Chicken Soup with Izzy Kalman...yet again...

Izzy Kalman is at it again.

His latest criticism of anti-bullying laws published over at Head Shrinkers Monthly (from which I am banned from expressing an opinion by the way) is basically the same badly flawed argument he's been making for years. He's once again arguing that anti-bullying laws increase rather than decrease bullying, possibly because he's confusing an increase in the willingness of victims to complain with an increase in bullying. That's as flawed as equating an increase in the willingness of rape victims to file criminal charges with an increase in the commission of the crime. It's a common misconception, but his readers should expect more from a guy with a masters degree in psychology.

Let's begin with a few basics about human behavior, a subject that Izzy Kalman should be somewhat familiar with.

Laws that are widely perceived as necessary are reasonably effective when enforced. No one argues that burglary increases when victims file complaints with the police and even Izzy Kalman isn't dumb enough to promote a Burglars2Buddies program. Anti-burglary laws are effective because the public does not look upon burglary as a right of passage or some other legitimate activity. Burglars are considered to be criminals...period.

Anti-bullying laws are difficult to enforce effectively because the public is extremely bigoted toward low status individuals. Americans envy, admire, and fantasize about the sort of cocky, belligerent sociopaths who enjoy hurting others, and absolutely despise kids who are physically weak, unaggressive, non-athletic, lacking in social skills, or otherwise different or non-conformist. Americans shamelessly enable bullies and don't give a damn about victims.

And don't let the fact that we elected a black guy to be our President fool you. Bigotry is still alive and well in America. Only the demographics have changed. If the jocks of Columbine concentrated their attention on black students, they would have been expelled and probably subject to criminal charges. But since they primarily bullied students who were simply low status, their criminal behavior was and still is considered to be normal and acceptable.

There was a lot of noise in the media about the claim that one of the Columbine killers referred to one of the victims as a nigger, yet when a high status student sunk a basket in gym class and screamed, "another Jew in the oven," it attracted relatively little attention. In the eyes of the good Christian citizens of Littleton, bigotry is charming, clever, and riotously funny when displayed by a genetically superior member of the gridiron elite but absolutely unforgivable when displayed by a student of relatively low social status.

The American public's tolerance for bigotry obviously varies with the status of the bigot.

Izzy Kalman is correct about one thing. Anti-bullying laws alone will not solve America's bullying problem. Our culture needs to change and Izzy Kalman could inspire some of that needed change if he chose to do so. If you don't like men who want to emulate the behavior of Eric Harris, Timothy McVeigh, and Adam Lanza, then stop creating them. Think of, speak of, and treat bullies as you would treat any other bigot. When you hear someone refer to a victim of bullying as a faggot, pussy, or wimp, just imagine someone in a white sheet referring to someone as a kike, spic, or nigger and you'll have a very accurate assessment of their character and the sort of values taught to them by their family and community.

Perhaps Izzy could add his two cents worth here.