Hi Eric, how's your family doing? Regarding your pen-l 22942:
A policeman is (a) armed, and (b) the personification of state power. To be threatening me, a policeman need not say anything, or even pull me over. His mere presence on the road is a threat. Since I am neither armed nor the personification of state power, your analogy is not apposite. Here's one that is: Eric's dog keeps going into the neighbors' yard and chewing up their flowers. They say, "Look, this is our property. You're not allowed to let your dog run loose and destroy our flowers. We urge you to put a stop to this." Eric would have us believe that this is a threat -- and indeed a threat of *legal action*, since the words "property" and "allowed" were used. He would have us believe that any reasonable person would take it as a threat, indeed a threat of legal action, and that it was necessarily intended as one. As Eric sees it, he and his neighbors are enemies, so their plea to him isn't friendly chat. But if it isn't friendly chat, the only other possibility is that the neighbors threatened legal action. Ergo they threatened legal action. If the neighbors deny that they were issuing a threat, much less a threat of legal action, he calls them liars. Again. I reiterate my denial (pen-l 22939). Andrew Kliman
