Nutter Butters

All the title means is that I am eating nutter butters right now. Mmmm.

Anyways, the theme of today seems to be "bullying." More specifically, the recent chain of suicides in homosexual males from cyber bullying. I have heard from enough people enough times today that Bullying of ANY sort is NOT acceptable. I absolutely agree with that. Now here is where I decide to say something that is more than common sense (in this case being "treat others the way you want to be treated"). Who are you to stop a bully? Are you bigger than them? Stronger? Smarter?

To do something as tragic as take your own life, that is serious. The Darwinist in me wishes to claim that by taking your own life due to social stigma is just merely the process of weeding out the weak within society. But that is all sorts of morbid, and the Humanist within me despises the thought. We all have the right to live, and the right to our "God given Freedoms." But when you begin to harass someone, those freedoms are threatened. Case-you have a right BY BIRTH to read, say, and write whatever you want (so this blog for example). If you agree with freedoms and the golden rule, if this blog offends you, logic dictates you will simply stop reading it.

However, there is an upsetting number of people (i.e., more that one) who would claim that this electronic publication of ideas be shut down and banned (hypothetically of course). Well, now you're impeding upon my freedom to do what I enjoy, and discuss, well, whatever I feel like. The reaction is now solely mine- do I submit, and let them take away my virtual voice? or do I fight for what is intellectually mine, and has, nor ever will be, forced to be read by ANYONE? Honestly I would stand and fight, but that is just my personality at play.

Now this may be cruel, but those people who committed suicide submitted to the wish of their bullies. I don't know what life they lived, I don't know them personally, and I never will. Do I agree with their reaction to the situation? as a personal belief, no I do not, as a realist, I can understand being persecuted for who you are by ignorant jerks who decide to instead of know you, label you, slander you, pick on you, ostracize you, and otherwise try to make you believe you are somehow not human. I truthfully, and honestly, feel for those who had lost all hope and vision of life, that they saw no more reason for it. I feel just as badly for those who would drive a person to such an abomination. Do they deserve punishment? In my opinion, absolutely. This does not mean death, I detest "eye for an eye" philosophy, but some just form of punishment should be administered. With that said, I apologize if any of this makes it sound like I am justifying their deaths or pain. We are a social species, so it is easy to jump on a bandwagon (this is also known as the riot or one mind effect) and jump to conclusion (we are driven by emotion as much as logic), so getting offended by words is an easy concept to grasp, as is flocking to a cause. Here is what I don't understand: we feel so sorry for these people now, but why was this not a major issue when they were being picked on? Who was there to rally to the cause of "Cyber bullying is dehumanizing perfectly wonderful people?" not this, "Cyber Bullying Kills" b.s. of today. I'm not pointing fingers and saying "Nobody that's who! and you're all terrible sinners who are going to Hell for letting such a tragedy slip by!" because I don't like to point the finger and as stated earlier, I didn't know these people, or who they were. They could just as easily turned everyone away in a self destructive bit, or ignored people.

But what I feel is that people have only a couple ways out of being bullied. The first is to somehow be bigger then them and put them in their place-if you are a skinny kid like me, that's not likely in a physical manner. There is also intelligence, emotion, and other human aspects that may be used in a destructive manner, but generally we think mental and physical. So becoming bigger than the bully can be difficult-especially when you already feel the world would rather you just slip through the cracks and into oblivion. This is where the second way out comes in- by us, those not under siege or strife, aid others when we see or know something is amiss. Is not our civic duty as humans to make sure that our society succeeds and progresses in the safest, most humane way possible? Wouldn't a proposed brotherhood of man (where oh where has that been said before...) be the best thing, if we could weed out the bullies by dewing their claws and silencing their bark, instead of letting them kill our people,and only then saying a few harsh words in reprimance?

So, in this age, where we no longer have to hunt and gather, freeze and starve, toil and break our backs, can we not let go of the old stigma that only the strongest and sexually virulent are to be empowered? How can we say that a person deserves a thrashing because they will never father a child? They could just as easily adopt and raise kids in a loving house; they could also invent the next step in human technological advancement if they so chose, if only with the right encouragement. The bottom line is everyone has just as much of a say in the progress and survival of the human species as the next person, whether they are White, gay, Asian, straight, transgendered, Jewish, blind, smart, dumb, athletic, artistic, christian, Muslim, Black, green eyed, albino, lisped, or whatever.

Realistically, most people can't handle a bully alone. So if someone seems down, smile at them and ask how they are doing, even if you don't know them. My day is always made when someone smiles at me, so why not return the favor? It is always difficult to do it to someone you don't know, but, I personally feel that kind of thinking is what causes people to lose hope and faith in life. Leave your comfort zone a little, give that loner kid at the table a wave! Even if he scoffs and makes a remark, he will remember it in his privacy as a positive. Trust me on that one, because I have been there, as I imagine most people have. And if you know someone is picking on someone else, for whatever reason, try to stop them. Because it only goes downhill.


This was a long one, but I felt I had to make up for my lack of purple in my ensemble today.