{"id":2772,"date":"2012-05-20T20:34:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T01:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2012-05-21T19:53:16","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T00:53:16","slug":"mitt-romney-bully-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2772","title":{"rendered":"Mitt Romney: Bully For You"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been about 10 days now since the nation found out that Mitt Romney was a bully<\/a> in high school. The Washington Post broke the story that in 1965, as an 18 year old senior in a preppie high school, Romney jumped a kid with long bleached hair, pinned him to the ground, and started cutting his locks. The victim was also gay, but I haven’t read anywhere that this entered into Romney’s intentions. Bullies go after anyone who seems different and vulnerable, regardless of sexual preference. Even age wasn’t a barrier for a bully like Mitt; he had also tricked an elderly teacher<\/a> with poor eyesight into walking into a closed door. Real nice, Mitt.<\/p>\n

This made me think about my own bullying experiences in school. I was on the receiving end of a fair amount of bullying from about 4th grade through junior year in high school. Most of it was verbal abuse, being “mocked out” as they called it back then. But there was also some physical abuse, luckily nothing that left any major scars. On my body, anyway. As to my psyche, I still ask myself, did those stupid kids (and the teachers who mostly looked the other way) affect the person that I grew up to be? And if so, how?<\/p>\n

There have been various studies on this<\/a>, and some of them have found that bullying causes increased rates of personality disorders in victims, especially anxiety. Hmmmm, yes, I do have my problems in life with relationship anxiety, especially in dealing with unknown people. I don’t make friends as easily as other people do (such as my brother, who didn’t quite go through what I had to put up with in school, as he was more athletic than I was). <\/p>\n

But I can’t help wonder if the main effect that all the bullying had on me was to make me rather uncomfortable being around children. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate kids. And I take VERY seriously what Jesus said at Mark 9:42, i.e. “whosoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Whether they believe in Jesus or not, I would never intentionally hurt a child. But as to wanting one around me all the time . . . well, to be honest, I really didn’t like kids that much even when I was a kid! I tried to talk with adults as much as possible. They seemed more rational and predictable. They didn’t bully me! <\/p>\n

My hesitancy about wanting to start a family was definitely a factor in the failure of my marriage many years ago. (I tried to be open minded about it at first; but as my wife and I drifted apart over time, I couldn’t see how having a child would turn that around and convert us into a happy couple again.) I have lost at least one other budding relationship with a woman after I made it clear that I didn’t want to raise a family. And I’d be very hesitant about getting involved with someone taking care of kids under 19. All because of people like Mitt Romney? <\/p>\n

Well no, not exactly. But I do think that bullying changes a person from what they would have been given a more accepting childhood environment. I’m glad that “bullying awareness” has finally taken root in our society, and there are even laws against it now. I don’t hold any huge grudges against the bullies from my past. But then again, I don’t want to spend any time with them either (thus my hesitancy to attend any of my class reunions).<\/p>\n

I suppose that the bullies of the world are the more naturally aggressive types, and as kids they don’t have outlets such as managing hedge funds that ruthlessly re-structure existing businesses and fire half the workforce to make a killing on Wall Street (like, uh, what Bain Capital did?). So they need other outlets for their inborn duty to dominate others, especially others that seem weak and potentially burdensome to society. Back when I was young, the teachers mostly accepted bullying as something of a form of performance art. Hey, this was how future quarterbacks and class presidents and millionaires were developed!<\/p>\n

But perhaps bullying also helped to develop future social justice advocates and writers and thinkers and spiritual contemplatives. My unpleasant school experiences likely strengthened my own “quiet nature”, my natural introversion . . . it probably made me dig deeper into my self, as to find inner strength. It helped me to take “the road less taken”, to find my own identity. Perhaps I am more anxious and challenged in my relationships with others than most people are, but I am also more at peace with myself. <\/p>\n

I still think that childhood bullying is a bad thing that parents and teachers should try to stop (but stopping it is so much harder now with “cyber-bullying”, i.e. with the insults and threats that kids can instantly convey through the miracle of text messaging and Facebook). But looking back on my own experiences as a victim of bullying, I can see that “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. Bullying certainly did change me, and those changes made my life harder in some ways. But they may also have allowed me to live a deeper, more meaningful life.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless . . . when I’m in the voting booth on Nov. 6 and have the choice of voting against a nationally famous bully . . . Revenge is not sweet, and Obama has his problems too; but bullies should know that what they did (and perhaps still do) can never be entirely forgotten by those who suffered under their kind.<\/p>\n

PS, and yes, I did dabble once or twice as a kid in trying to be a bully myself with someone who seemed even weaker than me. Mea culpa, I hope that guy can cut me a break on the day of judgement! Just as I wouldn’t want any lasting punishment inflicted against those who once tormented me; nothing worse than a paintball or two hitting the buttocks. Or a buzz cut administered by Mr. Romney himself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been about 10 days now since the nation found out that Mitt Romney was a bully in high school. The Washington Post broke the story that in 1965, as an 18 year old senior in a preppie high school, Romney jumped a kid with long bleached hair, pinned him to the ground, and started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2774,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}