Posted by Samael at 1:02pm May 4 '09the same could be said of RL bullying...I don't think outlawing it solves anything honestly. It's a 1st Amendment violation, and it's pretty ridiculous. Let's outlaw namecalling while we're at it!
I don't know if I agree or disagree with the larger issue yet, but I want to point out that bullying is a hell of a lot more than just name-calling, nor is it first-amendment protected. Bullying is a concentrated, persistent form of aggression intended to terrorize, harass, and/or intimidate someone. It's not remotely the same as name-calling, and can and often does involve physical abuse, sexual harassment, defamation, blackmail, threats of greater harm, etc. The helplessness and fear that victims of bullying experiene isn't just about being called hurtful names, and the experience can serious degrade quality of life and lead to life-long problems, depending on the severity of the bullying.
As someone who still sometimes deals with the fallout of having been bullied when he was younger, I really object to the characterization of bullying as "fee speech" or somehow the same as name-calling. Bullying is far closer to stalking than it is to name calling.
I don't know if I agree or disagree with the larger issue yet, but I want to point out that bullying is a hell of a lot more than just name-calling, nor is it first-amendment protected. Bullying is a concentrated, persistent form of aggression intended to terrorize, harass, and/or intimidate someone. It's not remotely the same as name-calling, and can and often does involve physical abuse, sexual harassment, defamation, blackmail, threats of greater harm, etc. The helplessness and fear that victims of bullying experiene isn't just about being called hurtful names, and the experience can serious degrade quality of life and lead to life-long problems, depending on the severity of the bullying.
As someone who still sometimes deals with the fallout of having been bullied when he was younger, I really object to the characterization of bullying as "fee speech" or somehow the same as name-calling. Bullying is far closer to stalking than it is to name calling.
Not even close. - Samael