Boy cheerleader gets arm broken by bullies

[AdminAssistant]

There's a song in the musical Assassins during which the Presidential assassins (successful and failed) bemoan the exact fact that crashhelmet pointed out. They wanted to speak out, cause a riot, provoke revolution, etc. But the fact is that the Nation will heal itself and get back to business. (The songs in question are "Another National Anthem" and "Something Just Broke.")

Westside didn't become the catalyst for gun safety that people thought it would be.

What will it take? I don't know. The Civil Rights movement has been ongoing since the 50's, and there is still racism. The Women's Rights movement has roots as far back as the Civil War era and blossomed in the 1910's, and there is still gender-based discrimination. Whatever it is, it will take time, because there are some people that are so hateful that, well, we just have to wait for those assholes to die.

Part of it IS religion, and the current conservative/Tea Party backlash DOES scare me because it means that more fundamentalists, more people advocating discrimination against anyone who isn't a straight upper-class male WASP. (Why women jump on this bandwagon, I will never understand.) We have an entire generation of young people who came of age during the Bush administration - what effect will that have?

Hopefully, with time, this country will become more tolerant, at least in some areas. Smiley, you know as well as I do that as long as the Mormon church has a stranglehold on Utah government, things will not improve in Utah on a grand scale. It's sickening that a church wields that much political power, but that's the way it is. I don't know what it will take. I wish I did. I am heartened by the outpouring of support from the media and many celebrities for the families and victims of the bullying.

[smileyeagle1021]

Didn't have the means? There are countless ways to end your life at little to no cost to you. Belts, kitchen knives, heights, OTC pills, plastic bags, etc.

And all of those are methods that give you time to second guess yourself (well, except heights, but most of the heights in this area are well enough controlled that I wouldn't have access). Here's the truly sick part about what's happened to me, I've lived in this environment long enough that I actually started to believe what people said about hell. No desire to kill oneself is strong enough to have to wait for it to finish the entire time fearing whether or not they were right.
So perhaps I should have rephrased that as, there were no means available to me that would suit my cowardice.

[HYHYBT]

As long as you live, there is a chance that you will get out of Utah. So it's a good thing you didn't figure out how to drown yourself in a bathtub or something.

[Hobbs]

if I thought my own death would save lives, that is a sacrifice I would make (as a military person you should understand that sentiment).

Don't bring my military service into account. Self-sacrifice is not what you were talking about. You were talking about setting innocent children on the altar of freedom as a sacrifice. I will someday probably have to give an order that will lead in deaths; but those deaths will be by men and women who agreed to the same principles and oaths that I have, not children who's only fault was that they were standing in the wrong place when some troubled teen opened fire.

As a personal note, I think the only correct form of suicide (the form where I will respect the "victim") is seppuku. That's just an opinion, and in no way do I mean to negate the life of someone who's taken their own through different means.

[Ladeeda]

Smiley, I don't really CARE what you've gone through when you call for the death of innocent bystanders. NOTHING justifies that, so get off your cross.