300 to 1 is disproportionate warfare

[deurbano]

193. My "wow" was mostly in response to your (seeming) belief that breaking another preteen kid's arm

is an appropriate response to bullying. I mean, I don't agree with the rest of it, either... including that the point of war should be to "crush" the other side, since I don't think that's what most American revolutionaries (for example) had in mind... and "obliterating" another people is not only a horrific goal (genocide), but impossible. (Attempting it just creates more enemies to try to crush.)

<<I was beat up a lot in 5th grade, so I was sensitive to bullies. Someone in the 7th grade tried to start something, to bully me. He was just picking on me, the way kids do. My response was highly disproportionate to what he was doing. I beat the crap out of him and broke his arm. But he never picked on me again. Never spoke to me. I was left alone, which was my goal.

The idea isn't just to win that one fight, but to win all future fights.>>


1. My daughter is physically disabled. She had no ability to "crush" the kids bullying her in 8th grade. And she wouldn't have wanted to respond that way even if she could. (I, on the other hand, did feel like smacking them, but of course, I would never have acted on those feelings.) Instead of crushing them, my daughter (and I) got involved in disability and anti-bullying education in classrooms, and she wrote about her experience in the school newspaper. By the end of the year, no one was bullying my daughter, she had been elected Treasurer of the student body, and one of the major "perps" wrote a nice message in her yearbook, expressing remorse, appreciation and admiration. It was a lot for my daughter to go through for that kid's personal growth(!), but my daughter learned (and grew) a lot, too. She became a disability rights activist and a workers' rights activist (among other things), so basically, a human rights activist. (Who would never agree that conflicts--even those involving violence and war-- can be solved by crushing one side in the dispute.)

2. When my son was bullied in 5th grade (for sticking up for and befriending another kid being bullied!), we handled it through the school counselor. Two other fifth graders (my son's former good friends) and a seventh grader were involved. The seventh grader was kind of a social outcast who had been chronically bullied, himself... and one of the 5th graders was going though some serious family issues.The counselor worked with all the boys (including my son) together and separately, and she also got their families involved. (My now adult daughter and I also did some anti-bullying work at the school.) Over time, progress was made in addressing the harm that had been done to my son (and others)... lessons were learned... and friendships were renewed. (My son even went Trick-or-Treating with one of the perps.) Resolving bullying problems doesn't have to mean a zero sum outcome for the parties involved, but it often does require adult support.

3. Forgetting about whether this is an apt analogy for the Israeli/Palestinian situation (Israel is the 5th grader being bullied by the 7th grader?)... beating up another child ("who was just picking on me... the way kids do&quot to the point of a broken arm is a dangerous overreaction that seems more motivated by rage from previous experience with other bullies than the situation at hand. And what if the kid picking on you had "crushed" you, instead? (Or what if he had a knife?) Also... breaking another kid's arm could easily get one expelled or in the juvenile justice system-- both pretty undesirable outcomes. Finally, the kid with the broken arm might not have picked on you, again, but that doesn't mean he didn't retaliate against someone else. (And so it goes...)

Of course, I'm not criticizing or blaming you for what you did as a kid. I'm sure you felt it was your only recourse, and maybe caring adults weren't aware or available. (Seems someone should have noticed you were getting beaten up on a regular basis, and I'm very sorry that wasn't the case.) As an adult, though, surely now you would support different strategies to resolve childhood conflicts? You seem to think you won and the other kid lost. I think you both lost.