At school I was bullied a few times (a guy broke my front tooth, but luckily it was going to fall anyway, later one). And admittedly, I rarely answered back.
At the army, I had to submit to some kind of baptism or ritual; it didn't last long and let pass it.
Later, when the veterans welcomed the new ones, some of my class humiliated the new ones.
But in no way, would I have any part to it.
But there's a trend : baptism becomes ritual as it's a reaction to having been baptized earlier, while defenseless. I've heard of students who died when baptism turned ugly.
Bullied, one easily becomes bully himself.
Everytime I read about 911 justifying Gulf war 2, I'm reminded of abused children becoming abusers themselves.
The problem is: the 12 year old child who lost his family and both arms, does he have anything to do with 911?
And this bullying is also, in another scale, apparent in conversations or even posts on the web.

BTW, last year, I've been following lessons to gain more assertiveness in communicating with people (well, yes, I'm not very assertive:-( ).

For instance there are 4 levels:
1) the contents and facts (with which we usually start)
2) Procedural (we propose things)
3) Interactive (getting personal)
4) emotional level
When someone starts by arguing about facts and he or she gets a reply on the personal level (like I remember once Larry J writing: "but I guess you don't know your history" or someting like it), then the art for the first talker is to try to get the second back to the first level...by showing some understanding like "agreed". If this doesn't succeed, the conversation will remain on the emotional (4) and/or personal (3) levels for a long time.
But once an understanding has been reached, level 2 (proposal) can return the dialogue back to a normal constructive way.
At work, on the phone, those levels change in a matter of seconds (certainly also when it's talking to children;) but on the net, it can be much longer.
I wonder if not replying is better than replying wrongly (well, it all depends on the way we'd like the other to reply).
And then, there are communication styles! (I'm usually very expressive).
Communicating can be fun but also frustrating.

Regards

Raoul