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Comment by hk | Hacker News Reader

Huh? You think that spitting on someone should be illegal!?

I don't understand what you mean, anyway. You don't like his business, you don't like his writing, but you have all sorts of cares for him? Er .. why? What would he have to do to make you finally relinquish your sympathy?

In my book, a man is but the sum of his actions. I can't stand Arrington's actions, therefore I can't stand him, ergo I have no sympathy for the hatred his actions have engendered amongst sum.

And one more thing - the man who spat in his face may be contemptible, but it doesn't doesn't fit my model of how "cowards" behave either. The coward would be writing spiteful comments anonymously on blogs. Walking up to someone and spitting in their face takes balls, IMO. Not exactly my preferred means of communication but it certainly got the point across.

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You think that spitting on someone should be illegal!?

Yes, spitting on someone is illegal.

Fun game: stand on a busy street corner and spit on everyone who walks by. If you're arrested before you're crippled, you win.

How about that, it is illegal, at least in the US and some other places. I had no idea. I disagree, too; it's highly distasteful but shouldn't actually be criminal - but that's getting off topic.

Anyway I stand corrected.

It's assault, plain and simple. --How can you justify doing that to someone?

Assault is punished by law according to physical consequence. If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't.

There are no physical consequences to being spat on by a healthy person (if they are sick and do so knowingly to infect you, that is completely different). It is an insult, a grotesque one, but an insult none the less, and should be treated as such by law.

If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't.

That is not necessarily true. Commission of verbal assault can land a person in jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_...

The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

I am not a lawyer, but I believe this doctrine has essentially not been enforced in recent memory. The subsequent paragraph to the one you quoted steadily showed it being rejected by those who attempted to bring it before the court in the US.

There are fresh fighting-words arrest-reports, here: http://news.google.com/news?q=%22fighting+words%22+arrested

the test for assault is that a reasonable person would fear for their safety or life

the test for battery is that you harmfully or offensively touched someone or something on them

i think spitting would fall under both for most juries..

And if the spitter has, say, hepatitis?

If someone with an infectious disease knowingly infects another, whether it be by unprotected sex without disclosure or by spitting, then that is malicious intent to harm and is already well covered by law.

And what if they didn't know they had a disease? It doesn't matter - forcing someone to share your bodily fluids in such an aggressive manner should be a crime. And of course the punishment should fit the crime, but at a minimum, spitting is equal to minor physical assault.

I've started some dumb comment threads here, but I'm humbled by this one.

Spitting in someone's face and then standing your ground to accept the consequences takes balls. Running away is, almost by definition, cowardice.

I think spitting in someone's face is by definition cowardice.

I'm inclined to disagree. If you view cowardice as avoiding confrontation, I fail to see how blatantly spitting in someone's face meets the criteria.

"You think that spitting on someone should be illegal!?"

As noted it is illegal in most countries.

"I don't understand what you mean, anyway. [...] What would he have to do to make you finally relinquish your sympathy?"

Something a great deal worse than writing articles that do not much interest me. I find it incomprehensible that someone could find a matter of mere taste to be sufficient justification for a crime.

"And one more thing - the man who spat in his face may be contemptible, but it doesn't doesn't fit my model of how "cowards" behave either."

Your definition of bravery is not one I have any respect for then.

Not "most" countries. I am not sure it is even "many" countries. And whether something is illegal is not an argument for whether it should be illegal - see Saudi Arabia.

I don't remember defining bravery anywhere? I simply said that in my opinion, most "cowards" don't consummate their cowardice by walking up to big guys (Arrington is a big guy) and spitting on them.

I don't think that's necessarily right.

Anyone motivated enough to take an "extreme" action against someone else (eg spitting on them) could be argued that they are not necessarily in a right frame of mind and more or less going to do it regardless of circumstances.

Exhibit A - the guy who threw shoes at then President Bush.. there were secret service all over that place.

Without knowing who did it, or for what reason, I'd be fairly confident in betting that at no point did Michael's size come into the equation.

I think technically that spitting in someone's face would be considered assault. Not 100% sure on that, though.

Nah, not assault. At least, in my country neighbouring Germany (Belgium) spitting in someone's face is considered a 'verbal insult' for legal reasons.

In the U.S. it is assault.

Yeah, as jraines said, I only know about here in the US. Have no knowledge of other countries.

Violence is not a matter of sympathy.

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