While I've had other letters to Editors published, it was especially
nice to have one included in the Washington Times because of its
large circulation. The letter resulted from the following article -
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060208-112836-5876r.htm

Here is my letter as I sent it:
*****************
The European Union commissioner for "justice, freedom and security"
has proposed a "code of conduct" that would "commit journalists
to 'prudence' when reporting on Islam and other religions". ("EU
leader pushes code of conduct for journalists" Feb 9, 2006) However,
the fact that a person - or millions - feel "humiliation", or any
other emotion, resulting from something they saw or heard is the
responsibility of that individual. The ideas held by that adult
underlie the emotions and are chosen and/or retained by choice
(albeit sometimes requiring effort to modify). No one else but the
person hirself (him/her) is responsible for the "feelings"
experienced by agreement or disagreement, spoken or printed, with
hir (his/her) ideas. This bears no resemblance to a government
fining, imprisoning or killing practitioners of a religion.
Journalists, editors, publishers, and readers who consider
publication of articles, essays, news stories and cartoons as harm
to those who feel "humiliation" do not understand the nature of
harm.


**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting

[street address included per requirement]
Casa Grande AZ 85222
[phone number included per requirement]
*****************EOM****************************

While links were excluded from the published letter (that and
removal of street address and phone number the only text changes),
it was the fact that "humiliation" does not equal harm that was the
important point I wanted to make. Apparently the editor of the
Washington Times thought also since it was the first of only 3
letters published today.

Published 2/13/06:
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060212-101457-7835r.htm

A web search on my name by a motivated reader will result in seeing
my association with the Self-Sovereign Individual Project, in which
the nature of harm is an important subject. The new Natural Social
Contract's annotations will cover this even more.

**Kitty

[It should be noted that Kitty wrote and sent this letter entirely without any
aid from (or actually even any knowledge by) me, since I have been very busy at
other things. The major change that I would have made would have been to
rephrase the last sentence as:

"Journalists, editors, publishers, and readers who consider
publication of articles, essays, news stories and cartoons as doing
harm to those who feel "humiliation" do not understand the nature of
doing harm."

The reason for this is because a feeling of humiliation is a reduction of
happiness and therefore is actual harm, but as Kitty did explain well it is harm
for which the person feeling the humiliation hirself bears total responsibility.
Humiliation is not a harm that can be done *to* a person as is imprisonment,
theft, property damage or physical injury. --Paul]