I have heard about something called "the good ol' days," during which if you and a bully got dragged into the principal's office, the principal would hold the bully while you whaled on him. then everybody got a day off to think about it, so you could watch cartoons and eat ice cream and popcorn all day. never lived in them. how'd it work? can we try that instead of "no second chance" silliness?

I'm frightened to think of what the world will be like when today's generation of coddled infants reaches adulthood and still expect to be sheltered and protected from themselves. With any luck, though, this new bullying law will self-destruct as soon as it realizes that the law itself is bullying students, and therefore must punished itself.

This law is not about someone teasing someone else over a movie girlfriend or coddling a young kid -- it is in response to significantly more serious action, often against physically or emotionally vulnerable kids, that has led to suicides, and lifelong psychiatric trauma. swschrad: you're advocating, like Lileks, responding to bullying with more bullying - more or less like street-gang behavior. Yeah, that really stops one gang from whacking the other. It's unfortunate Lileks adopts the immature stance on something like this. Lives are at stake. Leave the commentary to the mature.

Never thought I'd agree with something in the Strib, but wow, this is right on. More proof of liberal insanity at work. Yet another attempt to 'legislate' their desired utopian vision where no can ever be 'offended' or have their feelings 'hurt'. This entire mess needs to be thrown out. Maybe now you see why the current law has so few words, yet bans true bullying in all schools. Just say 'no' to this ridiculous new proposed law.

Good essay, Jim. Vague laws trying to regulate ill-defined behavior are idiotic. Schools should become involved when harassment and / or assault happens on school property and is reported to them. I'm not sure I fully agree with you that phones shouldn't be banned from school. I understand what you are saying about the ability to communicate with your child, but that could be solved with limiting phones to voice and text only. Why does a child need a camera on their phone??, and why does a child need internet access on their phone?? These things serve no usefull purpose for a child, except to encourage irresponsible behavior.

teasing is something we all can recover from, and most can give as good as they get. However, bullying is relentless targeting, without rational solutions for the one who is bullied, to the point that it overshadows all else that happens for the one that is targeted. People report much less to HR, avoid others or switch jobs when it happens in a work place, but there is no where to hide and schools are not as easily switched as jobs.

There is a middle ground we should be seeking here. Not all laws are bad, only overreaching poorly thought out ones like these. Bullies exist and they have never, nor will they ever, regulate themselves. And expecting every victim of a bully to tough it out by themselves is to deny reality. Not every body has the ability and the support to handle the cruelty of others, especially when it escalates beyond one on one teasing. It is the school's job to make sure it has a safe environment for all it's students and unfortunately there are still some schools where some teachers and some administrators think more about covering their own backsides than doing their jobs and protecting their students.

Btw, I've often thought there should be an independent office within each branch of legislature, nationally as well as locally, which reviews each proposed bill before it is presented for a vote. The office would include a logician and an English teacher. They would interview the author(s) to determine the intent of the bill after which they would examine the bill to see if its internal logic is sound and if it actually says what the author(s) meant. If the bill fails to clearly state what the author(s) meant it to say and only what the authors meant it to say, the committee would have the power to block it from being presented until a properly written version was submitted. It is amazing to me how many bills have to be "fixed" after they passed because of unintended consequences resulting from the author(s) inability to write a simple sentence. Maybe wanna be legislators should have to Pass a literacy test before they can run for office.

These types of laws will lead to kids or parents crying "bullying" at any perceived slight. Save it for the real events.