Dumb and Dangerous

Here is a story of a woman - bullied as a girl - that spent her adult life working toward getting a law passed to outlaw bullying in schools -

Called the "Safe School Climate Act," it was signed by the governor over the summer and school districts must implement it by next month.

"This law is a big step for South Carolina, and it creates more awareness for staff and teachers to identify bullying and tell students that it's wrong," Reese said.

Here is yet another example of a "feel good" law with good intentions that is unnecessary and damaging to society as a whole. Here we see the notion that there is a problem and only government can solve it.

After all, has bullying ever been ok really? If teachers, principals and school districts were allowed to take real action this would not be an issue for the state to resolve. When I was a child you were punished at school for bad behavior (paddling) then something much worse occurred - they sent a note home and your could be certain the punishment there would be worse.

Why not pass a law that says something to the effect that the public does not have to educate our children - if parents want to send their children to public schools they better know the rules. Some of those rules should include the ability to paddle and expulsion for particularly bad children.

This Safe School Climate Act nonsense will lead to ridiculous situations like this scenario - one little girl calls another little girl "stupid", what are the teachers to do? Call the police? How ridiculous. Punish the name-caller and get over it. You do not need a state law to correct that.

This is indicative of an attitude that the government has all of the answers and can correct all problems - that is a dangerous attitude.