Reactionary laws do little to help society.  You can read my original rant on the subject here.  After a tragedy of some sort occurs, we often turn to legislation to “right the wrong” or fix the problem so that something similar doesn’t happen to someone else in the future.  However, like most legislation, the usual result is a law that restricts freedom and does almost nothing to prevent tragedy from recurring.

Lady Gaga has the most followers of any twitter user.  Now, she is starting a trend to #MakeALawforJamey.   This trend is referencing a teen named Jamey who committed suicide as a result of bullying.  So, she thinks we should make bullying illegal because she thinks of it as a hate crime.

Bullying is terrible.  Some of it can be downright cruel.  But, making it illegal will do nothing to solve the problem or bring Jamey back.  Kids won’t stop bullying other kids because it’s illegal.  They already know it’s wrong.  What should we do?…send our kids to jail?  Bullying is alrady against the rules and that doesn’t stop them.  We don’t need to make school more like prison than it already is. Bullying is, unfortunately, normal childhood behavior that cannot be corrected by more legislation.  But, Lady Gaga is a force to be reckoned with.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets her way.

It’s about time for a twitter update.  Last week, I posted about a thread discussion trend thingie (I don’t know what these are called on twitter. It’s the thing that starts with the # sign).  It interests me that people are randomly posting things that annoy them and tagging them to twitter.  You can search for this and see all of the things that people think should be illegal.  See how many of these would turn you into a criminal if the general public got its way:

• Really noisy car engines (this is actually illegal in most municipalities)
• Small cars in parking spaces that make you think there’s an empty parking space until you get up to it
• Jeans with rips and holes
• Cigarettes (see my post about this)
• Big people who wear little clothes
• Fake tan (C’mon.  This is the only way some of us can get a tan).
• Men’s volleyball
• Tractor pulls

Please remember that most of these people aren’t really serious when they’re posting this stuff.  But, it’s not that far off.  I post every day about ridiculous things that people get into trouble for.  If any of the posters on this twitter trend become elected officials, you may be getting into trouble for these things one day!

It’s just an interesting social observation to get on twitter and see the things that people wish were banned.  Very interesting.

I’m just now getting familiar with twitter.  I know there’ a learning curve like everything, so please forgive me if I don’t explain this correctly.  Today, when I was stumbling around twitter, I found the phrase #ThingsThatShouldBeBanned.  I looked at the things people had tagged with that intro and saved the search.  I can’t resist it.

I don’t know if these people are serious or just being silly (probably a little of both), but I hope some of them read my book and figure out that we don’t need MORE RULES.  I plan to share these things from time to time as an example of how our society tries to deal with annoyances and problems — by making laws.  I just want  you to imagine your life if some of these things eventually did get banned:

• stupidity
• guys and skinny jeans
• Southern Cross tattoos
• one word text messages
• people who can’t spell
• plastic bags
• Uggs
• eating in class
• smoking cigarettes
• drinking alcohol

I think I’ll tweet #ThingsThatShouldBeBanned — banning more things.