Bittersweet Candy Bowl Forums

Vote Sue... Abbey's taking an extremist position on an important issue, this almost always ends badly.

I wasgoing to post this on the actual page, but realized I'd just get trolled and told that it's extremely long by comment standards VS forum standards...

Just looking at those flashbacks, YES. As a matter of fact Abbey, YOU ARE BRINGING YOUR EMOTIONS INTO THIS.
I agree, bullies need a strict punishment but expelling them immediately is just going to have them grow up to be hoodlums. Don't think so? I actually initiated Abbey's methods on a bully of my own before. Guess what? He's now a drug dealer, involved in gang wars, all the stereotypes. That is where zero help instant expulsion will lead. Ironically enough, when I met my bully outside school, it all made him only meaner. Abbey's solution is basically getting rid of the problem whilst in school, so it grow and evolve, meet up with you outside of school and become even worse. Even if it's only a single counseling meeting or a single warning, one warning is going to be far more effective than just trying to make it never exist. The problem won't go away until you actually face it head on.

Maybe if they were further in school, the problem couldn't follow them for the rest of their lives, but if they're still in school the next couple of years and they're still kids, odds are the bully won't think and they can just wait for you. After all isn't that the stereotype for god's sake?!

Mister Nikel, on 17 December 2010 - 07:35 PM, said:

Nikel hit's the nail on the head!

If the bully know's why they are doing it, then it isn't that difficult for others to figure out why they are doing it. (However this is pretty pointless anyway because to suggest they know why they do it is to suggest they are one of the doomed anyway)

You all keep saying that bullying isn't black and white case, so please list to me the reasons that people bully. Then from that list highlight the parts where its difficult for someone to figure out if that's the reason an individual would choose to bully someone.

FML This debate is more hardcore than the comic's debate.

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No, dXrandomXb, I think you're wrong. You need A LOT MORE than that to know. Like, being born again as that person?

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That's because Taeshi-san has, like 8 panels 3 times a week
She is so smart she could debate with herself giving every argument we're giving in both sides, and probably a third side we'll both agree on.

I'm only voting for Sue because she has McCain on her side.

Ya gota show some will power and ether stand up to you're bullies or just ignore them. Kicking the liveing shit out of them helps to sometimes since most bullies can't back up there bark. That was my general aproch ignore them if there verbal cuz responding encourages them and if they touched me beat the tar out of them.

Hentai13, on 17 December 2010 - 11:45 PM, said:

13, you are such a hardcore bad ass.

I vote Abbey, but I realized we haven't even seen Sue's proposal. Premature thread was premature, guys. LET US HEAR THE OPPOSITION FIRST.

Yeah, we should hear Sue's take on things

I vote Abbey because I support weeping vaginas who promote short-sighted knee-jerk policies.

i vote for the communist guy

Starwatcher, thank you.

Many argue Sue plans to manipulate everyone but come on! You hear "manipulate" and instantly assume it's a bad thing! What if she plans to manipulate us all straight into Candyland? Last I checked, that's some manipulation we'd all agree upon following.

Abbey is just waaaaay too damn predictable as to how he'll behave. How do I know? Cause I'm all too much the same personality, with the exception of these current policie he's going after cause like I said in my last post, I did that with my bullies and things got worse.

Plus Sue and McCain ruling side by side is just waaay more epic then Abbey and McCain. Picture McCain sitting in a throne with Sue lying across the floor in a seductive pose, McCain stroking her head as she purrs with a devilish grin and...

ehem yes, vote Sue.

ohhhhhhhhh.... mccain and sue......... I never really thought about that pair for some reason. Seen a lot of fanart with them together, but it never clicked.

Then again, they've got personalities that are kinda compatible.

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Actually, no. Humans hate being manipulated no matter what comes out of it. We feel used, and even though the goal is eternal happiness or whichever that does not mean we will like the road there. It is a natural and acceptable fear; besides, do we know that Sue will lead us to Candyland? What if she takes us all into Pan's labyrinth or back to the Stone Age?

Besides, Candyland is bad. Your teeth will suffer terminally.

I revise my former opinion, Suspension at first sign, expulsion at second, expulsion at the first sign is going to far, though I do think that you shouldn't wait to long, suspension, then expulsion. I vote for whoever does something like that.

I'm all anti-bullying. Though I do disagree with Abbey at some points. A warning would be nice, something to put fear on a bully. If the bully is just some evil fucker and decides to commit the offense again with no remorse, then by all means, throw him out.

We don't have a clear grasp on how serious the problem is in their school so either parties can be wrong, but based on previous chapters, bullying there includes broken arms, severed ears, rape and emotional scarring, so you can bet it's pretty bad and this only revolves one character, namely Roger. There's also the fact that the school has a local Batman (aka Abbey) so that kinda sums up how bad it is there.

ILB, on 18 December 2010 - 11:24 AM, said:

If you agree to follow manipulation, it's not really manipulation anymore, is it? When you manipulate someone, you're forcing their choices, taking away freedom from them. The entire state of New Hampshire, if they hew to their motto, would rather die than lose that freedom.
There's also an element of condescension in manipulation. You're being treated like an idiot child, somebody who doesn't need to know what's happening, or why. Who likes being spoken down to? I don't, it makes me mad.
Leaving that aside, the kind of people who promise that you're going to candyland are the kind of people who drive white panel vans past junior schools.

This post has been edited by rocketpony: 18 December 2010 - 03:15 PM

Hmmm, a tie. This needs immediate correction.

I feel that expulsion is too "distant" a punishment for bullies. I prefer something much more personal. I whipped cream booby trap in his/her locker is effective for minor offenses, and if it goes too far, a pipe bomb can be easily rigged to explode upon opening. Besides, bullies go for easy targets, so to avoid them, keep yourself from being an easy target.

But actually on topic, expulsion has a number of things going for it. One is that it only has to be used a few times before it merely acts as a deterrent, so Kaxbe's point about creating more failure will only affect a few individuals and not create a systemic problem. As for the point about being raised in a too-sheltered environment, if we raise our kids so that bullying is "extremely discouraged" then these problems won't carry over into the adult world as they grow, thus reducing the occurrence of bosses who are jerks.

However, it would also create an environment were children might be afraid to have fun in any way that might be misconstrued as bullying by a teacher. This could lead to a generally less fun school experience for everyone. A "chilling effect" might result that could be as bad as a moderate level of bullying. We don't want to raise our children in fear of the authorities any more than we want to raise them in fear of bullies.


So I choose not to vote, at least until I know whether voting for Abbey will make Kaxbe's head explode in an entertaining manner.

Actually, a tie would be one of the funniest outcomes!

Starwatcher, on 18 December 2010 - 04:22 PM, said:

that would be awesome but i voe for ABBEY!!

I'd vote for Abbey, but...
While I believe in his "zero tolerance" standing, and he is right that it must be stopped, expulsion is not effective. It simply ejects these potentially future killers from a rehabilitating environment to one where becoming a serial killer is all too likely. If one were to truly reform the miscreants, one would have to cure their problem that causes their aggression. This takes time and resources, and if not effective, is a comlete waste. The only way to guarantee the elimination of bullying is to eliminate the bullies themselves. As in terminated. However, most people who would come to hold such power would almost certainly become corrupted. People would abuse this power to uneccessary extremes. To ensure it does not get out of hand, there would have to be some sensible criterion for a reccomendation of termination. But who would accept such an idea? If only one person wrote the guidelines, they would inevitably be hated by someone, whether they were right or not. If they went to extremes to remove the person who opposes them, they would instantly be labeled as a tyrant. And if a group of delegates tried to agree on something, they would not be able to. Either they would go to war over this, or they would compromise. They would compromise over things which should not be compromised, and in doing so, both hinder some clear solutions and bring forth the possibility of a flawed system. On top of that, when people compromise, instead of having a clear winner and loser, each party goes home thinging they were gypped. This would make everyone feel bad, and tension between parties would drag out, eventually resulting in another war.

As humans, we are given far to much deciding power over the lives of other creatures and over the delicate ecosystem of the planet. While we do contribute beautiful and wonderful things, our problems far outweigh the good things. So I suggest an ultimate resolution: All at once, we create as many beautiful things as possible, then proactively destroy outselves before we kill everything else along with us. This should be done in a way that causes the least amount of damage to other things (besides the human race).

Oh my, I seem to have veered off course. At any rate, I'm probably voting for Sue. She's more interesting.

This post has been edited by Dr. Klaus: 18 December 2010 - 06:28 PM

i like the way abby quoted julianis "broken windows"...

maybe next we can have rapecat doing "crabs in a bucket".

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Quit being such a pansy and stop letting yourself be bullied. That's how you stop bullies.

Seriously, bullying only works if you let them push you around or let them intimidate you.

As for rehabilitating bullies, some people will always be useless, some won't be. People do indeed change. Rehabilitation programs do work in some cases.

Frankly, the best punishment for bullies is putting them in a situation where they don't want to be bullies anymore. Punishing people with detention, ect. doesn't really help all that much.

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How does that fix the problem?

Answer: It doesn't you idiot. They're still there and they're still bullies, but now they aren't in school. So they'll be fuck ups and murder you in an alleyway.

GOOD JOB!

Gotta love the exact 50/50 split here

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There are too many cases of different bullying to say that, with that much assurance.

That'll change come Monday when we get to see Sue and her argument.

Edit: Err, I meant about the 50/50 split. Not that their will be a miraculous solutions to bullies come Monday...of course maybe there is! Who knows?

This post has been edited by Arc Impulse: 19 December 2010 - 04:22 AM

This is quite confusing to me - I like Abbey - he is very sweet in New Beginnings, and I've been bullied myself. But I disagree with his argumentations, since just explelling bullies won't help at all.
Besides, Sue is my fave character - she's a lot like me and SuexMcCain is awesome! So I hope Sue will win - she's the only one who really want to make the school a better place - Not just removing the bullies.

Sue rules

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True. But then again, this creates a conundrum: Nobody follows a program that says "we will manipulate you", because that both seems like a bad idea and is a contradiction. But if you hide the fact that it is manipulative, only then is it so - of course, then we are back to the original problem.

I had no real reason for replying to this. ^_^

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So consider a bully. A bully is normally (I might even go as far as to say always) surrounded by a group of people who are on his or her side. Also, it is very likely that all or most of these are stronger than the target - in fact, they would be almost no matter how strong the target was, since he or she will always be alone unless somebody interferes. Will anybody interfere? Possibly, but probably not, since that will affect their spot in the pecking order; it is also unusual for people to go up against somebody who can beat you.

The point is, it is impossible not to be pushed around by a bully. Granted, some may be strong enough mentally to not be intimidated, but how would you feel if half a dozen men who all were taller than you suddenly attacked you? You would be afraid, and very likely deathly so. To say that this is the only thing that works against bullies might be true, but it is a goal that is impossible to attain.

Arc Impulse, on 19 December 2010 - 04:21 AM, said:

I bet that from now on people will vote to maintain the 50/50 split.

The argument being repeated here is that removing them from the school leaves them to become an even worse member of society, but a school is most certainly not the place to rehabilitate a bully. Sure, make your attempt to change them, but don't be wasting school time and resources to do so. Bullying is a vile thing and should be punished greatly.

Oh and another thing, expulsion means you can never get an education ever. Really? No really? The guy who got expelled for the GBH at the college (first time offense for him btw harharhar) joined a new school 4 weeks later, after doing his rehabilitation thing. Now I don't know what happened to the kid, but having to join a new school where you don't know anyone would probably be a bigger repellent for bullying than the rehabilitation was.

Oh and Dr.Klaus, when you say terminate you mean like, euthanize them? Lmfao Awesome!

NOOOOOOOOO 50/50 is unacceptable! Abbey for Dictator! Secretary!

Anialator, on 20 December 2010 - 02:28 AM, said:

Why are we wasting (school) time and resources to make someone a better member of society? We all agree that they should be punished, nobody's arguing that we let them get off easy.

Immediate expulsion is using your greatest punishment at the first offence. What happens if they do it again? It's not like you can take it a step further.

Expulsion is the last resort, and should be reserved for people who shouldn't be in school and are deserving of an extreme punishment. Save it for when the first attempt fails.

But I thought schooling is compulsory. Everyone should be in school, but bullies should be removed from their familiar enviroment of power for any attempts to change them to be most sucessful. They should have to put in the effort to change and to be accepted by a new school.

You say "What happens if they do it again?" If they go back into the school after being expelled to bully someone, doesn't that break some sort of law? I'll assume you mean what if they do it again at a new school, in which case expel them from that school too. If someone is really going to do it again after being expelled from one school, then they really are doomed/unfixable and should be HUNG FROM THE GALLOWS euthanized terminated.

Anialator, on 20 December 2010 - 02:50 AM, said:

You're first statement is begging the question: we don't know that they're that far gone a-priori, the point of attempted rehabilitation at school is to either fix them or detect how far they're gone. By stating that "bullies should be removed from their familiar enviroment of power for any attempts to change them to be most successful" you're assuming that they're already too far gone for anything we do at this level to be of help. This is not an argument against attempted rehabilitation.

"doesn't that break some sort of law?" I don't know, but I would suppose not. We don't have laws against being a dick where I live.

"If someone is really going to do it again after being expelled from one school, then they really are doomed/unfixable and should be HUNG FROM THE GALLOWS euthanized terminated."

(assuming this wasn't tongue-in-cheek) - If we're going to be executing teenagers then we've got bigger problems with our society than bullying. Way bigger and worse.

omg, I just made it 50/50 with my vote. Mr. President ftw

Mikanada, on 20 December 2010 - 03:54 AM, said:

You see! I said this would happen!

Starwatcher, on 20 December 2010 - 04:11 AM, said:

Yes, but your comment was based off my comment and my comment was talking about Monday being when things would drastically change. It is still Sunday. We have yet to see Sue's argument.

Sue is a woman, she will hypnotize Abbey into voting for her with her hot bod. Shush.

Analyse the situation:

Sue is awesome. Sue is hot. Sue is smart. Sue is rational and realistic.

Abbey is lame. Abbey is not hot. Abbey has daddy issues. Abbey is emotional and extremist.

There is no debate. Sue wins.

Also! Die all you Sue x McCain shippers!! Paulo x Sue OTP!!!

Sue's not better as a person than abbey. That's not the issue, and besides that, we've been through this before. You can't and shouldn't try to objectively measure the worth of a person.

The issue is whether we agree with the candidates policies. I've given my reasons for voting Sue, what are yours?

i won't be repeating what people have said, i was just trying to bring some humour into the topic.

But yeah, it's very immature and silly to be extremist like "expel all bullies" crap. These people are selfish and short-sighted. they only think about their well being and that moment in time, eventhough expelling bullies causes a much bigger problem for society in the long run.

If you really want to be radical and make SENSE, you should vote for having all the bullies executed, but even the most extreme twits wouldn't agree to executing a minor.

Teaching victims of bullies to stand up for themselves (and often to be less socially awkward) also helps the situation a lot. I don't mean to put the blame on the victims at all, just that often whe the families fail to raise a kid to be socially normal, the responsability falls on the school.


Here's an interesting point people are ignoring in this debate. People put upon the school and the teachers the responsability of creating, analysing, judging and enforcing a fuckload of rules to keep the kids in line, while teachers and school staff tend to have very little training in psychology, sociology, administration, law and other requirements. How can all this be expected of a few school staff who are more worried about TEACHING, when outside of school THOUSANDS of people work in government jobs to ensure ADULTS keep in line?

On top of this, most public schools in every country I know tend to be understaffed, teachers are often underpaid and overworked, schools themselves are badly funded and protection laws render school staff helpless (a stern voice only goes so far) (that being said, I support most of the kids' protection laws, but occasionally they do cause trouble). It's easy to come up with great solutions that work for everyone if you have infinite money and plenty of qualified and willing staff. Try doing it on a short budget and the system fails.




Also, in all seriousness, Sue is just awesome. Vote for the most awesome candidates, people!!!!!

woo! long post!

This post has been edited by Migrant: 20 December 2010 - 05:06 AM

The debate in the comic seems to have taken quite the turn. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Sue badmouthed her opponent, which I would view as a negative. Yet now it turns on Abbey; does he swallow his anger?

wacko, on 20 December 2010 - 05:21 AM, said:

Nah, fire's gonna proceed from his mouth and devour her. It's going to be extremely rad.
Question: would you vote for the guy who could vomit actual fire?

That'd be scary.

Boy Abbey that was some nice bullying you had Daisy do to Paulo huh

expulsion

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if the competition wasn't as awesome as Sue, I might consider it...

Abbey just fucked himself. I think it's safe to say he lost now...

I think this ends in a fist fight.

Godwin's Law just took effect people. This is gonna be good.

Just re-read it. I think Abbey's gonna lose his cool, do something he regrets. Before this ends, he's gonna see that he's become what he hates and resign.

And it'll end with him saying sorry to Sue, and she'll be like "I know what you've been through, it's ok".

What do you guys think? Plausible?

I voted Sue, I stand by it, but sheesh, with every strip Abbey and Sue are shown to be in increasingly extreme position. Lets look at the debate: No actual debate, Abbey=scare tactics, Sue=slander.

@Star: Possibly, I think this could end poorly for Abbey.

abbey totaly deserved that slander, though...