By Matt Agorist
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, one out of every four students (22%) report being bullied during the school year. Often times, when the bullying goes unchecked, students are at increased risk for poor school adjustment, sleep difficulties, anxiety, and depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Bullying can be problematic for many students and is most assuredly unacceptable. However, as long as there have been schools, there have been bullies. Unfortunately, bullying is inevitable.
Adolescent quarrels are a frequent occurrence. As hormones rush in, children attempt to assert control over their environment as well as other children and the result can often manifest into a fight or bullying. Studies even show that bullies suffer from the same symptoms as their victims.
In the past, if a fight were to break out at school, or a child would be caught bullying another child, the teachers, and in some cases, the students would rush in to stop it. In fact, studies show that bullying situations are resolved the majority of the time when a peer intervenes on behalf of the student being bullied.
However, in modern-day police state USA, normal childhood behavior is now dealt with using police action.
A new city ordinance in Shawano, Wisconsin now criminalizes the act of bullying. However, it’s not the child who will be punished, it’s their parents.
“It creates an avenue for us to work with parents to help find solutions,” said Shawano Police Chief Mark Kohl.
Police will work with the Shawano School District to identify bullies and notify parents, according to Kohl. Parents will then have 90 days to intervene. If they don’t and their child continues to bully, they will be fined $366. If there is a second offense within one year, they will be fined $681, according to FOX 8.
“At this point there’s no initial complaints or concerns out there, we’re just being proactive in working with the community to address this,” Kohl said.
The idea of the State turning bullying into a revenue-collection scheme is scandalous. Apparently schools find themselves powerless without using the threat of police violence to prevent bullying.
While the idea of police violence sounds over the top, make no mistake about it — failure to pay that $366 or $681 fine will end with police at your door, who are prepared to enact violence against you to force payment.
Do schools not have the power to suspend or discipline students anymore?
Fighting and bullying in school can certainly be problematic for many students, and it should not be tolerated. But the message that is sent by dealing with these issues using police violence is that only the State can be the bully.
Instead of attempting to solve a problem with logic and reason, schools are now taking the easy road and turning to the barrel of a gun to force compliance. This is not only dangerous and lazy, but it’s entirely unnecessary.
A study of more than 185,000 private and public school users from 2010 to 2014 revealed that bullying is largely a problem in the public school sector. Private schools, unlike public schools, have an incentive to create a safe and caring environment for their students, so they take a far more proactive approach to prevent bullying — and it works.
Without using police force, private schools are able to reduce bullying to levels far below that of public schools. Imagine that.
What this move by the Shawano school district illustrates is the societal dependence on the State to solve matters that should be handled without government.
Being dependent upon the state to solve one’s problems is a de facto dependency upon violence.
The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
If you truly want a glimpse into the horrid effects of the police state on all school children, take a scroll through our archives, at this link.
Until people wake up to the reality of relying on a system of violence to maintain “order,” we can expect this problem to get worse.
Matt Agorist is the co-founder of TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. He is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist
Great idea. Get the heavily armed bullies to fight bullying.
How long will it be before a parent is shot for resisting?
This is ridiculous. It is the school’s responsibility to ensure that kids aren’t bullied, but they aren’t doing their job. My husband taught for 20 yrs in public school and said faculty never went after the bullies, not ever. Just DO YOUR JOB, school admins and then we dont need cops, guns or military equipment in schools.
WRONG. It is parents responsibility to raise kids who a. don’t bully AND b. Protect and defend those who are bullied.
No different than walking by a man dying in the middle of the road or doing nothing when you hear a woman screaming rape.
Stop passing the buck. It isn’t school admins job to raise YOUR kids with morals, values and character.
Nonsense. Obviously nobody you even know taught for 20 years. The school faculty CANNOT go after bullies… parents would SUE! Even a hand laid on a kid means a lawsuit, you fool
The issue isn’t the bullies it’s the kids who do nothing to stop the bully! Teach your kids to defend and protect the innocent and weak!
As usual America and this article has it WRONG.
You clearly did not read the article. It does not advocate for using police to control bullying.
@@@Matt Agorist: “You clearly did not read the article. It does not advocate for using police to control bullying.”
Are you speaking about the article or the Wisconsin law?
I see the reason why private schools have less of a bully problem than public schools is simply because it is a privilege to go there. Parents are PAYING out of their pockets for their child to be safe and obtain a better education. If a child is unruly and incapable of behaving, the school simply kicks them out. If they don’t, the victim’s families pull their child out and enroll them in another private school. Public schools are a joke anymore. My child was a valedictorian at his public school and then spent an extra year in college to ‘get caught up’ in his basic academics. Public schools have become baby-sitters and I feel for the teachers and staff. Their hands are so tied up that they cannot hardly get on to a student for misbehaving, let alone bullying.
“No different than walking by a man dying in the middle of the road or doing nothing when you hear a woman screaming rape.”
White knighting will get you nothing…jail time of getting killed by the perp maybe..but nothing more. I
suspect this latest insanity in th ePublic schools will give the home schooling movement a boost in
that state. America is now a “failed state”, corrupt and bankrupt
Only we can bully!
Sen. Al Franken
i dont think police should interfere in this kind of stuff, i say let them fight, then punish whoever started it.
Fabulous, having the biggest bullies there are teaching kids how to not bully….ironic.