Torture, as It Relates to School Bullies

I just recently received one of many unwanted, much-circulated articles supposedly written by some (according the FWD info) “regular person,” this last one coming from one of my relatives, who simply does these drive-by, passive-aggressive forms of conversion techniques. Reading the article caused me to seethe with resentment. In it, people who don’t believe in torture the way they do are called, basically, unpatriotic, and the whole article is steeped with the justification of what was done to “supposed” terrorists in we Americans name. Within the letter, article, whatever, it touted the goodness of America, Canada, and all of those considered basically “us.” At the same time, the letter vilified those who are basically “them.” the Muslims, the bad guys, whom they consider as lesser beings, and, I understand, not worth the basic rights afforded by the Geneva Convention.

As I read all this tripe, it dawned on me that these people, all of them, including Dick Cheney, are people I have met before. They are the grownup version of the high-school bully.

Image via Wikipedia

I can remember how these types of people would terrorize people using their strength, their size. If anyone disagreed with their views, their stance, their clothes, they were made fun of and publicly humiliated. They were sometimes even tortured (though, of course, they would not consider themselves torturers, even then). How many of you reading this remember titty twisters, kids put into lockers, those “funny funny” wedgies, or a ton of other intimidation tactics? I remember the popular girl in high school who teased me unmercifully, making my life a living hell at times. Their abuse, and setting themselves up as superior to others, was how they caught and held their supposed power. The people abused by them often just cowered, or hoped that the bullies would be caught in the act. (At the time, none of us had ever heard of Columbine, except as being our state flower).

For my part, I remember finding two such boys picking on the smallest kid in the school. He was afraid of everything, typically nerdy. He had glasses, looked funny, wore very conservative clothes, and jumped if someone looked at him. His folks had told him not to take anything, like candy, from anyone because it might contain LSD (they were, obviously, not very helpful to the poor young man). The day the bullying happened, the two bullies had put the young boy’s books (which he carried with him, so no one could hurt them) in the trash and had just picked him up to do the same. I came around the corner and laced into them, both of them towered over me, but I didn’t back down. In the face of my anger, they gave him his books back and let him go. I was so angry at them that there was no fear in me. These bullies were laughable to me, and I had righteous hot anger. Wrong was wrong. I wonder why we, in general, don’t remember this.