Unfortunately, I can't give the father that much credit, because I've seen many a parent, frazzled by their children or work or driving, have completely inappropriate violent reactions to innocent behavior. I've seen it from my own father, and many others.
That said, to me it's totally possible, even likely that Comicbookguy was being a dangerous dickhead driver...just uncertain.

What is certain is that Angrydad's reaction was completely inappropriate. He 1.left his child alone in a car in traffic 2. started an angry confrontation with his child present and 3. reacted with violence when not acknowledged in the way he wished. Not one of those things is good parenting, and put together it's actually actionable.

I have seen 'professionals' say that the less reply you give an angry/road raging person accosting you in your car, the better. I do understand your point though, that it would make one more angry to feel they are being ignored when they are insistent on being heard.

I don't think it's such a leap to think Angrydad might have gone berserk over nothing in the first place. He went completely berserk over being dismissed, why not go partially berserk over not being allowed to merge? (one of the things that had my father go berserk and actually ram another car over that tiny slight) He smashed the window over being disrespected, not over his child being in danger, so to me it could easily be the initial reason he got out of the car, that he felt disrespected (could be, not is).
Comicbookguy's attitude could be seen as smarmy and provocative, or could be following the often given direction to minimize conversation or reaction as much as possible and continue filming, advice I've seen many a time when 'professionals' discussed how to handle road rage. I'm just not ready to go either way for certain on Comicbookguy without seeing the driving issue that started it and/or knowing what kind of guy he is, but I am certain Angrydad's behavior went WAY too far, provoked or not.

In short, I don't disagree that you may be 100% right about Comicbookguy being the legitimate cause or even deserving of what he got, I just can't say for certain either way based on this scant evidence, but I can be certain that dad was in the wrong, understandable or not. If someone being an asshole is reason to be an asshole one's self, we're going to be knee deep in assholes soon! ;-)

" Those seeing something sexual or morally provocative here may need to look a bit harder..."

....at themselves.

Adults must never interact with children or be depicted interacting with children. It might make someone uncomfortable!

This was beautiful. Those seeing something sexual or morally provocative here may need to look a little bit harder, I think.

You opened your comment criticising someone for assuming that everyone was a certain way, and then finish your comment by telling everyone else how they would react in the face of provocation. So either you take back your criticism of the act of assuming things about people, or you can take back your assumption about other people. I've highlighted it in the quotes to demonstrate just how much of a contradictory statement it was. You can't have it both ways.

If i had that kind of temperament, i wouldn't work in law enforcement. That's generally a good rule for all kinds of work - if you don't have the temperament to do the job professionally, don't do it.

By the way, your way of dealing with the face-slapping scenario demonstrates only your poor approach to conflict resolution. Why does it have to be ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore, ok flip out. That's the way an ape goes about learning. Humans try to learn better ways of handling problems so that they don't allow themselves to get pushed to the point of losing their self control.

9 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

"Allowing" opinions like Lantern's makes it possible to begin to understand the "wrong" side of the argument.

SB is just a deluded, self-aggrandizing zealot. He has no qualms attacking sifters without provocation, based only on his microscopically narrow, scientifically impossible world view.

...but, I haven't seen evidence of him in months, so I'm hoping the question is moot anyway.

To quote the great Wittgenstein "meaning is use". Language and meaning are nuanced and complicated, but most of all, subjective and instrumental (by which I mean something we make up). This is why we frequently use otherwise restrictive and oversimplified analogies to illustrate specific points, and sometimes arbitrary (and always artificial) terms to sum up otherwise much more expansive phenomena.

In this case @Babymech used one to quite neatly surmise the different ways we interpret accidental puns and double meanings. Crude vs Prude was just a succinct way of labelling the two predominant archetypical responses to a potential double entendre.

One is to tend to overlook or ignore it (Prude)
One is to recognise and even call attention to it (Crude)

There were no value judgements implicit in the way @Babymech did this. You brought those yourself, projected them outwards and rather rudely set about insulting Babymech for the perceived slight/prejudicial remark.

The fact you got a rude response back was not validation, it was retaliation. You called him/her a dick basically without provocation!

"In some countries / regions, saying someone is crude is quite the insult."

A term charged with historical prejudicial hatred indeed! Absolutely no room for interpretation or innocent intention there. (And God forbid anyone anywhere ever be offended by something because they might have different associations with a words meanings and associations)

But let's just assume @Babymech was making a value judgement anyway. "Prude" and "Crude" create wildly varying emotional responses. From pride to shame. Who takes prescient? Who's right to not be offended counts most?

Much like considerably more sensitive words (like ones beginning with N and F for instance), context is absolutely everything. Words have no meaning outside of their context, they are entirely relativistic things. Even the cold hard definition in a dictionary is a contextual arrangement (in this case the dictionary & the linguistic paradigm which is documents).

If there was hatred in Babymech's heart when he/she made their comment I certainly did not recognise it. The same point made in a different way might have raised my ire too, but here I can only see a slight you brought to the table yourself so to speak.

I've done it myself before, but then I've also apologised for starting shit that wasn't really there before too

You would be correct if you detected a slightly snotty attitude in my reply, it pops up mostly when people start throwing around unsolicited abuse (or say unspeakably dumb things but I'm certainly not accusing you of that here, just a needless conflict). You'd be amazed how fast it can disappear though!

Much love.

The woman in the "experiment" is a total hypocrite. In fact, that little undercover experiment shot the credibility of everyone else's story, and the video in general.

She dressed in a way clearly meant to elicit reaction. heck she even said it was "provocative" hello, the word provocative literally means "voice call out forward" ... pro + vocare (latin for call, voice) Imagine a guy walking around with 100 bills taped all over his body, he'd be an idiot if he expected no one would look at him. If he was robbed, women would ask him .."huh why did you tape $100 bills all over you?"

The little BS hidden camera thing is clearly put on someone who's looking to find people to yell things out, for the purpose of "proving a point" and making a problem appear more serious than it is. If it happens to every day women constantly - then why not choose a woman that's dressed more "normally" ?

Obviously some of the more physical assault-like things are inexcusable, but anything else, verbal or otherwise, is just men doing what society (including women) have taught them to do: be aggressive, be bold.. why is it that...

good looking guy that calls out = man that is bold and goes after what he wants
ugly guy that calls out = creep that harasses.

And women go around wondering why "men don't understand and it's so hard to teach them..?" maybe try being a little honest and consistent for starters?

Absolutely. What these people seem to be saying it it's OK for SpiderMAN to pose like that, so OK they didn't even notice it, but if SpiderWOMAN does it she's being a provocative whore that needs to be slut shamed.

totally reminded me of this....
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Stupid-sexy-Flanders

Very provocative controversial video worthy of a *discussion (so I won't discard), but it is definitely snuff, so I'm redacting the video.

I didn't realize he was holding a knife, but it does seem he was. Not only did the officer(s) yell at him to drop the knife, but the guy with the red-and-white-striped shirt yelled at him "Come on, drop it, bro!" (at 1:38) immediately before the officers started firing.

Seems obvious it's suicide by cop. The officers should not have used a TASER if he was holding a knife and approaching them. Deadly force is definitely necessary in that case. In fact, I think the officer on the left may have even let him get too close as it is. If the guy did want to attack them and wasn't just looking to die, he could have thrust forward and stabbed the officer while he was getting shot.

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I found that especially funny because of these "dress like a slut, get treated like one" type of responses here.
I know, the word "slut" isn't nice and I'm not good a political correctness (I actually loathe it) but maybe the problem is not with the word but with our associations with it.
You see, the problem I have starts with the idea that there's something wrong with sluts. As a man (and therefore certainly a pig, at least in my case) I enjoy sluts tremendously. They are women who share, at least in general terms, my sexual morals and enjoy their sexuality as much as I do (theirs and mine). I see nothing wrong with that. Sure, I dislike STDs as much as anybody but being slutty doesn't mean automatically being careless, just more at risk. Maybe I just don't understand men who like their female sex partners to be well behaved little princesses. They either prefer very conservative sex (you know, when blowjobs seem kinky) or they are strangely rapey. Maybe it's just our manly discomfort of loosing control over female sexuality.
Then there is this notion of dressing "like a slut". Sure, there is unappropriate clothing. I wouldn't go to a funeral in my Spongebob Squarepants pyjamas. But why is it in todays times, in the western world that is covered in billboards full of women in bikinis, so wrong to walk the street dressed in your best "sexy hooker" halloween costume? Are these women on the billboards, the ones who strike sexualized poses to sell me beer, dressed like sluts too? Is a bikini "slutty clothing"? I'm pretty sure my mom once wore one and yours probably too. As long as the important parts are covered, it should be fine.
The real issue, though, is the idea that anybody has a right to comment on that. Loudly.
If I have a right to comment sluttly clothing, can I also comment on other clothing that isn't the percieved norm? Do I get to shout ghost and terrorism related jokes at women in burkas? Can I yell at cops to come and strip-search me because I have a thing for uniforms? Should I yell at anyone with unfortunate clothing choices? "Hey lady, don't shake that ass, it's too fat for these pants! I don't want the Blob to escape!"
No, it's only sexually provocative clothing that gets these reactions. And that's why I like the video above so much, because it shows what kind of comments you get. It's never "young lady, I disagree with your clothing choice and insist you put on something decent!" nor "What a beautiful skirt, is it silk?"
It is always amused, approving and at the same time disrespectful and sexually dominant. Often gleefull and too often actually misogynistic.
These are never positive comments and even if the words seem positive, they're harassment. It's nothing but sexual harassment. Otherwise these men would be yelling "Young lady, I disagree with your clothing choice and insist you put on something decent!"
Dress like a slut, get treated like one, that's just a lame excuse for men trying to control female sexuality.
Personally, I think if you dress like a slut, I should treat you with respect and kindness. Because I want sluts to like me. I'm a pig.

"I Know how the way I dress is provocative, but I shouldn't have to deal with it."

I am completely not a sexist, but this quote makes me scratch the hair off my head.

Yeah, my analogy isn't perfect, but analogies never are :-)

With the examples I used, the choices are made to fit in with a peer group. With the question of sexily/provocatively/whatever dressed women, it's a lot more complicated, and I won't claim to begin to understand it as I'm not in that position. All I really know is that the vast majority of women don't appreciate lewd comments no matter how they're dressed, so even if the horndog part of my brain lights up at someone wearing something skimpy (and yeah, it will), I'm going to keep my those thoughts to myself.

That just made me realize that "provocative" is entirely the wrong word; and our vocabulary about women's appearance is a big part of what perpetuates the problem. Provocative implies you're being deliberately provoked to some kind of action. But you're really not.

As a mature and respectful man it's fine to think to yourself "wow, that is a sexy outfit", and keep walking. There's a time an place to say that, just as there's a time and place to get touchy feely, but it's never on the street with strangers. You can control yourself, easily. And if you genuinely can't, going outside is probably not the best idea; there be ladies about.

Help me understand this @ 1:40... "I know I dress provocatively, but I dont think I should have to deal with this."
...
Uhm, if you want to dress like a slut, dont you think you are opening yourself up for these types of comments? There is a cause and effect relationship here. And dont try to tell me dressing like a slut helps keeps her thighs cool...