There are approximately 4500 suicides per year from young adults. Over half of these suicides have been found linked to some sort of bullying, and bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims. I'm disgusted at your statement:
Implications that bullying isn't a "crime" and that there are more severe things we have to deal with is just masturbatory. Rape, murder, and the likes are awful acts, yes; however, simply brushing bullying off which leads some people to take away their life purposefully is such an offensive statement. One of my closer friends was bullied in high school (we didn't attend the same school), especially freshman year, and she was telling me about it a few weeks ago and the travesties that were involved. My point is that if you don't believe bullying is a severe crime, a crime that ruins young adults' mental and sometimes physical health and sometimes makes them pull that trigger, you sir, are just a disgraceful human being.
Oh boy, you jumped to a great deal of conclusions there. Bullying is not nearly as severe of a crime as you're painting it to be. I was bullied relentlessly from the point I entered public school right up through the end of high school. I was always the butt of the joke, always being made fun of, teased, and tortured. I never once belonged to a group of friends, never once was accepted into anything resembling a close circle.
However, unlike this younger generation, I didn't have an "anti-bullying specialist" to come hold my hand and wipe my tears every time some other kid was mean to me. I didn't have people telling me I was a unique snowflake and giving me a trophy to make me feel better. My parents were understanding, but rather than incessantly coddle me and stick me in a bubble they let me discover how to cope and deal with bullying on my own. Sure, it hurt my feelings a great deal. Sure, I dramatized it and felt like it was a living Hell. But I never thought of suicide, because I was taught that it is the most selfish act of the weakest cowards. Because I had to find my own answer and learn these lessons myself, I was made stronger. Kids these days aren't allowed to do any of this because they constantly have those around them telling them all the answers and doing the work for them.
Bullying has been going on for thousands of years. It is especially noticeable among children because they lack the mature brain function to understand finer moral points and control themselves. Our parents dealt with it, our grandparents dealt with it, and so on and so on. None of them got the soft pillow treatment these kids are getting today, and they turned out just fine. None of them got the media attention that happens today. The REASON bullying appears to be such an issue nowadays is because we're giving so much damn attention to it. Kids commit suicide because they haven't once in their life been allowed to deal with pain and suffering on their own, because some adult was always there to protect them from it. Every time it happens we get to see some celebrity go on a moral crusade over it, and we have to hear about it on the news for weeks. These people are made into such martyrs that others begin to think that suicide is actually
acceptable. I, like you, had friends in high school that killed themselves. Friends that were very close and dear to me before they died. I didn't feel any less pain over these losses than you did. However, these experiences taught me that suicide is not only the coward's way out, but it takes whatever pain the person was feeling and distributes it exponentially back to those who were close to them. You think your life is bad? What happens to your parents when their child is taken away from them? What happens to your siblings? Your friends? Sudden death causes more destruction and ruins more lives in the vicinity than bullying does, especially when it's a young person who has not yet left their mark on the world.
Forgive the rant, but this is something I feel very passionately about. It's a bit hurtful that you were so dismissive of my previous post, and especially so that you made such harsh determinations about my overall character. I accused a person, in my post, of being ignorant and misguided. Negative terms, sure, and I probably should not have been that rude. However, you took that one sentence I uttered and somehow concluded that I am "disgusting" and a "disgraceful human being"? You never even bothered to find out what my true thoughts were, you just took a phrase and ran with it.
Look, we're all keyboard warriors here. We sit at our desks, protected by our computer screens, and spout our opinions freely and boldly as if we're great Sages and Gurus in this world. Truth be told, we're all young and emotional, and sensitive to instigation. We pretend our problems are worse than everyone else's and when they are downplayed or dismissed we become offended and angry. If I was dismissive or ignorant toward Friar, I apologize. He is just as much entitled to his opinion as I am, and it is wrong of me to insult him over it. However, I'd expect the same courtesy of you Dice, as you did the exact same thing to me, except with far less evidence.