A significant proportion of the population (not many, but enough
people) spend their school days whipping other kids, sneering in their faces, tearing up their copybooks, beating up anyone they can while still looking righteous and popular and generally doing everything they can to crush the spirit out of anyone they can get away with so treating. Fortunately, most of them have the
grace to leave this childhood unpleasantness behind in due course, and become
people of fairness, maturity and integrity who are man or
woman enough to, at the very least, apologise to their former victims. And mean it.
And then, alas, there are a pathetic few like the Phelps clan.
Various forms of behaviour unworthy of the most intelligent species on the planet are exemplified, to take
two examples, by schoolyard bullies, and by the Westboro
Baptist Church.