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{"id":3962,"date":"2011-01-06T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T08:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/01\/in-the-name-of-bullying.html"},"modified":"2011-01-06T08:45:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T08:45:00","slug":"in-the-name-of-bullying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/01\/in-the-name-of-bullying.html","title":{"rendered":"In the name of bullying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Like most things in our floundering culture, even if the problem is valid, our solutions are almost guaranteed not to be.\u00a0 Take for instance this little gem<\/a> from The Lookout.\u00a0 Researchers, who often get it wrong because they tend to focus on a single leaf on a single branch on a single tree, conclude that playground gossip has to go.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The usual study is cited, the results, the joyous and Utopian paradise that arises when we just do it the way researchers say to do it, is lauded.\u00a0 And yet something behind it all gives me the shakes.\u00a0 Playground gossip should be monitored; it should be stopped?\u00a0 Some of this is just the ages old kids talking about kids.\u00a0 Kids being kids.\u00a0 Kids learning to grow up and be adults.\u00a0 The idea that kids\u2019 speaking habits should be so closely monitored has that whiff of the Orwellian.<\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t want kids beat up, persecuted, and tormented to the point they can\u2019t function.\u00a0 But on the other hand, I still want a society that allows for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of thought.\u00a0 And things like this are commensurate with the growing tendency we hear in other venues that suggests it\u2019s time to put away some of these freedoms for those who advance beliefs that are \u2018bigoted\u2019, or \u2018hate\u2019, or \u2018intolerant\u2019\u00a0 \u2013 all subjectively defined by the latest, hippest who can\u2019t help but know they have the right to tell everyone else the way it should be. <\/p>\n

My biggest gut feeling is that this is the foundation stone of a new Order.\u00a0 The progressives who, throughout the 70s and 80s, insisted that students should have total freedom, their lockers a sacred Holy of Holies where no teacher or authority should dare to tread, their opinions and their ideals completely unfettered (especially when trashing America, religion, or traditional values), are now the ones acting as if it\u2019s time we demand all children conform to The Truth (TM), the New Way, the Absolute Value that demands absolute obedience.\u00a0 There is an underlying current behind this and a growing number of studies that sounds less like the forces at hand are tyring to solve the bullying problem, and more like they are trying to exploit the worst parts of an age old problem in order to begin truly seizing the reigns of our children and moving them toward the New Order that all\u00a0soon will be expected to follow.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m being a little paranoid.\u00a0 But when set within the overall context of our society over the last few years, I can\u2019t help but feel it\u2019s only paranoid to a degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"