They may have but that doesn’t mean we owe them anything.

He was a very kind man. I just got weepy remembering him.

“So, Ms. Nightvale, was that a right-hook or a left you gave him?” He kept on walking and I didn’t get in trouble.

I was obese growing up and bullied every day. It was only recently when I heard that a type of behavior was assault, and I in fact had been not only bullied but assaulted (spat on, held down and kicked etc.) One day, one of my worst tormentors was doing some awful thing to me and I just punched him in the nose. I ran…

My mother gave me the same advice. Then I got made fun of for ignoring them.

“children have a good sense of right and wrong. To use youth or innocent ignorance as a justification doesn’t fly with me. Kids know that bullying is wrong even if they don’t understand the complex, long-lasting consequences of it.” I totally agree. Adults often try to explain a bully’s behavior by assuming that the…

I certainly don’t disagree with any of this, and I don’t doubt jerks can grow up. But for the rest of us who had to suffer through that jerkiness, there’s no entitlement to absolution or friendship or even an FB connection in adulthood.

From every study done, pretty much everyone is both bullied and bully.

It took me a long time to forgive* myself for putting up with bullies and listening to my mother’s trouble advice that consisted only of, “Just ignore them.”

Woof.

Here’s one more.

Parents don’t own children anymore than strangers or the government does. If parents are actively hurting their child, even if they think it is in his own best interest, it is child abuse. Whether it is exorcising a kid or denying them medical treatment so they can be “healed by prayer”. This is the same thing. These…

Because as far as the latest reports I’ve seen on it go, he either does, or at least is still suspected to, feel pain... and his condition is a painful one.

Because his brain is so damaged that he’d have zero quality of life. That brain damage is irreversible.

Because even the doctor heading up the experimental…

He’s no-one’s anything. He is a human being with his own rights. This is not about his parents’ rights, it’s about his and his alone. In the UK, a doctor cannot ethically act against their patient’s best interests. They cannot condone a course of action which causes harm to the patient.

This is a case where the parents are being abusive by putting the baby through completely pointless pain and suffering. At that point, it makes sense for government to step in and protect the child from his parents. Now, the parents believe this further pain and suffering has a chance to improve his condition, but…

That’s some dystopian nanny state creepiness, *even if* I agree that it’s not in the child’s best interest. It’s not my child, or the British government’s child.

The government hasn’t intervened in this in any way whatsoever. We have an independent judiciary. Why is this so hard for some Americans to understand?

No, I have absolutely no idea.

Look at that shameful slob coming in second. Bet he wishes this photo never existed.