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In reply to the discussion: Woman who threw slushie on Matt Gaetz at Pensacola event sentenced to 15 days in prison [View all]Jedi Guy
(3,185 posts)If the person doing the yelling makes a threat of some kind (e.g., I'm gonna beat your ass!) then yeah, I can see that qualifying as assault, since it's a threat of imminent bodily harm. If the person doing the yelling calls the other person a shithead, or whatever, then that's just name-calling. At most, it might qualify as disorderly conduct in some jurisdictions, or maybe disturbing the peace, if someone's bellowing vulgarities in public.
What someone thinks/feels is entirely subjective and impossible to prove. If I call you a shithead because you, say, zipped into a parking space I was angling for, it'd be a real stretch for you to claim fear of bodily harm. Now if I get out of my car and I'm screaming at you through your window, that's a different matter. To my mind it's less what any person involved thinks/feels, and much more the totality of the circumstances.
Insofar as Cheney is concerned, he's an asshole, and yelling "go fuck yourself!" at someone apropos of nothing is the sort of thing assholes do.