Rep. Sanchez Responds to Criticisms of Cyberbullying Bill
Representative Linda Sanchez has an article over at the Huffington Post responding to criticism of her proposed bill, the Megan Meiers Cyberbullying Prevention Act. She starts off with this nice piece of obfuscation:
“If you were walking down the street and saw someone harassing a child, would you just walk by and look the other way? If that person was telling the child the world would be better off if they just killed themselves, would you ignore it?”
Well … no, but my response probably wouldn’t be to craft an overbroad, facially unconstitutional bill that targets far more than just “cyberbullying.” But then again, I’m not Rep. Sanchez. (For you critical thinkers out there, Sanchez’s rhetorical question is called a false dichotomy.)
Bonus points to Sanchez for including the phrase “so-called free speech” in her article. It really shows her true colors when it comes to the First Amendment.
Also, hat tip to Reason, where you can find a more thorough shellacking of Sanchez’ Maginot Line of an argument. Crossposted at Campus Magazine Online.
Ken – I might suggest that you put on your big boy pants and learn to go the whole night without pissing the bed.
It is unlikely that teasing was the primary cause of Meier’s unfortunate and self-inflicted death. It may have been a catalytic event, but suicidal ideation alone is the kind of thing that tends to build over a long period of time and the girl had, apparently, been under the care of a psychiatrist for a number of years prior to the Lori Dew incident. Is what Dew did wrong? Yes, without question. Is she guilty of harrassment? Probably. But do we need to worry about “teh children” more now, all the time, because OH NOES SOCIETY? Of course not, that’d be falling prey to representativeness bias and we wouldn’t want that. Plus, rubber sheets aren’t very comfortable.
“Only if there are free pitchforks and torches.”
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I dunno if they’re cyberbullies, but I heard Pinky was a communist. Pinko is more like it.
When government goes wild the entire earth becomes a reality show set. I vote Linda Sanchez off the island. Would the insidious ghosts in the Pac-man video game be considered cyberbullies ? We better nail those colorful characters with more hate crime legislation. If the people in Salem were not here to guide and shape and modify the children how would they turn out ? They might own concealed weapon permits someday, or worse yet, they might not be Democrats.
To each according to his need.
Only if there are free pitchforks and torches.
But… but… it takes a village, Tim! Join the collective.
Hey kids, dislike internet trolls ? Then get off your fat asses off the internet and go break some windows or steal some hubcaps or something.