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Surtur wrote:There's so much wrong with this thread I don't even know where to begin.

Why though?

My premise is simple.

I like gay people, I am extremely gay friendly, I think gay people should be free to dress however they like and I think that gay people should have total freedom and equality..

However, holding teenage school children to the same account as adults as you lot are doing is flat out ridiculous. I was never really a bully, but I laughed along at some of the gak that happened because it was actually amusing and the laughter of the rest of class is somewhat infectious. My mate Snell set a goths hair on fire at school, we all laughed. My mate woodsy taped a razorblade onto a paper aeroplane and threw it at a weird kid, it stuck in his leg and we all laughed, Woodsy got suspended for a week.

Me, Snell and Woodsy all left school, got jobs, have families and have never been to prison, we are all now into our thirties.

You are allowing your empathy and horror at a horrible assault to cloud your judgement because It can illicit an emotional response.

I am putting forward a very simple point. Teenagers want to fit in, they are stupid, easily led and rash. So when a 13 year old kid in high school does some bullying, it is nothing like a 25 year old man going and beating the gak out of someone because he hates lesbians.

I stand by my comment 100% because it is perfectly logical. Yes the assault was wrong and the offender should be punished.

But no, they probably aren't a "psychopath" and will grow up to be a normal member of society. And how can you visibly tell the girl is a lesbian? If she is a proper walking freakshow then yes the parents of the victim and the school have an iota of common sense if they said something like "Listen, maybe you should try to fit in a little better and not wear your gimp suit to school today"

Holding school kids to the same account as adults is ridiculous.

Surtur wrote:There's so much wrong with this thread I don't even know where to begin.

You'll get used to it...

Bromsy wrote:

And to be completely fair your armchair psychology deducing that the person that did this was a psychopath is pretty specious. I mean, for all we know the pliers wielder had her pet turtle murdered by this rage filled hussy who then, in a completely unrelated newsbit turned out to be gay; so she took her love for little Leonardo and fury at a system that ignored the callous murder of her only friend in the world - her pet turtle, and used that rage to gain righteous vengeance on the slayer of her little shelled chum.

My point, I guess, is let us not invent facts for stories to support our own prejudices, even if they are super amusing.

And to be completely fair, that entire paragraph was an exercise in pointless rhetoric, so I guess that leaves us even. She may not literally be a psychopath, but in popular colloquialism she meets the definition.

But to play your game, here are the facts we have:
Chick is gay
Chick got beaten with pliers and received a fractured skull.
Stated reason from the defendant for the attack: She's gay. "A school in southern Sweden told a female student to "tone down" her homosexuality as a remedy to bullying from other students for being gay, prompting the girl to report the school for discrimination."
Stated reason from the attacker for the attack: ??? “She threatened to shove pliers into my eyes and then she took hold of the pliers and delivered three hefty hits against my temples and the area close to my eyes,”
Action taken by school: "Hey gay chick, don't be gay annnnd maybe fight back next time?" “You’re the one to blame. It was your own fault. You provoked her,” adding that she should have “just hit back.”

That's all we know, and as any good empiricist will tell you, we draw conclusions based off of the knowledge we have and revise when new data becomes available.

Bromsy wrote:What if the gay chick was a super bitch and the other girl got fed up and pliered her stupid face? Is it more or less of a crime because her victim was gay? What if the pliers chick was gay too? Would that be worse or better? Or could we all just shut the feth up and go on with our lives and let people handle their own gak?

Well, obviously, if we were going to do that, we wouldn't be commenting on this in the first place.

So fethed up. While I agree that the 'fabulously camp' type of attention seeking is annoying I've yet to find a real life 'fabulous' lesbian.

Look at it this way ; if she was bullied for being black telling her to 'dial back on the race' would be seen as absurd. Encouraging her to fight back is also extremely stupid.

Of course we only have one side to the story at the moment.

mattyrm wrote:

Surtur wrote:There's so much wrong with this thread I don't even know where to begin.

Why though?

My premise is simple.

I like gay people, I am extremely gay friendly, I think gay people should be free to dress however they like and I think that gay people should have total freedom and equality..

However, holding teenage school children to the same account as adults as you lot are doing is flat out ridiculous. I was never really a bully, but I laughed along at some of the gak that happened because it was actually amusing and the laughter of the rest of class is somewhat infectious. My mate Snell set a goths hair on fire at school, we all laughed. My mate woodsy taped a razorblade onto a paper aeroplane and threw it at a weird kid, it stuck in his leg and we all laughed, Woodsy got suspended for a week.

Me, Snell and Woodsy all left school, got jobs, have families and have never been to prison, we are all now into our thirties.

You are allowing your empathy and horror at a horrible assault to cloud your judgement because It can illicit an emotional response.

I am putting forward a very simple point. Teenagers want to fit in, they are stupid, easily led and rash. So when a 13 year old kid in high school does some bullying, it is nothing like a 25 year old man going and beating the gak out of someone because he hates lesbians.

I stand by my comment 100% because it is perfectly logical. Yes the assault was wrong and the offender should be punished.

But no, they probably aren't a "psychopath" and will grow up to be a normal member of society. And how can you visibly tell the girl is a lesbian? If she is a proper walking freakshow then yes the parents of the victim and the school have an iota of common sense if they said something like "Listen, maybe you should try to fit in a little better and not wear your gimp suit to school today"

Holding school kids to the same account as adults is ridiculous.

I remember Columbine very clearly, so maybe I'm a bit biased. Eric and Dylan did the kinds of things you describe you and your cohort doing quite often. No-one thought Eric was a psychopath until he started plugging rounds into kids in the cafeteria.
Also, an anecdotal story:
Friend of mine got made fun a great deal in middle school by a particular kid--beaten up, bullied, exactly the kind of thing you and your friends did. So, one day my friend ambushed said kid at the bus stop, bashed his brains in with a brick, ran away. Never got caught. Laughed about it for years to come. But to be fair, he probably was a psychopath by the textbook definition.
But, my attitude also probably has something to do with where I grew up. We had policemen stationed at my schools. When kids got into fights, they got arrested and charged as adults. It was called a "Zero Tolerance" policy. Worked pretty well.


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Phototoxin wrote:So fethed up. While I agree that the 'fabulously camp' type of attention seeking is annoying I've yet to find a real life 'fabulous' lesbian.

Look at it this way ; if she was bullied for being black telling her to 'dial back on the race' would be seen as absurd. Encouraging her to fight back is also extremely stupid.

Of course we only have one side to the story at the moment.

My point exactly. From the facts we have, it's pretty heinous. Perhaps it will come to light that she did indeed kill said attacker's beloved baby turtle and that was the actual motive for the attack. But, until that unlikely day, it's a hate crime.

Matty, you might have had a point - if the school had told the girl this *before* the assault actually happened.

deathholydeath wrote:

Bromsy wrote:

And to be completely fair your armchair psychology deducing that the person that did this was a psychopath is pretty specious. I mean, for all we know the pliers wielder had her pet turtle murdered by this rage filled hussy who then, in a completely unrelated newsbit turned out to be gay; so she took her love for little Leonardo and fury at a system that ignored the callous murder of her only friend in the world - her pet turtle, and used that rage to gain righteous vengeance on the slayer of her little shelled chum.

My point, I guess, is let us not invent facts for stories to support our own prejudices, even if they are super amusing.

And to be completely fair, that entire paragraph was an exercise in pointless rhetoric, so I guess that leaves us even. She may not literally be a psychopath, but in popular colloquialism she meets the definition.

But to play your game, here are the facts we have:
Chick is gay
Chick got beaten with pliers and received a fractured skull.
Stated reason from the defendant for the attack: She's gay. "A school in southern Sweden told a female student to "tone down" her homosexuality as a remedy to bullying from other students for being gay, prompting the girl to report the school for discrimination."
Stated reason from the attacker for the attack: ??? “She threatened to shove pliers into my eyes and then she took hold of the pliers and delivered three hefty hits against my temples and the area close to my eyes,”
Action taken by school: "Hey gay chick, don't be gay annnnd maybe fight back next time?" “You’re the one to blame. It was your own fault. You provoked her,” adding that she should have “just hit back.”

That's all we know, and as any good empiricist will tell you, we draw conclusions based off of the knowledge we have and revise when new data becomes available.

Bromsy wrote:What if the gay chick was a super bitch and the other girl got fed up and pliered her stupid face? Is it more or less of a crime because her victim was gay? What if the pliers chick was gay too? Would that be worse or better? Or could we all just shut the feth up and go on with our lives and let people handle their own gak?

Well, obviously, if we were going to do that, we wouldn't be commenting on this in the first place.

I would argue that rhetoric that makes you think isn't pointless, but hey, who the feth am I, right? I guess the point I was going for was to think about stuff, and you neatly dodged that one, so... yay for you I guess.

deathholydeath wrote:
I remember Columbine very clearly, so maybe I'm a bit biased. Eric and Dylan did the kinds of things you describe you and your cohort doing quite often. No-one thought Eric was a psychopath until he started plugging rounds into kids in the cafeteria.
Also, an anecdotal story:
Friend of mine got made fun a great deal in middle school by a particular kid--beaten up, bullied, exactly the kind of thing you and your friends did. So, one day my friend ambushed said kid at the bus stop, bashed his brains in with a brick, ran away. Never got caught. Laughed about it for years to come. But to be fair, he probably was a psychopath by the textbook definition.
But, my attitude also probably has something to do with where I grew up. We had policemen stationed at my schools. When kids got into fights, they got arrested and charged as adults. It was called a "Zero Tolerance" policy. Worked pretty well.

Thats pretty weird, I figured the killers at columbine would have been the bullied, not the bullies! I dunno, just sorta like one day they had enough so they shot every fether.. I didnt presume they were actual bullies who one day thought "feth it, wedgies are kids stuff, lets shoot the bastards instead!"

I strongly diagree with coppers arresting and charging kids as adults for fighting. Its fething ridiculous frankly.

All kids have fights at school, I had 3 or 4, 3 of the 4 occurring because I won one against a lad, and at my school there was a fething league table! I beat a lad up who started on me, and then the "4th hardest in the year" wanted to have a fight with me because I had apparently moved up to "third hardest"

My point is, kids feth about. I am 100% against any form of discrimination against gay people into adulthood, but I think kids need to be cut some slack because you aren't the same person at 24 as you are at 14.

I think calling the bully who hit the lesbian girl a "psycho" is likely to be totally wrong, and I think that arresting and charging school kids for fighting is fething lunacy.

Where did you grow up anyway?!

mattyrm wrote:

deathholydeath wrote:
I remember Columbine very clearly, so maybe I'm a bit biased. Eric and Dylan did the kinds of things you describe you and your cohort doing quite often. No-one thought Eric was a psychopath until he started plugging rounds into kids in the cafeteria.
Also, an anecdotal story:
Friend of mine got made fun a great deal in middle school by a particular kid--beaten up, bullied, exactly the kind of thing you and your friends did. So, one day my friend ambushed said kid at the bus stop, bashed his brains in with a brick, ran away. Never got caught. Laughed about it for years to come. But to be fair, he probably was a psychopath by the textbook definition.
But, my attitude also probably has something to do with where I grew up. We had policemen stationed at my schools. When kids got into fights, they got arrested and charged as adults. It was called a "Zero Tolerance" policy. Worked pretty well.

Thats pretty weird, I figured the killers at columbine would have been the bullied, not the bullies! I dunno, just sorta like one day they had enough so they shot every fether.. I didnt presume they were actual bullies who one day thought "feth it, wedgies are kids stuff, lets shoot the bastards instead!"

I strongly diagree with coppers arresting and charging kids as adults for fighting. Its fething ridiculous frankly.

All kids have fights at school, I had 3 or 4, 3 of the 4 occurring because I won one against a lad, and at my school there was a fething league table! I beat a lad up who started on me, and then the "4th hardest in the year" wanted to have a fight with me because I had apparently moved up to "third hardest"

My point is, kids feth about. I am 100% against any form of discrimination against gay people into adulthood, but I think kids need to be cut some slack because you aren't the same person at 24 as you are at 14.

I think calling the bully who hit the lesbian girl a "psycho" is likely to be totally wrong, and I think that arresting and charging school kids for fighting is fething lunacy.

Where did you grow up anyway?!

The ghetto in Louisiana. "First in everything you want to be last in. Last in everything you want to be first in."


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Bromsy wrote:

I would argue that rhetoric that makes you think isn't pointless, but hey, who the feth am I, right? I guess the point I was going for was to think about stuff, and you neatly dodged that one, so... yay for you I guess.

Accusing me of using "armchair psychology" for engaging in colloquial speech and then moving onto a reductio absurdum analogy is hardly an exercise in thought provoking rhetoric.

I don't think any of you have touched on this yet, but the most scary part of the story is that if she had hit the girl back, it would just have got worse for her: she would probably have been sued, and knowing what sueing is like in america and large parts of europe, she could easily have lost. So to her head teacher, there was nothing she could have done that would have resulted in her being better off, unless this appeal works. If that is true, it means that she could basically have a head fracture every day and there'd be nothing against the people doing it. That fact is almost as scary as any kind of horror movie, as it's the same thing happening in either: The victim's basically having their whole world torn down around them and there's nothing that could ever be done about it.

deathholydeath wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

deathholydeath wrote:
I remember Columbine very clearly, so maybe I'm a bit biased. Eric and Dylan did the kinds of things you describe you and your cohort doing quite often. No-one thought Eric was a psychopath until he started plugging rounds into kids in the cafeteria.
Also, an anecdotal story:
Friend of mine got made fun a great deal in middle school by a particular kid--beaten up, bullied, exactly the kind of thing you and your friends did. So, one day my friend ambushed said kid at the bus stop, bashed his brains in with a brick, ran away. Never got caught. Laughed about it for years to come. But to be fair, he probably was a psychopath by the textbook definition.
But, my attitude also probably has something to do with where I grew up. We had policemen stationed at my schools. When kids got into fights, they got arrested and charged as adults. It was called a "Zero Tolerance" policy. Worked pretty well.

Thats pretty weird, I figured the killers at columbine would have been the bullied, not the bullies! I dunno, just sorta like one day they had enough so they shot every fether.. I didnt presume they were actual bullies who one day thought "feth it, wedgies are kids stuff, lets shoot the bastards instead!"

I strongly diagree with coppers arresting and charging kids as adults for fighting. Its fething ridiculous frankly.

All kids have fights at school, I had 3 or 4, 3 of the 4 occurring because I won one against a lad, and at my school there was a fething league table! I beat a lad up who started on me, and then the "4th hardest in the year" wanted to have a fight with me because I had apparently moved up to "third hardest"

My point is, kids feth about. I am 100% against any form of discrimination against gay people into adulthood, but I think kids need to be cut some slack because you aren't the same person at 24 as you are at 14.

I think calling the bully who hit the lesbian girl a "psycho" is likely to be totally wrong, and I think that arresting and charging school kids for fighting is fething lunacy.

Where did you grow up anyway?!

The ghetto in Louisiana. "First in everything you want to be last in. Last in everything you want to be first in."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bromsy wrote:

I would argue that rhetoric that makes you think isn't pointless, but hey, who the feth am I, right? I guess the point I was going for was to think about stuff, and you neatly dodged that one, so... yay for you I guess.

Accusing me of using "armchair psychology" for engaging in colloquial speech and then moving onto a reductio absurdum analogy is hardly an exercise in thought provoking rhetoric.

I guess that you determine for yourself what is thought provoking, you know, for yourself. And really, I wasn't getting all that fancy with the old thought process, I just used basic deductive reasoning with a few creative inferences that could have very well been omitted from the story for any number of reasons. Hardly absurd. The basic point I was getting at still simply remains - and I dare say this is a point I have most consistently championed throughout my postings here - we don't know. We have a third party with the notable interest of "selling copies" arbitrarily assigning guilt and responsibility without the niceties of a trial or any confessions.

Once again... we have some facts, and some suppositions, and you are assigning them equal credibility.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

p_gray99 wrote:I don't think any of you have touched on this yet, but the most scary part of the story is that if she had hit the girl back, it would just have got worse for her: she would probably have been sued, and knowing what sueing is like in america and large parts of europe, she could easily have lost. So to her head teacher, there was nothing she could have done that would have resulted in her being better off, unless this appeal works. If that is true, it means that she could basically have a head fracture every day and there'd be nothing against the people doing it. That fact is almost as scary as any kind of horror movie, as it's the same thing happening in either: The victim's basically having their whole world torn down around them and there's nothing that could ever be done about it.

This isn't the UK or the US, hopefully enough of the old Scandinavian retribution laws would still be in place that she could strike the other girl down like the righteous hand of Odin and then been about her business.

Surely if other pupils were "scared and confused" by her sexuality then that's a failing in education within the school, being gay isn't that weird.

Kids bully each other for all sorts of reasons, the conclusion that some are drawing is that she must have been behaving in an overly camp stereotypical manner which annoys others. Though how 'annoyance' can ever begin to mitigate physical assault with metal tools is beyond me. But honestly, people act and behave in different ways and some people bully others for it. You don't even know the kid was actually gay, I was bullied at school for being gay but I never have been. Is it a crime now to behave in certain ways that could even be perceived as being gay? You can't just change your personality, if some people choose to pick up on things you do and use them as an excuse to attack you, then the onus shouldn't be on you to change to suit the bullies, the school should address the problem of the bullies. If it wasn't for her being 'overly gay' then the bullies would be picking on a kid for being too nerdy, for reading books, for being clever, for wearing glasses, being small, being fat, being black, being disabled, etc. I used to get picked on for being good at school and doing well at class, is the advice that I should have dumbed-down to fit in?

Bromsy wrote:This isn't the UK or the US, hopefully enough of the old Scandinavian retribution laws would still be in place that she could strike the other girl down like the righteous hand of Odin and then been about her business.

Hopefully. I just wish people were less idiotic here in the UK. It can really get quite annoying hearing about some of the things courts let slip.

Anyway, enough off-topic. How much do you think the head teacher's actions were to do with a predudice against homosexuality? I can't imagine that kind of reaction if it were over skin colour, at least not in europe where racism seems to be considered far worse.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Surely if other pupils were "scared and confused" by her sexuality then that's a failing in education within the school, being gay isn't that weird.

Kids bully each other for all sorts of reasons, the conclusion that some are drawing is that she must have been behaving in an overly camp stereotypical manner which annoys others. Though how 'annoyance' can ever begin to mitigate physical assault with metal tools is beyond me. But honestly, people act and behave in different ways and some people bully others for it. You don't even know the kid was actually gay, I was bullied at school for being gay but I never have been. Is it a crime now to behave in certain ways that could even be perceived as being gay? You can't just change your personality, if some people choose to pick up on things you do and use them as an excuse to attack you, then the onus shouldn't be on you to change to suit the bullies, the school should address the problem of the bullies. If it wasn't for her being 'overly gay' then the bullies would be picking on a kid for being too nerdy, for reading books, for being clever, for wearing glasses, being small, being fat, being black, being disabled, etc. I used to get picked on for being good at school and doing well at class, is the advice that I should have dumbed-down to fit in?

Of course not!

But nobody at my school ever told someone who was clever to be less clever, or who was black to be less black. That is just more slippery slope nonsense, so lets just stick to the case at hand. The fact that the school actually mentioned it, logically says that something about her behaviour and appearance was noticeably and obviously strange.

Lads who were a little effeminate or spoke softly got called gay when I was at school, but even that wouldn't draw the schools attention. A teacher wouldn't say "speak more aggressively!" to a softly spoken kid who gets called gay would they!? They would tell the lads off who were taunting them!

But the fact the school mentioned it, infers that the girl was going to school looking noticeable and overtly lesbian/weird.

As I said, there is nothing wrong with looking like that at all. I believe that if you want to march down the street dressed like a fething Pikachu you have the right and you should be allowed to do so free from persecution.

However, I wouldn't let my son or daughter go to school looking like that at 14, because I fething KNOW they will get butchered for it! There is a big difference between dressing "expressive" when you are 30 and dressing that way when you are on your way to a school full on hundreds of hormonal little gaks who pack together and mock anything that stands out from the crowd.

People that think I am in any shape or form condoning an awful attack, or mistreatment of gay people arent bothering to read my posts. I am simply saying that school is different to adult life, and you have to meet the kids half way if you are smart. A parent should sit down and discuss this with a child if they want to walk out of the house on a school day looking like Betelgeuse! Ergo, the school does kinda have a point.

If my 13 year old daugther walked into the kicthen dressed like this



I would say "Dear, I love you, and you can dress however you please when you graduate.. but please, do your Dad a favour and go get fething changed, because I don't want to have to scrape your pretty face off the tennis courts.. you know how stupid some kids your own age are.. they aren't as mature as you.. and sadly your gonna get fething marmalised if you turn up for class looking like that"

See, good parenting that.

p_gray99 wrote:

Bromsy wrote:This isn't the UK or the US, hopefully enough of the old Scandinavian retribution laws would still be in place that she could strike the other girl down like the righteous hand of Odin and then been about her business.

Hopefully. I just wish people were less idiotic here in the UK. It can really get quite annoying hearing about some of the things courts let slip.

Anyway, enough off-topic. How much do you think the head teacher's actions were to do with a predudice against homosexuality? I can't imagine that kind of reaction if it were over skin colour, at least not in europe where racism seems to be considered far worse.

There's quite a conservative streak through some teachers, reading the Times Educational Supplement reflects quite a bit of this in many regards, but that is one of the main educational newspapers in the UK.

Prejudice against homosexuality by staff does occur in UK schools and faith schools are more prone to it in my experience, and there are lots of faith schools. Quite a lot of schools for example don't have a specific policy for dealing with homophobia as they do with things like racism and disability. I've seen examples of pupils not being supported when being bullied about their sexuality (some staff avoid dealing with homophobic bullying because they personally don't agree with homosexuality, alternatively staff are undermined from taking action because senior staff won't back them up when tackling homophobia). In some cases gay members of staff have been undermined and bullied themselves by their superiors. If your head teacher is a bigot, you're not in a good situation to help yourself or kids being affected.

Children have to be taught about acceptable behaviour. There are various ways to do that. To ignore behaviour is not one of them. We can't just let things go with the mantra that, "children will be children".

Kilkrazy wrote:Children have to be taught about acceptable behaviour. There are various ways to do that. To ignore behaviour is not one of them. We can't just let things go with the mantra that, "children will be children".

Of course not, which is why the bully should of course be punished for assaulting the girl. Not a single person in the thread has advocated no action at all be taken!

I'm simply saying that it is flat out ridiculous to treat children IDENTICAL to adults, such as having two lads arrested by the police and charged with assault if they have a fight behind the bike sheds.

There needs to be a system of punishment and reward to bring out the best in children and to educate them about how gaks gonna work when they enter the big wide world, but the point is entirely valid, that you shouldn't treat school kids identical to grown ups, and a responsible parent doesn't let their kids dress however the feth they please. It certainly is worth pointing out to a child that they are likely to come up against ridicule and abuse if they stand out at school, ridicule and abuse of the like of which they will never see as an adult.

For example I don't have a problem with cross dressing or transvestites or anything, but you can bet your ass I wouldn't let my 12 year old son go to school in a dress!

Well, unless he was in Scotland obviously...

I'm all for self defense, but there is a line. Crossing the line turns you in to criminal scumbag that deserves to be put in jail.

The line gets moved depending on how you're provoked-- if no threats are made against your person or those you love, if no attempt to harm you or your loved ones physically is made, you have no cause for violence in almost all cases (there's some exceptions where, such as in the case of burglary and other break-ins, you have a reasonable expectation of harm, but those situations are quite rare in and of themselves). But, given that after a search in any news article that I could find I found no evidence given of her having been violent towards the girl who assaulted her, or even gave the girl reason to expect her to be violent, the assaulter stepped over that line.

The school officials were being skull-frakked stupid. "If you're hit, hit them back" is just the old policy of an eye for an eye. While it may make sense to some people, it's only because they refuse to actually think about what they're advocating-- in the end, it means that all disputes in the high school (and, being full of teenagers, the disputes are endless in every sense of the word) will inevitably escalate to end in regular violence, with the weaker of the two combatants ending up in a hospital or just plain dead.

There is no excuse. The school officials were stupid, unethical, and downright inhuman. There really isn't much else to say in the matter. They are trash and scum, and should all, at the very LEAST, go in to probation and have their eligibility to hold their job reviewed.

More likely, they should lose their jobs for encouraging violence within their schools like the fething idiots they are. And the girl who assaulted her should be suspended, with juvenile criminal charges brought against her.

Melissia wrote:The school officials were being skull-frakked stupid. "If you're hit, hit them back" is just the old policy of an eye for an eye. While it may make sense to some people, it's only because they refuse to actually think about what they're advocating-- in the end, it means that all disputes in the high school (and, being full of teenagers, the disputes are endless in every sense of the word) will inevitably escalate to end in regular violence, with the weaker of the two combatants ending up in a hospital or just plain dead.

I couldn't agree more. As Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". If she had hit back, the fight could have ended with both of them dead, and could easily have left one of them at least brain damaged, ruining their entire life. It's just plain stupid. I mean, why do we consider orks to be stupid if we are recommending the course of action they'd take?

Sigh...And there was me thinking Sweden had one of the best education systems in the world...

Squigsquasher wrote:Sigh...And there was me thinking Sweden had one of the best education systems in the world...

It has one of the best systems for teaching people in the world. This is quite different to having a good anti-bullying system.

http://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/

Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend were beaten up by a group of people aged between 15 and 17. The reason for the assault was that she was a goth. She later died from the injuries she sustained.

I don't care how old you are, assaulting someone based on their looks is wrong and you deserve to be charged with a criminal offence.

p_gray99 wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Sigh...And there was me thinking Sweden had one of the best education systems in the world...

It has one of the best systems for teaching people in the world. This is quite different to having a good anti-bullying system.

So it doesn't really teach them very well, then.

Melissia wrote:

p_gray99 wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Sigh...And there was me thinking Sweden had one of the best education systems in the world...

It has one of the best systems for teaching people in the world. This is quite different to having a good anti-bullying system.

So it doesn't really teach them very well, then.

It teaches them to pass exams very well.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

Melissia wrote:

p_gray99 wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Sigh...And there was me thinking Sweden had one of the best education systems in the world...

It has one of the best systems for teaching people in the world. This is quite different to having a good anti-bullying system.

So it doesn't really teach them very well, then.

It teaches them to pass exams very well.

Isn't that all that matters?

Squigsquasher wrote:Sigh...And there was me thinking Sweden had one of the best education systems in the world...

We did. Sadly, no more.

For what it's worth as far as I've seen in Swedish media there's been a public outcry about this. I can't see the principal getting away with that comment easily, if at all.

A Town Called Malus wrote:http://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/

Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend were beaten up by a group of people aged between 15 and 17. The reason for the assault was that she was a goth. She later died from the injuries she sustained.

I don't care how old you are, assaulting someone based on their looks is wrong and you deserve to be charged with a criminal offence.

See, I'm gonna sound like a hippy here, but this is the type of thing I am on about.. I remember the case well, because the poor girl was only 8 stone wringing wetm and its an absolute tragedy that the poor lass was killed. But I also think its sad that two of the little fethers got life in prison.

Kids that age are dumb as feth, and I just think that its not just one life wasted but three. And I'm normally hardcore when it comes to crime.. but I learned long ago that very little is black and white.

Well, except Islam obviously.. but that's just me.

Maybe its because I was such a little bastard when i was 13, and I was never in any bother after the age of about 16, and at the ripe old age of 32 have never been out of work and have no criminal record.

Do you see what I'm saying?

The assault was at 0100hrs, no doubt the killers were doing what I was doing at that age, and getting pissed at the park, when they started showing off by kicking some goth bloke, I doubt they intended to kill them because they used no weapons.. you realise as an adult that booting someone in the crust can kill a man, but I gave several people a shoeing when I was a kid. I look back now with horror and think "feth me I could have killed someone!" but at the time, you just do what everyone else is doing. Plenty of times its stomp or be stomped!

I once got mashed round the head with three cricket stumps taped together and then knocked unconscious with a sock full of snooker balls.. at the time, once I got my head stitched back together, I didn't even think it was a big deal either, I didn't think they were after killing me and I didn't call the police or anything.

As I said, I just think gak gets really complicated when your talking about adolescents.

And maybe its my rough upbringing changing my perceptions.. but I really think that treating 13 year old's like 33 year old's is short-sighted and wrong, I see things like this as a terrible tragedy for the victims, but also a wasted life due to some out of character feth up by a kid who could possibly have grown up into a decent member of society.

It is above the pay grade for someone like me to figure out, but alls I am saying is that I am very surprised when otherwise liberal people suddenly start sounding hyper right wing just because they care deeply about the topic.. Is that not a touch hypocritical? I dare say you would want me to "see the bigger picture" if I was spouting off like I usually do about hanging people for murder or something!

Damn Matty...something tells me you had somewhat a rough childhood

It wasn't like Compton or anything, at least I never saw a gun until I joined the military.

mattyrm wrote:
I'm simply saying that it is flat out ridiculous to treat children IDENTICAL to adults, such as having two lads arrested by the police and charged with assault if they have a fight behind the bike sheds.

I realy don't get this. Two kids have a fight in the school yard. People say "oh kids". Same kids have a fight on the highstreet. They get arrested. schools fail time and again to protect children and enforce rules properly.