Missing Octafish today. That is all. nt

[DisgustipatedinCA]

180. Remember that douchebag in high school who always made fun of people?

You know the guy--he typically had 3 or 4 other friends around to laugh at whomever he was making fun of--the nerd, the handicapped person, the girl who didn't dress fashionably. You know that guy, and so do I. In my case, although I haven't thought about this at great length, I think some of my earlier liberal-political impulses came from these guys. I've always been for the powerless over the powerful, and I think the bullies I knew in high school may have had something to do with that.

After high school was over, I remember thinking about how refreshing it was to be in college, to be in a meritocracy where you were judged by what you could do, instead of how you looked or dressed or acted. I remember thinking it was nice to no longer be partially beholden to cretins at the bottom of the societal barrel. That was an idealized thought on my part, but it was more or less true in a lot of ways.

But these days, at DU, I can see an endless stream of high school douchebaggery right here in General Discussion. We have a small handful of "cool kids" who are actually nothing more than unreformed dickheads who never matured after leaving high school. They're generally libertarian-leaning (I don't care what they claim, I know the type), extremely selfish, and typically very binary in their thinking (ct=gmo=jfk=homeopathy=LIHOP=no plane at Pentagon=chemtrails). They like to gang up on the target du jour and make fun of that person, across posts, across forums, and over time. We're all adults here, and as such, we need to be able to back up the claims we make and the opinions we have, but this doesn't mean we should permit ourselves to be subjected to the whims of immature people whose only goal is to belittle others in order to make themselves look better. We were all warned about this sort of thing in about the 4th grade or so. Still, here we are.

Why do we continue to put up with these people that most of us wanted to leave behind in high school? Why do we let the taunts of flaming assholes stand? We have the collective power to say no, no more, asshole. No more picking on those whose voice isn't as amplified as yours is. No more smearing of a person's opinion by trying to equate that opinion to Alex Jones-level stuff. No more in-the-open-private jokes at the expense of the intended victim. No more tearing someone down for sport and for laughing with your asshole friends. No more half-truths strung together to create a new and damaging lie. Why are we here? What is it we stand for? What is it you personally stand for (rhetorical--you don't owe me an answer)? Does permitting this pack-of-jackals behavior comport with what it is that drew you here in the first place? Something to consider.