Well, Jon Stewart has a variety show that's essentially made to parody (and there's nothing wrong with that, since he's show isn't 'serious'), and I don't think I've ever used that word if it wasn't somehow connected or relevant to the actions of the person/group I was referring to and the subject at hand.

Trying to discredit an opponent using fabricated (or not) material, often made especially to take advantage of a negative bias, and quite irrelevant to the issue at hand (e.g. 'accusing' the president of being a muslim) is really one of the chief causes of the decline of modern politics and the modern media. Even the founding fathers, whom you guys idolise so much, would probably be disgusted that the example I gave would even be considered an issue worth noting by the media (considering that back then the media was a chief actor that encouraged rational critical debate regarding politics, as opposed to what exists today).

Also, not all insults count as harassment. For example this guy commited harassment because he chose victims, and then repeatedly posted insulting and disturbing messages in places where he knew his victims would see them, in order to hurt them. Most of the things that go around in the media would fall more in the realm of defaimation, rather than harassment.

I'm guessing you've never read comments about what John Adams and Thomas Jefferson said about each other.

Or ever heard of "Abe Afircanus the First".

http://www.library.illinois.edu/blog/digitizedbotw/2007/09/abraham_africanus_i_his_secret.html

And again, plenty of people, pick targets and repeatidly bash them with harrassing comments, calling them murderers or retarded or whatever and do so in places they know the people will hear them, because the meida will pick up the story and hand deliver it to them even if they try and avoid it.

So, if someone calls you a name... that's more of a crime then hacking the a defense computer responsible for the lives of millions of people, leaving the system more vuleranble to attacks and stealing information and passwords and storing them on your own completely unprotected computer and deleting critical system files which shut down entire networks of computers responsible for national defense including computer systems directly after a major terroist attack.

It's a miracle the consequences of the hack weren't worse.  Though i'm sure plenty of US technitions who had to fix it and the people who's security was broken sure probably felt "harrassed" and plenty of people were probably panicked and scared by the fact that entire networks dedicated to the national defense of the country were suddenly down right after a major terrorist attack.

Abraham Lincoln was not one of the founding fathers, and that pamphlet you presented kinda coicides with the period when the media started going downhill.

I heard that Adamd and Jefferson had issues, but I must admit that I have no knowledge of what went down between them.

Regarding your last paragraph, that could actually be considered slander (or even harassment).

Thomas Jefferson was accused of being black, having an affair with a black woman (granted true, but they probably didn't know that), lots of stuff like that.

John Adams was accused of wanting to set up a dictatorship.

All kinds of more stuff like that.  Politics have always been like that.

Hey i'm not the one that could go to jail over it.

Also uh... nobody committed suicide due to harrasment.

Or at least not due to his harrassment.  He didn't even know any of the girls until after they had died.

He was basically arrested for taunting the parents of children who have died.

She was bullied by classmates because her parents got a divorce... i'm sure the parents divorce played a part in it as well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357144/Natasha-MacBryde-bullied-divorced-parents-dies-rail-track.html

I'd agree what he did as wrong and about as evil as you can get, however not everything "wrong" should be illegal.

Nor should evil people be thrown in jail on BS crimes just because people don't like them.

What I read is that they can control their actions, but they have serious difficulties in social interaction. It can't be "healed", but it can be "cured", helping them in what they have most difficulties with. They know the meaning of what they say or write, but it's possible they don't get the appropriateness or inappropriateness of saying some things in some circumstances. In many case they can even learn the bases of humour, but not fully understand its purpose and when it's appropriate or not. What he did could be due to have mechanically learned the mechanisms of black humour, but not understood when it's inappropriate. His repetitive behaviour in trolling the relatives and friends of dead girls can also be caused by some of the the typical Asperger's communication and behaviour impairments.

Or more likely he was just a heartless jerk who liked mentally torturing people. People with Asperger syndrome can be 'evil', you know.

Perfectly possible in theory, but doctors should visit him and determine it, from the little we know about him, he's not one of those with Asperger that manage to have a normal life, he looks like one of those seriously handicapped in social life and that didn't receive adequate assistance to overcome their problems instead. And if I can't really say whether he's evil or not, I'm 100% sure that the "normal" schoolmates that bullied that poor girl until she committed suicide are actually evil and were totally conscious and willing when they did it, so it makes me furious that judges want to punish that turd that never trolled any of the dead girls when they were alive, he didn't even know them, but let the evil girls that bullied the last victim get away with it. Punishment must be proportional to guilt, those guilty of a more serious offence and with less mitigating factors must receive a heavier penalty, those guilty of a less serious one and with more mitigating factors must receive a lighter one: in this case, bully schoolgirls received NO penalty, so, applying the principle of proportionality, what should be the penalty for the poor turd?