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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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>Seriously, THASF, stick to the topic or STFU. And no, you don't need to post endless shit about "utility" or "post-scarcity society" to make your point. You really, really don't. This is really really tiresome to everyone but you. To give you a little bit of an incentive here, I may start deleting comments of yours that are long dissertations about whatever the fuck that have only a tangential relationship to the topic at hand.
>@Talkstorie Well WE have, but we're WOMEN and esp FEMINISTS, higher education is reversed only for us xD It's proof of the higher male brain functions that they're able to put this together WITHOUT any books or classes and only a used copy of the Matrix (new copies are reserved for Femidemic institutions of higher golddigging, I can't say nemore about this on a public forum…). If men had OUR education, they wouldn't just be in charge of the planet, they'd be in charge of existence itself, they'd have reshaped all life in the universe to be monogendered, and that is why the feminist conspiracy must persist in keeping men from philosophy courses *nods*
>Gods, this made me cry. And, an aside… ginmar, I think you are wonderful. Just the bees knees. :3
>It makes me sick to see those bullies rushing to defend a psychopath like that. That is how domestic violence works. The abuser beats the woman and then explains how she "made him do it". The MRM works the same way; they say any violence their members commit is everyone else's fault. At least it happened in front of many witnesses in that courthouse so people would finally believe her and so she could get prompt medical attention. I hope that poor woman never takes him back.
>Seriously, THASF, stick to the topic or STFU. And no, you don't need to post endless shit about "utility" or "post-scarcity society" to make your point. You really, really don't. This is really really tiresome to everyone but you. Srsly. If you want to spout long-winded dissertations that nobody else wants to read, get a blog. That was my motivation, anyway.
>"Unless you think the appropriate response is to hit someone until you have to be tased off of them when they seek child support for the children in common and date someone other then you, there is no possible way these are equal nor could you even make it equal."I never said their actions were equal. I was merely implying that they were possibly being unfair with each other, not that he had a right to hit her, or that what she did was a crime in and of itself. Honestly, I don't know these people. I can't judge their respective characters, can I?"You are conflating two separate issues of fathers rights for those who are not hitting their spouses and the ones who are.A man who hits his wife should get custody or she should give him access to her so he can keep hitting her? How is that even an arguable position?"No. This idiot flew off the handle and had a temper tantrum, and this was the result. Honestly, if this guy's making abuse into a new habit of his, then piss on him. That doesn't change the fact that those kids are gonna be messed up in the head because their parents couldn't get along."You also clearly do not understand Burridans ass, as it does demonstrate that making an arbitrary or neutral choice can be better than making no choice at all."Yes, but it does so in a closed system where time is a factor. The paradox stipulates an interval where the ass arrives at an impasse and then eventually makes a choice."If the ass chooses either pile of hay, it gets to eat that pile. If it chooses neither, it starves. The principle of sufficient reason fails, and your silly notion that an arbitrary choice is equivalent to no choice also fails."No, not just an arbitrary choice. An arbitrary choice between two things rendered completely identical/equivalent to each other. See, even in the case of the ass choosing between two identical piles of hay, it is technically still making a choice. It can choose the left pile or the right pile. But what if the ass is forced to make a choice instantaneously and the piles of hay exist only as non-orientable concepts? Is it possible to effectively distinguish between them, in such a case? It might, if we use symbols. We can say that you've got pile 1 and pile 2, and you're making a choice between them. But then, what if the symbols themselves that we use to define the separate piles are rendered equivalent as well?I was merely making the observation that if all choices are rendered meaningless through nihilism, there cannot be any free will in the conventional sense. This is a problem with nihilism, not with free will. I was using it to illustrate how flawed nihilism is."Jesus Fucking Christ, THASF just loves to hear himself talk, does he? And he's not talking about this case, except to insinuate shit about the wife. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice. So leaving the marriage makes that beating okay?"What else is there to talk about? How can I impugn his motives when they're so clear-cut? This Gonzalez guy is obviously a complete asshole, but I've had my buttons pushed before and I know how it feels for a man to lose all control. It's not exciting or fun. It's scary as hell, and if you have a lick of conscience, you tend to feel deeply ashamed about it afterward. I sincerely doubt this guy has anything resembling a conscience, so fuck him.For the record, by "losing control", I mean all those times where my dad started freakin' hitting my mom for NOTHING, and I tried to intervene on her behalf, usually putting bruises on all of us in the process. Do you think I like it when a man abuses his wife? Fuck, no!All I was saying was that neither of these parents upheld their duty to their children to get along. To find some way to make things work. That's what makes me sad about all this bullshit.
>"THASF, You aren't the first person who has ever been let into the hallowed halls of PHIL101. We've contemplated this sort of mindblowing stuff before. You don't seem intellectual. You seem like a jackass. I pray to god you're either 19 or high. Either way, there are philosophy forums where you can talk yourself to death."20 and sober, though sometimes I wish I weren't so sober. If I seem like a jackass, that's because I am a jackass. When I try holding a conversation with people face-to-face, I inevitably start a one-sided monologue about the defense industry and recent progress in the fields of computers and materials science and all the little things that such advancements should make possible. They invariably give me a funny look like I'm some kind of maniac, and then they go straight back to talking about their sexual conquests, which I find to be just as repellent as they find me and my interests. Like, who gives a shit about who you fucked most recently and how you did it? The stuff I'm talking about is humanity's future!"Seriously, THASF, stick to the topic or STFU. And no, you don't need to post endless shit about "utility" or "post-scarcity society" to make your point. You really, really don't. This is really really tiresome to everyone but you."How is it possible for humans to be truly equal in a society that assesses people differently based on their education and their ability to output physical labor or intellectual products over a given time span? How is it possible for the sexes to be equal in a society that treats women as though they are cripples?So, I looked for a better answer. I arrived at post-scarcity economies, transhumanism and utilitarianism. Get rid of money, so nobody has to be the breadwinner. Improve the body, so that everyone is equal. Destroy conventional morality, so that nobody is right or wrong in the conventional sense. Now, it's a given that such a system is going to have drawbacks of its own, but hey. Sure sounds better than what we've got now, at least."Srsly. If you want to spout long-winded dissertations that nobody else wants to read, get a blog. That was my motivation, anyway."You know what? I've considered doing just that.I mean, I've been typing like a thousand words an hour of semi-meaningful debate. If I were writing books, I could have done a NaNoWriMo novel in less than a week. That freaks even me out. I've got all this text in my head, just screaming for cathartic release.
>Then write a blog so we do not have to put up with your pretentious blathering here. Especially since you seem to be viewing any woman who does anything that does not allow a male full access to her regardless of the level of violence as being in the wrong.
>Just so you all know, sexism really bothers me on a deep and personal level. I don't think you people realize why I'm such a profoundly disturbed individual, anyhow. How about I tell you a story?How about the one time where I used to have a sister who was a certifiable genius who self-tested and aced the SATs at sixteen, but died of leukemia at age 19 back in '01? I was eleven years old at the time. My sis started bruising up spontaneously from nothing at all. There hadn't been any fights or arguments or anything. We'd all been getting along great. Two months after she was diagnosed, and then she was gone. Just like that. Didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to someone who I felt was one of the most brilliant minds the world ever saw.Y'know, I remember asking her if she ever planned on starting a family with someone. I wasn't really thinking of the ramifications. I was a pre-teen kid, so I was more concerned with how cute her kids would look than how responsible her husband would be. She came back with a resounding "no". I now know why. It's because marriage is bullshit, that's why. Women expect men to give them all their frickin' money in exchange for being sex slaves with no dignity and no humanity. Men expect women to bury their egos and turn into picture-perfect porcelain dolls that they can admire and fuck whenever they want. What's equal about that? Nothing. My sis had talent. Her works were museum-worthy. She did realistic drawings in conte crayon and clay sculptures that would blow your freakin' mind. Why should she have yielded one inch of that amazing talent in order to become some ungrateful prick's private fuck toy? To be used, discarded and forgotten like so many women before her? To give herself over to a man, and yet have men as a whole talking behind her back about her sex as though her accomplishments and her talents didn't mean anything at all? Fuck that! Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it with a capital F! I am OUTRAGED at the very notion of such a thing!
>"Especially since you seem to be viewing any woman who does anything that does not allow a male full access to her regardless of the level of violence as being in the wrong."He's in the wrong for the same exact reason. He did not allow her full access to him, because he acted like a dick and screwed up their marriage.See? This is the problem with feminism. We all strive for equality – a noble goal, that much is certain. But then, we engage in self-defeating tactics, like defining a woman in unequal terms to her husband, as though she were his property. By doing this, we are denying her free will and enforcing patriarchal assertions. Is it wrong to suggest that they both made mistakes of their own somewhere down the line if they ended up in such a situation? They're not children. They're grown-ups, and sometimes grown-ups have to make grown-up decisions.
>"I've got all this text in my head, just screaming for cathartic release."Please go to wordpress.com, and get yourself a blog. Now. Believe me it's not that hard. I did it. "Women expect men to give them all their frickin' money in exchange for being sex slaves with no dignity and no humanity." then:"To give herself over to a man, and yet have men as a whole talking behind her back about her sex as though her accomplishments and her talents didn't mean anything at all?"Jeezus Haploid Christ. Please, I'm begging you. Go now, and get yourself a freaking blog. It'll be good for us. I mean for YOU! Good for you. And that's what we all really want.
>I know it seems like a contradiction, but my point was that women are being socialized to have a low self-esteem, unlike my sister who esteemed herself very highly and would not kowtow to such nonsense. In a way, she suffered greatly for it. She endured ridicule and attempts and manipulation by her peers, who obviously saw her as some sort of anomaly. This placed a lot of stress on her.That's pretty messed up. She left a household with an abusive dad to hang out with other folks, and they gave her the same fucking abusive treatment. What the fuck? Are women prisoners of their own bodies? Is there nowhere they can go where they're given the proper appreciation and respect that they deserve?Fuck, that gives me the creeps. I don't fucking get it. I'm just as confused as everyone else is. That's why I'm trying to work this stuff out.
>THASF, no one likes a tweaker.
>Look, *THASF*, we don't care about your entire life story. Force-feeding it down our throats isn't going to make us care any more. In fact, it will only make us care less.
>"THASF, no one likes a tweaker."You're absolutely right. Nobody likes little ol' me, because I'm an obsessive-compulsive loser that sounds like he's perpetually high on something and looks like death warmed over. Yay.One time, my co-workers gave me a hard time about a mess I made in a work space. So, to compensate, I voluntarily cleaned EVERYTHING until it sparkled, well beyond what was necessary. They kept telling me "aw, shucks. You don't have to do that".But I did. Because that's who I am.
>And the official victim blaming has begun. No, THASF, it is not fair to assume that if one person gets beaten up by another that the victim did something to earn it. Grown ups making grown up decisions do not violently attack their exes when things do not go their own way. Then you start the whinging about "why didn't she just leave" except this woman did exactly that, she left this out of control asshat and then was attacked (which happens often, women are often killed and severely injured trying to leave or after they have left).
>THASF: WORK THINGS OUT with a therapist. Start a fucking blog. Shit. This post is NOT ABOUT YOU. Get it? And, please, PLEASE start smoking pot. It just might mellow you the fuck out.
>"Look, *THASF*, we don't care about your entire life story. Force-feeding it down our throats isn't going to make us care any more. In fact, it will only make us care less."You can't deny that my life's story contains anecdotal accounts that may be relevant to the issue at large. Even if it seems like I'm only playing at sympathy, you've got to look at the actual meaning and content there. My sister was a very real sufferer of physical and verbal oppression. I saw it happen before my very eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn't change the system to save her.How would that make you feel? How would you like to be in my shoes? I actually fucking cry over this shit. I'm crying right now. Is that so strange? Are boys not supposed to cry?
>20 and sober,Off by a year. I must be slipping. THASF, listen, I'm a woman with Asperger's syndrome. It took me a long time to get the hang of staying on topic not blathering on about my interests. It's harder for some people than others, but it can be done. It's entirely possible you have a neurological disorder that requires extra effort in this area. I deeply sympathize. In any case, you really should see a therapist. And get your own blog. Not necessarily in that order.
>"And the official victim blaming has begun. No, THASF, it is not fair to assume that if one person gets beaten up by another that the victim did something to earn it." Well, all along I've been stating that I believe that it's wrong to deny another individual their personal utility. Also, I'm not assuming anything. I've just heard some rumors. One blog poster said he knew these two, and said that "she was a mental abuser and she used the kids as leverage". Probably MRA slander from someone who doesn't even know them at all, but you never know. I'm not saying one should assume that fault rests with the victim. I'm saying that – in the interest of fairness to all parties – one should always take the possibility of equal fault into account in any exchange between two human beings that leaves one side in a bad way. We would be hypocrites otherwise.Nevertheless, nothing she could have done would merit a response like this. He acted like a moron, and I honestly hope they put him away for a while."Grown ups making grown up decisions do not violently attack their exes when things do not go their own way. Then you start the whinging about "why didn't she just leave" except this woman did exactly that, she left this out of control asshat and then was attacked (which happens often, women are often killed and severely injured trying to leave or after they have left)."But then, was she in the right to leave him for another man? Men have feelings of abandonment too, you know. I think she was, and this incident proved it. Nevertheless, such a judgment may not apply if this was a one-time outburst and she had been pushing his buttons and working him into a frenzy for years beforehand. Once again, I don't know these people and I can't say either way. Hell, a woman in his shoes would probably have lashed out with an equal degree of violence, and she would be just as unjustified as he was in doing so.To make a long story short, I disagree with both the feminist bloggers and the MRAs. I don't think that the rights of one take precedence over the rights of the other. Not hers, and definitely not his.But you see, there's an issue with my point of view that introduces what appears to be a bias towards males. That's because I'm framing it in what we call a phallogocentric system. If we start defining rights, we soon realize that when we construct dichotomies like "he has a right to her body or he doesn't have a right to her body" or "he should have access to her body or he shouldn't have access to her body", we're objectifying the very concept of womanhood. How revolting indeed.In a phallogocentric system, the construct of marriage automatically constitutes the granting of rights to the male and the surrendering of rights by the female. Divorce then automatically constitutes the loss of rights and privileges by the male and the regaining of rights by the female. I think that this is an inherently dehumanizing logical construction, and it's one of the reasons why I'm so deeply angered at how humans operate in dominance hierarchies (i.e. "One must give a command, and the other must submit/obey."). Even if you flip the genders, the dichotomy of submission and dominance still exists. It's like the world is one big BDSM orgy or something. Why can't we have real equality? Tell me what needs to be done, and let's all do it together in unison as a species.
>"THASF, listen, I'm a woman with Asperger's syndrome. It took me a long time to get the hang of staying on topic not blathering on about my interests. It's harder for some people than others, but it can be done. It's entirely possible you have a neurological disorder that requires extra effort in this area. I deeply sympathize. In any case, you really should see a therapist. And get your own blog. Not necessarily in that order."I don't know how to say this, but a few months ago, I had this horrible ringing in my ears and got a panic attack. I felt like I was having a stroke or something. For the past year, I've tended to spoonerize my writing a lot. I can be typing along just fine, and all of a sudden, I'll transplant a letter from a following word to a preceding one. Like, I'll type "inequality sucks" and it comes out as "sinequality ucks" or something equally-bizarre.I guess one of the reasons why I'm writing so much crap like this is because I'm paranoid about losing my ability to write coherently. I'm trying to exercise my brain so I don't go totally go bonkers. Christ, I need to ditch this crap go for a walk or something. Get a breath of fresh air.
>THASF, please click this link. http://www.kurzweilai.net/forums/*ahem* At the Kurzweilai.net forums, you will find many people willing and able to discuss transhumanism, post-scarcity, and related questions of ethics and philosophy. People who are interested in these things from all over the world! Who are willing to discuss these things at all hours of the day and/or night! It's a great place. Please go and say hello to them!
>I've had panic attacks and moments of aphasia myself, it's very disconcerting. But even if you are in crisis, especially if you are in crisis, this isn't the time and it isn't the place for what you're doing. You're only disturbing strangers on a blog. Go lie down. Do some focusing exercises like counting. That may help more than a walk. Then don't come back. Go write in a personal journal if you feel you must express yourself. Or find an on topic discussion at a transhumanist or post-scarcity site. Then contact someone who can give you guidance. A psychological hotline in your area would be a good place to start.
>Thasf: Just so you know.. not agreeing w/ nebody doesn't make you right, or smart… it makes you that kid in high school who thinks "I hate the geeks and the cheerleaders" makes them unique >_>;; The thing is, I know what you're saying makes a lot of sense to you, but … you're completely misunderstanding what's going on and feminism in general. You talk about everybody else's lack of self awareness, but you won't actually acknowledge your own biases 🙁 And those biases and assumptions are shaping the way you see things. As much as you talk about everybody else being stuck in a social construct, you are too, more so than you think you are and more so than you think the ppl you're talking to are. 🙁 The problem is that you're fighting a world that is not what you think it is, and b/c of that you're punching at shadows. You're not offending nebody, but they're confused why you keep saying "I GOT YOU GOOD" when you're punching at thin air 🙁 You dun have to believe me, I know you prolly wun, secure in your knowledge of being the only true objective person. But… if you are who you say you are, and what's important to you is what you say it is, at least plz listen 🙂 If not, then you can keep punching away but you will never get what you rly want, which is equality, b/c you're attacking structures and systems that aren't there 🙁 I never comment here… and I'm not interested in a fight.. there's no point… and I appreciate your life story 🙂 But I'm commenting just cuz something about you twinges me, like it twinges Zhinxy… we've been there.. or at least I have… I get it 🙁 So I just want to tell you.. put the kb down and just think about it ok? 🙂 Listen too… like ppl here have listened to you 🙂 If they're wrong, they'll be wrong tomorrow and the next day and the next day too… but just… listen 🙂 Also if things are as bad as you're saying in terms of keeping yourself together (as I said, I've been there… I'm thankfully alive now, but I've been there 🙁 ) plz dun ignore those things. 🙁 Plz 🙁
>That should be Talkstorie not Zhinxy… >_>;; her dual identities aren't a sekrit tho so it's ok 🙂 just used to calling her Zhinxy 🙂