You Could Have Stopped It

Jimmy Kimmel got suspended, although he was allowed back on the air. Stephen Colbert had already been fired. Why? Because Donald Trump doesn't respect their rights under the 1st Amendment.

You could have prevented it. You may have tried. How? By voting for Kamala Harris last year, or for Hillary Clinton 8 years before that.

Or maybe you voted for Trump. In which case, you can join Trump and Charlie Kirk in Hell.

Or maybe you didn't vote at all.

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -- Plato

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." -- Edmund Burke (usually misattributed as "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.")

"Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." -- Elie Wiesel

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King

Injustice begets injustice. When you see the strong picking on the weak, you must act, or else the cycle continues.

Especially if the weak one is a child, who will grow up to pass that meanness on to others, and become what he once hated.

Don't sit back and do nothing. Punish the bully. Show him you're stronger, because that's the only thing he respects, and that you won't tolerate it. Otherwise, the child he bullies will become a nasty person himself.

I speak, literally, from painful experience. People ask why I'm always so angry, why I have to win every argument, why I always have to get the last word. It's because I see everyone who disagrees with me as a schoolyard bully, who must be punished for what he did to me long ago.

There are a few men now in their late 50s who are lucky that I didn't grow to be as big as they got. Like the old joke says: A big man says to a little man, "If you were two inches taller, I'd knock you out." The little man says to the big man, "If I were two inches taller, I'd knock you out."

Back then, I was too scared to try to fight back, because I knew I couldn't win. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part is that no one would step in and win for me. Or so it seemed: It seemed like I was facing the same vicious clods year after year, until I got to high school.

The torment slowed down and stopped. Did the tormentors grow out of it? Did they get punished for other things they did? I noticed a lot of them did not end up graduating with my class (or the ones before). Did they get expelled, or have to transfer, or drop out?

Now, I no longer give a damn: If I see someone getting picked on, I do something about it. I call the authorities' attention to it, because I know I still wouldn't win many fights. But I make sure that the one who started the fight loses it.

Like Daniel Stern said in City Slickers: "I hate bullies! Because bullies don't just bully you. They take away your dignity! I hate that! I really hate that!"

And somebody needs to stand up for the victims. Because the victim needs to see that somebody gives a damn. They deserve to have their dignity respected.

The best thing about the 2020 election wasn't just that Trump was removed from power: It's that he was beaten by Joe Biden. The boy who stuttered beat the bully.

Then, last November 5, the bully beat defeated a woman.

It wasn't just wrong, it was unfair.

We need to Make America Fair Again.