Bullied child backs away slowly.

[bdar]

I'm unsure, to this day, what exactly it was that marked me as a target in elementary school--although it could have been any number of things. I was the kid in class who could spell and knew long division in second grade, which either endeared me to kids wanting to copy my homework or spotlit me as some kind of curve-breaking teacher's pet (

Comments

[benchilada]

I was the kid in class who could spell and knew long division in second grade, which either endeared me to kids wanting to copy my homework or spotlit me as some kind of curve-breaking teacher's pet (although we weren't actually graded on a curve). It could have been that I was the short, awkward, fat kid in glasses;

That was me as well, but I discovered wit/madness in about third grade.

I discovered that when you're funny, you get more people on your side, so when the person comes to bully you, you can make them stop because they know that the moment they touch you, they're going to be seen as an assmonkey by others.

Also, since third grade is about when my brain broke, I think that being slightly off-kilter--I wasn't yet bordering on batshit--made me unpredictable enough that even the most bastardly of people thought twice...

[jrstraus]

Oh YEAH?!?

[yozhik]

Or is this just another instance of the conservative fantasy that there are no liberal-minded men and women in uniform?

Dude, I fantasize about that all the time.

All those hot sexy liberal-minded women out of uniform and getting so . . .

errr, uhm . . .

maybe I should go back to studying for finals.

[adventureboyv]

I've found that wit also works well with academic bullies who think/know/are smarter than you in the competent academic sense. But witty quips also score points here!

[arettber]

Why do you assume I've never been in the service? Or is this just another instance of the conservative fantasy that there are no liberal-minded men and women in uniform?

It's a fair question, though. You're right in that it does at least begin to imply something that's not true, but I'd be interested in the person's answer nonetheless.

[bdar]

His answer was (paraphrased):

"Because only somebody who hasn't been in the service could say such naive things as you."

This was in response, for context, to my contention that we didn't have to gut the Constitution in order to effectively fight terrorism. Although I admit I may have goaded him, by pointing out that people willing to sacrifice the basic principles of the nation in order to maybe possibly keep themselves from being hurt are the sort of people who the terrorists have already...well, terrorized.

[arettber]

"Because only somebody who hasn't been in the service could say such naive things as you."

I've often wondered how exactly it is that the service delivers such a spectacularly thorough education on the meaning and origins of the U.S. Constitution, and the history and philosophical underpinnings of Democracy and Freedom, without anybody else realizing it.

Do they still have political lessons in the service, or was that just something the Soviets did?

These are things I wonder, having not been in the service and therefore completely unable to understand what it takes to keep me safe and semi-free.

[arettber]

My failure to be Born Again probably also has something to do with my difficulties in this area, for that matter.