"She said: 'You can't go around insulting politicians, abuse is not acceptable.'" But such was the unpopularity of Foot's Labour party in 1983, the election result was already a foregone conclusion ("We could have a put a big sign up in Piccadilly Circus saying 'Fuck Off' and still won," Bell later noted).
If half the world is bullying you, mistreating you, ignoring you, insulting you, and abusing you, what other conclusion can you reach but that you deserve to be bullied, mistreated, ignored, insulted, and abused?
I no longer retweet insults made to me for the simple reason that the tirade of abuse those insulting me would receive on my behalf might constitute bullying.
But attitudes and emotions cannot be legally defined and legislated against – so this week Stonewall launched a new "No Bystanders" campaign, urging not just schoolchildren but all of us to challenge or report any homophobic abuse or insulting language.
The Mr Bean star and his fellow campaigners (who include Tory MP David Davis) say the act, which outlaws "threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour", is being abused by police and prosecutors.
[PE KA 2011 (A)] Earlier it was not so that whenever we came across someone hitting the other, someone abusing, someone insulting, someone else is involved in quarrel, we were not able to contact each other or see each other, but now we people are able to cooperate each other…Now we are not afraid of police even, we can argue with them even to some extent.
Less extreme "author abuse" – demeaning and insulting speech targeted at the writer of the article or another comment – is much more common on all online news sites, and it formed a significant proportion of the comments that were blocked on the Guardian site, too.
The WHO surveys also asked women whether their partner had engaged in emotional abuse (e.g., insulting them, belittling or humiliating them, intimidating or scaring them, or threatening to harm them).
But there is another issue that some activists find deeply insulting: the insinuation that the sex abuse crisis is essentially over, and that the church has cleaned house.
Emotional abuse may include criticizing, insulting, blaming, belittling, withholding affection, threatening, gaslighting, humiliating or stonewalling in order to gain and maintain power and control in the relationship.
