If Something Is Only Virtual, Can It Still Be Pried From Cold, Dead Hands?

I don't like guns.

Some of you might read that and immediately jump to the conclusion that I want to ban guns. I don't ... just as I don't want to ban Swiss cheese, junk mail, corduroy pants, or Ke$ha, even though I don't like any of them, either.

It isn't so much the gun part of guns that I don't like, it's the method of convenient destruction that guns offer to those who are looking to conveniently destroy. That's the part I don't like.

I know it takes a person to pull a trigger. I know that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," and I agree with that. Still, guns make it easier. True killers will kill, regardless of the method, but not every killer is a true killer. Instead of being able to point, aim, and fire from 10 feet away in the heat of a given moment, will someone who isn't a true killer still take a life by coming in close and, with a carving knife, gutting their target from thong to throat, if necessary?

I don't think so. The method makes the opportunity more enticing.

In a similar vein, as far as I'm concerned, where have gone guns, so too has gone Facebook. Perhaps not as violently and perhaps not with as much controversy, but certainly with the same kind of damage that is inflicted by irresponsibility, abuse, and a patent disregard for one's fellow man. This is why, as is the case with guns, I don't like Facebook.

Baby recently received an e-mail from another Mommy who was launching a call-to-arms in support of her friend's middle school-aged Daughter, who had recently been the victim of cyber-bullying. The Mommy was rallying troops to attend the next school board meeting in hopes of having the Cyber Bully disciplined via suspension or expulsion. There weren't enough details in the e-mail for me to formulate a solid opinion as to whether cyber-bullying actually had occurred, however, for purposes of this argument, let's take that step and call him a Bully. With that, at the heart of the tale is the Bully's hatred for the Daughter and his expression of that hatred via Facebook. The question I'm left with is, If it weren't for Facebook, would the Bully have bothered the Daughter at all?

We all went to school. While there, we were either bullied or bullies, and if we weren't either, surely we knew one or the other or both. Or, at the very least, we've seen bullies in the movies (Biff Tannen from the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy and Scut Farkas from A CHRISTMAS STORY are two that spring immediately to mind). What makes these traditional bullies different from the cyber bullies of today is the fact that to bully someone old-school, the bully had to be physically present to torment his target. The bully had to actually push a kid on the playground, or take a kid's lunch money, or sting a kid with a rat tail in the locker room, or give a kid an Atomic Wedgie on the bus. An old-school bully actually did something more than type.

Now, this doesn't mean that the bullies of our youth deserve some kind of credit; they don't. What it means is that if a kid is bad, he'll be a bully, period; he doesn't need Facebook to be that bully. But, if a kid doesn't necessarily have it in him to be physically confrontational, does he use the convenient detachment of Facebook to cross a line he wouldn't otherwise cross?

"Eh," you say. "Kids will be kids." Perhaps. But what about the convenient destruction of adults by adults?

Keeping Baby in the story, she recently joined Facebook, not simply because her friends do it, but rather, it seems that once Facebook becomes the primary method of communication among some friends, it is expected to be the sole method of communication among all friends, and if you aren't on, you aren't in. It isn't quite a case of "If you are not with us, you are against us"; it's more like "If you are not with us ... who are you again?"

Part of the Facebook experience involves reconnecting with old high school friends. Baby has done this, with almost unanimously positive results. Almost.

One of those old high school friends - a man who shall remain nameless, but to whom I will refer as "Farmboy" - connected with Baby via Facebook and used, in my estimation, overtly flirtatious and wholly inappropriate language on Day One. Baby's thinking was that Farmboy's language was nothing to be concerned with.

Baby, God bless her, is naive.

I am of the opinion that any man - and, particularly, any married man with children - with whom Baby has had no contact for the last 20+ years, should not use terms of endearment such as "babe" or "darlin'" or "hon" right out of the gate, if ever. And even if you can make the argument that Farmboy's vocabulary is so limited that even his bank teller, his kid's substitute bus driver, and his favorite chain restaurant waitress get the babe-darlin'-hon treatment on a daily basis, you cannot possibly defend him when his immediate response to Baby's lament that a Facebook friend-request of a different male classmate was rejected, was that she should send naked photos of herself to change the rejecter's mind.

That's just me.

Speaking of me, I have no Facebook account. For starters, the last thing I need is to be beholden to one more online thing with a password. Secondly, any social networking site that allows my early morning newscast, my grocer, my employer, and my satellite television service to maintain pages is no longer a social networking site; it's a marketing channel. Why volunteer for one more of those? So, with Baby's permission, I live an occasionally vicarious Facebook existence through her page. I digress.

As weeks and months passed, Farmboy's language remained consistent in its inappropriateness ... until the day when he decided to raise the stakes and invite Baby to engage in online chat that one would consider not flirtatious, but downright dirty. Farmboy seemed to have little regard for the potential impact that this type of behavior might have on his own marriage and family - let alone ours - and Baby quickly shut him down. We've recounted this tale to third parties whose opinions we greatly respect, and all are in agreement with me that Farmboy was, from the outset, on the make, and that he thought Baby was ripe for the picking.

"Eh," you say. "If some guy has such low regard for his own marriage that he's willing to risk it all on a little dirty talk with an old high school acquaintance, maybe his marriage is doomed anyway."

Maybe, but maybe not.

Maybe, if Farmboy was considering some type of extramarital relationship, and he was not faced with the convenient detachment of a social network, but rather the intimate setting of a nightclub or hotel bar, where he might be rejected face-to-face or, worse yet, where he could actually be caught, he might reconsider his situation and look up the number of a marriage counselor.

Maybe, if the pseudo-bully was considering picking on someone not quite his own size, and he was not faced with the convenient detachment of a keyboard, but rather the intimate setting of a playground or gymnasium, where someone might actually fight back, he might reconsider his rage and take it out on a heavy bag.

Maybe, if the not-quite-killer was considering snuffing out the life of another, and he was not faced with the convenient detachment of a gun, but rather the intimate use of hands on a throat, where he would actually have to feel the life drain out of his victim, he might reconsider his path and choose to get help.

Guns don't kill people, just as Facebook doesn't hurt children or end marriages. But guns and Facebook sure do make those jobs easy.