When I was in school, bullying was normal. People had different ways of dealing with it. Mine was to simply ignore bullies and not react to them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
However, when I got older I found that bullies became much more subtle, if they used snarky comments, or more authoritative, involving the use of the rules. Sometimes those sorts of bullies included teachers.
But it was at university that I learned that the biggest bullies were often the ones who raised the most concern about the issue. One student running for our executive for the union even made it part of their campaign to ‘enable marginalised groups to be heard’ despite rumours of them drunkenly ripping down pro-life posters around the city.
Of course, the biggest bullies are often the political class who, in the name of tolerance and diversity, use the institutions and laws to attack their opponents.
This was well documented in Ben Shapiro’s appropriately named book Bullies: How The Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans which listed a series of cases on how the left had used identity politics first to divide society but also how they actively organised and encouraged hate and discrimination against groups considered the ‘oppressors’ in society.
This included the use of ‘swating’, the tactic used by the left of calling the SWAT team on right-wing figures by claiming they were armed and dangerous. I think the case of Dieuwe de Boer is a good example of this.
Then there was weaponised legalism: the use of federal and state law to punish individuals or organisations that dared to oppose the government. This included everything from alleged tax law breaches to compliance and regulatory misdemeanours. Aggressive liberal district attorneys worked with the liberal judges to find some fault in the legal status of organisations.
Finally, there was the mainstream media smear of the right, which sometimes led to violence. One case involved the Family Research Council being smeared as a hate organisation by the Southern Poverty Law Centre, inspiring a shooting at their offices.
Ironically, much of this was under the Obama administration which, while exploring the issue of bullying, used every legal means to punish journalists and activists who dared to speak out.
Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald were just the tip of the iceberg. Journalist Barrett Brown was raided for publishing information about the security intelligence complex and global surveillance.
This is why it is laughable to hear our political class in New Zealand talking so much about the bullying they receive, especially when there have been a number of bullying allegations levelled at them.
The media gleefully covered the Sam Uffindell bullying story just before allegations were made by Dr Gaurav Sharma about bullying within the Labour party. Suddenly they were silent. That was followed by more allegations, this time against Anna Lorck. Silence.
It has become clear that the cleverest bullies are the ones who convince everyone else that what they are doing is not bullying but fighting against bullies. Jacinda Ardern is a prime example. While talking about ‘being kind’ she segregated New Zealand into groups based on vaccine status, locking the unvaccinated out of living a normal life.
While raising concerns about the ‘abuse’ and ‘harassment’ towards politicians, her cabinet formed the Disinformation Project to hunt down ‘extremists’ and ‘fringe elements’ online.
Now, as part of her ‘Christchurch Call’, she has stressed in her address to the UN that “free speech is a weapon of war” and encouraged internet companies to regulate content.
Like everything else, the left has now redefined ‘bullying’ and ‘harassment’. Bullying is now anything they say it is: Anything critical directed at them while anything they direct at others is considered ‘fighting bullying’.
There is a famous quote by Kenneth Waltz in his book Theory of International Politics which says “at a time, anti-racists will become racists…..anti-fascists will become fascists…” It seems the ones who say they fight bullies have themselves become bullies.