I thought this statement encapsulates the entire left versus right debate perfectly. (Reminds me of the old adage: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach the man HOW to fish, you feed him for a lifetime). President Obama’s show and tell at the White House on bullying was sad and pathetic. But this mindset goes beyond the specific topic of bullying. It is the mindset that you can perfect mankind and create a utopia through government action, not 300 million individuals taking responsibility for their lives. If you don’t subscribe to NRO Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt, do it now. Here’s more:
In other words, bullies stop being a problem when their victims have enough inner strength to refuse to accept it, and to stand up for themselves. Teachers, principles, authority figures -- it's great when they are there and witness bullying and are there to mete out justice. But anybody who's been bullied knows that the eyes and ears of authority are not all-seeing and all-hearing. At that point, it's up to you. But instead, there seems to be a belief in the White House that with enough conferences, enough best-practices discussions, enough Department of Education pamphlets and pilot programs, that somehow the federal government can end a social phenomenon that has existed as long as there have been children and teenagers.
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May '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
It is funny the Left claims to no like bullies, when as adults, that is all they seem to do.
Dec '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Anyone from the left would say: Liberals want to prevent bullying, right-wingers want to raise their kids to bully.
More of that projection stuff.
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
The quote in the title speaks volumes. Human nature remains cheerfully immune to Dept of Education pamphlets, so we do in fact have to raise our children not to be victims. When my daughter, who now has a child of her own, was a little thing, she asked my advice on how to deal with playground bullies. I told her to first alert a teacher and, if one could not be found, feel free to punish the bullies with my total support. The next day, she triumphantly announced that she had dealt with the bullies according to my instructions. "What happened?" I asked. "I beat 'em up and then told the teacher like you said." Her heart (and fist) was in the right place at least...
Aug '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
To parse the questionable Mr Trumka, these democrat tools are over-reaching.
The bullying campaign is a stalking horse for increased pressure from the gay acitivist community to form up hate crimes into thought crimes. Scratch this lotto ticket hard enough and I bet Kevin Jennings shows up.
Any kid who ever used a quasi-sexual remark to disparage another will be subject to the threat of speech crimes. What are they going to do with all the seven year old criminals ? National time-out ?
This is silly beyond words. Close the Department of Education down before they find another reason not to worry about the three "r" s.
Edited on Mar 11, 2011 at 2:52pmRe: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Anyone else bothered by the irony of Obama taking a more forceful stand on bullying in American schools than in Libya?
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
He takes a more forceful stand against Arizona than against Libya, or Iran for that matter.
Oct '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
This whole concept is absurd on its face. Seems when the Fed fails at one thing, they just move on to another without ever looking back.
In time past when confronted by bullies, there were two choices. Either remain a target until they became bored, or stand up... Standing up most times resulted in giving and getting serious pain. Oddly, after the conflict, respect emerged and one was left alone. Those were the old days....Things sorted themselves out....
Anyone recall the term, Wanna Go to the Mat with Me ?
Dec '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Dennis Prager is fond of saying "The Right fights evil and teaches their children to do so as well. The Left fights carbon emissions."
The whole bullying thing is obviously over-done in our culture today, but if we're going to be forced to hear about it all the time, I wish there was at least some discussion about the real solution to this (and a plethora of other social ills regarding minors): better, stronger families.
Jun '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
It's so Orwellian, isn't it? Obama appears with his wife to lecture us on the awfulness of bullying while behind closed doors instructs his subordinates to step up the confrontational tactics against Republican governors and anyone who gets in the unions' way.
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy” – George Orwell, 1984
Jun '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Isn't this the essence of the difference between liberals and conservatives? LIberals, ever faithful to the idea that we can change human nature, get a bureaucrat to create a pamphlet: problem solved. OSHA publishes 50 pages of rules on proper ladder use--no one reads it (because we are flawed and far to intelligent to read government pamphlets or rules) and we still get hurt falling off ladders.
A bully: in the end someone has to kick his butt.
Edited on Mar 11, 2011 at 5:55pmOct '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
This is reminiscent of the way that the Left attempts to deal with the social problems engendered by income inequality. Instead of addressing it on a personal level as the vice of envy or covetousness, they try to remedy it by forceful redistribution. This is labeled 'fairness'.
We need to teach our kids to work hard for what they want, but if someone, through talent, hard work or just dumb luck comes out ahead of you, resentment isn't a justified response. It is a natural response that shouldn't be indulged. I think that as conservatives, we should always attack these problems from the bottom up, that is, fix the smallest unit of society, the individual.
I think most of our really grave social problems would disappear if people tried to order their lives according to that hoary old standard, Judeo-Christian ethics. And I don't mean we'd all have to be perfect. Just recognizing it and making the attempt would put us on velvet. But that would mean raising traditional Western Culture to a position of cultural primacy again and at this point, that seems unlikely to happen.
Dec '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Leftists dispute the power those canons you suggested have had in providing good order to our country—otherwise, they wouldn’t be leftists.
I.e., either our country has never been in good order, which seems to them right; or, it is, but the power of those canons have nothing to do with it, which seems wrong—otherwise, they wouldn’t oppose them.
Accordingly, leftists view our country as having never been in good order—because the power of those canons are the cause—and substitute in their place an ad hoc set of guiding principles, as needed.
Government expands and expands to fill that void, with new agencies, new administrations, new unions, and as is the case of any massive body full of momentum, the means of that expansion—rules, regulations, and ridiculous diktats—become their own substance for more expansion for their own sake.
Aug '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
The wisdom contained in the classic Johnny Cash song, 'A Boy Named Sue' comes immediately to mind.
Nov '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
flownover:
This is silly beyond words. Close the Department of Education down before they find another reason not to worry about the three "r" s. · Mar 11 at 2:51pm
Edited on Mar 11 at 02:52 pm
Yes. Please.
Jun '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
when I was a kid there were a few bullies in school, we had the word for a reason, but not all name calling, ridicule, mocking and fighting was bullying. There was not only a continuum where bullying would ultimately be reached in degree, there was also a quality to bullies. Bullies picked on the weak for the hell of it. if you stood up to them they would generally back down, sometimes they would kick your ass.
However, making fun of people who ought to be made fun of is not bullying. Boys in junior high who wear make up and dye their hair, act as flamboyant homosexuals, deserve to be mocked. They are weird and distasteful. Mocking and ridicule expresses community standards of conduct. If you are mocked, change your behavior. 13 years old kids do not have too be tolerant of those who non-conform for its own sake. I would not want my kid to be mean, but if he wants to make fun of a kid with a nose-ring, have at it.
Aug '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Tucson Sean: Sorry, but I can't go along with that. Mocking and ridicule between children is not appropriate behavior at any time, for any reason. Your kid does not get to tell my kid how to dress or how to wear his hair, and if you told your kid to go ahead and mock mine, you and I would be having words.
As for bullying, there are things the schools can do, and they used to do them. The problem is that they no longer treat bullies effectively.
My daughter was bullied in elementary school. She learned very quickly not to go to the teachers about it, because the first time she did, the teacher's response was to bring all the kids into a bloody drum circle to talk about bullying. What's worse, she called up my daughter and the bully and made the bully apologize, then declared everyone friends and the issue closed. Idiotic. Of course, this just resulted in the bully going after my daughter twice as hard.
The kids were also punished for standing up to bullies. The school has an official policy that if two kids are caught fighting, both are at fault.
Aug '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Continued...
In addition, the schools no longer treat bullies effectively. They get away with repeated warnings, soft talks about proper behavior, and in general are coddled and given chance after chance. In my experience, nothing really happens to them any more unless they seriously hurt someone.
When I was a kid, teachers used judgment. If a known bully was caught fighting with an honors student, the honors student got the benefit of the doubt. If a teacher saw a bully start a fight and the other kid defend himself, the other kid was held blameless. Bullies were subject to corporal punishment if they kept it up, and then quickly expelled if they wouldn't stop. None of that happens any more. Instead we have zero tolerance or policies which actually punish children for trying to stand up to bullies. As usual, those kinds of liberal ideas actually hurt the innocent and reward the aggressors.
My daughter has been given permission to fight back if someone else starts the fight, and to stand up for herself against verbal abuse. But she also knows the school will not have her back, despite her straight 'A' record. She's growing up cynical.
Feb '11
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
Sometimes adults do have to step in. It's one thing if the fight is between equals, but another if the victim is physically incapable of defending himself. Its like telling me, a 110 pound woman, that I need to "fight back" against two 190 pound guys. Without the proper supplies (i.e. an AK-47) this is absurd. My friend's kid is a shy, gentle computer nerd with some physical problems and who was routinely beaten up by bigger kids. Gosh, why didn't the kid "stick up" for himself? What a liberal tool! But what's worse, per Mr Hanson above, is the administrators would not take action; they just made all involved watch a film on getting along. Please.
Edited on Mar 12, 2011 at 3:22pmSep '10
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
It has been said several times above, but my sense is that it is an issue of em-PHA-sis (i.e. an inappropriate level of emphasis). I would not want to get drawn into arguments with Dan Hanson or Susan S about whether or not bullying is a problem it is. I have seen it with my own children. My point is more to flownover and Lucie P's (and even to Dan and Susan's) point that a top down solution to bullying is wasteful of precious education resources. Unfortunately top down solutions is all the education establishment wants because it helps to justify the ridiculously overgrown administration bureaucracy in the school system. Also emphasizing bullying will camouflage the numerous other failures educators would prefer not to talk about.
Feb '11
Re: "Liberals want to eradicate bullying. Conservatives want to raise kids strong enough to handle it."
At the risk of sounding like a hippie, if the bullies themselves had stronger families, they probably wouldn't feel the need to gain power and attention by preying upon those weaker than themselves.