The victimization of a mass murderer has begun....

It sickens me to think that we try to somehow rationalize the irrational. Yet if listen closely you ca hear the tone of the reports now beginning to shift. Now it's about WHY? People are trying to discover the "cause". As if they believe somewhere along the line he ate a bad piece of fish and that started a chain reaction leading to this. Except in this case the bad piece of fish is bullying.

        So you see if you really think about the kids in 3rd grade Enlish class are really to blame here. They somehow share responsiblity for the incomprehensible actions of this young man/monster.   The man was obviously out of his mind. I think the faculty at the school did a grave disservice to th e safety issues of it's other students in order to protect the "rights" of one. I see it as symptomatic of political correctness run amok. He was labeled a danger to himself years prior to this. He should not have been on campus at all at that point, unless or until, a doctor certified that it was no longer the case. The school administration, however, ever miindful of possible litigation by special interest groups no doubt, did nothing. Was it because they didn't want to seem insensitve to mental illness? Fear of being accused, unjustly, of racial discrimination because he was Asian? We will probably never know. But what is obvious is that the school considered his rights and their legal backsides against the risk of this young man doing something harmful and decided to let him stay. well that chicken has come home to roost.

           As far as bullying goes in his younger years, I'm beginning to see comments tinged with empathy and or sympathy for this murderous psychopath as further evidence of the sissification of America. He was teased and mocked in school? Poor him get over it. Kids tease and mock and sometimes can be very cruel. That's what kids do. He wasn't being beaten up and assaulted (that I know of). It's a part of being a child and how you cope with it is aprt of growing up as well.  This was obviously an introverted person and one can probably was as a child as well. Isn't it the responsibility of a parent(s) to recognize emotional disturbances in their own children and find a way to address them? Have we abdicated even that to someone else?

          

             We are more concerned with self esteem than performance. It doesn't matter if you can't do something, as long as you tried. Schools are getting rid of grading systems because it makes students who perform worse feel inferior. It should! That's the point of grades. To measaure your performance relative to your peers! In that particular area, on that particular day, they were inferior. If they don't want to be inferior, study more and work harder. Our young people are being left in the dust academically by students from other countries. They are entering the job market with no concept of merit based success and advancement , but they have great self esteem. Self esteem doesn't help a company's bottom line, skill and competence do.

          Youth sports programs are increasingly adopting (especially at younger ages) a no score policy. Defeating the entire purpose and objective of sport. Teams form the sense of accomplishment and comraderie from accomplishing something together. Without a winner and a loser they're just a bunch of kids running around with a ball or puck or football in matching uniforms for an hour. Winning builds character and fuels REAL self-esteem The kind earned through actual achievement  Losing builds character as well. For me, anyway I hated losing at anything. "It's not whether you win or lose it's how you play the game" is bullshit. I've been on championship teams at various levels in various sports and I've been on some not so good teams that lost more than their share. I'll take winning every time. There is no shame in losing to a better person or team who possesses more skill or ability than you, HOw you play the game in that situation DOES matter. Are you going to lay down and quit? Cheat? Play dirty? Or give it your best effort and decide to get better?  You aren't going to win at everything you do. Learning to cope with defeat is an important life lesson. We do our children no favors trying to shield them from this fact. We handicap them in fact and reduce their chance to succeed later in life.

I was bullied in school, picked on through most of my first two and half years of high school. It sucked. I hated it. Eventually my father figured out what was going on. He didn't go to the principal or the teachers. He didn't call the other kids parents. He didn't get directly involved in anyway, except to ask me if I wanted to make it stop. As he realized even at 15 years old this a problem that only I could really resolve. Anything he might do might temporarily address the symptom but not the underlying issue.  He enrolled me in martial arts/ self defense classes. Within three months I was not being picked on anymore. I didn't go around beating people up. I stood up for myself one time. That's all it took and the bullies found other targets. There wasn't even a big fight or anything. It had more to do with a change inside. I never got in another fight in highschool after that over the next year and half. I still got teased once in awhile but not mercilessly taunted. Bullies seek easy prey, because they are actualy more afraid then the people they pick on. If only the bullied realized that.