Federal Anti-Bullying Law

[Middleman]

Focus on the Family is for focusing on families that adhere to their indoctrination that gays are bad for the family.
Anyone that would listen to that bunch of hypocrits is a zombie.

So, the socially liberal folk never engage in indoctrination, are never hypocritical, nor do they ever possess zombie-like characteristics?

 

[Madeline]

Liberalism embraces diversity. You wanna teach your child to hate? Pay for a private school.

 

[Peach]

I disagree that bullying cannot be controlled. Of course it can, and likely is to a degree now. Most all anti-social behavior can be curbed with appropriate sanctions.

The only way behavior like bullying can be changed is to remove the positive reinforcement the bullier gets from their peer group. Punishment only enhances peer group standing, thus rewarding the anti social behavior.

*****************************************
True.

 

[Katzndogz]

Federal anti bullying statutes are designed for one purpose and one purpose only. To eliminte double jeopardy protections.

 

[chanel]

More than 200 school districts in the state are spending more than $2 million this year to implement the state’s new anti-bullying law, according to survey results released Thursday by the New Jersey School Boards Association.

That’s twice what the state Legislature and Gov. Chris Christie agreed Wednesday to put into a state Bullying Prevention Fund, and raises questions about whether, even with the new money, the law might still be considered unconstitutional under the State Mandate/State Pay provision.

Survey respondents also said implementing the law without spending even more money has meant taking staff away from other duties.

“There has been a ripple effect on other services,” said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the School Boards Association.

Counseling has been the area most affected, since counselors were most likely to have been the ones assigned to investigate reports of bullying.

Respondents were evenly split on whether the law has had a positive effect on school climate and reduced bullying.

School districts say state's anti-bullying law costs at least $2 million to implement - pressofAtlanticCity.com: Breaking News

$2 million a year, and the jury is out whether it is effective or CONSTITUTIONAL.

This shit has got to stop.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Seems to me that the vast majority of proposed anti-bullying legislation ranges from pointless to dangerous. There's already laws against harassment. If someone is blowing up your phone and you don't like it, you can already take legal action for that. Perhaps a few of the anti-harassment laws should be updated to include harassment via email and social networking, but even that doesn't seem to me to require much meddling from the government level (state -or- federal). I especially wouldn't support doing even -that- in a way that allowed for more government intrusion into peoples' private internet correspondence. There's also laws against committing acts of physical violence against others. Ultimately, it seems to me that bullies who press the issue directly against the target of their bullying are already crossing legal and school-based rules of conduct. How are more laws supposed to stop this?

If the bullying isn't directed at the target (i.e., the kid being bullied has already made use of the ignore function on their social networking and instant messaging sites and now the bully is just talking trash about the target to those people who -are- still subscribing to his/her Twitter account) then I would argue that legal action would be ridiculous. If I'm not actually harassing someone directly, I should be able to say whatever I want about them to my friends/acquaintances. Not because I'm a big shit talker, but who knows? Maybe at some point I'm going to want to talk some shit. I have that right.

What this proposed legislation (and much of the proposed anti bullying legislation does) is attempts to define certain speech as damaging/dangerous, and then condone the government taking action against said speech. If you folks that are crusading to round off all the soft plastic corners on the playground equipment don't see a potential problem with the Republicans and the Democrats being able to define speech as dangerous and then take legal action against it, you need to stop wearing those dark shades indoors.

Now get this. I'm not saying that every kid can just pop their bully(ies) in the nose and put a stop to it, mind you. That said, I do think that we need to realize and accept that no amount of government social engineering is going to stop bullying. Ever. There always have been bullies and there always will be bullies. Unleashing pent up aggression against convenient targets as a reaction to shitty, or perceived shitty things happening to the pent up aggressor is a pretty common function of human psychology. People were bullies in my day in school, too, and this idea that the internet has made it worse is ridiculous. The internet has made more bullying verbal. Lemme let you in on a little secret: A bully who's currently typing about what a faggot someone is doesn't have his hands free to stuff them into a locker. If kids weren't offing themselves back then, maybe we might take a look into what kinds of kids we're dealing with.

In my day we also had steel jungle gyms 10 feet high. Fall through those two or three times as a kid and you get an instant lesson in the profundity of "sticks and stones". More parents were quicker to the belt section of the closet when you f'ed up, too. There was actually a time when the common forms of parenting introduced a child, at a very young age, to the very real probability that, in life, you're going to come up against people and situations that are quite capable of dominating you. These days more and more parenting is devolving to child leashes, time out, and "We don't like little Timmy to play with things like toy guns and militant action figures because we try to keep him away from activities that promote aggression." I hate to break this to you helicopter parent types out there, but once that kid hits 18 (assuming he doesn't down a bottle of aspirin all one time to avoid having to deal with the emotional fallout of some mean words) they're stuck in the real world, and even in modern society, the real world is competitive and cold. In real life, everyone doesn't get a trophy.

This last bit's going to sound totally non humanitarian, but fuck it, here goes. Any child that offs themselves because of the mean things bullies at school said to them is too soft for the real world. Period. It's still sad when any kid dies, but the blame doesn't fall on the law or even the bully. The only blame for that child's death that falls anywhere other than on the hand with which that child took their own life, is on that child's parents for not properly preparing that child for the hardship that is life. It's a cold, cruel fact, but a fact, that when you don't prepare your child for real life, you make them a strong candidate for natural selection. Sad though it may be, the suicides these days that are in response to bullies are survival of the fittest working as intended.

 

[theHawk]

So you can't make fun of or bully based on:

race;
‘(II) color;
‘(III) national origin;
‘(IV) sex;
‘(V) disability;
‘(VI) sexual orientation;
‘(VII) gender identity; or
‘(VIII) religion;

Guess that means you can still bully someone of your own race/gender.

Kids usually get bullied because they are smaller or perceived as 'weak'. Don't see anything in there to stop that.

 

[Katzndogz]

The issue isn't state laws against bullying. The issue is Federal Laws against bullying. This is a way for the federal government to get around double jeopardy protections afforded under the Constitution. A person can be found innocent of violating state bullying laws, then find themselves charged for violating federal laws and retried. The additional benefit is, the feds already know exactly what the defense case is, and can design a prosecution to address each issue that resulted in an acquittal and make sure of a guilty verdict.

It is exactly what was done to the officers accused of excessive force in the Rodney King case.