“Give me that pen, or I’ll sock you.”

The moment I heard those words from a fellow student when I was in seventh grade, I had no idea I would learn the most important lesson about bullying ever: Bullies hate when you fight back.

It started out as a normal day at Marcus Garvey private school in Los Angeles.

I had often been picked on in school because I was a quiet, soft-spoken nerd who didn’t quite fit in. On this day, I had found a broken pen on the floor near my desk before class started. It didn’t even work, but the student next to me insisted it was his.

He threatened to “sock” me if I did not give him the pen. At that point, I didn’t care whether it was his or if it had materialized out of thin air: I wasn’t giving it to him.

My mom knew I had been bullied often, and I remembered her telling me that I would get in trouble with her if I ever started a fight. However, if someone else started a fight with me, she instructed me to “haul off and kick his a**.”

So, I did.

After he threatened me, I said: “Go ahead, sock me,” knowing that I wouldn’t get in trouble if I fought back. So, he “socked” me, and I followed my mother’s instructions to the letter. It took the teacher and several other students to pull me off him.

We were both suspended. I remember my mother showing up with my uncle after the school called her and told her what happened. She was furious – at the school for suspending me even though I was clearly defending myself. My teacher had even vouched for me. I get a little smile on my face every time I remember how angry she was.

When we got in the car to take me home, my mother, still fuming, turned to me in the back seat and asked, “Well, did you kick his a**?”

I affirmed that I had and then started my involuntary vacation.

Also, I was never bullied at that school ever again.

Why am I telling this story? Because television personality Dr. Phil McGraw reminded me of it when I saw a clip of his speech at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, and it got me thinking.

McGraw discussed how many on the left and anti-Trump right often refer to the former president as a bully because of his brash, pugilistic manner and explained why it was not accurate.

“I may not be an expert in politics, but I am an expert about bullying. Bullying is when you seek to harm somebody, you seek to intimidate, coerce, cause distress, fear, at risk to their well-being. It can be physical, verbal, relational, or cyberbullying. It's always wrong...It is always wrong when you bully somebody.”

He then said that for one to be a bully, “There has to be an imbalance of power. When there’s not, it’s just called a debate. [Trump] is just better at it than anybody else.”

He’s right. In fact, one of the reasons why Trump rose to power in the Republican Party is because the base viewed him as someone who could stand up to the bullies on the left seeking to use the government to force their views on them. He was someone who was not afraid to punch back against left-leaning politicians and media figures who constantly smeared them as hateful, ignorant bigots whose opinions are not worth considering.

It’s this tendency that could lead him to another term in the White House.

But this got me thinking. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump’s manner, why can’t we all take a page out of his playbook when it comes to the government, which is the biggest bully in this country? I have written a multitude of stories about government at the local, state, and federal levels using its power to bully citizens, railroading them for no valid reason.

It’s what happened to the Sullivan family in Georgia when the government falsely accused Corey and Diana Sullivan of abusing their child. The authorities removed their children from their custody and planned to doom them to spending their childhoods in the foster care system. Fortunately, they fought back, and it paid off. The parents have been reunited with their children.

A bodega worker in New York City named Jose Alba became the target of government bullying after he defended himself against an assailant. Even though it was a clear case of self-defense, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office sought to prosecute him. They locked him up in Riker’s and would have tried to put him away for murder if there hadn’t been an outcry coming from the community. He is now suing the city for its tyrannical conduct.

There is also the story of a local Moms for Liberty chapter in Brevard County, Florida, which recently won a lawsuit against the school board for silencing its members when they spoke out against inappropriate material being presented to school children.

In each of these cases, the government sought to exert its power over regular citizens and failed because they fought back against these bullies. Unfortunately, in far too many instances, people in similar positions give up because they do not believe they have the resources or strength to stand up to governments that abuse their authority.

This has got to stop if we want to live in a society that values liberty.

When the government targets innocent people, we need a populace that is willing to mobilize and fight back. The thing about bullies is that they prefer easy targets – ones who will not fight back. Just as I would have continued to be bullied if I hadn’t punched back on that day, the same will continue to happen to citizens if they continue to roll over when government officials throw their weight around.

We live in an era where the government is continually expanding its power and its ability to bully the public. Now, more than any time in recent memory, it is time for us to band together and start pushing back. If we don’t, there will come a time when it is too late.