Suddenly bullying has gone from an isolated act to a campaign. When I was in high school in the early sixties, bullying was not some big cause like anti-racism or anti-homophobia. 

A degenerate kid would pick on me or wouldn’t.  If he did, I would either avoid him or hit him.  The options were built into the situation, not a governmental or school board movement that tried to dictate adolescent behavior.

The world has become squeamish and feminine.  Now bullying is a big deal.  I wasn’t much of a fighter, and I was afraid of the greasers, but I managed to slip around the banana peel of their hostility and defend myself if my back was pushed up against the wall.

Life is rough.  We could die in battle.  We could get cancer.  We could lose an eye or an arm.  We can’t militate against everything using feel-good rules.

Let bullying work itself out.  When I was sixteen, a football player kid started a fight with me for no reason.  I kicked him in the balls.  He went down, and I hit him in the head while he was on his lawn. 

I am no tough.  But I toughed it out.  This is how we learn.  We fear, and then we learn to conquer fear.  And if not, we go home and cry in our rooms that we are cowards.  It is not mortal.  It is just being a mortal human being.

At least we are something rather than an appendage of an administrative sanction.  Bullying does not need legislation or town hall meetings.  It needs the individual responsibility of each kid to defend himself or if necessary help one of his friends who is being bullied.

When I was seventeen, a friend of mine hit another friend of mine.  I defended the friend who was hit.  I beat the hitting friend until he was bloody.  By the end of the evening, we were all friends again. 

Adolescents find friendship in enmity.  Maybe bullying is a way of becoming closer.