Gwazi Magnum

Opinions on faking sickness to skip school, work etc.

If you're purposely lying just to get out I find it's stupid when in regards to work.
I can sympathize if it's just a terrible job that you only do for the pay, but it's just poor practice to skip days of work when there's no good reason for it.
You don't get paid, the work isn't done, the boss and rest of the workplace now have to pick up the slack and/or some poor person get's slapped with extra shift.

In regards to school there is no 'leaving it on others' factor to worry about, or the fact there's a responsibility to do a job that people rely on you for.
It's still stupid/poor practice if used in extremes though because it does nothing but harm your education and learning, but as far as we restrict this to High School and Elementary school you can very easily catch up on say one missed day with no problem. The work is easy, often times the school is so disorganized in how they teach anyways.

Sometime's it helps to just get the day off, when High School being daily classes expect you to do homework each day basically so the time off can help. Not so much with college when you have at a minimum an entire week between assignments, and in college if you miss a day, you missed a week.

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TLDR: Work -> Poor Practice, generally no good reason to do it.
School -> If High School or lower, the quality of the education and the challenge of the work is low enough that you can easily skip a day and be fine. It's all about a healthy moderation.

Answer violence with violence?

mdk said
I.....can't think of anybody who justifies anything in a way that remotely resembles any of your 'typical' rationalizations. I mean..... I guess three, but that's the entire subject of the thread, and you don't have time for it, so.......

3 & 4 were basically the arguments I faced originally with this on facebook in a nutshell.

What's the deal with RP family's

HeySeuss said
It's just an amusing way for Spammers to pass the time and also form bonds a bit; I dunno how to explain it properly, except that in a sense, it's something folks around here do to express affection or otherwise reinforce bonds within the community. It's also really informal.

I find the same as Jorick honestly, this practice is far more common in member lounge groups and roleplayer's than in spam.

Spam tends to function as one big happy family (and then some outsiders they decided they hate/dislike for one reason or other), but not often do they go into specifics as to relations. You get the occasional marriage or adoption, but not at the same rate as the other places listed.

Foster said
This would also present an infinite-loop, making you married to your smoking-hot great-great-grandma.Now, if you had a TARDIS...

Oh boy! We'll cause an infinite looping family relations paradox with the Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey stuff!!!

What's the deal with RP family's

I want to be the guy who married a woman with a full grown daughter so I get a step-daughter, but then my step-daughter marries my dad, so now my dad is my son in law and my step-daughter is now my mother. My wife being the mother's mother becomes my grandma, making me my wife's grandchild and if I'm the husband of my grandma then I'm my own grandpa.

Answer violence with violence?

Brovo said #1 If it's verbal abuse, what do you do, what avenues are available, and in what order do you do those things? (ex: Do you first attempt to communicate, then turn to others for help, then resort to violence as a last resort? Is there an ordered structure, is it one option only, is it situational dependent?)

#2 If it's physical abuse, what do you do, what avenues are available, and in what order do you do those things?

#3 If it's physical or verbal abuse by a parent, what do you do, what avenues are available, and in what order do you do those things?

I'm assuming by #1 you mean "verbal abuse" and not "non-verbal abuse". In all three cases I say the exact approach does vary on a case by case basis. Otherwise we are subscribing to a one size fits all approach which has been proven time and time again to never work.

Whovians only. We will destroy you in battle. Have a nice day :D

That was a fun and interesting watch! XD

I'm not really surprised though that the actor for Rose was the only companion actor to say the Doctor should remain male and that the big strength was that he was this "Big, powerful male you feel insignificant to but offer the woman's touch and bla bla bla..." -.-

I think the others got it right though it was stated that Doctor Who's whole thing was about change, I mean it's true! We see the Doctor change all the time, there really is no reason once you step back and look at it logically why the Doctor can't be of another race, sex or even sexuality. That all being said though I would not go on any mad dash to find ourselves a female, black, homosexual etc. doctor (Sexuality can be acted anyways... It's not something visual like the others), just hire whatever doctor you find pulls off the doctor the best. If it happens to be a woman that's great, if it's a person whose black, that's great. But let it be because they're a good actor and can honestly do the Doctor well and didn't simply get the part because of their race or sex.

This all reminds me honestly of this here which is basically a study to see how sexist the (complete/finished) companions of Doctor 9-11 are. Now, I went into this expecting a feminist article that amounted to "LOOK AT HOW SEXIST THIS SHOW IS! A WOMAN FOLLOWING A MAN! IT OBVIOUSLY REDUCES WOMEN TO SEX OBJECTS!!!!" while proceeding to rant on things that have nothing to do with the show. But I was pleasantly proved wrong, this was actually a well done, fair, logical and rational study done on the show. It stayed strictly to the tests and did not allow personal bias to influence the study. Personal opinion is still noted by the author separately, but it remains seperated and does not actually influence the end result. Plus the author seems to be genuine fan of the show as well. Overall a rare and very good read of an honest review of a show in the terms of sex/gender that is not fueled by other motivations or agendas.

Answer violence with violence?

mdk said No. If balance and control and good-natured teaching and discipline are insufficient to maintain order, then the sum of human accomplishment throughout history has failed to reach this individual. There can be no mercy in this situation. You can't 'just shoot him a little.' Cavemen and clubs. And if the offender comes out the other side more-or-less intact, then you can try to teach him again.To withhold a righteous fury is not mercy. By depriving the criminal of the consequences of his actions, you have doomed him to repeat his miscreant ways. ....and slowly, I'm gathering that this is actually a thread about high school again, in which case you should pretty much ignore all this as 'real world shit,' and return to classroom discussion. The learning process is part of the equation here, one I'm taking as a given; if the subject is 'while you're still in school,' then that process isn't complete yet. I obviously don't think we should be smashing 9th graders' faces with rocks when they sneak out of detention.

I think since most physical bullying is experience by people in High School that just happens to be where we draw most of our experience and conclusions from.

So, considering that your argument here is specifically aimed at people who are adults I can better understand the logic and reasoning behind it. However, I'd still argue that even adults learn, and we already have a system largely how you suggest called prison. People get beaten and raped there all the time regardless of the crime. But many people come out just as bad or worse than they were before.

Answer violence with violence?

Brovo said ... Duh. That's exactly what I said.

Bullies prey on the weak. That's what they do. That's what any person looking for an easy target does. I used Hitler as a comparison but you seem to have failed to notice the part called "all of human history". If Hitler was the only mad dictator in history that needed to be stopped with arms, then I'd call it a blip. However, he wasn't. There have been hundreds, potentially of people who, with even a little power, abused the shit out of it to attack and bully weaker neighbours, weaker people, and so on. Whether it was the Catholics burning witches and pagans at the stake and fear mongering the populace into believing what they told them to, or a completely batshit Stalinist dictatorship that consumed multiple nation states and enslaved them, in the process murdering millions , the same theme remains prevalent: Those who are strong and malevolent will bully those who are weak and those who don't fight back.

Period. That is the song of human history: Religious, political, economic, ethnic, or otherwise, when one group felt it was stronger, it would bully another into submission. That is how life was for a very, long time. That is why I used it as an example, because you can see human nature in human history. You want to know the ones that history notes often weren't swallowed? The ones who fought the hardest, smartest, dirtiest, and most cunning of ways. Unless the sides were stupidly uneven any advantage could be circumvented through superior smarts and a simple determination to survive.

Will it dissuade all bullies? No. Some bullies are sociopaths. They fight for the sake of it. However, the vast majority of bullies are cowards. If you stand up to them and spit in their face and fight them, punch them if they punch you and don't hesitate to make them pay for making you suffer you will scare the vast majority of them away in one go and earn a reputation that will persuade other bullies to find different marks.

I was trying to highlight the difference between typical bullies and Hitler, but I probably shouldn't of mainly repeated your first paragraph to explain how.
Hitler was not someone who only picked on target's who could not defend themselves/were willing to fight back. Nor did he flee once friends like America got involved.

He stuck around until the end. Now, you could argue that his army was powerful enough and he was winning enough of the war that it was natural for him (like a bully) to keep going, and that by the time he was losing fleeing was useless cause he'd just get chased. But even if there was dominance, this was still an example of someone who picked on target's who fought back, rather than early on switching to weaker targets. That's what I (poorly) was trying to argue/point out with that bit there, Hitler didn't exactly fit that bill.

Further below we do detail a disagreement on how bullies operate... which does come into some relevance here. In my definition/experience bullies continue to fight if you fight back (I'll detail specifics and why in that part specifically), so what Hitler does here would still make sense/count as operating as a Bully. But if we treat the definition as only picking on the weakest of targets, then there's area's that don't match. With most other examples in human history, there is a lot of this as well. Those who fought more than they could handle.

There are a few arguments to be made here, there were some who simply fought those that they had about no chance in losing against (ex: Raiders), but those rarely flourished into things like empires (Exception: Rome. They lost later when rebellion and invasion reached their door) because even if they did win there was too little gain/benefit from it. Also you can look at examples such as wars and treated a war as say a single bully encounter in comparison depending.

Because it's not like a country can constantly toggle in and out of war status with a country whenever they like, them reaching the point that they lose could very well be treated as the bully learning that the victim gives up a fight and is not worth the trouble. That it counts as that initial encounter that draws the bully off. But at the same time, isn't the fact there are some who takes such risks against bigger targets over bigger rewards suggest the action is more logical/thought out and is not simply about dominance? Also, they could still try surrendering in the war if they truly learned this wasn't an easy victory and would rather stop wasting time here so they can pick on someone weaker.

Brovo said Never once did I argue for third party interventionism. In fact, I tend to disdain it for being as useless as you point it out to be. For someone to survive they have to fight for themselves. It's been that way for four billion years, no amount of civilization is going to change primal behaviour like that overnight, , leave alone how they should deal with more violent tendencies.

The Third party argument honestly wasn't even meant to imply you disagreed but rather reference america in the WW2 comparison above.

I don't think anyone (here, I recognize schools act like this all the time) is suggesting that we change bullying overnight though. But more looking at the model/system we use to respond to it/prevent it with and questioning how much violence (if any) needs to be used in response. Also we as a species used to be far more violent than we are today, we evolved to a point where we are capable of not fighting for long enough to actually evaluate and look at issues such as men and women identities. The less humanity has had to focus on violence the more resources we've had to focus on other areas, it can argued that the rate of success of our species can be directly compared to how violent we are.

Brovo said Having also been bullied because you apparently also missed part, fighting back worked perfectly fine for me... And for every other person I knew. The fact that you landed the sociopathic kids is unfortunate but it happens. In that case you've really got no out, refer back to the abusive parent bit, where my only response on that is that it's likely a lose-lose situation no matter what way you slice it.

And I can easily say "For me and every other person I knew fighting back did nothing. The fact you landed the cowardly kids is fortunate, but it happens".
I think we both already address/are aware of that both kinds of bullies exist, but with that being the case simply saying "Fighting back" is not always the best idea because we are aware there are a kind of bully that doesn't work for.

With abusive parents I do admit with how terrible our services against such abuse are at the moment it is pretty difficult to suggest anything to work with it. But I think everyone here can agree it's not violence (which we already seem to agree with) may it be by the victim or by a third party.

Though, maybe I'm just reading too much into this but there seems to be a lot of anger/hostility in these replies.
Are you ok Brovo? Did I hit a nerve or something? :/

Brovo said Wut. Wait, uhh... You realize the topic is about physical violence right? If you get hit, that's not them pushing your buttons: That's them trying to . The only logical response to that is to beat them harder than they beat you, or if you're in a very shitty position, find a way to escape and only fight as long as is necessary to ensure escape.

Common sense Gwazi, c'mon.

Push your buttons as in they know how to get a reaction. They know what to do to make you respond (which however, is very easy when they start a fight). It is a logical response, but it's still a response. A response that shows that they can act as an inconvenience to you, annoy you, get in your way, act bigger than you even if they only win due to numbers etc. It's a bit tricky for me to keep arguing with logic here cause in my experience bullies are largely absent of logic, it simply boils down to they get to act like an annoyance and mess things up to you and this makes them feel bigger than you and they get a kick out of it.

Brovo said lolwut no. They're thinking "holy shit ow that hurt." They're either going to come back with friends in which case you do the same (or if you don't have any friends there's always your best friend, swiss army knife as a threatening tool), or they're going to fuck off and pick weaker prey. More often than not, it's the latter. You're just not the worth the effort, you're not that important. To supposition that the bully would come back exclusively to get to you is to create a world view in which you are somehow the centre of this bully's life, when in most cases, the bully has picked you to spit on because he knows he can get away with it and then not give a flying fuck five minutes later. That's the whole point of being a bully: Making someone weaker than you so you can feel better about yourself temporarily when you do other shit.

Most bullies I have deal with don't act like this, I've had one or two that did (and as a result they were short lived) but this is not the case with most in my area. It doesn't even suggest you're the center of their life though, but rather it's a source of fun/enjoyment from them. They get a sick kind of thrill by fighting you, picking on you and because they find it fun they'll come back and do it later. Now note in my case there was an outside circumstance underway, two actually.

1) This really started at a new school, that opened that year so every child was new. They were scared, desperate and looking to find people to be friends with, to be better than, and all generally overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar faces.

2) I started that school with a teacher who very publicly/openly hated me. Basically turning a blind eye to children picking on me and the teacher himself treated me like shit. He gave the go ahead to the class (which through gossip spread to the school) that I was an ok target to pick on. Now considering point 1 where everyone was new and looking to establish dominance, label people etc. I'm not too surprised I may of suffered an out of the norm bullying behaviour as a result.

However, even after leaving said school for another where no one followed me from bullies that I faced there didn't act much different. Granted the mob mentality of "Everyone in the school including the teacher says this is fine" was gone, but simply fighting back did not work as a deterrent regardless. These were people who regardless of no teacher go ahead, or the fact this was an old school where most people knew each other for many years were willing to return to old victims that were willing to fight back, and in both cases this was something they seemed to enjoy and have fun with.

Brovo said The topic is quite literally about physical abuse as said by you, why do you keep bringing up verbal abuse?

It was brought up once, and briefly at that as a side note that it's really the worst of what those who simply choose to ignore the bully will get. While those who fight back, often end up with the physical bullying.

Brovo said Why would you even put this on the same plane of existence as . One is temporary frustration that everyone goes through in life and the vast majority come out of A-okay. The other leaves psychological and physical scars that live with you for the . This is like comparing killing a cow for food to murdering people and cannibalizing their corpses.

And it wasn't a comparison, it was a side note.

Brovo said Good god this is a false dichotomy if I've ever seen one.

Good thing I wasn't making a false dichotomy then.

ShonHarris said Violence is so often a symptom and we would better invest ourselves by exploring the contributing factors.

Speaking as someone with experience in therapy that's centered around trying to find the trigger/cause of things, I strongly agree with this statement.

ShonHarris said First, I forced those targeting me to engage with me in a public place, or not at all.

Second, I gave those who cared at some level a heads up of what was going on.

1st: How could you always set that up though?

2nd: By this I assume you mean you told friends and others about how you were bullied?

ShonHarris said My aggressively vigilant fans bided their time for a while, but ended up cornering me in our lunch hall, well, more off the side of our lunch hall for something feigning solitude. Public enough though, I responded their heads up by getting loud. No one wouldn't know what was going on. Those who did give a shit and I'd told would collect, perhaps not to stop the situation immediately, but at least to see that my head was not beaten in without some help. I left the knife behind, because I'm human. Principles have a way of tarnishing just as the first blow reminds you what pain feels like and the meekest can become the most sadistic. For me the situation concluded after a good share of people collected, having heard my narrative of what was happening as I shouted it, and this crowd collectively told them 'to leave me alone'. They didn't really step in, but they all spoke up, and that pretty much ended things for me.

That also seems to be a lucky roll of the dice though too. Many don't have the crowd of friends to do such a thing, or simply have good meaning acquaintances/strangers around willing to help. Where I went to school just about everyone stuck to themselves and their current group, not ever leaving it to help another person. And if they went to a fight it was because it was fun to watch, not because of any want to help people.

I mean I'm glad this worked for you, but I just don't see this working for most people. Especially when the person using it is labeled at the geek/nerd at the bottom of the social ladder.

Answer violence with violence?

Note: If you bother reading all of my (or simply a number) of my replies to people you may noticed for those I am currently mainly in agreement with that I snipped their post and simply stated so with only about one question or rebuttal.

This is not meant to imply though that those I did go into more detail with are wrong though, it simply means there is a current difference of stance/opinion between us. So I bothered to go into more details with responses and questions in order to get a better understanding of your side and arguments.

I've come into debates on this site heavily believing in one standpoint before and have had someone give good enough arguments and points that after some reflection I changed my position. But that was only when I was able to counter their point with those of my own, in order to better understand their side and see if they have appropriate counters or any counters I may bring up.

If the person had simply gone "No, you clearly disagree with me. I will not debate this" or "I'm right, you're wrong. Stop trying to debate it or go on about it" than I have never changed my position because they never responded with the points and clarification I needed to better understand and evaluate their position.

So that's what I'm doing when I go into so much detail in replying to your points and questioning them. I'm not trying to say you're wrong or anything like that, I'm trying to better understand it so I learn the most that I can from those positions and grow from them.

Brovo said You do not stop a tyrant by waggling your finger and telling them to stop. You stop a tyrant by hitting them so fucking hard they never do it again. All of human history shows this, but I suppose a prominent example is Hitler. He conquered, and was allowed to conquer, unopposed, through the entirety of , and he didn't stop. Had the western world not decidedly stand up and fight him at a certain point, he would have just kept on going until he went insane or literally steamrolled the world under tank treads.

Most cases of bullying and abuse are not like Hitler in the sense that they will keep beating up everyone until they're in charge. They pick very specific targets that they have an easy time dominating over and then rub their ego with the dominance over said individuals may it be a classmate, their own defenseless child etc. In most cases they pick target's who cannot defend themselves to the point of scaring off the aggressor as detailed, if a third person comes in and defends the victim (and succeeds) it's only a temporary fear factor.

It either only lasts as long or during the time the third part is involved, if say the victims new friend is absent the bully uses the opportunity. If it was an abusive parent who was stopped by a stranger in public, said stranger is unlikely to be around again. And assuming said third party was constantly present, it only lasts as long as the fear comes in place. One said bully/abuser get's friends, decides to use a weapon or whatever method you can image that can have them get over the fear inflicted on them.

Brovo said Simply put: Bullies are malevolent predators. They prey on the weak. If you don't fight back, they will continue to prey on you as an easy target. That is the hunter mentality. After all, if you're going to pick on someone, who are you going to pick on? The guy who doesn't fight back, or the guy who will bite and kick and punch and spit on you with everything he's got every time you try?

Having been bullied growing up in elementary school, fighting back does nothing but give the bully the reaction they wanted.
They know they can get to you and push your buttons, it just makes them laugh and encourages more bullying in the future. Even if said bully walks away with more bruises than you do they consider it worth it just cause they got you to react. And if they're half smart they'll come back with friends the next time to prevent being on the losing side of the fight next time. While the person who never reacts may be bullied verbally (which can have a ton or zero effect depending on the persons self-confidence and amount of thick skin) they're days of being bullied physically are very numbered because theirs simply not rise or enjoyment gained from fighting them.

Goldmarble said Simply put: I am a product of this pacifistic movement that started in the 70s. All of my childhood, it was drilled into me that I should not fight back against bullies, I should "ignore them". I should "turn the other cheek". "Be the better man," "Tell a teacher".

Problem is, none of that actually stops the bully, it encourages them. The bully is not looking for a challenge. It's why they pick on people weaker than themselves. Yes, to stop their predatory aspects outright, their actions need attention other than violence. They need counseling, or other therapy to get to the underlying cause of why they are being a bully.

My response to this is basically the same as I my last response to Brovo above.

Goldmarble said But teaching kids that they should not stand up for themselves, that the only solution to the problem is to either;
A: Ignore it, or
B: tell an "authority" figure to do something about it...

...Just does not make sense to me. Having these ideals drilled into my head made me feel powerless, it made me feel . What happens when you ignore the bully? They just bully you more, because you are easy prey. The primary tool you are told will work against the bully, is useless. So you turn to the other tool, you tell a teacher. What happens? The bully gets in trouble, their parents might reprimand them....and then they come back and take it out on the person who is the cause of their new problem.

A: That is oddly enough (except in one friends case) what I saw actually did work for people. They would ignore it and then people would deviate to those who would either break down and a give a reaction, or those who would fight back cause they found the fight an entertaining enough reaction.

-However, I should note most cases of bullying I have experience in is elementary school (Grades 1-8). Where bullying was mainly done for the reactions they got from people. It was High School where ignoring the bullies didn't work for a friend of mine (and bullying I faced myself turned from physical fights to people simply saying stupid/illogical/incomprehensible shit in the form of an insult. The attempts they tried on me were rather sad/pathetic) but in High School culture largely changed with people where it was no longer about getting a reaction but rather establishing social dominance and superiority over people. People entered a school culture we cliches and popularity was the be all and end all for people, and one of the things that made people popular was being an asshole to others. Even if there was zero reaction the meer act of pretending to be tougher/better than others made you more popular/liked.

B: This in my experience has a big flaw involved in that authority figures are just largely useless in this case. They have no backbone to punish the bully even, they're just as (if not more likely) to punish the victim (Exceptions being: Special Needs/Learning Resources Teacher and/or already knows the victim well from a class they teach) because without either that personal relationship with the student or overwhelming experience of bullying and it's effects by dealing with those victim of it the most, they authority is even capable of giving in to high school popularity and seem bail out with reasoning like "We can't take your word for it, despite the overwhelming physical proof and testimony we are getting".

(Note: That is all in reference of High School, in elementary school teachers had no issues calling it out for how it was).

Now, this aside though. Let's assume this bias/fear among authority was non-existent and across the board they called out and punished the bullies for their wrong-doings. A lot of it could be due to our approach to stopping the bullies once brought to the teachers attention (Because I agree, authority is largely useless with bullying. But I don't think that means we need to default to violence). How often for example have we seen things like therapy for the bully, to try to find the root/cause of the problem? Trying to eliminate at it's source? And how often do you say, just give them a talking to and leave, or actually tell them to stay home and play Xbox for a few days?

ActRaiserTheReturned said If they are repeat offenders, the said child must be given to the custody of a compassionate person, and the "Father" or whomever abused the child should be punished severely. Not necessarily permanently, but in a way which is very hurtful to drive home the point that they are being punished and WILL NOT abuse children again, or ELSE!

Two points/questions to pose here.

1. I get you used the term "Father" in air quotes here because you recognize it's not truly the case, so I'll spare the whole "Not all abusive parents/people are men" speech. But I just wanted to note to try to avoid using the term "Father" to refer to child abusers even if in air quotes because it still helps contributes to the assumption/mindset of some people (Typically those who simply echo what they hear/not able to think about it on their own) that it's the men always responsible for these sort of things.

2. If we are to suggest punishments to the parent that will prevent child abuse, we should trying to suggest specific approaches/responses. Those we can prove (or at least have stronger reasoning/theory for than our current approach) can work in that regard even if only some of the time (but more than our current amount of success). So what is it do you think we would need to do to prevent parents from doing such things?

mdk said Sometimes though, our proactive, preventative, systematic methods don't stop bad things from happening. At that point we're reacting to violence, and well.... shit's gone to hell at that point anyway. You're in a different scenario after the shit has already hit the fan. Negotiations stop when they start killing hostages, you know? There comes a point beyond which unmitigated violence is the only rational response. All our systems of education and prevention and peaceful interaction are designed to keep that line from being crossed; they can't protect you from what's on the other side of the line.

Fair reasoning, we are mainly debating avoiding crossing the line.

However, once that line is crossed is it not also important to try to make it so crossing the line can have the most minimal amount of damage possible?
Or if we can't do that, at least learn how to react once over the line so if you're out their again it's not even worse for you the second time?

Jorick said As barbaric as it may sound

Like I said in my last post, don't ever worry about sounding too barbaric. :P

[quote=Jorick]-snip-[quote]So basically if I'm reading this right then the suggestion here is to return violence with more violence and in some cases (repeated offences, or child abuse) they be thrown in Jail? Is this not only temporary though? And the same things can happen once they're out?

Prison has constantly be criticized for being modeled on prisoners returning rather than being helped, so they can have a successful life after leaving.

Jorick said All of those should be coupled with some of those non-violent methods, by the way. All that counseling and explaining why it was wrong and how they should feel bad and so forth should come during and/or after the administration of violence. Alone that stuff does little to nothing, but coupled with a fresh reminder of the direct penalties of further transgressions it might actually work. Violence to answer violence is not pretty and it's not a perfect system, but it's a hell of a lot better than the non-violent routes.

I assume this might be what is meant to answer my earlier response/question.

But I assume then this is taking place for those already arrested in that case. Regardless though my following point remains the same. If I am also reading this right then the argument is we want violence combined with therapy to solve these issues? And that this is at least better than the sole use of violence and/or the sole avoidance of violence.

To determine this though I'll take the default of the approach with the most evidence behind it, therapy. Is there anything the use of violence would aid in the therapy? I can see this having different results depending on who is responsible, is it a Parent? The victim in self defense? The therapist themselves? Is it a separate employee hired for this purpose? Also would the effect change once the bully/abuser realises that the violence they faced themselves was a planned part of the therapy and other approaches? Because let's face it, if such a model was adopted as the main way to help people, eventually people would be well aware that the violence against them is also intentional and planned by those providing the help.

Lastly assuming this say a case of someone who abuses/bullies because they were abused themselves by their parent's they already know what it's like. So it's not going to give them say a new perspective that they didn't already grow up with. Now I realize you highlighted this solution as not pretty or perfect, but even then I think it's best we try to find as many flaws as possible so as to why to address or fix them (or if we can't, at least be aware of them).

ShonHarris said -snip-

Wow, I feel [b]really[b] bad not giving this a longer/more detailed response considering how much time and effort seemed to come into this and how well thought out and explained the points are. But I simply can't find anything to pull out and disagree with or debate with. I'm almost 100% agreement with what you've said here. :)
I would ask about self defense though, if say you're being beat up like crazy is it appropriate to fight back enough to remove yourself from the situation? Or is there is still a better way to protect yourself?

Neobullseye said -snip-

There's almost nothing here I feel the need to debate or question either.
However I would vary on one thing, I think therapy should be given to all people when a problem is identified. In fact I find therapy for the children even more necessary/essential than for the adults.

That when people's minds are still growing, being wired and most influential to change, other people, experiences and their environment. You want to get to them and address their issues young so they have a more healthy development as they get older.

Kidd said -snip-

It's odd these all seem to of came in a row like this, but once again I mainly agree and have very little to counter.

But there is still that little bit. :P In this case it's compassion with violence, I understand and mainly agree with the principle. I know it's possible, this is more a question as to how you would personally approach it more than anything, but how would you try to use compassion after violence? So that the person feels/understands that it's legitimate compassion after having been beat up rather than feeling that it's not say a "Good cop, Bad cop" routine?

What's the deal with RP family's

RP families are really just a for fun thing that friends do basically as fun nicknames for one another.

I was never in one myself, but I used to be in enough RP's (20k posts worth) that I saw a lot of them and got to see somewhat how they worked.
I would not worry about getting into one at all, it's just a fun game people do with their group of friends. It's not any kind of status, rank or anything that makes you higher up or more valuable.

It's almost the exact same as say two people in spam pretending to marry through a marriage thread. There's nothing actually important you're missing, it's just a thing people do for fun and kicks among people they already know.