You DO regret much, or at least you make it clear you do by speaking about it like this.

You admit to not liking the chewing thing, but refuse to accept that you could have done more to stop it, then you justify their actions by being in fear of their trash talking or even the conflict itself.

Doing this distracts you from your refusal to assert yourself and be direct.

"What bothers me is that my desire to not consider myself first may actually hurt others. I've seen this happen on the rare occasion."

This sentence shows how fuct your ability to perceive reality is. You are trying to put other people first in an attempt to not make them feel bad when it is YOU who feels like crap for not expressing yourself.

Its great that you "dont shy from pain or fear", at least in your mind, but in your typing it is clear you shy from nearly all confrontation, do you see this?

Then you say "I hate how we give up so much freedom for fear of the smallest amount of pain. It's enraging. We are drugging our nation for mild emotions."

You are 'drugging' yourself with poisonous ideas about who is in charge.

There are no 'bosses', there are simply situations where you allow someone else to drive the car. BE THE DRIVER.

This clearly explains that YOU, not WE are giving up the power to control the situation. By saying "we" there, you try to place the responsibility on your peers instead of acknowledging what could be a very active role in your own life.

As i mentioned before here are some basic ways to deal with any situation that has not improved after asking ONCE for the person to be rational.

1. GTFO. When your friends or the crowd does not support your reasonable demand, leave them and don't return. Stop being their friends because they ARENT being your friend.

2. Get louder. Involve the crowd. If you are in the right, generally the crowd will support you. Be ready for rejection and have a hasty exit planned.

3. Ignore it and keep living like this.

When you are direct with EVERY IDIOT who chews like a cow, you can feel really good about yourself because you didnt wuss out with some justification about how you "do it enough", because clearly, again, you do not. This is another example of you lying to hide the pain you feel by not being direct.

As a fellow human you have my <3 and support, but you have got to learn how to deal with reality as it occurs and stop making excuses for other peoples bullshit and your unwillingness to address it.

Good luck sister. ^{_^}