Mother's Day gay hating mom gets Slushee poured on her in front of news cameras.

[Gravitycollapse]

41. Physical violence and rhetorical resistance are sometimes blurred...

I feel like I discuss continuums a lot but that is because I believe they are important.

The throwing of a slushy in someone's face exists along a continuum of resistance which at one end is entirely intellectual, lacking even the remotest sense of threat against a person's physical body, and at the other is mindless physical violence. Somewhere in the middle exists a convergence of intellectual resistance and physical action.

In an orderly, lawful society, popular justice is frowned upon because it counters the monopoly on violence to which the state is the sole possessor. But at the same time popular justice can still be legitimate at least on some stateless level and I think we tend to experience sentiment for such action while feeling the conflict it raises with our desire to follow law and order.

With that in mind, is throwing a slushy in the face of an avowed bigot, whose violent rhetoric instills fear and anxiety in the hearts and minds of innocent people, worthy of legal punishment? In technical terms, as we bend towards the monopolization of power by the state, yes it is. But as an act of popular justice, an expression of resistance against the psychic violence delivered blow by blow from a person filled to the brim with absolute hatred for her fellow human beings, I see no wrong done.

I don't think that makes me an asshole. I don't think it makes me noble. I think it means I understand that psychic violence, having an immensely understated potential to do lasting harm, should be countered at every turn.