Same arrangement in my family. Violence only when defending yourself against an
aggressor.
A similar situation with my youngest son when he was in 7th grade. He was a
good academic student and never caused any trouble during his middle school
tenure. A known bully confronted him over something, backed him into a corner
and threatened him with bodily harm. He swung and rang the bully’s bell (much
to my pleasure.)
School had a “no tolerance” policy, meaning both would have out of school
detention for several days and be sanctioned relative to extracurricular
activities.
Wife was NOT happy about this, as I was able to research this child and found
over 10 instances like this where he had threatened other students. She paid
the principal a visit the next day. The principal gave her the company line on
punishment, upon which the wife stood up, walked over to her desk, leaned over
and into her face and said, “”If you try to get out of that chair I’m going to
kick your ass. What are you going to do about it?”
Youngest son was back in school the next day with no sanctions. Point taken.
-D
> On Sep 18, 2018, at 5:08 PM, Greg Fiorentino via Mercedes
> wrote:
>
> I'm for a middle ground somewhere between Grant and Andrew on this. I got
> into my last fistfight (with my older brother) when I was about 16. I was
> about to drop him headfirst onto a ceramic tile floor when I saw he was
> bleeding from a cut over his eye, felt awful, and set him down...then took
> him to the doctor for stitches. Some furniture was damaged during that event.
> Mom was not happy. I have been pretty good since then avoiding fights, but
> being confident that I could defend myself if the fight could not be avoided.
> On the job I developed a reputation for being able to talk people down. Being
> armed helps a bit with that.
>
> As a father of a couple of boys, I have been bothered when one of them would
> get in trouble for defending himself when bullied at school. I taught them
> "Violence is NEVER a good solution, but sometimes the ONLY solution." My
> advice was to avoid a fight, but when that was no longer an option, to punch
> the bully in the nose as hard as possible to end the fight. So one day when
> Matt was in 7th. grade there was a substitute bus driver who was unaware that
> the bully was not allowed to sit near Matt. He started, Matt followed the
> advice but hit a little low. He did cause some highly satisfactory bleeding,
> but also broke the kid's braces. Nonetheless he was rewarded with a trip to
> his favorite donut shop.
>
> I advocated hard for him at the school, so the only penalty was being banned
> from the school bus for a week or 2. I don't see why a child should not be
> able to defend himself when the adults are unable to. Punishing the defender
> as well as the instigator seems wrong to me.
>
> But IMO real men should be able to settle differences without combat.
> Full-size men can do permanent damage if it gets to that stage.
>
> Greg
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of Andrew
> Strasfogel via Mercedes
> Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2018 12:51 PM
> To: Mercedes Discussion List
> Cc: Andrew Strasfogel
> Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Social Justice LINUX?
>
> Gee, I don't miss those days at all. What's wrong with me?
>
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 2:57 PM G Mann via Mercedes
> wrote:
>
>> Ah ... for the good old days, when you could insult some asshat
>> git, sling insults, go to the parking lot, draw blood, maybe break a nose,
>> scrape a knee, and either win or lose.
>>
>> For the day when men were men.
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 10:35 AM, Craig via Mercedes <
>> mercedes@okiebenz.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 11:24:56 -0600 Craig via Mercedes
>>> wrote:
>>>
I haven't read these because my browser on this computer is old; I'll
need to switch to another computer to read them.
>>>
>>> I did find one I could read:
>>>
>>> https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/software/torvalds-takes-
>>> a-break-from-linux-dev/1/
>>>
>>> Linux kernel creator and maintainer Linus Torvalds has apologised for his
>>> oft irascible attitude when faced with what he believes to be a departure
>>> from the ideals of Linux development, and has announced both a code of
>>> conduct for the project and his temporary departure from active
>>> involvement.
>>>
>>> When Linus Torvalds announced the Linux project back in 1991, on a
>>> newsgroup for the Minix operating system, it came with a promise he
>>> proved unable to keep: 'I'm doing a (free) operating system,' he wrote,
>>> 'just a hobby, won't be big and professional like GNU'. That 'hobby'
>>> operating system now powers everything from routers and switches through
>>> to supercomputers, and while its impact on the desktop has been in
>>> single-digit percentages as it struggled to convince people to the
>>> benefits of moving away f
