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Bully For You
May 10, 2012

Dear Mitt Romney,

I call bullshit on the idea that while their victims never forget instances of bullying, bullies never remember them.

Personally, I think there's something really wrong with you if you can't remember when you bullied someone. At minimum, it makes you a liar.

The "I do not recall" response is a famous fib. It's a way to get out of facing the facts and taking responsibility. It's a lie in which politicians are so well-versed that the American public has come to expect it of them. It's so expected, in fact, that if these politicians were to actually tell the truth for once, they'd probably be elected just by virtue of their refreshing and unprecedented honesty.

Second of all, if you are a candidate for president and you can't remember those incidents, then I think there's something screwy with your neurology, and you are in no way mentally fit to serve as president of the United States.

Finally, if you have no memory of the mean and vicious things you have done to people, you are definitely not a compassionate individual. If what you have done to others so quickly and conveniently passes through the transom of your mind without leaving any impression there whatsoever, you are callous, cold-blooded, brutish -- and any other number of words I thesaurused up as antonyms to "humane."

I was both bullied and I bullied others and I haven't forgotten any of those acts. My mean and stupid stunts in childhood do not approach the extremes of the horrific cases we hear about today that lead to suicide or murder. Having said that, whenever I read about one of those tragic cases I wonder if what I did could have. Not the murders, because girls generally excel at the emotional and mental torment than the physical, but I definitely find myself considering what the ramifications could have been if I or we had unknowingly, unthinkingly pushed an object of our torment too far.

Remembering my own experiences fully brings home just how much kids don't get it. It's actually quite frightening to think just how clueless and unsympathetic kids can be when staring down a weaker individual. The expression, "Kids can be so cruel" is an expression for a reason. It's true. Kids can be so, so cruel, and we all know it.

If you had just acknowledged that. If you had just said, "I did some stupid things as a kid -- things that I deeply regret them and apologize for -- I'm sure we can all relate to that." It could have helped a bit.

And don't use "might" and "if" when you're apologizing because both of those automatically negate the apology and distances yourself so far from responsibility that it actually transfers the responsibility to the victim for having the audacity to be hurt or offended.

"I'm sorry IF my atrocious act MIGHT have upset you" also has the completely intended effect of endowing the victim with a character defect just for remembering the event. What defect of character do you have, Romney, that you don't remember such a disgusting act of aggression that four other classmates remember to this day? This not a "What's wrong with the victim for not getting over it" situation. This is a what the hell is wrong with you for not recalling it?

Additionally, using IF and MIGHT in an "apology" sets the aggressor up at such a level that the victim and the actions they visited upon him are so insignificant as to be beneath the aggressor's notice and beyond the reaches of his superior mental capacity.

But you know all this -- it's why you employed the "might" and "if."

Admit when you're wrong, acknowledge the pain, and for god's sake, don't exacerbate the situation by FREAKING laughing at it.

Then again -- and I realize this is a common, knee-jerk reaction but it's never been more appropriate -- I don't even know why we expect any level of sensitivity from a man who strapped his dog to the roof of his car.

Yours,

A Bully Who Remembers




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Stephanie Vander Weide Lucianovic