Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for September 13, 2015

Did I miss something?

If only that tactic worked. But most of us who have dealt with bullies have found that ignoring them doesn’t mean they will ignore us.

But it’s nice to see Charlie again, anyway…

Have you ever noticed that all too many members of society (school administrators in particular) view victims of bullying the same as rape victims who are somehow responsible for the rape?

This strip could be an answer to the current Calvin & Hobbes

They knock you down, you get up. [repeat…] All you have to do is get up ONE more time than they can be bothered, and you’re ahead of the game.Then you find out about standing up to them, and they become your newest friends. Peel a bully, find a coward.

Sorry, Wiley, ignoring doesn’t always work – it’s not quite as simple as that. I know, from vivid experience.

it can be complicated if the bully is an adult and a billionaire…

Sometimes it works other times it doesn’t but it is a strategy.

The biggest bully in my high school was the principal. If you were slightly different and tried to express your individuality he would ridicule you relentlessly in front of everyone. If you weren’t college material you were of no importance to him. I hated seeing him at my 35th HS reunion. He was espoused to be such a great influence on us, when in fact by today’s standards he would have been sued for harassment.

My son was in 4th grade (or so) when the school bully, a traditionalist, demanded lunch money.My son just looked at him.The bully started to throw a punch, but pulled it back, not touching him.My son just looked at him.Scared the bejeesus out of the kid. He never bothered my son again.

A bully was harassing my 12 year old daughter when my 10 year old son (who was not very big) lit in to him. Although the bully was two years older than my son, he defended his sister and the guy never bothered her again. No one was allowed to pick on her except him! He had the fine art of sister baiting perfected.

The boy put himself mindfully someplace else. It’s more than just ignoring the bullies. It touches on something deeper.

Ignoring them didn’t work, and somehow it was my fault that I was smarter and Jewish and could read at a college level by 7th grade.What hurt me worse that the beatings and insults was the smirks on administrators or teachers faces as they ignored my plight.I got really good by 9th Grade at comebacks and smart ass remarks. Now, I am an expert!At 52 I still have a School bully! (I work in a School) She is my shop steward to boot.She hates me because I am a man in a “woman’s job”, I’m sure Jewish and smart are in the mix too.I pray I never need Union representation, she has tried to get me fired 3 times since I joined.

Is there more to come?

Whatever Wiley is smoking, I want some. That never worked and never will.

I employed the “stare them down and don’t blink” tactic with some effect, especially after they had given me their best shot.*Does anyone else notice that everyone on here has been bullied? Says something about gocomic commenters, and may explain some of the harsh denigration we sometimes see here over political or religious issues. A little payback maybe? Only they have lost their soul.

I was getting it from 3 guys on the school bus in 10th grade, I turned around and just started swinging. A fellow of the other race from me, helped me a bunch and wasn’t caught, but the rest of us were. Now, I was a skinny kid and we had to go see the crewcut ex navy cpo who was the boys dean. We all got suspended, but this longhaired kid must have gotten some respect, because the dean went around to my teachers and got them to not hold it against me, gradewise. I don’t know if he believed that I could do that much damage, but he seemed to have a positive opinion of me. No one ever bothered me again.Bullies have to be brought down if it takes a group to do so. They only understand force, and a good butt kicking is what will teach them. Teachers pulling kids off one another only makes it worse and then some fool might pick up a gun. Kids have to learn that no one wins, and the best way that is is to let them find a pecking order while they are young and can’t hurt each other badly.

I might not have minded pantsing and the girls’ locker room – sounds interesting.

Never recognized bullies existence, so had no problems. Problem with bullies isn’t just the gratification they get from intimidating people that are physically weaker then them, it’s the positive reinforcement they get from others that see them as strong After all, bullies are usually popular with everyone else and blame the victim for their bully problem. Sadly, society has a tendency to reward bullies throughout their life, so the problem will not likely go away anytime soon.

I’ve noticed the forum bullies have risen to the occasion here as well.

Sometimes the little guy is the bully.http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1f_1300117794

Another trait of bullies tends to be that they don’t recognize themselves as bullies. A large part of the problem with bullies is the people that support them and think they are cool. They are the ones that will ignore, laugh, or even cheer while bullies are doing their thing. Though there are those that are afraid to say anything, through fear of being the next target. As for the bully, they will blame the victim for their problem. It can be as “they looked at me wrong,”they bumped into me" blah, blah, blah. or even as simple as feeling entitled to treat others badly, because of their perception of their parents perceived status. Their parents will be the ones that say things like ‘kids will be kids.’

And yes, bullies are not always the biggest physically, but those bullies will surround themselves with ‘body guards.’ Sometimes, they can be the worst, as not being as physically empowered they tend to apply more psychological abuse, which for some is much worst and too often results in suicide of the bullied. Now an even bigger problem on the internet, as that has empowered people that would have a hard time being a bully where someone might just punch them in the face. Sadly, much easier to pick on people where there are rarely real repercussions to them in the real world. In real life, unlike the movies, it’s rare for a bully to work alone. The biggest problem with bullies is the warped perception they have of the world. That the world is theirs to do with as they please and it’s their right to treat others any way they wish.

What is really fun, is when the bullies call their victims the real bully.

Yeah, I think you are over simplifying a complicated situation. Though I do agree Bush and Cheney fell very short by allowing the wheels to roll that set the events of 9/11 to be able to occur. As it was their administration made huge cutbacks to national security in order to give huge tax breaks to the rich, who didn’t even need any more tax breaks than they already enjoyed. Those that wish to can deny it, but facts are facts and don’t change for anyone’s convenience. Now lies, well, I’m sure someone will get around to blaming it on President Lincoln somehow, eventually.

The worst bully I ever knew was in the high school drafting class that I took when I had ambitions of being an engineer. This punk would scribble on my drawings, rip my paper, get my drawings dirty with graphite from the sharpener on his mechanical pencil. His favorite though was to whack me across the knuckles with one of the wooden handled brushes that we used to clean off our drawings after we made erasures. I tried everything I could think of short of going to the teacher; ignoring him, scribbling on his drawings, and so on. What finally worked was befriending the biggest guy in class. He was a linebacker on the football team – a gentle soul when you got to know him but few people really did. After that not problem.

Bullies don’t get a rise out of you? They get a rise from their fellows. This tactic failed me constantly in middle school. I still get dragged down sometimes by the memories.

Maybe in the comics small, harmless kids can ignore bullies and get away unharmed. In the real world, someone like Charlie comes back the next day with his daddy’s Glock and wastes a magazine-load of people. This is because, as others have noted, school authorities don’t pay attention and don’t care.

I was bullied a bit in middle school, more so in grade school. My payback: i got straight A’s in high school and was fairly popular. By 10th grade those old bullies had either dropped out or were in jail. My point: Bullies eventually wind up as pathetic losers and failures, if they don’t clean up their ways. In the real world, we press charges or file lawsuits.

jeff cartwright, practice makes everything easier, mainly because you get better at it…Just write more. About anything. Describe what you see out your window, or something that happened..You don’t have to show it to anybody at first…But go through it a couple of times yourself, to see if there is a way of making it read more clearly. At some point, though, you should take what you think is your best stuff, and let somebody you trust to proof read it and even edit it…Let them give you pointers.. the more you write the better you will get. One other thing, read more. because seeing how others write about things can be very helpful..Don’t be afraid to write silly things. Just try to write them clearly…The best way to do that, is to think through what you want to say about something, organize your thoughts….

A friend of mine once told me about his step-daughters experience with some bullies. The bullies were on the school football team so the administration tended to ignore (if not encourage) their behavior. The team quaterback decided that he liked my friend’s step-daughter and decided to make her his girlfriend so he could have sex with her. She wasn’t interested in the guy at all and when he tried to push it and got physical with her everything fell apart – for him. It turns out the step-daughter was into self defense and she put the quarterback on the floor before he knew what was happening. That’s when a couple of his friends (also on the football team) decided to help him out and ended up flat on the floor right beside their friend. When the principal found out what had happened he tried to get the girl expelled for for assaulting the three boys, that’s when her father (my friend) stepped in and threatened to take the boys to court for assault – and he had more proof than the principal. The principal backed off, but when my friend asked him why he was letting the boys off he said, “they’re on the football team, everyone expects and acceepts this kind of behavior from football players.” In the end my friend didtn’t take the boys to court, he figured their injuries (serious enough to keep them from playing for the rest of the season) was punishment enough.

I was bullied too, my mother told me “You must have done something to deserve it” Great! Took 2 years of therapy in my 30s to realize it wasn’t my fault. If you don’t like me, that"s your problem.Now 59 years later my friends wonder why I won’t forgive her. Nope, not gonna happen.BTW she has had a lot of tragedy in her life, Karma is a #itch..

The other part of the Bully Equation is the School Weasel.He’s the guy whose strategy for not getting Bullied is to point out Other potential Victims to the Bully..Often, they play the “Lets You and Him Fight” game.The one that starts by going to the Bully and whispering in his ear: “Did you hear what HE Said about YOU?”.Malicious little Sociopaths who are too Weak to bully their Own Victims, so they hunt around for a Surrogate..