Voicing My Opinion On the Net Is a Felony?

I haven't been on the internet for about a month because apparently my opinion of my school principal was considered a death threat. My only questions are what happened to freedom of speech and how is saying you don't care if somebody dies a death threat? Oh well, feedback is welcome.

Freedom of speech has died I guess. Seems that way in your situation anyways. :\

You're not old enough to have rights and freedoms. And you have to be pretty young to get caught saying something like that on the net.

Freedom of speech has limitations, you cannot yell "FIRE" in a cinema for example.

School systems aren't democratic. Most teachers and staff will pull out that "disrespect" rule, that most systems have, if you say anything negative towards them, even if it's done in a non-vulgar manner.

Most schools are retarded, I wouldn't worry about it.

KingKill33 said:

I haven't been on the internet for about a month because apparently my opinion of my school principal was considered a death threat. My only questions are what happened to freedom of speech and how is saying you don't care if somebody dies a death threat? Oh well, feedback is welcome.

Well OBVIOUSLY if you say a death threat type of thing to a school official, then you'll be in loads of trouble. I learned that the hard way... Sending death notes to some jerk ass in class is a sure fire way to get suspended and/or expelled, yup. :/ Having a clean record at school definatly pays off though, which is how I ended up with one day suspension and minor schedule changes.

Well, like what Gatewatcher says, most schools are retarded and I definatly agree with him.

Your mistake was letting them identify you.

On the 'Net, anonymity is your friend.

Every month or so, I am reminded of all the things I missed by never going to school.

Making a death threat against someone is, in fact, a punishable offense. Also, there's no clear definition of what constitutes a death threat. If you were prosecuted, it would be up to the judge. It would probably just get thrown out of court though.
And yes, freedom of speech, as well as many other freedoms, do no not apply to minors.

How did you get "caught"?

Throughout the years I have been told by countless teachers, to whom i was expressing my opinions to, how since I am in school that the freedom of speech doesnt apply to me. Is it that minors don't have rights or is it that once your on school grounds you have no rights? Because i thought you had freedoms, just not at school.

you know, i had a similar case. a girl at school really pissed me off, and so i wrote her an email explaining how i hated her that i didn't give a shit if she dropped dead. of course, being a musician, i was compelled to write some lyrics down (back in my sucky lyrics days) and some kids read over my shoulder, they reported me, my locked and my writings were raided, the girl said what i expressed in my email, they thought my lyrics were threatening, bam, alternative school, and now i'm a smoker because of it.

you're problem, my friend, is not freedom of speech. it's these zero tolerance policies. they don't fix anything, they cause more problems. the whole concept of zero tolerance is a theory that, like socialism, communism, and the nazi perfect race, doesn't work in reality. most of it is just assenine.

fodders said:

Freedom of speech has limitations, you cannot yell "FIRE" in a cinema for example.

True. Freedom of Speech limits your freedom to use your speech to insult, defame, threaten, incite terror, etc. The "FIRE!" in a crowded cinema was a great example.

Dingus Khan said:

Throughout the years I have been told by countless teachers, to whom i was expressing my opinions to, how since I am in school that the freedom of speech doesnt apply to me. Is it that minors don't have rights or is it that once your on school grounds you have no rights? Because i thought you had freedoms, just not at school.

Minors do not have full "Constitutional" rights. You are not yet an adult in the eyes of the law; until you reach 18 years, you are not legally responisble for anything you do.

fodders said:

...you cannot yell "FIRE" in a cinema for example.

Unless there actually is a fire, I guess.

Dingus Khan said:

Is it that minors don't have rights or is it that once your on school grounds you have no rights? Because i thought you had freedoms, just not at school.

Both. There is a law (act?) called in loco parentis. By this mandate, a school must act "in the role of parents to oversee the health, welfare and morality of their students." This also allows schools to usurp the position of a parent if deemed necessary. I.e. if it is believed that a parents decision may inhibit the child's education and development. So you cant be exempt from sex ed even if your parents are against it, unless the school decides to allow it.
I've actually seen this in action. A friend back in highschool was having constant trouble passing his classes. So the school ordered him to be put on medication, against the will of his parents. Also, one of the guidance counselers advised my girlfriends mother to disallow our relationship because my friends and I were a "bad influence". Same thing happened to one of my other friends.
By the way, this also applies to colleges. even if you are over 18 or 21, if you are boarding there, you are considered to be under the care of the institution. You can be expelled if you commit an act believed to be amoral, provided you have been warned first.

On a related note, the government considers itself in loco parentis over all citizens. This is how we get things like censorship laws and non compus mentus. They can cram you into a mental hosital against your will and the will of your parents. This happened to another good friend of mine. She kind of needed it, but being strapped to a table and pumped full of drugs against her will must have been unpleasant.
I myself was placed under PINS because I was cutting class alot and staying out late 7 days a week. The state ordered that I was not allowed to leave my house after 9pm.

Lizardcommando said:

Well OBVIOUSLY if you say a death threat type of thing to a school official, then you'll be in loads of trouble.

Yes, but he didn't actually say a death threat-like thing did he?

...because apparently my opinion of my school principal was considered a death threat.

I dunno what his opinion was - if he said "You're an asshole!" to this school official, then no, it's not a death threat but it's still a dumb thing to say to a school official.

If he said "I do not think that you are being very fair" or something, then I'd say that the principal is a jerk who apparently used this complaint as some lameass excuse to punish a pupil he didn't like - and if that's the case, he oughta be fired asap. Such people are not worthy of their job and should never have such a job. Unfortunately, we see many examples of people who occupy a job where they don't really belong.

I can do no more than pity you for living in a country that is under conservative dictatorship.

monochrome said:

the whole concept of zero tolerance is a theory that, like socialism,

*buzz* Unusual levels of lack of understanding detected in young, ignorant mind!

AndrewB said:

Every month or so, I am reminded of all the things I missed by never going to school.

And every month, you remind us of this fact by saying it.

________ sucks.

fodders said:

Freedom of speech has limitations, you cannot yell "FIRE" in a cinema for example.

And yet people have done this before, and caused great amounts of trouble while they were at it.

Yeh I think people shouting that it was a terrorist attack and "poison gas" in the E2 club where pepper spray was used is a prime example.

dsm said:

I dunno what his opinion was - if he said "You're an asshole!" to this school official, then no, it's not a death threat but it's still a dumb thing to say to a school official.

Actually it was more along the lines of 'I could care less if my school principal suffers the most horrible death concieved. But a worse punishment would be for him to continue his pathetic life and deal with the avalanche of shit that will eventually bury him.' I guess the avalanche of shit happened because he got sued not too long after I was transferred to a different school.

fodders said:

Yeh I think people shouting that it was a terrorist attack and "poison gas" in the E2 club where pepper spray was used is a prime example.

It was only mace, and besides I heard that the bouncer or whatever the hell he was wasn't supposed to be using mace. Of course, this caused a stampede of massive proportions, and because of high tension here in the States, and some fool using mace when he wasn't supposed to caused lots and lots of people to die.

"You leave your rights at the schoolhouse door"

I knew this one guy who I hung out with who thought I was cool. We had some good times near the end of 9th grade. Then in the first quarter of 10th grade, he wrote this list of all the people who had bullied him in the past and labeled it 'People Who Should Die'. He showed it to a few people including my friend Eric who probably said something like "This is an assinine example of your delusional blah blah blah" and then several more paragraphs of big word like he so likes to do. Then someone overheard this and alerted the authorities. The dude was expelled and no one ever saw him again. Funny thing was that he was on the track team and his mom was a teacher at the Jr. High.

As for Eric, because he heard this and 'witheld the information', he got 3 days suspension. This triggered his parents to take all his black clothes and his nifty vinyl trenchcoat that his dad gave him and throw them away. He was also grounded for a few months and had to dress like a prep for a while. It's funny because he was about to 'go goth' when this happened. Who knows where he'd be now?

This is why I never wrote down anything bad I thought about school or the people in it.

Fredrik said:

I can do no more than pity you for living in a country that is under conservative dictatorship.

Welcome to 1776.

Epyo said:

"You leave your rights at the schoolhouse door"

Wasn't that from Matilda?

probably, but they didn't come up with it. It's been around like forever.