Comments

1
As a card-carrying member myself I am thrilled!!!
2
This act will make exactly 0% difference on the playground, where it counts.
3
You know I get that this whole project is worthy and wonderful and all that but the truth of the matter is that it's not necessarily true.

Problems with family don't necessarily go away and can get worse, there's problems with HIV, abusive relationships, finding decent friends is harder than ever, drug abuse, no work (or work that just straight-up sucks) and the list goes on and on.

I fucking hated being in school, but I'd go back to that in a heartbeat if it meant I could leave behind this fucking depressing middle aged existence. As it is, carrying on day by day is a real struggle, something high school never was.
4
Dan you are famous as fuck now! Cool, you deserve it.
5
Well, obviously. Middle age is not worth living for anyone, gay or straight, black or white, vegetable or mineral. Didn't anyone see Logan's Run?
6
@2 that's not true, of course. A Title IX type remedy works very, very quickly to prevent harm done by coldly and efficiently threatening administrators with career-ending consequences to turning a blind eye. It got schools to quit forbidding women's sports and it can get them to quit forestalling anti-bullying programs that should be routine everywhere--programs that gay kids around the world who've had to switch schools say make a huge difference.
7
@3, if carrying on day by day is a real struggle for you and you hate your existence, that means that there is something wrong. You shouldn't have to struggle to get through every day, middle-aged or otherwise, and there are people that can help you feel better. Feeling shitty every day is an awful way to live, and you don't have to live that way. Find some help.
8
6- Did you see what happened to the Cal baseball program this week? Despite the fact it makes more cash than any women’s sports, it got the ax because of Title IX. Minorities trump performance in modern day Communist America.

The "student non-discrimination act", are you fucking serious? More newspeak from the leftists who are trying to undo evolution in the name of political correctness. Discriminating is natural and key to our survival. Bullies have always been around and always will be. They're natural and a bit of a necessity.

These kids are just examples of pussified America. They’re promised an egalitarian fairy tale and when Darwin comes and kicks em in the nuts they can’t handle it. I was the same way, I’m of the same generation and I see it all around me. These kids need truth, not lies. Things don’t get better, you’re just gonna have to get tougher. Buckle up, it’s a bumpy ride, kids.
9
@8 imodium.
10
In Real America "card carrying members of the ACLU" rank below pedophiles on the scale of humanity.

just so you know.
11
Title 9 is injustice.
It doesn't guarantee equal access and equal opportunity.
It requires equal outcome.
If more males happen to want to participate in sports (or more females...) they are out of luck.
Title 9 REQUIRES that there be the EXACT SAME number of each gender participating.

sure, HomoLiberal Socialists think it is heavenly.

'nuff said...
12
#6 - But #2's point is that, while something like the SN-DA might get indifferent administrations off their keisters, the programs they'd have to implement as a result would likely accomplish very little. I don't doubt the sincerity of people who support laws like the one referred to in this post, and I don't oppose them myself - I suppose they're not going to do any (further) *harm* to put-upon kids. But I see anti-bullying programs as liberals' version of abstinence education: an attempt to keep teenagers from doing something that they're more or less hard-wired to want to do (screw on the one hand, act like utter shits to those lower on the pecking order on the other). Like I said, pass the law, give it a shot - I wrote and "demanded" that my Representative vote for it - but I would be mightily and happily suprised if it amounted to anything.
13
@12, kids and parents who've been forced to move from districts without policies to those with, both here and outside the U.S., are telling us their direct experience right now is that they do amount to something.
14
@3 you bring up an important point, one I've been thinking about a lot in regards to this project, and that is the other aspect of getting over depression, which is working on yourself- through therapy, art, social support, tolerant religious faith, pursuing a career, whatever. You can't get over depression until you decide to commit to the hard work that it takes to do so. Which you'll never do without hope. You can't do it by yourself, which is where this project comes in- a communication of hope to those who aren't hearing it in their daily lives. It's really, really hard to do when you're 15 and being bullied and/or stuck in an abusive household. A big part of depression is irrational self-critical thoughts- but if you're hearing those things from outside of yourself, especially by a majority of your peers and elders, you need to be able to hear from another source, outside of yourself, to confirm their irrationality. That's what's so great about this project.
You sound like you're struggling with chronic depression. Well, that runs in my family. I know firsthand the tremendous pain of both teenage and adult suicide and depression on the family. My witness to that was a major inspiration for me to do the hard work of combating my own depression instead of giving up. My life is not perfect, because life is a struggle for everyone; I'm still young and it's often uncertain of my future, there are heartbreaks and failures, and I still have to work hard to combat my depression- but I am so grateful I am still alive. You may never be able to eradicate depression, but you can overcome it. For most, finding hope is the first step.
15
@2, @12...

As a teacher in a public school, I can tell you that anti-bullying laws, and laws to protect the rights of students, absolutely DO have an effect. Schools don't "put programs into place" to follow these laws. It's not about "programs." It's about the ADULTS in a situation responding to bullying by putting an end to it.

A student of mine was getting bullied and told no one. It went on and on and on, and was truly vicious. She finally told her mother, who told me, who (as required by law) told my administration, who (as required by law) met with the perpetrators and squashed their bullying. The bullies were told in no uncertain terms that their actions were horrible and would stop. The bullying ended immediately, and that girl blossomed like a flower.

Sure, kids (and adults) can be thoughtless, unkind, and cruel. But I don't believe that kids are hard-wired to be assholes. I do believe that kids are hard-wired to do what their parents and other adults socialize them to do. In schools where bullying is uncool, cool kids don't bully. I went to such a school. The parents, teachers, and other adults of the school and community TAUGHT their kids how to behave. Sometimes it takes a law to show adults how to be adults.


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