He Made Me Kill Me

Ellen, Tyra, Oprah, and your local news anchors all want you to hop on board and stop teen bullying. With several headlining teenage suicides being broadcasted the last few weeks, the philanthropists are waging war against the teasing that causes these deaths.

Wait, causes them? As in, "The bully made him commit suicide?" Are we, the public, really accepting that conclusion and writing checks for various End Bullying campaigns?
If so, why have we abandoned the age-old playground chant, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me..."?

Look, I'm not condoning the bullies' actions. And, if I ever catch my kids being rude or taunting, they certainly will hear an earful. However, bullies have been around forever, yet the suicide rate in this decade is higher than ever. Could it be this generation of teenagers is less mentally stable than the one before, and maybe they haven't been taught to handle stress properly?

I don't think that's a crazy assertion, if you consider other headlines. These days, parents march into the classroom and chew out a teacher if they don't like the curriculum. This is a generation which prefers to file lawsuits for "pain and suffering" or "defamation of character" rather than letting things go. And, most worrying, these kids are represented by lawmakers who would love to make "hate speech" illegal--which means punishing anything that offends a minority group.

All of these scenarios speak a very loud message: if you don't like what's being said, STOP IT HOWEVER YOU CAN!

Americans--and possibly the world in general--have lost the ability to ignore anything. Our skin is so thin you can see our chicken-hearts beating right through it, and we cry "no fair!" whenever our panties twist. I talked in a previous post about our tendency to use laws to fight our moral battles, and this is a similar situation. Except--though we theoretically could outlaw the building of mosques should we so choose to defame the Constitution--no number of laws will ever stop "hate speech."

As we become more sensitive and less adept at ignoring things, the list of "inappropriate" or "offensive" things will grow. Newspapers and authors of books will be sued for statements which historically were protected by free speech and press. And, really, it isn't hard to imagine a day when opinions like "homosexuality is wrong" or "Jesus is the only way to Heaven" fall into categories like sexual and religious discrimination. Your beliefs could be illegal.

If you've read this blog since the beginning, you know I place high priority on individual responsibility. When we learn to control ourselves and take care of others, we'll make the biggest impact on our little worlds. But that leaves no room for blaming others. You can't point fingers at teachers when your kid can't read. You can't waste time holding grudges or--worse--letting them fester until you simply must take them to court. And you can't buy the statement, "The bully will make me kill myself."

My heart goes out to the families of the teens who took their lives. But these anti-bullying campaigns, with their star power and ample air-time, remain misguided. Instead, we need to cultivate strong individuals who know how to shrug off negativity and ignore the jerks muttering "hate speech."