Mike T is a fundamentalist Christian, there for he hates Muslims.

Awww, ain’t that cute. You’re learning basic Greek logic. Honey, you forgot to end your little logic proof with “QED.”

I don’t know about that. Applying Sturgeon’s Revelation, I’m sure 90% of such laws are garbage, but that’s probably because 90% of all legislation is garbage.

//Whether I hurt your feelings, however, depends entirely on your self-reporting of your internal state. I think this is the only reasonable position to take (and for this reason I don’t think there should be IIED torts, for example). Overt threats of violence are already punishable as assault, and I am not sure we can go much beyond that and maintain any objectivity at all.//

In the case of intentional infliction of emotional distress, the line wouldn’t seem all that hard. Would a jury find that the defendant’s conduct was such that (1) a reasonable person in the defendant’s shoes would have expected it to cause distress which could have been avoided, (2) a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s shoes would have suffered distress from it, and (3) it seems that the distress that would have been suffered by a reasonable person was in fact suffered by the defendant.

The standard isn’t entirely unlike that for tangible torts. Someone who is wronged has a duty, before suing, to mitigate damages. Suppose, for example, that a plumber installs a sink improperly and it leaks so as to create a visible puddle on the floor, but the homeowner simply ignores the problem until the floor is rotted away and collapses under its own weight. In such a case, the plumber should only be held liable for the amount of damage that a jury would expect to have occurred had the homeowner acted reasonably.

This seems true on the surface, but doesn’t apply well in the real world. Take, for a counterexample, the two Koreas, which were literally formed by an arbitrary line through a homogenous population, and the radically different courses they have taken subsequently under different leadership. While people can have a role in shaping the state, Orwell emphasize over and over that the reverse is also the case. The world is full of examples where large majorities were effectively dominated by small minorities: the Aztec empire, the antebellum American south. the Mongol empire, Saddam-era Iraq, the British Raj… In fact, it’s often the status quo in non-democratic nations that the majority ethnic or cultural group is powerless and disenfranchised.

I should have legal redress?

Hire better teachers and principals. I’m a teacher myself and won’t tolerate any form of harassment or bullying. Even if I overhear something in the halls by students I have no direct contact or relationship with, I will step in. Am I the exception? Probably. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done well. Or shouldn’t be done. You are right that far too often far too little is done. Or, if anything is done, it is counterproductive to the stated aims. That is a problem in and of itself which also needs immediate and immense fixing.

Police? Many of them are just grownup bullies. Prosecutors are often *smart* grownup bullies.

Egypt’s is no more a democracy than Russia.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an extremely powerful organization in Egypt. Russia has no faction both with such popular support and with such long reach into government that it leaves Putin genuinely afraid of getting assassinated if he really crosses it.

It doesn’t really matter whether or not Egypt meets the same standard as we apply to our own system or that of our democratic allies. The fact is that states reflect the nature of the people. A state is corrupt because the people are corrupt. A state violently persecutes minorities because that is something which is part of the cultural views of the majority of people. Governments are formed from the general public. There’s never a people better than their government or a government better than its people.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/maryland/prince-georges-officers-suspended-after-cruiser-used-in-robbery-010711#

Sure. And if something emotionally distressing “hits you” it will affect you. Some people are just better than others at not getting “hit”*.

Emotional and intellectual responses are governed by the laws of physics, same as anything else that happens.

*There are many emotional/intellectual defense techniques, just like there are many physical defense techniques. Self-deception is probably the most common form, particularly the exact technique you mentioned earlier: dismissing something that is said because of the source (convincing yourself that the source of something that is said has anything to do with whether it is true or not and whether, if true, it should be hurtful).

“At common law, and in most U.S. jurisdictions, when it comes to physical injuries, you take your victim as you find him and you are responsible for the direct consequences of your actions.”

Well, sure. And you’re responsible for any emotional distress you (unfairly) cause someone. It’s true they could “toughen up” and just brush it off, but as has been pointed out, the same is true in terms of physical violence. The real thing of import is that people who go around physically assaulting people are countered with force because they shouldn’t be doing that, and the fact that they shouldn’t be doing that isn’t reducible to physics. You shouldn’t go swinging a knife around at a guy even if you think he can “take it” (or indeed, even if he really can), at least not without his explicit consent. Likewise people who go around emotionally molesting or abusing or harrassing or deceiving or betraying other people shouldn’t be doing that, and it’s perfectly fine to use their tools against them (within reasonable proportion). Sometimes that won’t lead to a perfectly just solution; sometimes a bully might be a completely emotionally stunted, shameless sociopath who can’t be affected by anything. And occasionally you’ll get a suicidally fearless murderer who honestly doesn’t give a shit if you kill him. Such is life.

Egypt’s is no more a democracy than Russia.

As to physical fragility, the law in general is different than you are implying. At common law, and in most U.S. jurisdictions, when it comes to physical injuries, you take your victim as you find him and you are responsible for the direct consequences of your actions. The classic case is the thin skull where someone strikes another person with his fist, that person has an (unapparent) think skull and dies. You’re responsible, but here you are talking about direct, necessary consequences of your actions (necessary in the sense of causation, if A then B, rather than existentially necessary).

I agree they have their limits. So do violent responses to physical force. You can’t, for instance, bring a murder victim back to life. And you probably can’t put an end to rape, robbery, murder, and all the rest of it – there’s a point at which all possible continued effort in that direction is itself immoral or harmful, at which point you can’t fight evil without destroying good.

We live in a finite universe in which entropy is the only ultimate victor. We can’t eradicate assholery (or predatory violence, or institutional injustice, or. . . ), but we can “strive ever more boldly against it”.

So it really comes down to a matter of what we expect people to be able to brush off and what we expect people to reasonably expect safety from. We don’t expect people to be able to fend off determined knife attacks – that’s extremely difficult, and nobody has any legitimate business going after another person with a knife unless lethal force is otherwise justified. We do expect people to not crumble over and crack their head open every time someone breathes in their direction, and we expect that they’ll accept responsibility for pain and injuries they incur as fair and proportionate responses to their own actions. Likewise we should expect people to not emotionally crumble over silly slights or offenses or misunderstandings, but there’s still an obligation on everyone’s parts to not be deliberate assholes or bullies.

There might be understandable reactions, or reactions that you think you would have in that situation, but there is absolutely nothing that mandates a certain reaction. Contrast that with physical attacks where there are necessary physical consequences (e.g., cuts and bruises).

Perhaps you have the ability to do that but not necessarily everyone does. The fact is, you will hear it and it will impact you, even if only so far as making the mental effort to ignore it. Now, we should not be free of impact by others. But to act as if we can insulate ourselves from it through sheer force of mind seems a bit absurd.

I’d be curious if anyone who works in mental health or psychology could weigh in.

(Really enjoying the conversation, by the way, even though not necessarily agreeing. I appreciate the thoughtful responses and engaging the whims of my mental musings.)

Interesting take. But how does one stop emotional threats through intellectual or emotional force? I can think of some examples, but they all have their limits.