incendiary devices” inside the car, authorities said.

The incident was reported around 8:30 a.m. when a vehicle struck a boy and two girls, all under 12 years old, on a sidewalk near Taft Elementary School.
...

Officers searched the vehicle and found an “incendiary device,” then requested the help of the Orange County bomb squad, Lopez said.

The bomb squad continued to search the vehicle and found three additional devices.

Lopez did not have additional details regarding the devices as of Monday afternoon.

During the investigation, police found that the driver of the vehicle had reportedly trespassed at Taft Elementary before the crash and asked to use the restroom but was turned away by school personnel.
"

I agree. It does become difficult to hold a discussion where there is the possibility that the instigator of the thread may "take one's ball and go home" at any time, demanding that the conversation be forcible concluded despite other participants desire to continue discussion on the subject, and potentially forcing multiple threads to have to be created in order to continue a discussion which could have easily been permitted to continue in the original thread.

Maybe that's something the moderators could look into - requiring a demonstration as to why threads should be closed and not simply accept a "please close this thread" request when there is ongoing, on-topic discussion taking place in it.

From memory, I believe the study was trying to explain Nazi obedience (Fuhrerprinzip) during WWII.
I think they got their answer.

https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/p ... erallPos=1