Guest Opionion: Cyber-Bulling And P.C.

Cyber-bullying and political correctness (P.C.) pose a real dilemma for educators and law enforcement officials.

You’ve all read the horror stories of teen suicide supposedly the result of a comment relayed by computer or cell phone. These are sad incidents indeed, but the rush to legislate P.C. by prohibiting any message that could be construed as “offensive” is not the answer. The bullying issue has come up in Montana in each legislative session since 2005. So far Montana has wisely not jumped on the P.C. bullying bandwagon.

Let’s get one thing straight from the get-go. Physical bullying is assault and is therefore illegal. Offenders should be vigorously prosecuted—but that’s not what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about here is verbal bullying via computer/phone. No physical contact or threats of such contact. This would include comments that the subject of these epithets is “fat”, “gay” or a “nigger”. This type of bullying almost always falls into one of three categories: sexual orientation, race or physical appearance.

This kind of verbal abuse is offensive and immature. It should not be encouraged in any way, but should it trigger criminal sanctions?

A number of states and school districts have done just that—raised purely verbal insults to the level of offenses punishable in criminal court or by school authorities (suspension, etc.). It’s a knee-jerk reaction to suicide supposedly prompted by verbal attacks, but is it really necessary or desirable?

Much cyber-bullying is subjective. If a teen is called “fat” or “gay” is that offensive enough to merit punishment? What if a teen is called “obese” or “homosexual”? How about “heavy” or “alternative sexual preference”? Where do you draw the line? What verbal abuse is so serious it deserves punishment by society?

We are raising a generation of thin-skinned namby-pambies.

When I was a kid I was subjected to the “worst” verbal abuse, literally. Having a surname of “Best” made this inevitable. I had a neighbor girl who was called “big maggots”. That’s about as offensive as you can get! Neither of us committed suicide and I’d like to think we survived that childishness intact.

Kids nowadays don’t communicate eye-ball to eye-ball. Teen communication is now by computer or phone-texting.

Young people live in an electronic world. They depend on this artificial media for their self-image. Rather than ignoring this electronic abuse and carrying on, these young people allow a computer device to define who they are.

Instead of seeking legislation that censors our communication we need to teach them to “suck it up” and go on with their lives. If we allow strictly verbal insults to trigger punishment we invite censorship by “politically correct” evaluators. What’s next—putting a censoring device on every computer and phone in America? Who will these P.C. censors be? What criteria will they apply?

Trying to censor verbal communications is a step toward “The Brave New World”. We already have too much government interference in our lives. Let’s not worsen it by promoting additional intrusions into our lives.