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Texas Teen Arrested Under New Online Harassment Law
SpaceGhost sends in a story from San Antonio, TX: "Police have arrested a 16-year-old girl on charges of harassment under a new Texas law that took effect September 1, 2009. H.B. 2003 says a person commits a third degree felony if the person posts one or more messages on a social networking site with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten another person. Police say the harassment went on for a few months and involved a dispute over a boy. ... Some people expect legal challenges to the constitutionality of the new Internet law.' The law is evidently a response to the Lori Drew case.
Reminds me of a bit from one of my favorite movies "You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God... and where can you go from there?"
You mix the combination of giant egos with Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory and you end up with some seriously large douches. But the problem with laws like this is they ALWAYS get abused. Look at the 6 year old who was suspended and looking at being sent to a school for juvenile offenders for bring his cub scout multi-tool to school to eat lunch with. Laws like this will be badly abused, and the last thing we need is one of the last bastions of truly free speech turning into a place where you can't speak your mind for fear of getting arrested or sued. I for one would rather have free speech than some bureaucrat deciding whether or not something I said on a forum could take away my freedom, wouldn't you?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The existence of people like that endangers the whole system whereby respect and status are established by means of violence. Consider: an alpha male in the schoolyard has established his position against all rivals by means of fights. He now becomes aware of a subculture that does not respect him for this - they may fear him, but they don't admire him. These people are called 'nerds' and they admire and respect intellectual accomplishment. Or a large collection of Warhammer 40K figures. Either way, they neither admire nor respect the willingness or ability to engage in physical fights. Indeed, they openly disdain it.
This completely undermines his position! This alpha male demands the respect due to him for being so masculine and violent! And so he expresses himself in the only way he knows how: he beats up nerds until he has established to the satisfaction of his peers that he will not tolerate disrespect from inferiors of zero status, from people who have no interest in violence at all.
Looking back on it from a distance of fifteen years or so it's a fascinating sociological study. Thank fuck I'm no longer living in it.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.