And, we need it urgently. Higher ed as well as K-12.

When I went to school my class was taught that “protests” had a lot to do with the freedoms we enjoy, although there were very few specifics provided as to how this could be. So in a way the current violence was my fault, because I should have raised my hand and started asking the questions that were already popping into my head about how this didn’t make any sense. In the years since I’ve come to realize I was “senior” among the generation being taught this nonsense, although the line is fuzzy.

No, the nation was not built by hooligans rioting in the streets. It’s absurd. We don’t get any rights from them. Protests don’t do anything to take into account the wishes of those who aren’t down with the protest. They don’t include people. They exclude people. They’re supposed to do that. They’re “Do it our way and stop jawing about it, just do it or else.” They’re terrorism.

It’s true the protests of old did have causes. It’s true they were offering a voice to the voiceless. It’s a question of demand preceding the supply. That’s not what we have now. This is mass production of a great army of good little rebel foot soldiers, looking for a cause, and then maybe-maybe-not they’ll find such a cause; demand coming after the supply.

Putting it in simpler terms: The last two or three generations have been churned out by our educational institutions, under this premise that a society growing properly is a society artificially made unstable, with a youthful, energetic, “educated” layer of humans ready to riot. It’s not a scientific experiment; they’re not testing the hypothesis. It’s just expected by the practitioners to work, although it never has and never could. The theory that destruction equals creation.

People should have figured out this is unworkable.

They should have figured out it’s dangerous.

Building something is not the same as wrecking things. It takes a lot more discipline to build. You have to measure things, find centers of gravity, select materials and tools so things last. And then you’re liable for the results. Not to begrudge the noble occupations of people who break things for a living, but if you’re struggling to figure out what to do in life, you get equal credit for either one but you’re inclined to pick the one that takes less work, you’re going to be a destroyer.

Every time. And that’s what has happened.

This has changed things. A lot. And we should be talking about it. Could we land a man on the moon today? For the first time?

Build the Hoover Dam?

How about Operation Overlord, could we do that now? Land on Omaha Beach and start cleaning the Axis Powers’ clock, facing down those machine gun nests and turning the tide of the war?

Doubtful. We have to file environmental impact statements to build anything nowadays, and with masculinity being toxic, we have to defer to wives and girlfriends about every little thing. Today Hitler wouldn’t be worried. He’d know exactly where the allies were planning to touch down in Normandy, while Eisenhower and Roosevelt were still waiting to hear back from Mamie and Eleanor about what they decided their husbands should do while out shopping together.

As for the moonshot? Too much carbon emitted. Think of the climate change. No can do.

No engineering triumphs like Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge…but boy howdee, we sure can assemble a bunch of losers in the middle of a heavily populated city with a palette of bricks to throw through the windows. And then go on the idiot box and lie to everybody about “It’s not an organization, just an idea.”

We can do that.

But, that isn’t how we came to enjoy all the freedoms we have, or the privileges, the standard of living, the technology. It’s a cul de sac. We entered it a long time ago. The time has come to think about beating a hasty retreat. If we’re ready to start that, we’d better be in it for the long haul because it will take awhile.

First step would be to staff up our schools and universities, with people who are ready to train builders, not destroyers. That’s going to be a long hard slog all by itself.

We have these radio PSAs from the Teacher’s unions about how “bullying has no place.” If anyone in a position of import were listening, I would humbly suggest everyone keep their ideas about bullying to themselves, unless they themselves had ever been bullied. We’d be headed off in a wholly different direction in our dealings with bullies if we were to successfully implement such a policy, and it would be better than our current one.

Haven’t you noticed; all the people complaining about being “prosecuted/persecuted by Trump who is going after his enemies/opponents” — are complaining about just desserts? They’re complaining about being legitimately prosecuted for crimes. And, about being put on the business end of various maneuverings that they had been doing, just a few years ago, themselves.

This is how bullies operate. They whine about being the victims. They make their targeted victim look like the “real bully.”

Bullying is a reflection of us all. People don’t think of it that way, but that’s what it is. People think of bullying as a bigger kid tormenting a smaller kid, and that’s it. Actually that’s 5th-grade bullying; bullying in elementary school. A bully in middle school has figured out our social fabric, how it’s woven, how to manipulate it. How to propound a narrative and then micro-manage it.

“Mr. Smith, he’s hitting me!!” No way you can be a bully if you’re an annoying tattle-tale, right? Oh yes you can. Absolutely. That’s how it works, how it’s done; tell your story, leave out the part about all the things you’ve been doing to earn what you’re getting. Just squeal like a sissy and hopefully your “real bully” will be marched off to the Principal’s office, and on his way past, you can smirk at him.

In the past few years, I’ve seen a concerted, grandiose effort to drive bullying from the planet forever.

It hasn’t work very well.

Oh, it sounds nice to intone, so forcefully, “Bullying has no place here!” But when you’re being bullied, what really matters is not the speech-making, but the situation in the aftermath of the speech. And the fact is that no one who resolves to eradicate bullying forever, has actually done it. No one’s even come close. They make their speech, then things go back to the way they were, bullying and all. That’s what has been happening, in the grade-school world as well as in the grown-up world. We can work hard to avoid admitting it, but that doesn’t change what’s true.

And this shrieking about “He’s hitting me!!” has ridden a crescendo, during that time, up to today’s constant and fevered pitch.

We who were bullied, know what that means.

What’s sad is, if you weren’t bullied, you don’t see the pattern and there’s a very good chance you’ve been consumed by it, and become the bully yourself without even realizing it. That’s why I say anyone who wasn’t subjected to it in the grade school years, should probably sit down, shut up…just work the crossword puzzles on this one while those of us who know something, work out the details.

Bullying is deceit. It is acting. Off-stage theater. “I’m so abused!” It is cowardice in its purest form, whether you’re being a coward by picking on a weaker guy, or being a coward by staging a theater-play to avoid consequences you’ve earned. It is swiveling, like on a weather vane. Aiiieee, why are you picking on me?? It’s all part of the same cowardly stuff. And it is us, because we’ve built a cowardly world.

The weather vanes are spinning. Spinning like mad, and everywhere.

Trump is “coming after his political enemies”…after…all that stuff we’re supposed to forget. All of it. Impeachment over a phone call. Impeachment ceremonies. Impeachment gift pens. Rigging the 2020 election. Attempting to assassinate him — twice. Raiding Mar a Lago. Sifting through everything, including his wife’s underwear drawer. Faked up photographs of “classified documents.” Steele Dossier. Lying about the server hardwired into the Kremlin, nestled deep in Trump Tower, remember that?

He’s hitting me!! The real bully!! The weather vanes spin. Middle-school bullying.

We can pursue justice. Avoid injustice. We can try that…which raises the question, what’s the difference between the two? How do we tell the real bully apart from the real victim? When is a sanction proper and when does it become real-bullying? This can be tricky. To demarcate correctly, we can ignore those who don’t care what justice is. Or who are trying to avoid it. That’s a good start.

Unfortunately, there’s not much to come afterward. This about the best we can do.

Apart from just one other thing: embrace “toxic masculinity.” Haven’t you noticed, since it became popular to treat masculinity as some kind of blight, the bullying has gotten so much worse? That’s because there are no protectors. No one nips bullying in the bud, on the playground, anymore. No one steps in to intercede. All disputes have to be elevated to the level of the administrators, for arbitration. Who do a terrible job.

But we’re not going to drive bullying from the planet forever, like it’s smallpox or something. It is a window into us. Humans are corrupt.

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, while I’m waiting for the various falsehoods to stop flying around and get exposed, I’m struck by the parallel with another, entirely unrelated, set of issues. Every now and then a man will complain “A woman did something” or “Women do this thing” and, sure as the next sunrise, someone will emerge — not necessarily a female — to say “But all women aren’t like that” and/or “Oh yeah, well men are just as bad.” Or, “He made her do it.”

Answers no one wanted or needed, to questions no one asked.

These don’t move the conversation forward. They’re just defense mechanisms. Because it’s not a contest. You may assert that men are just as bad, or even worse. You might prove it, too. The problem is that 1) men have problems, 2) women have problems, and most importantly, 3) men and women got to where they are by way of different paths of travel. To ignore the problems with women and concentrate on fixing what’s wrong with men, in hopes that said fix will somehow spill over and improve women because what the heck, they’re all people, no different from each other — this is a false hope. It’s fallacious thinking. “The watch went missing over the ditch on that side of the road, but there’s no light there, the light’s much better on this side so let’s look for it over here.” People don’t want to criticize women. So they do this fix-men-instead thing. They do it a lot. They think they’re on the right track. They aren’t.

Enough about that.

This has been an awkward week for dedicated liberals, many of whom become liberals in the first place because they want to think better of themselves, as people. They want to be on the positive side, the peaceful side, the “look out for the little guy” side. And if that doesn’t work, a lot of them, I notice, are enchanted with the prospect of becoming perpetual victims. Oh, I can’t win. Oh, they’re doing this to me, they’re doing that to me.

So now one from among them has settled scores with a 30-06. Charlie Kirk lies dead. Having done nothing to hurt anybody anywhere. What to do?

This is where the defense mechanisms kick in. All left-wingers are not like that. Right wingers are just as bad. And your side — somehow — made him do it.

The desire among those who are on The Right, for The Left to press for much needed internal reforms, is sincere. Nobody wants to get shot. And The Left does need these reforms. This isn’t an issue with isolated incidents of dehumanizing and name-calling; the not-real-people lashing out against the opposition, has been coming from the top, and for many years now. Bitter Clingers. Baskets of Deplorables. Not welcome anywhere. Follow them to restaurants and yell at them. Fascists. MAGA Republicans. Garbage. Bigots. TERFs. Racist, racist, racist.

This kind of stuff stifles discussion. Ultimately, it gets bullets flying, because there’s bound to be a “follower” with a screw loose. But to concerns like these, I see The Left has a ready response in “The January Six Insurrection.” A little bit of look in this ditch where the light is better, not in that ditch where the watch was dropped. They don’t want to fix things where they’re actually broken.

Again: It’s not a contest. Also, it isn’t the same. If you take the time to actually listen to what conservatives have to say about January 6, they’re arguing against the setup, the hidden evidence, the various criminal missteps by the January 6 committee. And, the lying. The police officer pummeled to death with a fire extinguisher — sorry, it didn’t happen. Also, what kind of “insurrection” begins with the officials leading the insurrectionists on a guided tour through the building?

When you pin down what this-or-that insurrectionist did, that is violent, inexcusable, and most important of all, verified — the conservative will agree, yes, that person should be punished. I’ve not seen any exceptions to this. So no, it’s not the same. And it doesn’t work as a rebuttal against the Kirk assassination.

The fact of the matter is, this angry-little-lefty trope has been around for a long time now. We’ve slowly been adapting to it. Bullets are flying now, because of that. And it never did anything positive anywhere. A lot of these activists are out there flaring their pierced nostrils, balling up their little fists and stamping their little feet, anxious to show how they’re just about ready to lose it. Ready to show that what little control they still have over their surging emotions, is about to be overwhelmed and the dam is just about to break. A good chunk of the time it’s likely true, strung out as they are on their psychotropic meds and SSRIs.

Charlie Kirk showed the way. Unfortunately, it looks like those sorts of discussions are going to have to be had indoors from here on out, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the other side veer off more in that direction, discussing things coherently and courteously the way Charlie did, and get away from this “I’m so mad things aren’t being done my way” stuff. It’s unseemly as well as dangerous. If such a reform could be possible, I’d be all for it although I’d fall short of purchasing it at the expense of martyr’s blood. It’s valuable, but not that valuable. Be that as it may, what’s done is done, and Charlie is gone. My hope is that this era of the “non threatening but aggressively so” Hawkeye Pierce foot-stomping thing-throwing liberal, comes to a stop right about now. I know best case scenario, there will be a deceleration curve, and it’s going to take awhile. Things were tempestuous in our government and in our culture in the years following Lincoln’s assassination, and JFK’s. But there was some restraint kicking in, that had been lacking in the years previous, as well.

Besides, it’s tedious. I really don’t care how angry David Hogg is today or any other day. His various temper tantrums doth not an argument make. That goes for Greta Thunberg, too. These well-broadcast and thoroughly-replayed hissy fits are embarrassing to watch, embarrassing by proxy.