Just a post about bullying

So I got thinking today about bullying. Now, I'm 28 years old and I was bullied brutally from as early as I can remember until I went to sixth form at 16. These kids were insane, bordering on downright evil. I was terrified of going to school every day and I hated half of the other kids. Some of these people (now grown adults) still live in my hometown and I can't even look them in the face. 

Bullies are ignorant idiots but there's one thing that's even worse: the grown adults who enable them.

Teachers at my high school knew I was being bullied, particularly (and most embarrassingly) by kids considerably younger than I was. Because they were younger, what could I do?

People see those being bullied by younger kids as pathetic. Why do you put up with it? Why do you let this kid push you around?

I'll tell you. With one swing of my fist, I could make sure this child never comes near me again. It could be so easy. But every time I make a physical threat or even just yell at them (i.e. "not putting up with it"), one of you CUNTS comes to this kid's rescue, publicly lampoons me for threatening a younger kid, completely undermines any hope I had of stopping this idiot from bullying me and makes it worse. Next time he comes at me, he's got even more bottle because, since a grown adult stuck up for him, it's ok. You don't care that he's bullying a kid 2 years older, right? It's not bullying is it? Of course not. I'm the pathetic one here apparently.

One such incident in particular, I'd been chased down a residential street by a kid 3 years my junior and a bunch of his friends. They'd had it in for me for quite a while and had been routinely attacking me for months. I lost my balance and flew off my bike, at which point, this kid's ridiculous little entourage made a run for it and left him on his own, presumably fearing they'd be blamed for my injuries. The one kid came after me, calling me names, screaming at me, taunting me about my family situation (which is another story altogether) and generally trying to inflict as much damage as possible.

At this point, I got up off the ground and with the most malevolent face I could muster, told him if he came near me again I'd knock his teeth out. At which point, in rides the white knight. A local pillar of the community dad type appears out of nowhere as if he was an angel dropped conveniently from the heavens to reward the virtuous little cunt who'd just run me off the road.

"What did you just fucking say to him?" he says to a 12 year old boy with blood pouring from his forehead after being thrown into the road. "You hit him, yeah, and you'll be in serious trouble! Look at him he's just a fucking kid!"

So it's clear what's happened. He knows damn well that this kid is bullying me and he sends him on his way. He would come into school the next day with a new elated sense of accomplishment because, not only had he got away with bullying, he made sure the victim got the blame. Him and 5 of his friends cornered me around the side of the basketball court and kicked the shit out of me, taking every care not to hit my face and make it too obvious. I ended up in the hospital for 3 days and almost died from internal bleeding. And you know what, when I went back to school, they bullied me about that too.

Anyway, back to the evening before. So this white knight sends his darling little local cherub on his merry way and decides to pull me aside. To his credit, he knows what's going on, he just believes that boys should be stronger than to allow younger kids to bully them. He tells me my dad would be ashamed if he could see me and I should just ignore these kids and they'll go away. Oh thanks, I wish I'd thought of that.

He still lives in my hometown and he has never recognised me as that kid, if he even remembers the incident. 

To him, I'm just that stupid kid who let little children push me around.

To me, he's the grown adult whose stupidity almost got me beaten to death.

I can't even remember the kid's name. He's just another face in a sea of bullies, but I see that arrogant grown up bastard's face in my nightmares and honestly, I wish him the very worst.

Child bullies are idiots but grown adults who enable them are the scum of the fucking earth.

Thank you for coming to me TED talk.

This Voting Age Argument Will Shock You!

Today on Phil’s Rants…

“Democratic Rights of Humans Aged 16-18.”

Now I’m not sure how popular this one will be, but here we go.

This topic has arisen again recently and there’s a lot of anger on both sides, which seems to be the case with just about every political topic at the moment. Let’s just take it all down a couple of notches and look at it logically, shall we?

I’ve been doing some demographic research (by which I mean I’ve argued with people on Twitter and in Facebook threads) and I’m going to take you through some of the opinions I’ve come across. Using a magical recipe with left-leaning politics at its core and some tasty common sense, reasonable thinking and a little dusting of contempt for general idiocy thrown in, I will critically assess each of these opinions in a sensible manner for your amusement as my adoring public. Because I love ya’s.

1.The voting age should be lowered to 16:
Yeah. Why not? (I'm going to answer that question later) People don’t give 16 and 17 year-olds enough credit for their political awareness, particularly in this day and age. There are plenty of things the government deems them able to do; get married, have sex, ride a moped, leave home, apply for a provisional driving licence, leave school, work full-time, pay tax and national insurance (more on that later), join a trade union, independently apply for a passport, join the forces (with parental consent), register as a blood donor, give blood (at 17), change their name by deed poll, pilot a glider, buy premium bonds and consent to medical treatment as well as paying for prescriptions.
I was politically aware enough to vote at 16 and so were a lot of my peers.

2. 16-18 year olds are indoctrinated by education.
Yes, they are. And so are you. And so is everyone regardless of age.

3. 16 year-olds aren’t emotionally mature or politically aware enough to vote.
Not true. I’ve met a lot of people that age who are emotionally mature and politically aware enough to vote. I’ve met a lot of people over 40 who aren’t.

4. People with dementia shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Actually, as much as I believe in democratic freedom, I’m weird about this one. It’s one thing to not understand current affairs… it’s another altogether to not know what decade it is. Not much point letting people vote in 2019 if they go to the ballot boxes and tick Conservative because they think they’re voting in a third term for Winston Churchill.

5. Then why not lower it to nursery age... why not have a second, third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth referendum. WHY, because 18 HAS been decided.
(Direct quote)
The childish hyperbole has completely ruined your point. Your very existence is living proof that our education system is a fucking joke.

6. Give the vote to 16 year-olds. It’s their future.
Yep. Can’t argue with that. As long as they’re caught up on what’s happening and they understand it, they deserve to say their bit.

7. They should up the age to 21.
This one has sub-points. Bear with me.

7.i. 18 year olds are too young to understand politics.
Bollocks. They’re old enough to do just about everything else restricted by age in this country except adopt a child, supervise a learner driver and fly a passenger plane.

7.ii. They’ll just vote for whatever their liberal professors vote for.
They don’t give a shit about their professors’ political affiliations. People have made their minds up about it on their own by then.

8. But…but.... I don't want to apply for a visa, my fine arts degree means I am one of the intelligentsia and you are RUINING my life…
(Another direct quote. Sarcasm, in case you missed it)
There are no words to express how much I hope you get trampled by a herd of stampeding badgers on your way home from your job at the mustard gas factory tonight you ignorant, obnoxious waste of DNA.

9. Let kids be kids!
Whilst I agree up to a point, it’s too late for that. They know that they live on a doomed planet with old bigoted white men deciding their future on their behalf and they’re VERY pissed off. That ship has sailed I’m afraid.

10. 16 year olds aren’t capable of making those decisions.
Shamima Begum was though, right…

11. They should up the voting age to 25.
No. That’s ridiculous.

12. They should up the voting age to 30.
No. That’s moronic. I’m 28, I’m very politically aware and I, for one, will NOT have my democratic right to vote in this country infringed just because you don’t like the idea of giving the vote to a generation you don’t understand.

13. They should up the voting age to 35.
It’s been a long time since you’ve met someone under 35 hasn’t it.

14. They should up the voting age to 40.
(Seriously. Direct quote.)
Die. Die horribly.

And the bonus ball, number 15.

"If they’re old enough to pay taxes, they’re old enough to vote."

Yep! Spot on! Nobody should be expected to contribute their hard-earned money to a government they aren’t allowed to vote for. Talk about betraying democracy!

Just give them the vote. Like all democratic rights arguments of history, now the cat is out of the bag, voting 'no' on it isn't enough. If the 16-18s want it bad enough, they'll fight tooth and nail until they get it. Parliament may as well save themselves the trouble.

Phil's Rants Episode... something. I'm not sure, I've lost count.

Anywhich...

Let's consider an alternative universe in British politics for a sec...

Scenario: Parliament followed proper parliamentary procedure regarding the 2016 referendum and the vote was subject to a supermajority (2/3) instead of 50/50 (because the result will affect certain personal rights and freedoms and will affect the economy, under which circumstances a supermajority is required. If you don't believe me, look it up).

Result 1: We remain in the EU because we made a sensible decision and we understand that 52% isn't any sane, rational person's definition of a decisive majority and without a majority of more than 66%, the vote fails to pass and everything stays the way it is.

Result 2: We wouldn't have spent 3 years bitching about it with one side demanding another referendum and the other hurling out blood-curdling cries of "you lost, get over it", "it was the will of the people" and my personal favourite (from a social group that staunchly maintains that they're NOT racists) "take our country back, we didn't win 2 world wars so we could negotiate with Germans!"

Result 3: We wouldn't have 2 sides at what must now be about 50/50, both stubbornly intransigent, meaning we have a complete political stalemate in which absolutely nothing gets decided because each side just straight-up vetoes every suggestion by the other like two equally sized cats trying to push each other over the edge of a table.

Result 4: We might still have had to put up with Theresa May's malevolent, rage-inspiring fake smile on the news every day but at least Boris DeSmallpox Johnson probably wouldn't even be politically relevant and he'd happily just sit at home reading the Daily Mail every day drinking radioactive waste with his wife or pet komodo dragon or whatever the fuck she is.

Result 5: We'd likely forget that David Cameron ever existed.

Result 6: We wouldn't have a political regime under which we're almost contractually obligated to lick Donald Trump's arse now that our trade deal with the EU is all but out the proverbial window.

Result 7: We wouldn't be sending that yellow-haired mole-person backwards and forwards to Brussels to stutter through pathetic deals and make the UK a laughing stock of, not only Europe but America (and given the weird school bully impersonating dick weevil they've got in the white house, we're now basically the poor skinny nerd kid who's about to get robbed of his lunch money on the way to A/V club).

Yes, we understand that remain lost the referendum.

No, we will not "get over it".

No, we don't give a shit what colour our passports are.

Yes, we quite like Europe. It's lovely. Have you been?

Yes, we would like to see Boris Johnson killed in a freak skydiving accident.

And no, we are not under any democratic obligation to just sit back and let this ridiculous shitshow happen for the sake of a vote that took place 3 years ago which our side lost by 2 measly percent on an issue about which the whole nation was systematically mislead and lied to for the sake of the self-serving wankers who planned it.

This Quick Life Hack Will Stop You From Being Dead!

This week on Phil's Facebook Rampage, "Vaccines and Why You Shouldn't Die Unless Absolutely Necessary".

Can people please stop spreading the conspiracy theory that the flu vaccine causes flu. It's not a live vaccine, it's not possible to contract flu from it and at-risk people are starting to abstain from getting vaccinated which is only going to aid the spread of the disease.

If you or someone you know (urban myth for short) have got extreme flu-like symptoms after getting the vaccine, you either already had the disease by coincidence, you've got some other disease that's been misdiagnosed as flu or you've had an allergic reaction to the vaccine.

Remember, symptoms aren't caused by the virus, they're caused by the body's immune response to the antigens in the bloodstream. There's no live flu virus in the vaccine so, although it can cause mild flu-like symptoms (which is your body's fault, not the disease) it categorically CANNOT infect you with influenza.

IT IS A MYTH!

If the myth continues to circulate and people keep believing that their opinion, or the opinion of their guru, shaman, faith healer, witch doctor, exorcist, leech merchant, commoner garden con artist, actual witch or Avon sales representative, is more valid than a series of facts stated by a registered medical professional who probably went to university at some point, people will die of influenza of their own volition because they're idiots.

And while we're on the subject, if you're too stupid to vaccinate yourself, fine, die, but there's plenty of diseases floating around to which your kids aren't immune. Don't let them suffer for your horoscope reading, living-laughing-loving, essential oil & prosecco powered fuckwittery. It doesn't cause autism or cancer. It won't make your child a zombie or push them into a spectrum of sexuality called "astro-gay" or any of that shit and if you're wondering "We only invented vaccines like 50 years ago, people were fine before that!", no they weren't, Karen. They died. They died of stupid poxy diseases that can now either be prevented with a vaccine or cured with a box of mild anti-biotics and a week in bed binge-watching Community on Amazon Prime (post sponsored by).

Get a grip.

And watch Community. It's really funny.

Greta Thunberg Is NOT A Government Puppet

The climate change issue* would be moving a lot faster if people were willing to accept the possibility that teenagers are capable of doing... well... just about anything without being 'controlled' by the Swedish government. Or any government for that matter. Would you like some examples to mull over? Of course you would! Well here's a few...

• Louis Braille - Invented a system of reading for the blind in 1824 at age 15. No government control.
• Barbara Johns - Led a strike against substandard facilities in a segregated school in 1951 at age 16 attracting the attention of two NAACP lawyers leading to a verdict that rendered segregated education unconstitutional. No government control.
• Laura Dekker - Sailed around the world on her own in 2010 at age 14, setting a time record which is yet to be beaten. No government control (although it's worth noting that the Dutch government shut down her first attempt the previous year).
• Jordan Romero - Climbed Everest in 2009 at age 13 and had climbed the highest mountain on each continent (The Seven Summits) by age 15. No government control.
• Wayne Gretzky - Started his pro hockey career at 17. Signed the NHL's first ever 10 year contract and went on to become the single greatest hockey player of all time. Not sure about government control, just had to put this one in because I love Wayne Gretzky.
• Malala Yousafzai - Pakistani activist who made her first public speech against the Taliban at age 11. Spent the next few years encouraging young girls in the middle east to pursue an education. Attracted the world's attention at age 15 after the Taliban attempted to assassinate her. Won the Nobel at 17. No government control.
• Mary Shelley - Wrote Frankenstein in 1815 at age 18. No government control.
• Joan of Arc - Led an army against the English invaders at the castle of Chinon in 1429 at age 19. Was burned at the stake at age 21. Pretty much was the French government. (Admittedly did succumb to government control a bit shortly before she was violently executed).
• Alexander the Great - Founded his first colony at age 16 before conquering just about every major landmass surrounding the Mediterranean sea. Was the government, controlled everyone else.
• Mark Zuckerberg - Created Facebook at age 19. Couldn't even be controlled by a tribunal of Harvard professors, never mind the government. 
• Gavrilo Princip - Assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 at age 19 starting the chain reaction which led to World War I. Sent Austro-Hungarian invaders out of Bosnia at gun point... with no government control.
• Frank Abagnale - Began a career as a con artist in the 60's at age 15. Successfully upheld fake jobs as an airline pilot, a school teacher, a doctor and even a lawyer after successfully passing the Louisiana bar exam (without cheating), all before turning 20. Cashed tens of millions of dollars in forged cheques across his career and escaped from Federal prison in 1971 using a false business card claiming he was an undercover FBI agent. Spent most of his early years trying to stay as far away from government control as possible.

Intelligent, driven teenagers have a long, well documented history of acting in their own interests to change the face of the planet. Don't trivialise them. Don't laugh at them. Don't bully them. Most importantly DO NOT underestimate them.

Misjudging the angry youth is, in hindsight, invariably a mistake and in some cases, the last mistake any civilisation makes before collapsing.

*I refuse to call climate change a debate. If you think it's not happening or it's not our fault, you haven't read enough. Sorry.

Thanks for reading!

Climate change debate analogy

So your car is filthy and a mechanic told you that if you don't clean it soon, the dirt on the windscreen is going to obscure your view so much that you'll write it off and potentially kill some people.

So you go out to wash your car and your crazy right wing conspiracy theorist neighbour is angrily screaming at you over the fence, "There's nothing wrong with the car! The mechanic lied to you! Even though I'm not a mechanic so I'm woefully unqualified to even suggest it, but anyway, I'm telling you because someone really smart I know down the pub who has 2 GCSE's told me!"

You think to yourself (if you've got any common sense) "Well I doubt it. Although you never know. Maybe the mechanic exaggerated a bit. Maybe the dirt on my car isn't my fault... but still... it'd be nice to have a cleaner car anyway." You don't just leave it like that, hoping eventually it cleans itself.

Look, whether climate change is really happening or the fault of human pollution or not (personally, like most people with more that a scattering of braincells, I'm with the 'crazy libtard scientists' on this one. Can't ignore those pesky PhD's), we're treating this place the way Christopher Columbus treated Central America in the early 1500's (that's an extremely clever joke. Google it) and it's time to have, at the VERY least, a bit of a tidy up.

FAQ:

- "Climate change is a hoax/conspiracy/con" - Read a book, please.

- "Greta Thunberg is an idiot!" - She's 16 and she's smarter than you. Sit down."

- "We survived the last ice age!" - Good point. And those of us who aren't hopelessly reliant on technology and home comfort so that we don't die will survive another one, but it won't be very nice.

- "But da planet's jus movin closa to th sun tho" - I can arrange for you to be moved closer to the sun.

- "But Donald Trump said..." - *smacks you about the face with the nearest blunt object, hoping it's heavy enough to knock some sense into you.

10 legit reasons to hold a second referendum:

1. 51% isn't a clear majority. With an issue that important, they should have required a 2/3 majority in the first place to make sure it's what people really wanted.

2. Lots of new information has come to light we were denied the first time like the fact that half the self-serving wankers in the commons have personal financial interests.

3. One of those self-serving wankers (whom, to his credit, appears to be a very skilled businessman) Jacob Rees Mogg has launched a new investment firm in Dublin which shows he's got about as much faith in an independent UK economy as a cat has in the stability of an object it's just about to push over the edge of a table.

4. We've already spent an insane amount of taxpayers' money on something that would never have happened if another 2% of those taxpayers had voted remain. Since 2016 the tories have been treating the average taxpayer the way that John Bonham treated his central nervous system.

5. Since the 2016 referendum, three years worth of teenagers are now old enough to vote. I've only met a handful of people my age or younger who voted leave.
(Before anyone starts chucking projectiles at that one, try to remember that kids now are more switched on politically than ever before and after all, it's their future)

6. Since the 2016 referendum, three years worth of a generation that overwhelmingly voted leave are now dead. (not a very nice fact, but a fact nonetheless)

7. Racism and fear of immigration was definitely a factor in the last one. Denying that is like denying the earth is round. A lot of hardline Brexiteers are now realising that Brexit won't actually make a shred of difference when it comes to illegal immigration.

8. It's not difficult to see the abject hypocrisy of leavers supporting Boris Johnson's plan for Brexit after citing "undemocratic European parliament" and "undemocratic second referendum" in their reasoning. The country didn't elect that fucking waste of DNA and given the choice, we wouldn't have done. Then he went and tried to prorogue parliament to push Brexit through faster meaning not only has he taken the right to choose (democracy for short) away from the people, he's taken it away from the people who represent the people, wankers though they may be.

9. Having now lost a fair bit of faith in Jeremy Corbyn after the general election vote debacle (sorry mate), it's now pretty clear that none of these idiots have the brains or the stones to go to Brussels and not make a complete Chernobyl fire of the whole thing and embarrass the shit out of all of us.

10. Our all powerful PM is now losing Tory MP's at such an alarmingly high rate that by the time the 31st of October comes around (actually quite excited about what hilarious hallowe'en related nickname the history books are going to give it), he's going to have lost his majority in the Commons.

Right there's 10.


FAQ:


"It's undemocratic!" - See points 5, 6 and 8.


"You're too young to understand" - translation: "You're going to be alive to see the catastrophic shitstorm I've left your generation in while I'm either dead or too senile to care what's happening in the world outside my nursing home."


"Immigrants!" - See point 7 and stop reading the Daily Express you racist dick.


"At least Boris has a backbone!" - He does not. He's a bottom-feeding mole person.


"We're getting our blue passports though!" - Please leave the UK. You're an indictment of our state education system and it's embarrassing that you were even declared mentally competent enough to vote.


"They're all wankers." - No that's... actually hang on... yeah that one's true.