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A little over a week ago, a Florida man in the midst of a divorce hearing, apparently upset that he would have to pay child support, reportedly snapped and brutally attacked his wife, leaving her, as one account of the incident notes, “with two black eyes, broken facial bones and split lips.” (You can see the extent of her injuries here.) He’s now being held on felony battery charges. The woman had previously tried to get a restraining order against her husband, but apparently couldn’t convince the court he was dangerous enough to warrant it.
On The Spearhead, sadly but unsurprisingly, it’s the alleged attacker, Paul Gonzalez, who is getting the sympathy. W.F. Price, the site’s head honcho, weighed in on the subject yesterday. In his mind, apparently, the demand that Gonzalez actually provide some financial support for his two children was a provocation of sorts, which led him, as a Marine veteran, to “react … as warriors sometimes do in response to provocation — violently.”
At this point, we know very few details about the case. But that didn’t stop Price from opining confidently on what he imagines are injustices perpetrated against the poor alleged attacker:
What likely happened in that courtroom is that Gonzalez, representing himself, got the shaft. … We don’t know what the child support order was, but it was probably pretty hefty (as usual), and the visitation quite meager. Add to that the fact that his wife was already living with another man, despite having so recently given birth to Mr. Gonzalez’s daughter, and the situation must have seemed absolutely upside-down to the former marine. It was upside down. His wife is obviously a little tramp who has no problem swinging from one dick to another even while raising two babies, and there she was about to get rewarded with an upgrade in lifestyle while the chump father loses his kids and wallet. That’s why Mr. Gonzalez lost it.
Price does acknowledge, in a cursory way, that “beating your wife is always a bad idea” — though he seems less bothered by the beating than by the fact that in this case the divorcing wife “gets to go on camera making herself out to be a poor, innocent little victim. I highly doubt this woman is innocent.”
The commenters to Price’s article rallied around the alleged attacker. In a comment that got three times as many upvotes as downvotes from Spearhead readers, Greyghost celebrated Gonzalez as something of a hero:
I need to send that guy a prison christmas package. He was getting screwed and struck out. To bad he never heard of the spearhead. If about 10 to 15 percent of crapped on fathers did this kind of thing with some murders mixed in there the talk about fathers would sound a lot like the talk when the subject is islam.
Piercedhead offered this take:
Gonzalez may well have been overwhelmed by the realization that being innocent of all his wife’s false accusations made little difference to this fate – he still got treated as if he was worthless. In that case, might as well match the penalty with the appropriate deed…If the courts won’t dispense justice, someone else will – it’s a law of nature.
That’s right: bashing a woman’s face in is a kind of “justice.” Naturally enough, this being The Spearhead, this comment garnered (at last count) 56 upvotes from readers, and only 2 downvotes.
Mananon, meanwhile, suggested that the alleged attack had:
something to do with a warrior’s instinct for dignified self-reliance. … Strip a man of his dignity and what else is there left?
DCM, even more bluntly, described Gonzalez as:
a brave man and a hero.There will be more and more of these incidents and it will be a long time before women are seen as responsible for them — which they are. …It will be men who can’t take it any more who will ignite change.
took it a step further, saying that:
the only bit I feel sorry about is that he did not arrange to have someone else kill her such that his chances of being caught were minimal. By doing this in the middle of the court he will be put in a cage for a long, long time. And he does not deserve to be there. HE is the VICTIM.
Every one of these quotes, with the exception of Nolan’s, garnered at least a dozen upvotes from Spearhead readers. (Nolan’s comment so far has gotten no upvotes or downvotes.)
What sort of comment on this case will get you downvoted by the Spearheaders? One like this:
Wow! Nothing justifies violence. I wonder who will care for the baby while the mother recovers. Or doesn’t that matter?
What a coward. Mad at the judge, goes after a woman.
Actually advocating murder, no sweat. Suggesting that violence is wrong and worrying about the welfare of the children, outrageous!
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>It seems to me that if anyone is so violent, unpredictable, out of control and downright stupid as to beat their former spouse in court, in front of a judge and before who knows how many witnesses, how could you trust them with access to children? I also love the way the MRAs are making up all sorts of little stories to justify his behaviour: "He had PTSD", "She wanted too much child support", "She was emasculating him", "this is what happens when you push a marine too far", "She was just a tramp or she wouldn't have shown up with a new partner" etc, etc. All of this is speculation, they're just looking to excuse his behaviour, when there is no excuse.
>THASF:Okay, I'm going to examine your (previous) post in great detail, line by line. Pay close attention, because I'm only going to do this once. (Everyone else, I apologize in advance for what will inevitably be a serial post.)Your first mistake is complaining that people aren't reading your posts carefully enough or responding the way you want. No one is beholden to read or reply to anything you say.
>You're right. Ultimately, I suppose I was trying to over-intellectualize something that is pretty plain and straightforward.You're not over-intellectualizing anything and I really don't think that's something you need to worry about. Your philosophical detours are annoying everyone for two reasons:1. They're off topic. This is a topical blog. There are loads of general-interest message boards and blogs out there where changing the subject is tolerated or even encouraged; this is not one of them. If you want people to listen to you, respect the rules of their communities.2. You're not saying anything interesting. I happen to love philosophy, but I've actually studied it and am not interested in rehashing the weaknesses of utilitarianism or explaining that eugenics got a big PR hit in the late 30s and has been on the decline ever since. I doubt anyone else is, either.
>This guy beat up his ex. He was wrong, and the MRAs are wrong. Case closed.On second thought, what are we all expected to do? Mope about it? Go boo-hoo to our heart's content? See, I think there's a cancer in society that needs to be eradicated.Your problem here is that you're not good at communicating in either direction: Incoming, because the OP was talking about the MRA reaction to the event and the commenters were mostly talking about the possible causes; thus the conversation was dealing with the circumstances surrounding the event and how we think they should be addressed, not just saying that the thing that happened was terrible. And outgoing, because in the remainder of your post, you never bother to tell us what the "cancer" you mention refers to.
>My posts are like exploratory surgery; I'm peeling back the flesh to expose the tumors underneath. It's ugly to watch. It's putrid, to be sure.But, when you look under a microscope, there's a whole wealth of knowledge there that's just waiting to be internalized. To crystallize into a greater whole. Not necessarily my own, even. Heck, I don't even have to "know" anything at all. I can be totally ignorant of the topic at hand. It's like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. You can't see what the whole picture is like until all the pieces are in place.And this is why David said you sound like a douchebag (David, sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth). This part is all about you and nobody, a priori, cares about you (or any other random internet denizen). And even worse, it's about the brilliance of your analytical skills.
>(cont'd)You seem to be claiming that you can draw amazing conclusions even if you don't know anything about the topic. This is never true. If you (or anyone) doesn't know anything about a topic, your conclusion will be ignorant, every time. (True story: In my callow youth, I once protested that nothing counts as sexism if it's against men. Why? Because I didn't know any better.)You're acting like you're making some kind of unique contribution. You aren't. (Well, I guess your particular flavor of ignorant narcissim is unique, but it hardly qualifies as a contribution.) We don't need you to crystallize our ideas into a brilliant conclusion and we don't need you to play devil's advocate–we've got plenty of MRAs who do that naturally. It should be obvious, but we have lots of great discussions here without you being present.
>(cont'd)So far, other than the non sequiturs, you haven't made any points or drawn any conclusions that other people didn't think of already (they may not have been stated, either because we thought they were obvious or because we knew they were wrong).Like I said, I take a stone soup approach to debates. I offer up a stone, and eventually, the village has got some soup. The stone is dumb. It's mildly offensive. But it unites people. It brings them together to celebrate a common purpose.First of all, this is a terrible metaphor and I can't abide bad metaphors. Second of all, if the common purpose you refer to is making you shut up and go away, you're doing a fantastic job; otherwise, you're failing utterly. Remember that we are not beholden to give you an audience. You have to earn the right to be listened to by being respectful, interesting, and not always focused on yourself.
>And then I sit back and watch, and I learn. That's just how I operate.No. You do not learn. That's the problem. You are unable to learn even very simple things. We've told you repeatedly not to post stories about yourself, and you keep doing it (which, by the way, is also not "sitting back." You can't sit back while simultaneously trying to keep yourself in the center of attention). And never say "That's just how I operate"–that's just excusing yourself from having to change your behavior.
>Conclusion: You don't know enough to know how little you know. That's why I called your arguments puerile: because they sound like they were made by a child. Try listening for real, not just, as counselors love to say, waiting your turn to talk. Lurk a while; some of the best comments start with "De-lurking to say…" because those posters have been paying attention. Stop acting like your contribution is really important. Instead, try assuming that everyone else is smarter than you and that it's a privilege to be allowed to comment, and act accordingly. Otherwise, I hope that David will wield the post-deleting-hammer mightily.
>I hereby swear on my honor as a blogger that I will never make a serial post like that again.
>"You seem to be claiming that you can draw amazing conclusions even if you don't know anything about the topic. This is never true. If you (or anyone) doesn't know anything about a topic, your conclusion will be ignorant, every time. (True story: In my callow youth, I once protested that nothing counts as sexism if it's against men. Why? Because I didn't know any better.)"No, that's not what I'm claiming. I'm not saying I have super-analytical powers or that I can draw conclusions out of thin air. Hardly. Rather, what I'm saying is that I'm the one who gets the ball rolling and then lets everyone else draw the conclusions. I don't have all the pieces of the aforementioned jigsaw puzzle. I bring about five or ten pieces to the debate out of a couple hundred, and I let everyone else bring the rest so we can put the puzzle together."First of all, this is a terrible metaphor and I can't abide bad metaphors. Second of all, if the common purpose you refer to is making you shut up and go away, you're doing a fantastic job; otherwise, you're failing utterly. Remember that we are not beholden to give you an audience. You have to earn the right to be listened to by being respectful, interesting, and not always focused on yourself."I don't want an audience. I want to be the audience. Nevertheless, how can I hear what I want to hear if I don't say something provocative? "Instead, try assuming that everyone else is smarter than you and that it's a privilege to be allowed to comment, and act accordingly."You may not realize it, but this back-and-forth is filling in the gaps for me. If you're all as smart as you say, then surely I'm being bathed in a lovely smorgasbord of wisdom here?Heh, that's the one thing about the parable of stone soup that I've always found rather interesting. Some people say that it symbolizes cooperation and getting everyone to work together to realize common goals. I say it symbolizes something different; something infinitely more sinister. The dude with the stone had nothing to offer. Zilch! Nada! Zip!So what did he do? He got everyone else to pitch in. And he prospered for it, like I'm doing now.Heck, it's such a messed-up story that I'm surprised they still tell it to kids.
>I'm so close to writing a Firefox extension that blocks the display of THASF's comments.
>You guys wouldn't believe how much of a sexist my dad is. When he's not talking about how awesome John Norman's Gor books are, he's going on about how "women are smaller, weaker… blah blah blah" or "something with a vagina shouldn't be in charge" or "god made women for the pleasure of men" or "if women didn't have vaginas, there would be a bounty on them".When he's not using all that crap as an excuse for his own misbehavior, he's lashing out against "unqualified women" at his place of employment, claiming that "a twenty-something woman fresh out of college shouldn't be bossing around a bunch of fifty-year old men who are veterans of the maritime industry".I have to put up with that bullshit in my ear every time I'm around him. And do you know why? It's because I respect women. I believe that women are people. He doesn't like it very much. He wants desperately to change that about me, and I refuse to be changed.I stand against everything that makes women out to be the inferior sex, and that includes crap that makes women out to be perpetual victims. I want women to stand up. I want them to fight, and I want them to win.I'm willing to listen.
>Ahh, in the comments to that one Shakesville post, I found something that describes precisely why my debating style is rude and inappropriate. Interesting. Now I wanna read that book. The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker. Hmm… well, I guess I got something useful out of all this.
>I've only just started reading the rest of this thread, and man has it blown up.THASF:There is an easy way to detect bias, and its called evidence. Ask yourself why you sympathize with one person or the other, and if you can come up with evidence, you've got yourself a solid foundation.Why presuppose that MRAs must always defend the men, and feminists must always defend the women? Who is the party that goes for the truth?The truth is, if the genders were reversed, I (for one, and I hope others as well) would come down hard against the woman. What you are looking at is this: a man is filing for divorce from his wife, and had tried before to file for a restraining order, but didn't get one. Now he has been attacked by surprise and beaten up in court.No one in their right mind would say the woman would be in the right then, nor should anyone say the man is in the right now. Only someone who's mind has been twisted to the point where they see evil in every body else would think this way.*breathe*Righto then.
>Y'know, my dad is more than happy to pay child support and has done so for the last three years or so. I'm guessing it's because he actually likes his kids. Kind of a crazy notion, I know. It's not as if the money goes straight to our mother–it's funneled right back out into groceries and other necessities.Maybe it's because a lot of them watch Two and A Half Men and imagine that the situation of Charlie's brother and his ex-wife is what happens in most child support cases. For those who haven't seen the show, he is basically a well-meaning sap too weak to stand up for himself, while she is a greedy amoral gold-digger who takes him for every penny and uses his money for plastic surgeries and expensive holidays. Might not be realistic, but it's the image that sticks with a lot of people.
>@KirbywarpI agree with you 100% on this. That's precisely what I mean. To find the truth, you have to look at the evidence.If you ask me, all the evidence points to this Gonzalez individual as being a complete and utter dick.You see, it's easy to argue from my position, because I've made a grave mistake. I've robbed the situation of its historical context.Domination. Subjugation. Hundreds, nay, thousands of years of oppression leveled directly at women. Men aren't oppressed. If we were historically oppressed to the same degree as women have been for many millennia, one might just have grounds to sympathize with this man, as shaky as those grounds would inevitably be. But I can't. Honestly, nobody should. Even if you're part of an oppressed underclass, attacking an unprepared person from behind like that makes one lower than a cockroach. That's not self-defense; that's just plain wrong.Those who would sympathize with him or make excuses for his behavior are lower still. The term "pond scum" comes to mind. Actually, scratch that. Cockroaches and algae have a place in the ecosystem. What I meant to say was that they're lower than earwax.
>… Why do I feel like I'm having my hand shaken by a guy who isn't blinking, and whose every tooth I can see in his crazed grin?THASF, from what I gather, you can make your point in a couple sentences, without the dramatic flair. Otherwise, you sound exactly like the article you linked to earlier; like a douche.
>Love the Greta Christina post; thanks for passing that along THASF
>Actually, THASF, I've gotta agree with Joe. Greta is a great writer, very clear, and very honest. Thanks for posting that link. (Also to show I'm not trying to be your enemy)
>THASF:That's not… quite it. This post, for instance, is a perfect example of a good spiel that tells a story and makes your point, even if it is self-detrimental.The problem is that nobody wants to have to slog through four or five paragraphs in order to figure out what you're point is. Perhaps you should take David's earlier advice, sort of. Type out what you have to say to figure out what your point is, then edit away everything that isn't related. And perhaps, if it is still to long, some of the less important stuff that is. Try aiming for about two paragraphs at most.People may take much more kindly to you then.
>… By "this post" I meant yours, not mine… I should really try taking up proof reading…
>> Why do I do that?Maybe because you're a beginning writer and haven't learned about the critical importance of editing.
>@*THASF*You remind me of my ex-boyfriend. Specifically, you remind me of why I broke up with him.He was always so sure he was right, always trying to play 'Devil's Advocate' to get me to think, as if he thought I wasn't smart enough to think of alternatives on my own. The kind of guy you make out with just to shut him up.For all I know, you could be the smartest guy on earth, but that won't matter if nobody wants to listen to you. More words do not make a better argument.
>*THASF*: If the sexes were reversed, the MRAs would all be going "that filthy hag, how dare she do such a thing", and the feminists would be going "how do you like us now?"This is why you don't get to say you're aligned in any way, or sympathetic to (or however you put it 18 gazillion posts ago) feminist ideas. You clearly do not understand them. In the exact same situation, as we know it, reversed, I don't think many feminists actually would do as you say and cheer on the woman for her unwarranted act of violence against her ex. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the "unwarranted" descriptor is important. Feminists (at least the ones who write the blogs I read) generally don't laud violence qua violence. They may support a woman who defends herself physically, but I just don't see feminists taking this situation and using it as a Rorschach test of Universal Bad Male Traits. In fact, typically, as far as I've ever noticed, feminists are much less interested in discussing Universal Bad Male Traits than the kyriarchy, culture, etc.If you're really not Scott Adams, as you say, then might I suggest that you read his blog. I think you'd really dig his style–especially his loopy, uneducated philosophical theories and his unique way of defending himself against criticism. Might be a better place for you than here.