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I Don't Like Mondays (Reflections on High School Violence) Posted Wed Mar 7 21:36:37 2001 by steveg By Steve Gilliard One of the first school shootings to capture the public imagination happened in Oakland, where a 20 year old girl set up outside a school and started shooting. When caught, Brenda Spencer said "I don't like Mondays." It seems that American high schools have had a lot of Mondays over the last few years. What is amazing about the coverage, and the reason that I'm writing about this here, is that while there is an amazing amount of evidence online that it is less about the kids than the schools, the media whips out the same old hoary claims that these "isolated" kids are acting out of unpredictable rage. Sure, and the Klebold and Harris fanclub on the web is part of our collective imaginations. A few months into any school year, some teenage boy wakes up, collects some guns and kills his classmates. A few may stem from specific disputes with teachers, but the vast majority have bullying at their root. Why is anyone surprised now? This is as much part of the American high school landscape as homecoming or graduation. The question is not if it will happen again, but when. Actually, in the 24 hours I wrote and edited this, an eighth grade girl capped another one during lunch at a small Catholic school and ABC had a map which was filled with spots reporting trouble at school today. The fear is deep, but everyone avoids the monster, only looking at his spawn. This isn't about guns, or violence, but schools. One of the staples of geek culture is that surviving a brutal high school experience is one of the rites of passage. Jon Katz has written extensively about this, so have other people.What is amazing is that after all this time, everyone will look at the gun, which is merely a tool, and not the rage and abuse behind it. High School can be a brutal, violent place, closer to a prison than what we associate with learning. Teenage boys are dangerous animals without much prompting. Takesports, reward them for their already barely controlled aggression and give them social status, and you have a potentially dangerous mix. It is far, far easier to blame guns or the Internet than confront the fact that when you get your ass kicked every day for a year in school, you'll be more than tempted to shoot everyone who made your life a living hell. We will blame anything, any tool instead of what we have built for our children. This isn't even related to money. The odds of a working class or lower middle class school having this kind of violence is quite unlikely. There is a level of bullying in every school, as well as violence, but only in the large, isolated suburban schools do you get kids so ready to destroy their classmates and themselves in a burst of rage. Why? Because in working class schools, urban schools, school ends at 3 PM. It doesn't follow you home. Kids work at jobs, they have other responsibilities and can create an alternate identity. You may be a wimp in school, but you can have friends in your neighborhood, which may be miles away. So when you leave school, it stays there. That doesn't mean its always fun, and violence can happen in the school, but there are escapes. The middle class suburban high school is oppressive. Many of the kids don't work, come home to empty houses with absent parents. When they work in the local mall, their school roles are reenforced. The school day doesn't end at 3 PM. There is simply no escape, no dual sets of friends, no alternate social identity. Everyone sees everyone all day long, in school, out of school, winter and summer. To lose your identity in school, which is what happens to these kids, is to lose most of your life. The school defines the child's entire social status and identity. A victim in school is one out of school as well. Their friends, often as abused as they are, will help them plan, keep their silence and quietly root them on. There may be one killer, but there are many, many others who suppoort the road to that final step or after the shots are fired. Because so many people refuse to see what these schools have become, and protect the status quo, even in the face of crime, parents have to do more to protect their kids. What is truly needed is law enforcement. If the schools won't deal with bullies, the law should. Once upon a time, spousal abuse was a private matter. No longer. Neither should bullying. I'd call on local officials to look towards a new program to protect their schools. It would have the following points: 1) Any student with a history of intimidating and harassing fellow students shall be removed from the school and placed in an alternative program 2) Coaches shall be held directly responsible for their team's conduct on and off the field. If his players assault and abuse other students, the team will be sanctioned. If they aren't good citizens off the field, why should they be representing the school on the field. 3) Students who plan, organize and lead assaults on other students shall be turned over to local police. Teachers who know about these attacks and do nothing shall be charged as coconspirators. The school board will have NO power to investigate such incidents. Local law enforcement may set up dispute resolution short of criminal charges, but this should be kept away from the school system. 4) Students shall be encouraged to report incidents of assaults in or OUT of school to police. A no violence policy should be enforced by police, not schools. Rikers Island managed to cut down in house violence by sending those who committed assaults to state prison. If you smack someone in the head repeatedly, you won't think it's so funny when you're facing felony assault charges. You can't do it in the street, and it should be just as illegal in school. 5) Local district attorneys shall be empowered to investigate incidents of violence in schools at any time without consulting school authorities. All records and reports of such activity should be turned over to police on a regular basis. A hotline should be set up to report incidents of bullying to the police and district attorney's office. We need to redefine what we call bullying as what it is, assault, sexual assault, harassment, making terroristic threats. Crimes against the person. Bullying is the trigger for potentially violent incidents which place the entire school body at risk. No one wants to jail kids for a simple brawl,but better three football players for assault than one kid for multiple murders. Schools have proven, over and over, that they will not deal with this issue resolutely. Anyone reading this probably has their own stories of abuse in school, up to and including beatings and rapes. It seems no one noticed that the geek kids were the usual suspects after Columbine, even though the real perpetrators of violence were the jocks and thugs who did their dirt with the school's protection and support. You can't stop every desperate kid, but one day, some kid isn't going to walk into school with a gun, but park a car outside the football game, and when we talk about the dead, it won't be two or three, but two or three hundred. Because you can make a car bomb easier than you can get a gun. Is protecting the reputation of a town or a football team really worth that?   Posted Comments: post a comment! Name: Email: Comment: Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Fri Mar 16 15:43:03 2001 Comment: Preach on, Brother Jay!. I must say I agree with quite a bit of that, though I'm not sure we can peg it to any particular ideological mindset. I recall our schools started being more disruptive when they outlawed corporal punishment as I was going through, and it has gone downhill since. IN a lot of way, these school shootings are the unexpected but quite rationally irrational backlash to certain child-rearing philosophies. Welcome to Dr. Spock's Misguided Children. Name: Jay Email: Date: Fri Mar 16 14:52:52 2001 Comment: Hi, Trent. The part baout teaching kids to respect themselves stems from the liberal agenda of the education establishment. Ask yourself WHY that same 12 year old you refer to is allowed to become that out of control in the first place? Why is it that he thinks he can act like that with no consequences? If you look deep enough, you'll find that the reason often stems back to the fact that his parents failed to discipline him as he grew up, usually either for fear of the teachers turning them in to authorities for "child abuse", or from their own lack of discipline by their parents. The liberals have used the school system to try usurping authority from parents in how their own children are raised, and yet having taken this from the parents, the schools then fail to meet their new responsibility to these kids. Each different group of students is taught their respective roles so as to fit the sociological format of the liberal elitists who teach them. So when junior sees that he can go around beating up on his fellow students, he may not realize that he is serving as a pawn in a much larger agenda. But that doesn't change the fact that he indeed is. And until we (as a nation) retake control of the raising of our children from these liberals, we are going to see more and more of this same trend towards criminal behavior in our youth, irregardless of race. The solution, as I see it, is to return the recognition of the RIGHT of parents to discipline their own kids INCLUDING spanking the 12 year old bully, until he learns that there ARE limits to allowable behavior. If he wants to fight, join the wrestling team, take up boxing, or join the Army when he graduates. Who knows maybe if the kid sees that his parents care enough about him to take an interest in him, he will start to gain some self-respect out of it- and that starts the road to especting others. And as for these dead-beat dads, and other parents who are too self-absorbed to be bothered raising their own kids, they need their own asses kicked, and reminded that THEY brought these children into the world, and THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE for their childrens' needs. All the other crap in their lives- bad relationships, drugs, etc. take a backseat to those kids. That's one other problem- you need a license to drive a car, you need a permit to carry a gun, but ANY two morons can get together and breed without any rhyme or reason. That's another area we need to work on as a society- that if you are man enough to MAKE the kids, you should be forced to be man enough to take care of them- and that includes being there to help them, not just sending a check once a month. I don't care of that idea isn't "popular" with certian types who want to run around seeing how many different girls they can get pregnant to "prove their manhood" and then scamper off to the next one- if they want to act like wild animals, I say we treat them as such. If they do it once, make them go back and care for that child. If they do it twice, sterilize them by force if neccesary. If they don't want that, then they can step up and take care of all these children, as a real parent, and not just a sperm donor. Somebody, somehow, needs to teach this generation about what it really means to be a man- to have honor, dignity, self-respect, and respect for others. And if the state can't or won't do it, then the parents need to start, and soon. Otherwise, you can see for yourself what the results are going to mean for our society. and this is just the tip of the iceburg. Wait until they grow up and actually run things. Name: Trent Email: Date: Fri Mar 16 08:22:51 2001 Comment: Jay, you're right about two things: that taking guns away is not the answer and that teaching kids to respect themselves is very important. But the problem is not racial diversity or liberal brainwashing or whatever the hell you think you see. My school didn't have any diversity stuff in it - we were an all white bunch in a small town - but we still had bullies and victims. You can't blame their exisence on liberals. You think some hulking 12-year old pays attention to political correctness? He just knows that it feels good to get his way, so he might as well intimidate the weaker kid. _That_ is the source of the problem. Name: Jay Email: Date: Tue Mar 13 03:16:11 2001 Comment: Well, having read the prior comments, I'd like to add my own two cents worth. To Vonbek and the others who are so quick to cure the problem by taking away other people's rights i.e. by banning guns- well, my question is why? So these same kids can act out their rage in another method that appeals to people of gun-ban cultures, like using Sarin gas on the school's A/C ductwork? (Remember Japan's subway incident? I think I'd rather take my chances surviving the bullet wound!) And as far as Germany's great record of solving social issues by trampling on the rights of others, do the words "Sieg Heil!" ring any bells? My point is that your rants against guns will NOT solve the damn problem. And why not? Because the problem is not guns it is in the hearts of these kids, and the bullshit that liberal assholes have filled our schools with has done FAR more to promote this than Smith Wesson. What nobody is willing to say in our modern-day Orwellian hell of political correctness is that all this reinforcement of the anti-western culture, anti-white-male propaganda that the liberals running our schools have forced down these kids' throats is coming home to roost. They have been taught over and over that they are guilty by genetics of every horror imaginable, and that the world around them would somehow be a better place if it were ran by militant lesbians and they (these young white males) simply fell off the face of the earth. They are taught that "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are the new morals, and that those mean embracing anything that is NOT related to them while either meekly complying or actively participating in their own degradation. And once that same message is drilled into them over and over by the authority figures, and then enforced by the media, etc. they often give up on themselves and buy into this self-loathing. And how is this behavior expressed? One side expresses it by adopting the role of "bullies", who become as violent and amoral as they have been taught that they inherently are. And the other side responds with the behavior taught them as their "proper" response- to meekly accept their fate, or else they are called "racists" or "intolerant of the feelings of others". And this pressure, combined with the repeated message that they are the root of society's ills, eventually leads some of them to finally disconnect completely from society and even lash out against their tormentors. When they do this against the bullies, they are called "psychos" and when they do it against a member of any other group aside from other white males, they are labelled "hate criminals". Like it or not, PC to admit it or not THAT is the "WHY?" behind the actions of these young, angry, white suburban school shooters. And as long as we as a society continue to allow this same agenda to be entrenched in our schools and in our media by the same liberals, we will continue to see these youth acting out the same lack of self-value they are taught to internalize. So how do we SOLVE the problem? Take away guns? Why, so they can move to everything from pipe bombs to bio-warfare? No. Guns are not the problem any more than they are the answer. To solve this problem, we need to stop and ask ourselves what is the rationale behind our schools' curiculums. How do you expect a child (or anyone) to respect the ideas and values of another's culture, when you also teach them nothing but contempt for their own heritage and individuality? And how do you expect them to buy into the idea of "diversity" by trying to make them view ANY acknowledgement of differences as "racist" and evil? How can "diversity" exist if there is no tolerance of ideas that question the sanctioned liberal official dogma? Whether you like the questions or not, or whether you want to label me a "racist" for having the integrity to ask the questions without the PC pandering, the fact remains that our children ARE asking these questions of themselves, and we ALL seem to agree that the answers they keep coming up with, i.e. acting out in a fit of hatred, of contempt of everything including themselves, these answers are not acceptable. But until we as a culture find some way to face up to the reality of this "little white lie" that we allow the liberals to blackmail us into teaching our children, then we will continue to reap what we sow. Take away their guns, and they will move to other more efficent means of killing. Teach them to have pride in themselves, to respect themselves and to value who and what they are, and they will not only have a better outlook on their own self-image, but will likely hold less resentment towards others who are not like themselves. Empower them to see the beauty in their own roots, and they will be far more likely to see others as also being beautiful, instead of being targets. Name: Jodi Email: Date: Mon Mar 12 18:22:50 2001 Comment: Just and FYI-it didn't happen in Oakland, it happened in San Diego. A surburb called San Carlos, which is only about 10 miles or so from Santee, where the Santana High School shooting just happened. Name: Alex Email: Date: Mon Mar 12 11:33:20 2001 Comment: In retrospect, I realize that I was incredibly lucky in HS. Mine was one of the schools ruled by the jocks and gangstas - often the same people. I was smart and unpopular, but my mum had the amazing good sense to sign me up for karate classes... not only did I have no fear of being hit, knowing that I could, as Mr. Guderian said, dismantle anybody who picked on me, but I also had self-respect, discipline, and restraint. I was also aware that if somebody hit me or teased me, I'd survive. I'd fought competitve martial artists, and had the bruises to prove it. They healed. Make no mistake, I fit the 'outcast' image - too samrt for my own good, played DD, wore black a lot. My biker jacket was my sheild and talisman. It protected me mentally as well as physically. All in all, I'm glad I got out after my sophmore year and went to a small, intellectual college in the Berkshires where the champions of the poetry contest and the art exhibition were held in much higher regard than any athlete, and we were still mourning the death of one student and one professor in a Columbine-style shooting 4 years earlier. Like I said - damn lucky. Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Mon Mar 12 10:11:32 2001 Comment: Twisted, others, I apologize if I got a bit overzealous. I am a passionate person, and sometimes I say things in the heat of the moment. I hope I did not offend anyone, as I strongly beleive everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Anon, I do have to disagree that the things I've said lead to violence. I stood up for myself as noted below. And I had virtually unfettered access to arsenals of weapons in high school, as did most of my friends. Many of us had our own shotguns and rifles, which we kept in our rooms. My best friend had a semi-automatic Remington 1100 12-guage shotgun given to him on his 15th or 16th birthday. I often used to sleep over at another friend's farm. His father's idea of a perfect day for us was to cook us chocolate chip pancakes in the morning, then send us out unsupervised with a couple of Beretta pistols, a pair of semi-auto .22 rifles, and the occasion shotgun, with a bare minimum of 500 rounds of ammunition. We'd be off target shooting all day, and would only come back when the guns ran dry. We were all extremely well armed, and most of us were excellent shots (I can still hit an orange at over 300 yards). But taking guns to school to "solve" our problems just never crossed our minds. Maybe our lack of violence had something to do with the way we were raised. Many of our moms were homemakers, and even when both parents worked, they'd take off afternoons to come watch us play soccer games and do other things. We knew we were loved. These days... How can we expect our kids to grow up "right" if we are never around to give them the guidance they need? IMNSHO, people are ignoring the the larger issues. Children are becoming more violent becuase we are failing as parents. Unfortunately, parents would rather blame some other element of society (Schools, the entertainment industry, etc) than sholder the blame that they deserve. If you want to point the blame somewhere, blame the parent who works 60+ hours a week and is too tired or self-involved to be a real parent, who overcompensates their guilt by showering the kids with material goods. Know a parent who goes to Toys R Us every two weeks and blows eighty bucks? Know a 14-year old with his own computer, DVD player, televison, a "Nofriendo" and a closet full of the latest in-style stuff? Think the parent knows anything about that kid's girlfriend, boyfriend, or the people he hangs out with? I detect a rant about to happen, and for once, I'll back out gracefully. All I ask is that parents take a hard honest look in the mirror before they start blaming anyone or anything else for their childrens' behavior. Kids are sponges, and learn exactly what you lead them to. Name: Carl Guderian Email: carlg@vermilion-sands.com Date: Sun Mar 11 06:38:14 2001 Comment: Guns. Yup, here we are. We've sure got a lot of 'em. According to one source I can't be bothered to look up, we are a net importer of small arms. Heckler Koch, China, FN, and That British Gunmaker love us. We pay cash and buy more guns than we could possibly use even in our wildest Mad Max, wipe-the-scum-off-the-streets fantasies. Believe it or not, though, we've pretty much assimilated them as a society. We've even gotten less violent in the last 8 years. We might as well keep our guns until we get bored with them. No matter how corrupt and controlling the U.S. government becomes (has become), self-styled "militias" are the least of its worries. Most of them couldn't organize a bake sale. The cops can get a tank to someone's house 2 minutes after an anonymous drug tip, while all the "militias" in the U.S. can't even get reduced jail time for Randy Weaver or the Waco survivors almost 10 years later. Gun-lovers, especially the ones who think they're defending against tyranny, tend to vote for Republicans when there are no Libertarians on the ticket. Republicans tend to give the cops more seizure powers and more money for tanks. A little hole in the theory there. Then again, half the militia types believe Clinton set up concentration camps. Wrong, but their buddy Ollie North tried to, back in '84 (don't worry, it was just on paper). Oops. Kids have killed kids in the U.S. since before it was a country. An issue of the impudent 'zine Murder Can Be Fun, written by John Marr (not the ex-Smiths guitarist), compiled reports of kids killing each other in the colonial days. Before that, at least in England, kids grew up even faster than they do today, and it was meaningless to talk about childhood crime. Kids started shooting each other at school probably because handguns finally became easy enough to get, all other social factors being equal. Crack helped too, but that just sped things up a bit, like it does other things. Or, hell, maybe it's like the CIA lady in Repo Man said: sometimes people just explode. When school is run like a jail, follow the advice of David Allan Coe. If you're going to fight back, do it the FIRST time someone lays a hand on you and go berserk. Don't worry about keeping a perfect record that becomes a trap. If you can think this far ahead, though, you can learn a martial art or find some other solution. In the end, do your time and get out. All of you here did. Jocks will be a problem as long as sports boosters, mostly parents, financially support the school by attending games, donating chunks of cash, and giving Trans-Ams to quarterbacks. [American] Football is huge in the southwestern U.S., right up there with Jesus. A really helpful move, though, would be a martial arts option for Physical Education. Kids could satisfy their PE requirement, compete intramurals, learn some mental discipline, and, if all else fails, dismantle a bully (Boot to the head!). And it's CHEAP! Hire a good instructor (ex-Marine, Master of Sinanju, whatever) order robes and you're good to go. Jesus-shouting schools, which consider any whiff of eastern philosophy equivalent to Satanism can hire the ex-Marine then. Why didn't anyone here bring this up? After Columbine, the self-justification of jocks and paranoia against kids wearing black was bad enough, but all the geeks sort of justifying the shootings was stupid, too. Everybody on the list survived high school. Anyone who has kids has an opportunity and the duty to help their kids avoid some of their parents' mistakes. Fight-or-flight is one of them. I got my ass kicked a few times in school. My last fight ended in a draw. After that, problems couldn't really be solved by fighting. Finally, vouchers are a bad idea. They funnel tax money from all of us to entities that serve one god or a few stockholders. The good of the students, much less that of the country, comes after. (And churches already avoid taxes why should they collect them too? Why is it "social engineering" only when liberals propose something like this?). A government has a duty to try to do right by ALL of its citizens. When government functions are privatized, services that are not "profit centers" are the first to go, as are "unprofitable" clinets. If we're going to write off our more difficult citizens, let's at least not enrich some greedy parasite in the process, now that we're finally rid of H. Ross Perot ("self-made" asshole made his fortune from the government, first with DFW cargo and then institutional computer services). Peripheral schooling functions can be privatized, but leave core ones, like teaching and socialization, alone. The army outsources somewhat, don't they? Basic education is a collective good, just like defense. Name: eye for an eye Email: Date: Sat Mar 10 14:06:59 2001 Comment: A wise man once said: "Revenge is like the sweetest thing next to getting pussy" Name: Email: Date: Sat Mar 10 02:51:00 2001 Comment: Bob- You seem like a reasonable person. You don't advocate a kid bringing a gun to school and shooting his tormentors. However, that's exactly where your arguments lead. Of course a kid should stand up to a school yard thug. But standing up means treating the goon for what he is, a criminal engaged in assualt. There should be a trial and he should go to jail- a place where bigger thugs can call him Mary and whisper sweet nothings in his ear and force him to use Linux. There is a very vested interest in making the school environment appear safe. That means calling an assault a fight. It means suspending both the bully and the bullied for misbehaving and telling the victim he or she should just have walked away. And it means cutting off access to police and the justice system. You say.. >>I went out to gain some self respect for myself, and beat it out of others, if I had to.<< At 100 pounds, you obviously had great courage and fortitude. However, every situation wasn't your situation. Some bullies are meaner and more evil, and some of their targets are smaller and without your true grit. What are they supposed to do? A bully has weight and size on his side. Why shouldn't his target have something on his or her side? Like a pipe bomb, for example. Or a gun. Either you believe in a nation of laws or you don't. If you do, you would have encouraged the woman who was a target of bullying to be allowed to press charges. If you don't believe in students having access to the law, than you have to offer a logical, workable alternative. Which you dont. I think in your admirable zeal to defend guns, you lost track of the argument. Remember. Guns don't kill people. Microsoft kills people.. The West wasn't won with a registered (copy of Windows 98) If you criminalize the guns, only the criminals (will buy the Corel Corporation and discontinue their popular, easy to install Linux Distribution) -) Name: twisted sistah Email: bitemybeaver@hotmail.com Date: Sat Mar 10 00:42:13 2001 Comment: Bob: I don't want to get too much into the particulars of my personal life or physical condition. I repeat: NOT EVERYONE CAN FIGHT BACK. Use your brain instead of your testosterone for a minute and think about this. Name: Paul Rako Email: winopaul@yahoo.com Date: Sat Mar 10 00:02:40 2001 Comment: I think the reason these poor kids are going bonkers and shooting up the school is because some studnets feel linux is a hack OS that takes 2 hours to install. Any thoughts people? Anyone? Anyone? Still silly after all these years. <]:^)- Name: 5th Grade Memory Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 17:31:58 2001 Comment: This happened a long time ago but I still remember it vividly. It shows the class biases that operate at schools. It was winter and me and some friends where outside at lunch time. One them sorta slipped a little on the ice. I put my hand on his arm to steady him, and he sucker punches me, breaking my glasses. He'd never shown a bit of hostility toward me but looking back now, I realize he was a "type", wound up to the breaking point by ambitious parents. Coming back to class after lunch, the teacher must have heard because she just said, "XXXX is going to be a minister when he grows up." Even then I had the sense to know that this meant I was to shut the f up, no complaints were allowed. Since I was from a poor and disorganized family, this doubtless meant perfect sense to the teacher. Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Fri Mar 9 17:03:50 2001 Comment: Twisted, Anyone can fight back. As I said, I was 5'2" and 100 lbs entering high school, smaller than quite a few of the girls, and I didn't take any crap. EVERYONE CAN FIGHT BACK, and it doesn't have to be with fists, that is simply the lowest denominator. You could have fought back, and chose not to. You just have to be man or woman enough to face the consequences of your actions. You chose not to, and have to face the resultant consequneces of that as well, which, which frankly, sounds like a lot of whining from where I sit. Name: twisted sistah Email: bitemybeaver@hotmail.com Date: Fri Mar 9 16:34:28 2001 Comment: This is NOT about guns! Can we get back on the topic of bullies? Remember, not everyone CAN fight back. Read that again... NOT EVERYONE CAN FIGHT BACK. Some are small. Some are weak. Some have physical limitations which may or may not be visible. Also, at least in my case, the school REALLY came down hard on girls who hit....seriously! It was given a whole nuther standard..... ...and at least I knew enough to know that I didn't want to get detention and otherwise fuck up a perfect academic record...and no, the school did NOT recognize self-defense.... Bottom line.....If you fought back, you were still fighting on school property. So, you were supposed to tell a teacher...who did nothing....this was a rich kids school parents didn't want to admit that a doctor and a laywer had spawned a little monster fuckup bully and would do ANYTHING to keep its record clean.... Name: Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 16:01:30 2001 Comment: i don't Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 15:53:25 2001 Comment: Forget the gun crap..talk about living in a police state..there's a company in England that is installing speed delimiters in automobiles..to be controlled by GPS satellite signals..so if you're tooling along at say 55 on a highway and you want to increase your speed..well, pal, that will be controlled by that little satellite in the sky and your impossible to disconnect speed delimiter..far fetched..don't bet on it..Auto companies are interested.How u like them apples? Name: ralf Email: ooxelith@hotmail.com Date: Fri Mar 9 15:38:16 2001 Comment: Bob, I love your self confident national romanticism. All this belief in a almost mythical founding fathers fairy tale. But sometimes it?s necessary to get the facts right: The first immigrants were English Puritans who were granted the permission by H.M. the Queen to embark at an English port and leave Europe after they felt that their dogmatic religious identity had been threatened by the too LIBERAL Dutch regime they had experienced during their time as religious refugies from the British Isles. Holland was then a major power and had developed into an open religious society. Our dogmatic English Christian immigrants (living in the Leiden, Haarlem area)were shocked and bewildered by the prospect that their rigid grip on their children might have been watered down by experiencing peaceful ways of living together with Catholics, Menninotes, Hussites, Lutherans and all the other 23500 factions of Protestantism. They were fleeing from a too open society! They left the Netherlands after only 40 years and went to the Americas. They were so full of narrow minded divine inspiration that they wouldn?t say "Thank You" to the Iroquois who had welcomed and helped them to make it through the first harsh winter. When after a generation more people of the same sort came to settle amongst them (the Quakers), a group which did not differ in terms of "Weltanschauung", but only in the way of dress (they kept their hats on, did not shave their beards and persistently used old bible language "Thy, Thou" etc.), they felt intimidated again. They knew nothing better than to stigmatize them and to hunt them down, declaring them to be infedels and hanging them. A very good source which gives you an insight in early American day to day life are diaries from that time, church sermons and records or letters from the Mathers "dinasty". They show you how narrow minded these people really were. Or read what was supposed to become the founding pillar of American Nationial Literature, "The Conquest of Cana?n" by Timothy Dwight, reverend, politician and first dean of Yale University. It?s the longest epic ever written in the history of mankind. All stricly in monotonous couplets...doom - tomb, plain - vane, mourn - dawn, repeting itself 12000 times. Sincerely I think it was a big waste of time, but may be indicative in retrospect. It?s the most dogmatic, uninspiring, redundant peace of Literature I?ve ever come across. Rightfully it was forgotten by the people. Puritanism had to change and eventually changed. They even had to apt for the Iroquois system of federalism and even re-introduced liberal ideas from their Dutch experience. Not that they gave the Indians any credit for that. You wouldn?t find them and their chief Canassatego mentioned in the same line of founding fathers until today. And the patterns for prudish, segregational and supremacy behaviour was woven into the national culture?s texture at that early days. Name: PaulH Email: N/A Date: Fri Mar 9 15:31:29 2001 Comment: CORRECTION: Sorry, but the shooting described in your article DID NOT occur anywhere NEAR Oakland. It occured in San Diego, CA. The school was near where I lived at the time. My little brother went to that school, but was not hurt. Oddly enough, I now live right around the corner from Santana HS. My wife and I must pass in front of it on our way to work. She drove by it at 9AM. At 9:22AM the shooting started. Geeez! Get me out-a-here! Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Fri Mar 9 14:50:55 2001 Comment: Ralf, Like you understanding of American law, history, and popular culture, your understanding of the military is mediocre. AWACS don't control missle launches, they control and monitor aircraft. Missle lauches are coordinated on the ground. As for regular and reserve military units firing on civilians... Not going to happen except in an isolated event. Members of the military are under no obligation to carry out illegal orders, including firing upon civilians. As for the militia types, most would accept beam and guys like him, not try to shoot him. BTW your early posting of Story's "research" was amusing. I think he's been debunked as being politically motivated. Try reading some Don Kates or Gary Kleck along with Jefferson's Federalist Papers and other early memoirs if you want to be seen as credible. Name: shit Email: or@getoffthepot.org Date: Fri Mar 9 14:36:39 2001 Comment: so ralf, is that why I should not be allowed to own a gun? Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 14:28:53 2001 Comment: Ralf. . . Why would I be declared Un-Amrican? If I didn't fit in with current political fashion? Oh sure, under duress I could Will the "President" my estate like people had to under Caligula, I could submit and hope that I would be spared, but as a lot of people found out courtesy of Hitler's thugs, submitting in the hopes of being spared as they were being forced to dig their graves only gave their captives more contempt. I know our system isn't perfect but hey, some of us are trying. Name: ralf Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 14:16:30 2001 Comment: beammeup, be assured that you would be shot at not only by the military and the National Guard but by a all these self declared militia weirdos who would find it utmost funny to gun you down like a rabbit. You would be declared "un-American" in less the time necessary to duck under your kitchen table. Well, now that I think about it- since the Kent days television esthetics have had some major influx too. The Wacco fire bombing obviously scored a higher spec share at prime time. They would probably opt for a spectacular Awacs co-ordinated missile launch. Not before prime time though. Name: Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 14:15:19 2001 Comment: Quake anyone? Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Fri Mar 9 14:15:14 2001 Comment: Anon, You seem to be under the impression that all countries have a similar culture, and would act in the same way to oppression. Gandhi's way of fighting the British was passive resistance. That is his style, and confluent with the teaching of major religions and social mores in his domain. It worked for India. Mandela didn't have much of a choice except peaceful means, as he was hopelessly outmatched militarily. It worked for South Africa. Americans tend to take a more direct approach to things, so early on we picked up our rifles and tossed the British out, twice. Then a century later, we helped toss Germany out of France. Twice. We are a nation of the gun, with over half our population owning firearms. We use firearms for self defense over two million times each year, and yet we have a much lower per capita homicide rate than many so-called "modern" countries with complete gun control. If you come from another country or culture where you "just don't get" our culture in the States, fine. But our founding fathers had seen what an oppresive central government could do, and wanted to make sure that the power belonged to the people. They set up a system of government that has worked with checks and balances pretty well for over 200 years (with a disagreement in the 1860s), but ultimately gave the power to the poeple to keep the government in check. Just don't assume our form of government is wrong becuase you don't seem to be able to understand the basic tenants out our country's foundation. The meek may inherit the earth, but as we've seen millions of times this century, that earth is often at the bottom of a six-foot hole. And it is usually us gun crazy Americans who have come to bail you pacifists out of that hole. Perhaps you should reevaluate your position. Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 13:56:20 2001 Comment: In theory, yes, bad governments in democracies are voted out. In practice, though, if we (the U.S.) found ourselves under martial law, under a dictator (remember Rome from Julius Caeser through Nero) in perpetuity would we be able to "vote" them out? Name: Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 13:32:04 2001 Comment: beammeup, I actually thought that governments in democracies are VOTED out of power and that no civil wars were needed. But I definitely share your concerns about the validity of US election processes. Bob, communism was not brought down by violent mass movements, let alone break - away militias but by peaceful manifestions of the people. Gandhi achieved his goal against your "English brethren" with peaceful means and so did N. Mandela. May be this gives you and the local militia friends in your "well regulated" neighborhood platoon reason to re-evalute your position. And before I forget, on my trips to the Alps I never saw Swiss guys using their Mps shooting on beer cans for hobby. It?s quite simply not their property, it belongs to the federal militia and cannot be used for macho games to impress their girlfriends on lame weekends! Name: Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 12:31:00 2001 Comment: How many meat packing plants existed at the time of the adoption of the U. S. Constitution? Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 12:24:58 2001 Comment: actually the amendment refers to the right of the people to bear arms in that the state did not issue arms to soldiers at that time. . . should they be called up, they'd be armed. The circumstances under which the calling forth of a militia might be necessary were not known at the time and subject to speculation. . . however our war for independence, having been a grassroots movement, gives clues eh? I would think, being that our system is founded on a structure of checks and balances, the final check on the government (were it to 'go bad' whatever that might mean, again fodder for speculation,) would be for the citizens to arm themselves and put it down. Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 12:10:48 2001 Comment: excuse me I meant "absence" of guns. . . I just got a little emotional. . . this is a pet issue of mine because I don't want to live in a fucking police state. Name: ralf Email: ooxelith@hotmail.com Date: Fri Mar 9 12:10:03 2001 Comment: The 2nd Amendment refers to the problem of how to put a well orginized militia into being, which was thought necessary to protect the young nation from invasions of Indian tribes and foreign enemies. To put our contemporary discussion in a historical perspective I want to direct your attention to the commentaries of the constitution as perceived when the militia was still in the process of being regulated. THE CONSTITUTION. xxxi AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. ARTICLE II. A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES WITH A PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE COLONIES AND STATES, BEFORE THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. ________________________ BY JOSEPH STORY, LL. D., DANE PROFESSOR OF LAW IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. _____________________ IN THREE VOLUMES. "Magistratibus igitur opus est sine quorum prudentia ac diligentia esse civitas non potest quorumque descriptione omnis Reipublicae moderatio continetur." CICERO DE LEG. lib. 3. cap. 2. "Government is a contrivance of human Wisdom to provide for human wants." BURKE. __________ BOSTON: HILLIARD, GRAY AND COMPANY. CAMBRIDGE: BROWN, SHATTUCK, AND CO. 1833. POWER OVER THE MILITIA. ? 1194. THE next power of congress is "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." ? 1195. This clause seems, after a slight amendment, to have passed the convention without opposition. It cured a defect severely felt under the confederation, which contained no provision on the subject. ? 1203. It is hardly necessary to say, how utterly without any practical justification have been the alarms, so industriously spread upon this subject at the time, when the constitution was put upon its trial. Upon two occasions only has it been found necessary on the part of the general government, to require the aid of the militia of the states, for the purpose of executing the laws of the Union, suppressing insurrections, or repelling invasions. The first was to suppress the insurrection in Pennsylvania in 1794 and the other, to repel the enemy in the recent war with Great Britain. On other occasions, the militia has indeed been called into service to repel the incursions of the Indians but in all such cases, the injured states have led the way, and requested the co-operation of the national government. In regard to the other power of organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, congress passed an act in 1792, more effectually to provide for the national defence, by establishing a uniform militia throughout the United States. The system provided by this act, with the exception of that portion, which established the rules of discipline and field service, has ever since remained in force. And the militia are now governed by the same general system of discipline and field exercise, which is observed by the regular army of the United States. No jealousy of military power, and no dread or severe punishments are now indulged. And the whole militia system has been as mild in its operation, as it has been satisfactory to the nation. ? 1204. Several questions of great practical importance have arisen under the clauses of the constitution respecting the power over the militia, which deserve mention in this place. It is observable, that power is given to congress "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." Accordingly, congress in 1795, in pursuance of this authority, and to give it a practical operation, provided by law, "that whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe, it shall be lawful for the president to call forth such number of the militia of the state, or states most convenient to the place of danger, or scene of action, as he may judge necessary, to repel such invasion, and to issue his order for that purpose to such officer or officers of the militia, as he shall think proper." Like provisions are made for the other cases stated in the constitution. The constitutionality of this act has not been questioned, although it provides for calling forth the militia, not only in cases of invasion, but of imminent danger of invasion for the power to repel invasions must include the power to provide against any attempt and danger of invasion, as the necessary and proper means to effectuate the object. One of the best means to repel invasion is, to provide the requisite force for action, before the invader has reached the territory of the nation. Nor can there be a doubt, that the president, who is (as will be presently seen) by the constitution the commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia, when called into the actual service of the United States, is the proper functionary, to whom this high and delicate trust ought to be confided. A free people will naturally be jealous of the exercise of military power and that of calling forth the militia is certainly one of no ordinary magnitude. It is, however, a power limited in its nature to certain exigencies and by whomsoever it is to be executed, it carries with it a corresponding responsibility. Who is so fit to exercise the power, and to incur the responsibility, as the president? Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 12:01:38 2001 Comment: I can also tell you from firsthand experience, I worked three years in a penitentiary, that the presence of guns as such does not in the least preclude the expression of violence. One could, of course, come back with the argument that 'well, those people are prone to violence. . .' which would only bear out my point. Name: Email: Date: Fri Mar 9 11:55:31 2001 Comment: oh, and a gun used to be called an "equalizer". Why do you think? Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 11:54:14 2001 Comment: my "louisville slugger" is just as deadly at close range. It's probably be a hell of a lot easire to get into school as well. Guns don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people. tag Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Fri Mar 9 10:44:44 2001 Comment: "Or you could do what smart countries do and ban the guns!" --Glen You are so, so wrong, on so, so many levels... First, which "smart" countries? Would that be the People's Republic of China? North Korea? Nazi Germany? Russia under Stalin? India under your British breatheren? "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi in "Gandhi, An Autobiography" There are others too numerous to name. Banning firearms is the typical knee-jerk response by ignorant people who like to toss out BandAid non-solutions for the six o'clock news. Prohibition does nothing to address the underlying societal issues that drive people to commit these crimes (which, BTW, is on a drastic decline despite the over-hyped response of the media). Switzerland requires every man between 18-45 have a fully-automatic weapon or service pistol. They have an astonishingly low crime rate. In the United States, cities and states where people are allowed access to firearms have much lower crime rates than areas where guns are strictly enforced. Handguns are banned in New York City and Washington DC and they consistently have the largest rate of violent crime in the country. You are also lacking a certain amount of simple logic in that argument. If criminals, by definition do not follow laws, aren't only the law-abiding going to be disarmed? Besides, firearms cannot be banned in the United States. The Constitution and Bill of Rights acknowledge that the right to weapons for self defense existed long before and exists independent of Federal and State laws. Try reading some responsible reasearch in the matter before spouting off. An armed society is a polite society. Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Fri Mar 9 10:36:56 2001 Comment: Unfortunately, glen, we (stupid people?) in the U.S. (well, a healthy portion of us) believe that the second amendment to the U.S. constitution exists for a good reason. An in depth analysis of gun culture would require reams of paper to print and years to research. and Steve, do you think that these "teen shooters" were too inept to make a bomb? If they were "smart" as this article indicates and may well be the case, bombs are child's play. Name: steve gilliard Email: sgilliard@netslaves.com Date: Fri Mar 9 09:01:49 2001 Comment: Glen, Ever hear of a car bomb? Several of our teen shooters were found with homemade explosives and only their ineptitude with bombmaking prevented mass murder in the hundreds. Name: Glen Email: G-Hugo@zip.com.au Date: Fri Mar 9 08:56:37 2001 Comment: Or you could do what smart coutries do and ban the guns! I't hard for a school shooting to happen with no guns. Thats why countries that have tight gun policies have fewer acts of extrem violence and the violence that dose happen is much more restricted. In addition gun control means that when police catch crinals with guns they can prosicute them propoly. Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Fri Mar 9 00:43:11 2001 Comment: Just curious, Stephen--flat side, or edge? As to the strange karma thing, the first time I saw my wife, she was at a sorority party (her soririty for the semester, before she tired of Greek games) with a guy I really wanted to pound for some things he said about a female friend of mine. I always thought she was out of my league, and now five years, and a child later, I still can't beleive how lucky I am. Strange how karma works. Bad related bumper sticker sighting: My karma ran over your dogma. Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 23:08:15 2001 Comment: On the most important night of my life, I took a fraternity paddle to the head of an asshole who had been the bane of my existence for years..never fucked with me again..met my future wife that night too..strange karma there..plus the booze helped.. Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 21:24:12 2001 Comment: "But what do you do when you're being attacked by football players and the whole town rallies around their little asses?" Damn good question, and obviously in a listing of cases that grows longer by the day, neither can anyone else, least of all these kids. My route was to join the football players, in a way, though I tried not to pick on people except in any way but a good-natured ribbing between friends. I sincerely hope slicer was shooting for irony, but he's right: it is just a matter of time before someone builds working explosives, unlike those built by Haris and Kleybold. While everyone easily remembers the 15 kids with gunfire, the fact over a hundred could have been killed by their explosives is what chilled me the most. Still nobody has been able to answer the question of why these kids are turning to guns now. While firearms are still fairly prolific and easy to maintain, it was much easier when I went through HS ('86-'89) to obtain firearms, and htey were almost never heard of in schools...other than the ones guys left in their trucks after the first day of the season, or those belonging to the school. We just never though of guns as a way to commit violence: that is what fists were for. Guns were fo other things. Somewhere along the line the taboo was broken, and we need to find out why, and see if there is a way to teach kids this isn't the right way to solve problems. Name: steve gilliard Email: sgilliard@netslaves.com Date: Thu Mar 8 21:03:10 2001 Comment: I used to get into a lot of fights in school because I wouldn't take shit from people. Teachers cover up fights as well as anything else. The problem now is that you used to have kids who simply can't fight or are facing people much, much bigger than they are. I was just big enough not to be fucked with easily, but this gay kid in class below me got fucked with daily, with the approval of the student body. My father, an ex-Marine, taught me how to fight and how to take a knife away from someone. So yeah, I knew how to defend yourself. But what do you do when you're being attacked by football players and the whole town rallies around their little asses. You stand up to one of those kids, you'll be the one in a new school, the alternative school with the fences, at the end of the county. Name: dotcommie Email: commie@youworkit.com Date: Thu Mar 8 18:11:41 2001 Comment: Other side of the coin. I was one of the tallest/largest students in High School. I pretty much had to fight or get out of a fight every single day. Just sort of accepted it. My older brother solved this problem by throwing a student down a flight of stairs in Jr. High. Everyone figured he was crazy. Good strategy, but I was too nice to do that. And no, the school didn't do a damned thing about any of it. Name: Slicer Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 17:58:22 2001 Comment: Why are these kids picking up guns and shooting their classmates? Don't they know that pipe bombs have a much higher lethality rate? Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 17:00:58 2001 Comment: MasterPo, RE: "Anyone here every really strike back at a bully in school? What (most likely) happened? YOU got in trouble and THEY got off!" Um, nope. In 3 fights with major bullies (I could never find a minor bully to pick on me) in grade school, I went 2-0-1 (two wins, no losses, and a draw). In two instances, the fights were over by the time anyone in authority saw anything but the other boy sitting on the ground, dazed. Both of us got scolded and sent to the principal's office, and the bullies ended up suspended (due to previous history, no doubt), and I got off with a warning. Secretly, I thought the principal was happy the bully got his comeuppence. In the third instance the antogonist was a principal's son, so we were both send on our way with a stern "This better not happen again." Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:53:02 2001 Comment: I should mention the sheep had already been slaughtered and were frozen! DOH:-) Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:51:17 2001 Comment: MasterPro... I did... I have a German surname and had lived in Germany living on a US military installation and going to a DODS school. I got to my new school...3 hours into the school day my class mates had decided I was a Nazi. Lunch time...some prat comes up to me...thinks I'm bait...before he could do owt he was on the floor. Did I get grief...no coz the little cunt was too embarrassed to do owt Name: Stepehen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:50:00 2001 Comment: Sure..welsh sheep farmers could show those management dweebs a thing or two.. Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:47:18 2001 Comment: NY Longshoremen?? LOL Nah mate...Black cab drivers from London...esp the dodgy ones! Or welsh sheep farmers...seriously hardcore!...they ambushed a containership full of sheep from god knows where and dumped it all in the channel LOLOL Name: Stpehen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:46:32 2001 Comment: BTW,whatever happened to Brenda Spicer anyway? Maybe she could do commentary on these HS shootings.. Name: MasterPo Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:46:18 2001 Comment: Bullies, especially school bullies, COUNT on the fact of the victim playing by the rules. They know they won't fight back (at least not much) because that's against the rules. Anyone here every really strike back at a bully in school? What (most likely) happened? YOU got in trouble and THEY got off! In grade school teachers, principals etc all loved to say "It takes two to argue" and "Talk out your differences," Yea, like some asshle comes up to you and wants your lunch money and you're supposed to talk it out. They teach kids to be the victim! Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:45:01 2001 Comment: Vonbeck..yeah..one of those silly newsmag shows..sleep inducing but amusing.. Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:43:02 2001 Comment: Stephen... Sorry mate...I have no idea what you are on about LOL...20/20 is a news prog??? Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:41:34 2001 Comment: My seminar is taught by former NY longshoreman..it brings the experience of the docks to the boardroom..wil be the next big thing..sign in now.. Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:39:23 2001 Comment: Vonbeck: I like that..sounds like a 20/20 tease..Is America disappearing up its own ass? John Stossel reports:) Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:37:30 2001 Comment: Stephen... Sorry mate...but I don't think you could afford me!!:-0!! :-) LOL Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:34:31 2001 Comment: Stephen... If someones a cunt they are a cunt...no matte what skin color...that is irrevenlent...however I am glad to see that racism is being dealt with. The down side is that this movement (which I support 1000000%) has kicked off other movement like this PC bollocks...unfortunatly America is disappearing up its own ass due to its arrogance....the bummer is that its taking the rest of us with it! sorry but what can I say....America is an Imperialist country...I don't like imperalism Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:31:49 2001 Comment: Vonbeck: Now you're talking..you sound like acandidate for my seminar on in your face management:) Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:30:37 2001 Comment: beameup... the thing that amazes is when kids help out other kids getting the crap kicked out of them....but unfortunalty a rare occurrance Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:29:52 2001 Comment: Steve: Re the spousal abuse connection..calla kid a spick or nigger in college and your ass is gone..that is fairly new..becuase oppressed groups gradually get the microphone and empower themselves..through lawsuits and consequences unattractive to the social mangagers..will that happen for unacceptable high school beahivor..put it this way..if the conditions were right it ould happen tomorrow..is the school going to get sued? of course..enough law suits and bullies wil be thrown into the pc hopper..could happen..not because of moral revulsion but because of career and legal concerns..sad but true.. Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:29:00 2001 Comment: Stephen... That's at work when I was in school I moved around so much no one knew who the hell I was...but it also taught me to think and act quickly and not to take any shit Hell the first day at a school in england I had a run in with one of the 5th form skinheads (this is like 1980)... I kicked him in the shin then kneed 'em in the face. After that no one touched me. Some time you gotta do what you gotta do Throwing things for me is not an option...if I was chucking things off roofs...I think they's end up landing on me somehow:-) Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:23:42 2001 Comment: Vonbeck Kicking them in the nuts is an admirable strategy..true..however my defense of choice was milk bottles off the roof from 6 stories..very intimidating.. Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Thu Mar 8 16:22:34 2001 Comment: Pale bob, yes. I feel sorry for the meeker people who get picked on but I learned to use some barbells and people stopped fucking with me when they realized that I could hurt them in return. The Media DOES dwell disproportionately on this, to wit, the anniversary of the Columbine shootings, people may have been starting to heal and there's the news people bringing it up again and again and again. . . Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:21:19 2001 Comment: Bob... see below my reply re reason why shootings are reletively 'young'(??)....competition... Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 16:18:51 2001 Comment: Steve... Nowhere did I state that "violence among teens is American in nature." What I was trying to to state was that 'teen/youth' violence is in every country...hell kids are kids...even in Japan...but the culture regulates it to a very large extent..yes there are anomolies (such as Dunblane or the rape and torture of a young girl by a gand of young teenagers in Japan several years ago) but by and large the country that has the most fatalities in the west is the US...why? Simply put weapons are too easy to get hold of. If say in the UK weapons where as easily avialable as in the US and the culture of perfection was existant then the bobbie on the street would be sitting in a Saracen tank. Soccer hooligans (a subject I am more than familier with being a Leeds United fan)...are in age roughly mid late 20's to late 30's...they are usually professional people...think fight club I guess. America is sooooo competive these days that to be disaffected is not only seen as counter productive but nearly illegal.... wife beating...in the UK...domestic violence is only recently been dealt with properly. Stop the abuse before they got a gun...see thats the crux...how many times in connection to how many crimes have I heard that? before they got a gun...get rid of the danm things!! jeesh...its pretty logical (I am talking of hand guns and auto 'mated' weaponery. steve the rest of your post I agree completely!! The bottom line is you gotta stand up to these tossers...I see it happen in the work place...hell its even been tried on me in the work place...but then I am insane so I just laugh ...lots...really puts these neanderthals off...then kick 'em in the nuts:-) Name: steve gilliard Email: sgilliard@netslaves.com Date: Thu Mar 8 15:55:39 2001 Comment: Bob, First, I find it amusing that Europeans act as if violence among teens is American in nature. What are soccer hooligans? Americans on leave? Second, if you beat the shit out of your wife, what happens? Well, in most states, you get arrested on the spot and placed in jail. Anyone shows any physical marks, the other person goes to jail. You beat the shit out of a classmate? Nothing happens. Once upon a time, we tolerated spousal abuse as part of family life. Now, we don't. Know why there was a spousal abuse movement? Because women were being sent to jail for killing their abusive husbands and their lawyers and feminists thought that having the shit kicked out of you for 20 years was a damn good reason to finally shoot someone. Other people thought that if you stopped the abuse before someone got a gun you might save a few lives. Why is this concept so unable to make the leap from the home to the school. Or do we need a junior Tim McVeigh to make the point for us. We can apply the same level of expectation to the high schools. Human nature has always expected some jousting among boys. But having 10 guys kick the shit out of you is not jousting. Seeing girls raped at house parties is not a male rite of passage. This is the kind of behavior prisons spend millions to control. What is worse is that teachers use it as a method of population control. Have you seen the kids who shoot? All are small, thin, victim bait. Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 15:50:27 2001 Comment: History lesson..u know why wer'e so obsessed with smoking? Because the insurance companies don't want to pay the premiums for premature smoking deaths anymore..so political and cultural pressure builds..money flows..and all of a sudden smoking is no good for u. never mind that they knew this as far back as 1938..until it starts to hit the big players in the wallet, the society doesn't move on it. now..suing schools over allowing this kind of antisocial behavior to occur, having a few high profile lawsuits brought by powerful factions, and all of a sudden this behavior is not so acceptable..bad PR, fear of lost jobs...fear of lawsuits drives everything in America..change the consequenses and u change the behavior. As usual its about money and fear of losing your job..know any principals? Its war out there.. Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 15:36:05 2001 Comment: I honestly wish you are right. I just don't see a slick PSA advertising campaign stomping out behavior ingrained over tens of thousands of years of evolution. The fact of the matter is that humans are not nearly as evolved as we pretend to be. Like the children in the "Lord of the Flies" so quickly found out, deevolution can occur in a heartbeat. Name: Stephen Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 15:18:50 2001 Comment: Actually Bob..its more than a platitude..a recent survey of kids 8-11 and 12 - 16 put bullying and teasing at the top of the list of school concerns..higher than smoking or crime and drugs,,and yet all the PSA money goes to smoking isn't cool and your brain on drugs ads..that's where the revenue is..how about a this is your brain on testoterone campaign? to show that bullying and being a macho jerk isn't cool? Human nature doesn't change but behavior and attitude does..if there is a reason for society to change it..the culture valorizes the macho testorone ethos and shortchanges all the alternatives..in the end the macho culture create the seeds of its own demise..the nonmacho become macho and act out..hence this week's news..in the 60s and 70s it was totally out to be macho in some quarters..now its top dog..tiresome but true Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 15:09:19 2001 Comment: Stephen, Your ""zero tolerance" policy is a nice platitude, but it won't work. Humans are animals, and animals will always establish a pecking order. Cringing in the corner, hoping that news of an outburst of violence half a country away will quell the local bully is unrealistic. Bully's are very simple to understand becuase they work on a basic, pack level. Treat them like dogs, in that if you act afraid they'll attack, and if you show them who the lead dog is, they'll shy away. Name: Stepehn Ertischek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 14:35:48 2001 Comment: However, there is a perverse silver lining here..lets' say you're the next dork to be harrased by by the macho asshole in your HS. They see you and they think "locker for this dweeb", but then maybe they think of this kid who picked up the gun and said "don't fuck with the dork anymore", and maybe they think twice about their next step..happens in the workplace all the time.. boss thinks twice about lots of things when he knows that the guy could come back and put him on the evening news as the next victim..troubling and posibly quasi-fascist?...u bet. but also a drastic beahvior modification plan..Eventuallu oppressed groups pick up the gun..How about a zero tolerance policy for macho assholes in HS. comments? Name: MasterPo Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 13:56:32 2001 Comment: Twisted - Bravo!!! And I agree with you. One of my own experiences: In Freshman College I was harressed by some of the other Freshmen in the dorm, including my roomate. They were all drunk drug adicts. How they got into college, much less a private college, is unknown to me. They were not rich or connected (neither am I - I paid for my education!). They were obviously away from mommy and daddy for the first time and were going to live it up. I'm not a wet blanket but I didn't see the need to spend that much per credit to be pickled most of the time. The school knew what was happening with all the booze and drugs. The oder of pot and the empty beer cans were all over the place everyday. A good cottage industry sprouted up collecting the cans for the refunds! First, when I went to complain to the Dean his secretary said and I quote "That's not possible. Our students don't drink or do shocking to hear that said to my face!! When I finally did get in to see the Dean his attitude was "So what do you want me to do about it??". BTW, during the Freshmen orientation meeting with the Dean one of these same students heckled the Dean several times as he spoke. The Dean even had to single this guy out for comment later. Now, sitting in his office I referred to the even and the Dean denied it ever happened!! I finally had enough and decided to move off campus. I went back to the Dean just to get all this on record (never know if I had to sue). Told I'm I couldn't take the abuse any more. His response was quote "So what are you going to do now?" said with a real smirk on his face. I suspect he was daring me to say I'll drop out. PS- One year later about 3/4 of the Freshmen class I came in with was gone. THEY either dropped out or their parents pulled them for low grades. By the time I graduated you could count the number of students from my Freshmen class on one hand. I graduated with high honors too. To this day when the alumni association calls or mails for donations I refer them to the Dean and to the students who he sided with over an honors graduate. Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 13:55:04 2001 Comment: SOAPBOX: With all due respect to Charles, Andrew and others still haunted by primary school horrors, I don't have much pity for people who lament about theri situations and don't take steps to remedy said situation. As a personal case-in-point, I transferred from one school district to another at the end of my eight grade year, and encountered the bullying normal in public schools. In response to this, I went out to gain some self respect for myself, and beat it out of others, if I had to. I joined the junior varsity football team. When my dad drove me to my first practice a few weeks before school started, I'd never played a single day of organized football, and was a massive 5'2" and 100 lbs. even. My dad introduced my to the coach saying, "He's small--but he's slow." So much for credibility. After fumbling with equipment for a while, I donned my gear and became a football player. A horrific football player. Well, a semi-mobile tackling dummy, anyway. Everything my Dad said to the coach was correct. With 20 pounds of uncomfortable, unfamiliar football gear on, I waddled when I should have been sprinting, and could barely keep pace with the frumpy third-string linemen. I looked like a Pee-Wee League player that got lost. It was hopeless. I should have quit. But I didn't want to look in the mirror and see a coward. So I kept with it. I'd love to turn this into "Rudy," but that simply isn't what happened. There was no triumphant moment in front of thousands of fans. The best I even got was the chance to start a few games my sophomore year, and my crowning achievement was an interception from a third-string quarterback at West Carteret High School in the pouring rain on a soggy field, with nobody but a few diehard parents and the players around to see it. I'd love to say I returned it for a touchdown as I should have, but I dropped the ball 20 yards downfield and had to fall on it to keep from turning it back over to the other team. But I gained a lot from football just the same. I learned to push against my limitations, and to demand respect with tenacity even if didn't have the muscle or the speed or even athletic ability. You don't hear much about self respect these days, or cowardice. It is all about self esteem, and "dignity" is something we get from P.C. speech and lawyers. We don't hear about self determination. We don't hear about personal responsibility, but instead we hear whining little nancy-boys who cry, but never step up. I'm sick of it. Maybe we should teach kids to stick up for themselves every once in a while. You don't have to be a bully to stand up to one. It doesn't even matter if you lose, what matters is that you fight and stand up for yourself as a matter of self respect. They don't teach self respect anymore. Maybe they should. I'd love to throw out a slew of quotes as psuedo-substantation. "A coward dies a thousand deaths," the lyrics to Kenny Rogers "The Coward of the County," "The best defense is a good offense" and a dozen others come to mind. But the fact of the matter is, you can't always keep from being a victim, but you can take steps from being victimized. These whiney little brats shooting up schools were never man enough to face their tormentors, and exploded. Mybe if they'd learned to throw a bunch they wouldn't have had to pull a trigger. I can't speak for all of them. But I can tell you almost all thise mass homicide cases come from people who don't have much self respect, and that is something you do to yourself, either by your actions, or inactions. Name: ralf Email: ooxelith@hotmail.com Date: Thu Mar 8 13:52:37 2001 Comment: Right on, MasterPo, couldn?t agree more! Steve seems to be so panicky that he doesn?t realize to be only one step short from advocating Hitlerjugend "virtues". And vonbek is absolutely right in his comparison between German, English and American school cultures. I would add to that list Italian, Dutch and Belgian schools where violence and schootings are unheard of. And mind you (beammeup), there is hardly a more overcrowded place on earth than Benelux and North-West Germany. We are 47 million people sharing an area which takes not more than 4 hours to drive through. (O.K., admittedly there are no speed restrictions imposed, so make it 5 hours.)Bob, Dunblane was absolutely exceptional. And let?s be fair to acknowledge that it marked a turning point with regard to the too liberal UK arms licensing laws. Labour responded to the Dunblane parents action group?s demands by passing a law banning ALL firearms and other harmful weapons within the first week after they came into power. And do you really think that the killer-kids had an INCLINATION towards committing murder? Do you assume that they would have had enough criminal energy to pursue a search for guns if they had not found them at easy reach? America?s gun culture innate to the nation? Come on, there?s hardly a region in the world with a higher density of war cemeteries than where I live. (The Flanders and Pas de Calais) From the times of Ceasar?s "De Bellum Gallicum" the fields have constantly been fertilized with dead corpses. And by the way, you certainly know why things like school schootings don?t happen in heavy militarized Switzerland. To use the first Clinton election reminder once again: It?s the culture, stupid! Name: twisted sistah Email: bitemybeaver@hotmail.com Date: Thu Mar 8 13:25:43 2001 Comment: Sorry, I lay the blame for these kinds of things 100% at the feet of the schools involved. EVERYONE knows who the "picked on" kids are...and teachers do jack shit about it. My own educational experience was one of almost unabated torment and misery...misery only broken as I rose up academically and got put in smarter kids classes as they became available in my district...but that still left out lunch, gym, and study hall, which were triple circles of hell for me. Astonishingly, while kids were allowed to use the GYM during study halls, we were NOT allowed to use the LIBRARY unless we got special permission. During those years of unabated bullying, and complaints from my parents, the only response we got was that this was all a "character building" experience. I actually had my car vandalized at one point in high school...the school admitted that janitors had identified the perps...a local MERCHANT ID'd the perps...the perps had free periods when the crime took place...and the school refused to release those facts as evidence if we wanted to bring charges. At least I was a girl, and back then, sexual assaults were unheard of in schools. It spared me the fate of a guy one year behind me who was taken behind the school and had the crap beaten out of him by a gang of 10 boys. He had also been spat upon, urinated upon, and made to eat dirt. No criminal charges were brought. The ringleader was suspended for the rest of the school year. The bottom line is that the schools protect these bullies in order to avoid bad PR, and the parents of these assholes 9 times out of 10 threaten to countersue the school or otherwise use to protect their little angels. I was very very VERY LUCKY to have a small group--pitifully small--of "core" friends who got me through this....I spent my weekends lost in computers and DD at the houses of my friends, and got to play with the cool computers that one of the parental sets used in one of the East Coast's first CAD/CAM businessses back in the early 80's. Oh, and dial up to these local BBS' s on my pal's Apple IIe. All stories have some semblence of a happy ending though.... Years later, I came home from my Ivy Leauge college for Xmas. I needed gas. One of the guys who had vandalized my car was pumping it. I was driving the same car. He pretended not to recognize me. I made him check every fucking fluid level in the car when I realized that his boss was standing right there. Later that week I went to the mall and one of the hideous Cunty Girls from Hell who Made My Life Miserable in J. High School was there...as one of those perfume spritzy ladies. I had major bank in my wallet from my summer job at a pharmeceuticals company. It was fun. I loved college, and there I finally found "my kind." I am still very best of friends with the Other Designated Outcast from my educational years...and while time and the economy have not always been kind, we can have coffee and laugh our asses off at some of those loosers now... Name: MasterPo Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 12:17:31 2001 Comment: Steve, your point 1 concerns me. Give the knee-jerk over reaction these days in the name of "protection", I'd bet with in a month of establishing some a policy you'd have more kids in those special programs than in regular school. IOW, if an elementry school boy can be suspended for sexual harressment and a girl suspended for drugs for having an asprin on her then Lord knows what "intimidating and harassing" will be defined as!! Name: bob Email: pale_13@usa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 12:02:19 2001 Comment: First, in response to vonbek, the availability of guns didn't cause this problem. Guns are and have been an integral part of American society, and have easily available to anyone for over a century. If guns really were to blame, they'd have school shootings dating back over a hundred years, when what we see here is a recent phenomina. And you only have to look to Dunblaine to know that gun restrictions don't work, either. If someone wants a large number of people to die, they will. It is that simple. They real question is, why? There has always been bullying in school. There will probably always be bullying. By why the violence now? My school and many others in my area had shooting teams, with rifles kept on campus. Guns aren't the main issue, though they might contribute to making homicide a bit easier for those so inclided to commit it. I'll address my other comments when I get back from lunch, which stem from Jeffery Synder's Article "A Nation of Cowards." Name: Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 11:17:01 2001 Comment: U.S government should be extremely worried about the situation where the people who have contributed most to its nations export ie techies engineers, I.T. are discouraged by bullying. Those "jocks" contribute nothing more important than WWF wrestling to the U.S export econmony. If there was any better argument for eugenics it would be American wrestling. Most countries would be concerned about engendering this "moron as leader culture"in their young people. Name: vonbek Email: Date: Thu Mar 8 11:00:07 2001 Comment: Schools are a hassle the world over... I've been in German schools, English schools, and American schools...in Germany its not violent (not hard to guess why). England it is. America it is ...with easily avialable guns. This is not about guns?? Name: beammeup Email: no@intelligentlife.net Date: Thu Mar 8 09:31:28 2001 Comment: what you are seeing is at_least_partially the result of overcrowding. Experiments were done in which rats were kept in a large multi-chambered cage and allowed to breed at will, offspring were not removed. A heirarchy of dominant males developed who isolated themselves in the small ancilliary chambers and bred with the most desirable females, killing those who invaded their "territory". Those who were not members (of the dominant male caste and their females) killed and ate their young, had sexual relations with their young, reacted to attempts at interaction with disproportionate displays of intimidation and violence, life out of control in the main chamber, and basically exhibited a lot of what can be best described as analogous to what we're seeing in cities and suburbs. As far as what people consider to be a "moral decline" is concerned, we only have to look back in history to see that "immorality" has always been a social factor, this is nothing new. Exploitation, intimidation, violence, killing, discrimination, hatred, irrationality, these things have been a part of the human condition since the dawn of recorded history. I'm not saying that these are "good" things, but rather that they're not new. Lest I be accused of not acknowledging the role of values, yes, I do think that we in America tend to value the "wrong" things., not all of the wrong things, but some of the wrong things. It could be argued, though, that my "wrong" is subjective and other people don't have to embrace my values. I will agree, though, that we ought to value "the right to be left alone" as one of the fundamental rights of human existence. How we are going to deal with violations of this without sinking into a "police state mentality" is anybody's guess. I'll be honest and state categorically that I don't have half the answers. Thought is in order. Also, I think you ought to make a list of all the school shootings which have occurred and decide for yourself if the constant harping and media attention aren't exagerated. Engineering consent for increased police presence and involvement through a disproportionate dwelling on drugs and violence seems to be a need in this society. The world's population isn't getting any smaller and unless we find a way to either expand our territory, remove some of the pressure for survival in a socioeconomic sense or control the population it will only get worse. Add to this that technology has allowed us to remove most of the envoronmental pressure which would keep our "species" at levels which are not at odds with the meta process of nature. We need a good plague. Name: Lee Davis-Thalbourne Email: kirby1024@hotmail.com Date: Thu Mar 8 04:29:51 2001 Comment: My god, I'm so glad I'm in Australia, and not America. Here, the idea of the entire school's social system being based around a sporting team is completely amazing to us. Of course, we still have the "popular" people, They're just not jocks, that's all. At least, not in the school I'm at, anyway. Name: Charles Email: croten@aa.net Date: Thu Mar 8 04:13:41 2001 Comment: Outstanding article. I faced this sort of abuse 35 years ago, and the memories are still with me at 50+. Oh, and BTW, things have not gotten any better in the interim. If anything, matters are much worse now than they were in 1965. Part of the problem is the fact that the public school system, as a system, is broken. The problems are structural no amount of _reform_ is going to fix matters. School district administrations tend towards corruption and incompetence that make even our last President and our current one look like geniuses. Teachers, the "line troops", are caught in a situation where they (i) do not have the authority to do their jobs effectively, (ii) are paid incredibly little compared to the importance of their responsibilities, and (iii) have no "heat shield" between them and absentee parents who value their own control over their child's daycare^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h education more than the functionality of said education. Consider the example of a secondary school mathematics teacher who does not have authority to modify, to the smallest degree, the syllabus of the course she is to teach. That has been drawn up by a mathematical ignoramus with a position in the District Administration and an advanced degree in "Education". Said teacher does not have the authority to send a disruptive kid (such as, for instance, the sort who enjoys beating the holy living shite out a non-conformer) to the Vice-Principal's office without spending two hours over the paperwork. After all that, the Vice-Principal (who, unlike the teacher, can be fired at a whim .. no tenure) is rather more likely than not to take the safe option and sweep the whole matter under the rug. Teacher sees this ghastly mess played out umpteen times .. reflects on the lousy pay scales .. understands that where she is, she is not in a position to do any good to her charges .. and one fine day, wakes up and asks herself the 64-dollar question: "Why do I put up with this crap when I could be making twice as much writing software?? And being treated as no worse than a second-class citizen into the bargain!?" Next month, the math teacher boogies. The month after, she is replaced with a lamer who doesn't know a bolt from a volt .. but who will eat shit on command. This was not a hypothetical example. The lady in question actually went back to college and did the Med School thing, though. She now has a private practice as an internist in Tucson this last 20 years and more. This is how the public "education" system screens out the competent, the brave, and the principled. And has been doing so for more than 50 years, in places like California. My mother knows about that one .. she taught there before I was born, and saw this back then. Christ, I remember back to my own 2'd and 3'rd grade experiences .. back in the mid 1950's for me .. when the prevalent fad^h^h^h^h idea was that children shouldn't be permitted to read a book that was "over their level of comprehension". The theory was that the shock of failure would crush the poor fragile egos of said children to the point that they would never attempt said exercise again. This made it quite tricky for a third-grader such as myself to check scientific or technical stuff (such as there was!) out of the school library. Fortunately, I had already learned to be a big enough smart-ass, when challenged by this sort of lame-ass crap, to make the "Duly Constituted (i.e., self-appointed) Authorities" wish to High Heaven they hadn't fucked with me .. and do so publicly. IMHO the smart folks are backing voucher plans. Yes, I agree, much, if not most, of the voucher bucks are going to go to religious schools every bit as repressive as the dead-center/dead-hand public "education" that we have today. But without the alternative, the techies of tomorrow will have __NO__ __choice__ but voluntary __acceptance__ of their __own__ brainwashing, or the kind of ostracism that leaves scars that affect a person until death. I __know__ about that one. Or the kind of pressure that places a doomed wretch in a school with a gun in his hand, staring down the sights toward an equally-doomed wretch whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this country (I cannot, in honesty, speak for others .. though I do have a few suspicions, both good and bad), the "educational" experience is a form of intellectual and spiritual castration. Small wonder that it drives some of those who udergo it (often, the ones with the most to contribute, were they not driven insane!) out of their heads, and into frankly murderous states of mind. Name: Andrew Email: aplato@easystreet.com Date: Thu Mar 8 02:16:43 2001 Comment: Excellent article. As a man who was terrorized and tormented as a young boy, I think it is time we as a society face the real problem: the unchecked tyrrany of the "popular people." High school and grade school were a horrible, depressing, and traumatic time for me. There were many many days I fantisized about killing the people who tormented me. The problem was always the same, kids would torment me and teachers did nothing to stop it. Some teachers even go so far as to condone such behavior. I think your ideas of locking down on assualts in schools is due. I think it is time we make a statement to stop the unchecked violence and intimidation of the "popular kids" against anybody they deem inappropriate. Name: Curtis R Anderson Email: gleepy@bigfoot.com Date: Wed Mar 7 23:16:09 2001 Comment: The local (rural) school has a sheriff's deputy assigned to it part-time in the capacity of a "school resource officer." My cousin, living in Lansing, MI, has repeatedly said that if her son was excessively victimized in school, she'd sue the pants off the school board. Fortunately, her son discovered the sport of diving. That is, until he punctured his eardrum (ouch).