On day of Ohio school shooting, radio host promotes bullying to make kids tougher

I’d like to introduce myself as someone who discovered this website after reading Jessica Valenti’s mind-opening “Purity Myth” book.

That said, my point of this post is to raise awareness of a disturbing segment I heard on the radio on Monday afternoon. It was from “The Savage Nation” with Michael Savage (trigger warning as the host has a soft spot for bullying):

Basically the caller complained about his child being bullied at school and the child getting in trouble for fighting back rather than reporting to teacher. The caller also blamed youth violence on brainwashing by teachers and Hollywood. Savage responded: “I was bullied my entire life. So what? It made me the man I am…All it did was make me decide I wanted to succeed and prove that I was better than them.” Savage went on to commit both the naturalistic fallacy and insult the US military: “The entire history of the human race is that of pushing the other guy around to get the best out of him. What the heck do you think the Marine drill instructor does to wimps? They bully them! How are you ever going to produce a man in the military unless you bully them and shame them and call them names?” OK really? Comparing schoolyard bullies with military drill instructors? I thought that conservatives like Savage held institutions like the flag and troops so sacred that it’s a sin to insult them even most delicately.

The caller responded to Savage: “There is no other way” to create tough soldiers other than what Savage suggested. Savage: “Now you have the feminization of the entire nation pushed by these psychopaths. Anyway but meanwhile there’s a dead child in Ohio and three wounded shot because some idiot told this kid he was bullied, and because you’re bullied you’re the victim, and because you’re the victim you should shoot the other kid.”

When it comes to bullying, conservatives and MRAs take this passive aggressive approach by blaming the victim for being bullied rather than justifying the action of bullying. It’s considered “manly” to fight back and “feminine” to acknowledge that it’s wrong to hurt another person’s feelings deliberately. Savage’s remarks deserve more attention because he used the loss of three teenagers’ lives to advance his sexist, savage agenda. Forget about Rush Limbaugh’s slut-shaming of the woman who testified about birth control. It’s a far bigger issue with people like Savage who consistently push this victimization denial message. That’s why I uploaded the audio to youtube and passed it on to various outlets including the It Gets Better project. Savage needs to be held accountable for his remarks.

Similarly after the suicide of bullied gay teenager Tyler Clementi, Savage also defended bullying: “I love all these stories about bullying. Hello? That’s called childhood…I learned how to push back, schmuck, or to avoid getting pushed…What’s the big deal, so you got pushed?…That’s society, moron! Everything I try to do, these liberal psychos! Everything they want to rule out of society, that’s normal!…I’m not arguing for bullying. What are you going to do, outlaw childhood?”