I keep reading about how New Jersey wants to pass new legislation against bullying. In the news today I read about an "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights" but the articles were short on details, so I had to look for the text, which I found here. Most of the very long bill deals with restrictions on who the schools can employ, along with innumerable new training requirements, reporting requirements, requirements that schools hire "anti-bullying specialists" who shall investigate any reported act of bullying, etc.

As to what it is that constitutes bullying, the bill adds electronic communications:

"Electronic communication" means a communication transmitted by means of an electronic device, including, but not limited to, a telephone, cellular phone, computer, or pager;

"Harassment, intimidation or bullying" means any gesture, any written, verbal or physical act, or any electronic communication that is reasonably perceived as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or a mental, physical or sensory [handicap] disability, or by any other distinguishing characteristic, that takes place on school property, at any school-sponsored function or on a school bus and that:

a. a reasonable person should know, under the circumstances, will have the effect of physically or emotionally harming a student or damaging the student's property, or placing a student in reasonable fear of physical or emotional harm to his person or damage to his property; [or]

b. has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of students in such a way as to cause [substantial] disruption in, or [substantial] interference with, the orderly operation of the school;

c. creates a hostile environment at school for the student; or

d. infringes on the rights of the student at school.

Of course, I am not a student in the New Jersey public school system, so I don't need to be personally worried about this particular bill.

What I find more ominous is a Republican-sponsored (I checked; yes they are) bill to change New Jersey's harassment law, the text of which is here. It adds "communication which is made anonymously or otherwise by means of an electronic communication device" to the existing definition of harassment, which is a criminal offense:

This bill amends the existing harassment statute; N.J.S.2C:33-4, to criminalize cyber-harassment which occurs when offenders use the Internet or other forms of electronic communication to commit these offenses.

Currently, N.J.S.2C:33-4 provides that a person who makes, or causes to be made, a communication "anonymously or at extremely inconvenient hours, or in offensively coarse language, or any other manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm" is guilty of harassment, a petty disorderly persons offense. This bill provides that a communication which is made anonymously or otherwise by means of an electronic communication device for the purpose of harassing another person shall constitute a petty disorderly offense. Under the bill, the term "electronic communication device" is defined as including, but not limited to, a telephone, cellular telephone, computer, computer network, computer system, video recorder, facsimile machine or pager.

(Were I a more fearless bigot, I'd say "Wake up you stupid New Jersey morons!")

That's a pretty broad definition of harassment. And I don't have to be in New Jersey to violate the law. Any blog post I might write here in Ann Arbor, or any comment left here on my blog from anywhere in the world, could subject me to criminal prosecution in New Jersey:

A communication under subsection a. of this section includes, but is not limited to, the posting of a photographic images or other descriptive material on an Internet website, or the sending of a telephonic message, electronic mail, text message or similar type of electronic message or communication, by means of an electronic communication device. "Electronic communication device" includes, but is not limited to, a telephone, cellular telephone, computer, computer network, computer system, video recorder, facsimile machine or pager. A communication under subsection a. may be deemed to have been made either at the place where it originated or at the place where it was received.

Or, how about criticizing New Jersey drivers? (I have done just that on this blog!) Who decides what is "likely to cause annoyance or alarm"? Does anyone know what an annoyance is? And what if I am annoyed by a comment that someone leaves? Would I be allowed to bring charges? And if you think that's outrageous, suppose I answer a commenter in a manner which he finds annoying. Have we not both violated the law if either I or the commenter posts or reads it in New Jersey?

I worry that the country is headed towards a ridiculous state of affairs in which no one has any rights because everyone has the right not to be annoyed. I have written a couple of posts about this, but I thought the proposition was so ridiculous on its face as to not merit serious consideration. In one such post, I asked whether I imposed upon PETA when I ate pork (an "offense" I openly admitted in my blog).

It never even occurred to me that PETA activists might be able to complain that because I had offended them, I was guilty of the crime of harassment.

Perhaps this isn't as funny as I thought. Not only do I tend to take freedom of speech for granted, but it has always struck me as patently ridiculous that my right to conduct my personal life as I see fit (along with my right to express opinions about it) cannot reasonably be seen as interfering with the rights of anyone else, unless I require them to do something.

Last night I amused myself by sarcastically quoting John Stuart Mill in a selective manner:

...it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance.

Mill said the above not to agree with it, but in order to attack it.

In light of the expansion of the "right" not to be offended, I thought I should supply the whole Mill quote, which was emailed to me by a friend. So here it is:

A theory of "social rights" [is] nothing short of this-that it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever...The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each claimant according to his own standard.

Mill is right. There is no better way to get rid of all freedom than to do it in the name of "rights."