Are we condoning violence on children?

Weizguy on Alisha's web board brings up the issue

Seems to me that Daryl has done to a child exactly what he complains was done to his daughter. He's a huge man, and he roughed up a child. Personally, I think he should have been discharged without conviction, but with a serious reprimand from the judge.

Someone bullying your daughter doesn't make it alright to bully someone else.

I'm concerned that you are condoning violence towards children.

I understand the point about parents being role models but at the same time I object to the suggestion that what Daryl did was the same as what the kid had done.

I guess I was not there and Daryl’s actions might have been more serious and the bully might have only hit her very lightly but it is enough to make me think of a typical scenario of serious bullying.

Taking the facts at face value, I expect you as with most adults have from time to time been in a confrontation where you held another person's shirt or poked a finger at them - but I doubt you have ever hit a woman in the face with a book or assaulted a person on a daily basis. There is a line somewhere in there. There seems to be some hypocrisy in us taking the lesser crime seriously and all but ignoring the greater crime.

Also the point relies on the social contract, that is, the social contract that we have with society wherein we accept that we should not attempt to defend our family or our own interests with physical strength, but in exchange for that we expect protection against others doing the same to us and those we love.

The school and society in general it would seem broke that contract, because little was done about the bullying - of course action by an appropriate authority is where the real solution lies.

I have seen many bullies in my time and have found the school system to be gutless in dealing with them. In the workplace we now have protection but we leave our most defenseless citizens without a defense. I am concerned in general that if we get distracted by the details we will never prevent the root causes. Time and time again we will get angry but we will not create the changes we need to not only protect children from being driven to the edge of suicide but also to produce good adults by protecting good children and discouraging bad ones.