Being an asshole is often not illegal. The law would be incredibly suffocating if we tried to legislate away everything unpleasant. Also, different subcultures

Being an asshole is often not illegal. The law would be incredibly suffocating if we tried to legislate away everything unpleasant. Also, different subcultures or social classes have different norms; it would be hard to define one model of nice behavior for everyone. Usually, there is a social punishment for being an asshole. You are not legally required to be nice to people, but the natural punishment is that the nice people will avoid you, you won't get invited to nice parties, etc. The "karmic punishment" for assholes is that they can only associate with other assholes, because everyone else tries to avoid them. Also, unless they are physically very strong, they probably get punched a lot, as a natural reaction. There are situations, such as online journalism, where the usual mechanisms punishing the assholes do not apply, and it can even become a source of income.