Columnist’s bullying views are backward

Home-schooled. Of the few explanations I could conjure, this was the kindest. Jennifer Bioche must have been home-schooled and thus isolated from the everyday occurrence of senseless, destructive schoolyard bullying. How else to explain her preposterous musings in the Feb. 5 Gazette? Among them: Anti-bullying programs can “erode liberties,” cause us to “walk on eggshells,” and “breed weakness.” Another: Bullying is simply a “cost of living in a free society.” And, my favorite: “Stuff happens” and our children need to learn to deal with it.

Stuff happens? I'd like to see Bioche explain her simplistic and blasé viewpoint to the Columbine community, or any child or parent who has felt the painful and enduring effects of bullying. Equally galling, the thinly veiled but unmistakable political underpinnings of her article - that government is once again treading on our freedoms - are in this case perversely misapplied. What freedom? The freedom to bully children?

Bioche opined that courts have no business addressing horrific wrongs perpetrated against an abused boy by his peers, and that a young girl received “an incredible lesson in life” when, after continued ridicule by classmates, she ceased praying before lunch.

Bioche couldn't have it more backward. Placing the burden of combating bullying on the backs of the abused is absurd. To the contrary, the responsibility should rest with those in a position to make a difference: parents, administrators, legislators and, yes, even our judiciary. And if a few eggshells are broken in the process, then so be it.

Lance Staker

Cedar Rapids