"But....it's okay to bully sex offenders, isn't it?"

Original Article

10/18/2013

Bullying is very much in the news right now. My friend Marie over at Notes from the Handbasket posted a brilliantly done piece today.

And someone called Scoot at wwl.com wrote a most thought provoking piece about bullying.

These are the jewels gleaned from his piece.

"It is imperative for every parent to teach their children the coping skills to deal with bullying. The first simple lesson is that nothing anyone else says to you, or about you, can actually change who you are."

"We now live in a society that has developed the collective belief that we have a right to go through life and not be offended by anything or anyone. There will always be things that offend us in life and no one should expect, or demand, a world that is free of things we find offensive."

"Our quest to achieve a politically correct society has contributed greatly to the idea that we have this right not to be offended. Younger generations have been protected and coddled by their parents’ generations to the point where they are no longer taught the emotional survival skills we learned."

These are tidbits that may more appropriately fit with the philosophy, with which I totally agree, of another blogger friend, Lenore, over at Free Range Kids.

But I started with the Handbasket Notes, and there I will return.

Those who are registered sex offenders, their children, and their families, know first hand about bullying. It has been an element in the suicide of many a person who is accused of a sexual crime or who was on the public registry and found life intolerable. It has been the cause of misery, torment, property damage, and actual physical assault up to and including murder for many, many more. Research done (PDF) by Jill Levenson and Lynn University in Florida documents the extent to which bullying of registrants and their families has gone.

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