Nathan,
3. Michele Catalano’s use of “mean,” “nasty,” and “hurtful” and the like minimizes Lori Drew’s darker and, frankly, murderous plotting, and the acute sufferings of the victim. I find it despicable that certain bloggers (including a favorite one of mine) are so concerned with this “precedent.” Really–do they really feel that millions of Americans will now find themselves facing criminal charges for not revealing their real names on their comment posts? And is people’s right to post anonymous comments on blogs really something so substantial next to the tragic death of a thirteen year-old girl anyway?
Bad cases make for bad law. The federal government has no way of consistently enforcing the violations that this precedent could create, thus making its enforcement selective. Selective enforcement tends to by abused by those with an agenda or an axe to grind, thus reducing the society’s rule of law to rule of men.
Why is the death of one teenage girl so serious that you would change an unrelated law just to get a half-assed justice for her? If you want to prevent this, then get the legislature to pass an appropriate, clearly-written law. Contortions of the law breed injustice, but you seem to care not for the injustice that “getting justice” in this one situation could create.
Your position reminds me a lot of the gun grabbers who say “are gun rights worth the lives of children,” and who never gauge the fact that gun control will save some children, but it will kill others as well. As always, causality is not one dimensional; one cause can have multiple, separate outcomes as it effects ripple outward into the world.
