In my experience, at least among adults, it is rarely physical beatings and far more discounting, minimalizing, dehumanizing, insulting and generally making it clear that the victim is less-than and disposable. Still damaging and disheartening.
(BTW, just found this thread, and we need more þ! But what is þridus?)
Among kids/teens (observed and personal experience) it’s mixed. With “zero tolerance” policies in schools, the bullies aren’t leading with the physical abuse as readily. It’s there, but it’s sneakier. The sophistication of the emotional/mental cruelty has gone up as the age of the onset of bullying has gone down—my kid was in the receiving end of the title of a campaign in lower elementary school that rivaled what I experienced in middle and high school.
Among adults, I agree with @Docosc @Millie_Fink and @mindysan33
I started getting beaten up in 1st grade. So I strongly associate bullying with the beatings, and other severe violence.
Þridus = thread.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. It must have been awful and I hate that you had to deal with that.
I think that it’s a major part of bullying in general, especially at that age… for myself, I never got physically attacked, just mentally tortured through most of middle school into early HS… It’s all aimed at getting people who conform to do so, either through physical attacks or via isolation via psychological attacks. It’s all about shaving off the rough edges of people who (for whatever reason) just don’t fit the mold. I wish schools were all like my daughter’s school, and took a hardline against any kind of bullying. All it does is traumatize children and we should not let that happen.
So the Guardian is throwing around exterminationist slurs again.
I’ve seen a lot of people opposing immigration, and often hurling slurs against immigrants. And I’ve never seen any plausible ethical counter-argument against free immigration.
And actual American immigration restrictions were originally based on racism and eugenicism. And there have been attempts to rework these, remove the blatant racism, etc. but they’re still continuations of many of the same policies, the same institutions, etc.
An actual argument is that immigration sometimes reduces wages, but the immigration restrictions, which leave people vulnerable to exploitation, also reduce wages. I really doubt that free immigration would reduce wages in America, if immigrants can join unions, etc., and I think it would increase wages globally, and eventually in America.
And I think violence against human beings, such as deportation, razor wire on the river-banks, imprisonment, extraordinary rendition, etc. needs stronger justification.
The most common “argument” is that free immigration is politically unpopular. But that’s not an argument that it’s wrong, or that the current cruelty is somehow not wrong.
A similar “argument” is that “every other country restricts immigration,” or even that “every country has a sovereign might to restrict immigration.” But again, that’s not an argument that free immigration is wrong, and I don’t think a government can have rights.
Another “argument” is that free immigration would somehow lead to more human smuggling, but it’s the restrictions that force people to turn to smugglers.
Another “argument” is that allowing immigrants into the country is somehow comparable to allowing all of them into our home. Which just doesn’t make sense to me. Current restrictions literally keep people from visiting friends and family who have invited them into their homes.
Another “argument” is that it’s some kind of conspiracy or invasion. Which is blatant nonsense, and allows people to dismiss thical arguments, and encourages violence against immigrants and refugees and, in the case of the Pittsbugh Synaogue shooting, against people who support immigrants and refugees.
Another “argument” is that they’re “poisoning the blood” of America. Which is worse.
P.S. I don’t feel any responsibility to steel-man these arguments.
If this were an abstract discussion, maybe, but these anti-immigrant policies have hurt and killed people. So it feels sick to try to argue for them.
And plenty of other people offer their versions of these arguments every day.
I see no flaws in your argument for free immigration!
So the one argument I have seen against unlimited immigration is the possibility of letting in so many people they decide to take the country for themselves, to the detriment of the original inhabitants. This has on occasion happened. Mexico let so many English-speakers into Tejas that they decided it belonged to them now, revolted, and made life miserable for the Spanish-speakers to this day.
Needless to say it is so far removed from how immigration works today that it’s like questioning drinking water because the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, but I guess it would be something to keep in mind if countries were going to be properly open.
Free market fundies should be all over free immigration. Let countries compete in the open market for skilled, talented, educated, competent, hell even fun people!
Except when you scratch the surface, free market fundies are just fascists who like Monopoly.
I can think of one example off the top of my head… one very close to all our homes! 
But they are often also racist assholes, so…
Very, very close…
But I’m pretty sure we are not supposed to mention that particular event.
Totally not relevant! 
The reason I went with Texas as an example is because Mexico had invited people in. But yeah, if you also include cases where the locals had no say in the matter, then that’s all settler colonialism. 