Enabling Bullies and Outlawing Aggression

There are so many implications in this story that there are a number of titles I could have chosen. Another could have been "Zero Tolerance vs. Common Sense." The scene is outside a middle school in New Jersey, where a bully meets one of his regular quarry, trying to hit him with a lacrosse stick. The victim, who has been studying karate and has finally had enough, puts the bully in a head-lock to restrain him until the tussle is broken up. So what did the school do? Suspend them both. Yes, both. The message is, if you are engaged in fighting for any reason, you are to be punished.

Why is engaging in self defense something to be punished for? Why is it that the good guy goes down too, becoming the bad guy? (Notice how George Bush became the bad guy in Iraq, not Sadaam Hussein.) Oh why oh why can't the world be made of cotton candy and no one ever needs to fight? Well, too much cotton candy causes tooth decay. And there are always the likes of North Korea's KIM Jong-II out there who can't keep to himself on the playground.

Young American boys used to live out their warrior fantasies on the schoolyards and sports fields across the country. A found stick became a Colt .45 and "bang bang" was the shot heard 'round the world! Holding a stick and saying "bang" at a public school today will earn a child a few day's off from school. So where do our boys learn to become young capable men... men who may one day have to be strong and fight for what they believe in or engage in self defense?

The answer is certainly not in the public school systems in the United States. The schools these days punish any form of aggression. This fits in nicely with the notion that all violence is bad, even in self defense. One need only look at some of the gun control advocates' wishes and look inside some of the UN policy endeavors to see that this view is held by many.

So let's replace all of our M-16s with candy canes and share them with the world! Well, one day that may be all we know how to do.