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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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>God, you're a fucking morn.I don't see how being a Lurian barfly has any bearing on this argument…
>Jeez, gin, I am well aware that there are many male-dominated groups that are. as you say, "swamps of misogyny." Especially, obviously, if these groups have traditionally been all-male, or are full of guys who have "traditional" mindsets, or where there's a premium placed on "macho" behavior and/or attitudes. And yes, group dynamics can bring out and/or accentuate the misogyny that is already there. And I'm certainly aware that there are lots of vicious misogynists online. Why the fuck do you think I started this blog? But it's one thing to say "there's a fuckload of misogyny out there" — there is — and another to say, as you did, that "any" mostly male group is going to be rife with misogyny, simply because it's full of guys. That's just bullshit. There are actually a lot of guys out there who are, you know, not misogynist assholes. If these guys assemble into a group, they don't suddenly become misogynist assholes.
>What is wrong with blogger? Sometimes you don't even get time to copy the bloody comment, then the site tells you, "We are unable to comoply with your request" only to turn back and find that you're signed in and can comment. So tell me Elizabeth are you trying to be obtuse or do you study and take lessons? Because never in my fucking life have I been accused of being subtle and yet you can't seem to get it through whatever you're using as a brain that 'possibility' does not equal 'proven fact.' For example, this fucker's name is a proven fact. It's also a proven fact that he beat up his ex very badly. It's a proven fact that he's an asshole. What's not proven is much beyond that. There is no reason to so much as speculate that this asshole has PTSD except somebody wants to make excuses for him. That would be you, because there's no way to go from me saying something as blunt as this, "He's a wife beater who beat up his wife in front of witnesses and it's stupid to guess that he has PTSD," to you being a passive aggressive little conclusion jumper with this: So those who have PTSD do not act out violently with anyone ever? Or is it just when the guy hits a women that we ignore the fact the guy may have PTSD?Did I EVER SO MUCH AS HINT AT THAT? Seriously, Elizabeth, are you that godddamned dishonest? Or are you just some manipulative shit who's stupid and has a stupid argument? It could fall either way. This fucker might just as well be pregnant based on the rigorous standard of apologism that both you and Avicenna have applied, which apparently is based on the idea that neither one of you wants to admit that sometimes a spade is a spade. No news article has mentioned PTSD so it's just you and the MRAS who want to believe that What's his face is a poor, tormented, PTSD-suffering asshole. Nothing. Zippo. Zero. It's pure speculation on your part, and it's stupid beyond belief. And it blames his wife beating on factors outside his control, poor baby. Why, he's really a victim here, too! Awwwwwwwwwwwwww…. Also, Flewellyn's right about male groups being dominated by male culture. It doesn't necessarily have to be militaristic, however. Some age groups and demographics are militantly misogynist. Look at Gawker media, where hatred for women is rampant, even amongst people who say they're women themselves. I guess if they think they're one of the guys the guys won't turn on them. And if you write about certain topics in general, and some big sites get wind up, you have to moderate the hell out of comments, as the MRAs here are all too typical of your basic troll.
>Marissa, I don't think abusive men actually want to win custody of their children. You're right. If they cared so much, they'd want to pay child support. They just want to get at the mother where it hurts the worst–the children. Those men know that caring moms will fight to the death to protect their children, and that trying to win custody will either hurt her or compel her to return to the abusive relationship. If the man has enough money for a good lawyer, he can financially hurt her by dragging her to court over and over to fight for custody. It's called abuse by court. The worst tragedy is when family courts actually give custody of the children to the abusive spouse. You can google "abuse by court", "courageous kids' network", and "the Liz Library" to learn a lot about the dark side of fathers' rights groups.After Paul Gonzalez gets out of prison, he could try to drag the woman back to court to fight for custody. However, his extreme public attack of her will hopefully ensure that no court will allow him unsupervised access to the children.
>Gee, David, you're awfully touchy for somebody who lets MRAs tee off on your female commenters pretty much at will, with the caveat that if they make rape threats that—and that alone—-is out of bounds. And that's why women are reluctant to come here and more reluctant to hit any of those 'like' buttons. And apparently you didn't look at a single link I posted. I think I and any other woman who's been blogging for a while and enduring shit gets to be kind of blunt. Yuu might not like it, but you're not the one living through it, are you? Being called a mangina doesn't really compare to men threatening to come to your house and rape you and kill you—-and then they boast that they have your address. And then the same threat arrives in the mail.
>Ginmar, David has every right to be touchy when responding to your comment about any large group of men being a swamp of misogyny. You're implying that when he goes out with his buddies, they transform into raving misogynists. If an MRA here said that any overwhelmingly female group was a swamp of vapidity and selfishness, you'd be angry at him for saying that, and you'd be perfectly justified in that anger. Some women are vapid and selfish; some men are misogynists. But that doesn't mean they all are, and it's unfair to characterize them so. Men are not the enemy.
>"And thus THASF dismisses the woman's injuries once again to focus on the poor widdle wife beater, speculating that maybe he came from the planet MOngo and thus suffered space sickness and she shouldn't have provoked him. Or something. But he's not that different from our resident MRAs; they find men fascinating, but women are just punching bags with vaginas. She must have done something to make him pissed off, because to assholes like Ion—who sees only a dogpile on poor widdle dipshit—all guys get the benefit of the doubt."Whoah, whoah. I never said anything like that. Wow, you sure have a tendency to read a whole lot of meaning into things that just isn't there. I mean, I do that too, but not to this extent. If you saw a male basketball player on the front of a box of Wheaties, you'd probably say that it's there because the patriarchy put it there. That sort of base hostility does nothing but discredit one's own position.Just because someone's trying to identify a source of a problem in a person, that doesn't mean that they're trying to make excuses for them. Heck, I'm making the guy out to be a genetic-defective with anger issues, and that still upsets you somehow. Should I analyze his ex, too? Should I try and find fault in her instead?Look, ginmar. I tend to identify as a bit of a feminist. Plain and simple. I don't believe that making excuses for women and treating them like they have the intellectual capacity of a child is going to have an emancipatory effect. You act like it's always the man's fault when a marriage ends up ruined. That kind of thinking actually robs women of power and influence.By taking into account the possibility that Christine and Paul both had an equal hand in setting up the conditions that led to their divorce, my intent was not to make excuses for her husband, but to recognize her status as an intelligent adult with the equal responsibility to make their marriage work."David: Have you finally started deleting THASF's posts? It's like he's got a checklist of irrelevant topics he needs to cover."Well, that's just it. See, I say something, and then someone else says something in response which pulls the topic further away from the actual subject, and then I feel obligated to respond to them in detail about my views on the matter, which pulls it even further away. And yet, somehow I always end up blamed, just for trying to be comprehensive and cover everything to everyone's satisfaction. Like, seriously?
>but to recognize her status as an intelligent adult with the equal responsibility to make their marriage work.You basically just said that a woman has an equal responsibility to not get beaten by her husband.
>THASF,First of all I am a child of divorce whose parents were in and out of court every other year for the duration of my childhood because they couldn't get along, follow custody agreements, pay child support etc. I am not messed up in the head because of it. What has messed me up is my abusive mother. second, here is the rebuttal to your humanism bullshithttp://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/04/feminism-101-feminism-and-humanism.htmlthird, how about this, if I throw a brick (which you claim doesn't actually exist) at your head I bet you anything you're still going to duck because even though you won't admit it you know very well that the brick exists. Your argument is a logical fallacy and you need to either stop or just go away and act out your belief that nothing actually exists.
>You basically just said that a woman has an equal responsibility to not get beaten by her husband.Well, no. That's not what I meant. I've said time and time again that he was completely out of line, and I make no excuses for his misbehavior.What I'm saying is that his actions were the culmination of a failed marriage that could only have existed had both of them learned to cooperate. Both. Him too. Beating someone up is obviously not the same thing as cooperation. Of course, the essence of the position held by the MRAs is that "she refused to cooperate with him, so she provoked him to violent action".The essence of the position held by the anti-MRAs is that "she really had no choice but to divorce him, because he was going to be an abuser anyway". Do you notice something here? Both of those arguments treat her as though she's a child. As if she had no real control over the situation at all. As if this turn of events were inevitable. That's not very flattering at all, if you ask me. It's actually rather upsetting.
>@avicenna, you have the wrong definition of psychosis. And, there have been hundreds of studies on the issue of mental illness and crime, all with consistent results-that mental illness does not increase likelihood to commit crime. It is not even close to a decent predictive factor. The only way that you can even get to a predictive factor from psychotic disorder to higher rates of crime is if you fail to control for substance abuse (which psychotics have a higher rates), but, even then, psychotic addicts do not commit violence at higher rates than addicts without mental illness.@Elizabeth, there is no constitutional right to an insanity defense. Not every state in the US has such a defense (and, contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of mentally ill people are legally sane under these statutes at most or all times). Proof that the defendent has PTSD IS NOT proof of legal insanity-that is a much stricter standard. Most states that do not have an insanity defense allow evidence of mental illness to combat the mens rea element, but it is still somewhat shaky legal ground as to whether or not they are constitutionally required to do so. It is also worth noting that being found not guilty by reason of insanity generally does involve imprisonment for decades or for life. What happens after someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity is criminal committment, either until the person can prove that they are no longer a danger or, even harder, that they are no longer mentally ill. It is not true that these defendents serve less time and, for anything less than a murder or treason charge, being not guilty by reason of insanity usually means doing more, not less, time (just in a mental institution rather than a jail). For a felony assault, in most jurisdictions, only a fool lawyer would recommend such a defense (this is true for attempted murder in general as well). Giving your client 30 years locked up instead of 5 is a bad fucking move, particularly for indigent clients, who often go to state run institutions as bad or worse than prisons. Despite popular culture mythology to the contrary, these defense in the US are hard to win and not really useful for much short of a murder charge, and even then best done with a defendent who can pay for a private institution over a public one (unless it is a death penalty case-in which case, horrible abusive mental institution may be preferred to death).@THASF, read my entire comment before opening your fool mouth. The very next sentence addressed harm. And, no, I absolutely disagree that we should use "any means necessary" to eliminate people and their offspring because they have a certain diagnosis. Of course, determining what is a "problem" and what is an "illness" and what is not is a topic with massive historical and cross cultural variance. Does being queer count? Does having aspergers count? Does being deaf count? Does being a little person count? Not all people with disabilities are filled with self hate, and even less would be if we did not purposefully arrange our societies so as to exclude them. The issue you completely ignore is societal discrimination, which is something that can be remedied. You know what, I am a person with disabilities and I do not think my life is of less value than yours, and I would not seek a "cure" for many of my conditions even if offered. You do not get to make those evaluations for others and when you suggest that certain groups should self sterilize, you set up a social standard calling for hatred and discrimination. You also blatantly ignore the issues of beneficial linked traits (carriers of sickle cell, for example, are highly resistent or immune to malaria). So please, go fuck yourself.
>And with "Men are not the enemy" Lady Victoria shows how she's reading tons of shit into the man-hating feminazi's words. I mean, look at here. David lets all kinds of guys get away with all kinds of shit. I've pointed out numerous cases where misogyny flourishes and where women have been driven off the web. But you? "Men are not the enemy" is just the thing a comfy person says. David wants to get offended? Yeah, well, you know, if he gets more offended at that than the sheer amounts of bullshit the MRAs dish out then he's not really in a position to argue. The standard argument is that we need to tolerate bullshit abusive comments by MRAs to 'show what they're really like.' What that means, is kick up the clicks and get the blogger some attention. And, gee, men and certain women find that very easy to ignore because they've got some insulation from it. Must be rough.
>I tend to identify as a bit of a feminist.Well, stop.
>Ginmar, is there a particular reason you are lashing out at those of us who you know very well are not anti-women today?DSC-I thought I was being clear it was about sentencing that the issue of PTSD may be brought up. AZ allows for hearings on mitigating circumstances under ARS 13-701(E) and (G).
>ginmar said… "Gee, David, you're awfully touchy for somebody who lets MRAs tee off on your female commenters pretty much at will, with the caveat that if they make rape threats that—and that alone—-is out of bounds. And that's why women are reluctant to come here and more reluctant to hit any of those 'like' buttons."So you speak for all woman now? I think some of the other women here will be surprised to hear that. In any case, a couple of things:I don't censor misogynists posting here for two reasons:1) I don't like censoring anyone, even if I violently disagree with them. As for namecalling, well, sometimes I call people names, and so do others on my side, so it would be a tad hypocritical to censor my opponents for doing that too. If insults turn into abuse, I delete posts and ban people. Ironically, the person spewing the most obnoxious insults towards a female commenter in this thread is, well, you, in your comments to Elizabeth. 2) The second reason I don't censor misogynist comments is basically the same reason I quote misogynist comments on this blog in the first place: generally speaking, when misogynists talk, they make themselves look worse, not better. They give feminists more ammunition.This point is actually related to why I said something in response to your comment about "any" group of mostly men being misogynistic: Not only do I think that's wrong; I think it gives MRAS ammunition to use against feminism. And again, my saying that men in groups aren't inherently misogynistic is in no way the same as saying that women online don't get harassed. They do get harassed, all the time, much more often than men do. There are a lot of hateful misogynist assholes online. "A lot," though, is not the same as "most" or "all."
>I say "men are not the enemy" because it is the truth. We are not at war with an entire gender, and we should not approach an entire gender with an adversarial mindset. The enemy are patriarchists, traditionalists, abusers, sexists, chauvinists, misogynists, racists, bigots and homophobes. It is true that many of those people are also men, but we should keep in mind that women can be just as supportive of the patriarchy as men are; and men can be very supportive of feminism. David has explained his rationale for having relaxed standards of comments, and, well, it's his blog and he can set the standard how he wishes. If you wish a place with stricter moderation, go there.
>And @THASF:You still don't get it. You're basically saying that each party has an equal responsibility to make a marriage work. In most cases, this is a valid statement to make. HOWEVER!!! If a woman is married to an abuser, you're basically arguing that it's up to her to make sure she doesn't get hit. You know who else makes those kinds of excuses? Abusers. "Honey, you know I love you and I don't want to hit you, but it just makes me so mad when you don't have dinner ready on time that I lose my temper and can't control myself." And I doubt that this woman went into the marriage knowing he was going to abuse her. The thing with abusers is that it's pretty hard to pick up that they're abusers right off the bat. They tend to be charismatic and outgoing, and invest a lot of energy early into the relationship by appearing to be the perfect boyfriend. It's only when she's well and truly hooked that the abusive part comes out, and it usually doesn't get physical until he's already broken down her self-esteem and isolated her from friends and family. And then after he hits her, he's extremely apologetic and takes pains to demonstrate how sorry he is that he hit her. She, because she loves him, wants to forgive him and believe his sincerity, so she stays around and the cycle of abuse continues. So, yeah, it's totally her fault for not being a mindreader and having enough precognition to know he was going to end up hitting her. You're also implying that the dissolution of a marriage is something to be avoided. Divorce can be painful, but sometimes the best thing for everyone is for the marriage to end. And sometimes it's not 'both parties' who are equally at fault. If a woman finds herself married to an abuser, the best thing she can do for herself and her children is to get the fuck out – which is precisely what this woman did, and her leaving him enraged this man so much that he felt the need to punish her with violence.
>A few thoughts:The possibility of PTSD being a factor should not be discounted just because, even though I think the diagnosis is more often than not a reflection of the way our society attaches different values to experiences that are comparably traumatic. And PTSD does not take care of the insanity defense. Although legal standards for proving temporary insanity differ among states, they are invariably narrow; thus, the defense is rarely invoked and incredibly rarely succeeds. Still, this is an issue that's not irrelevant, so I see no harm in discussing it.When a marriage breaks down, both parties are usually to blame. However, this does not mean they are equally to blame. The flipside of hypothesizing that Gozalez lashed out because he suffered from PTSD is having to acknowledge that if this is so, then PTSD probably fueled prior violent behavior that brought about the divorce in the first place. A spouse's PTSD and resultant violent tendencies put a person in a very difficult position, especially when children are involved: leave, and you are a bad wife because you haven't done all you can to help your husband through it; stay, and you are a bad mother because you are endangering your children by carrying on with a "bad boy", plus you are to blame for your own beatings because you should have left. In other words, while I will accept, generally, that usually both spouses contribute to a divorce, I cannot accept, on these facts, that the wife is equally, or even comparably, to blame for the breakdown of the marriage.
>"@THASF, read my entire comment before opening your fool mouth. The very next sentence addressed harm. And, no, I absolutely disagree that we should use "any means necessary" to eliminate people and their offspring because they have a certain diagnosis."First of all, yes, I read the entire comment. Secondly, I never said anything about eliminating people and their offspring. Voluntary self-sterilization is the most radical measure that I proposed. I was talking about eliminating the genetic diseases that people carry and pass on to their offspring. There are theoretical methods of doing this that would allow for one to preserve the offspring, such as the use of in-utero gene therapy.Whether you think it's ethical or not, science will advance until mankind feels it necessary to use its technology to engineer a "perfect" human. It's not a question of if, only when. When they do that, who's to say that they won't mandate that everyone uses such technology to improve their own offspring?"Does being queer count? Does having aspergers count? Does being deaf count? Does being a little person count?"If those are caused by a genetic illness, then yes. If they're acquired during a person's lifespan, then no."Not all people with disabilities are filled with self hate, and even less would be if we did not purposefully arrange our societies so as to exclude them. The issue you completely ignore is societal discrimination, which is something that can be remedied."There is a baseline standard for humanity and our mental and physical faculties. Discrimination against people with disabilities only exists because those disabilities:1. May make them physically-unattractive.2. Can potentially be inherited by their offspring.3. May prevent them from being effective in the workplace, making them dependent upon others for survival.Should I stop wearing glasses because I can't see very well without them? Should I take off my glasses and "identify" with actual blind people? No. The glasses are there to correct something that's wrong with me. To bring me in line with the "base standard" for humanity. That is a form of discrimination, if you want to put it that way.I hate it when people yell "discrimination!", as though we shouldn't be drawing a line somewhere. The power to discriminate – to sort the wheat from the chaff – is only human. Should we not discriminate against violent idiots like this Gonzalez fellow? Should we just let anything and everything slide? What about when Angela Merkel said that multi-culturalism in Germany has failed? Was that too much "discrimination" for you?You may hate me for being so blunt, and you have every right to."You do not get to make those evaluations for others and when you suggest that certain groups should self sterilize, you set up a social standard calling for hatred and discrimination."I wasn't suggesting that "certain groups" should self-sterilize. I was merely saying that different ethnic groups have different distributions of specific genetic disorders, which would affect the treatment plan. I also suggested that genetic screening protocols be enacted for all individuals, regardless of ethnicity."You also blatantly ignore the issues of beneficial linked traits (carriers of sickle cell, for example, are highly resistent or immune to malaria)."With such mutations, the good is outweighed by the bad. With sickle cell disorder, red blood cells get stuck in one's blood vessels, and that can cause any number of complications. An adaptation like sickle cell anemia will be pointless when mankind has eliminated malaria by replacing the mosquitos in the environment with genetically-modified ones that are resistant to the malaria parasite.
>@Lady VictoriaAgreed on all points. I just want to add that I do get incredibly tired of the MRAs and misogynists who flood this blog. They do it on pretty much all prominent feminist blogs, because they can't stand the thought of women voicing their thoughts without a male chaperone. Some feminist blogs choose to make themselves into feminist-only spaces and ban the misogynists.David has chosen not to make his blog such a space, and I respect that. Yes, the misogynists get tiresome, but it's still worth coming here to read David's posts and many of the commenters in this community.On the other hand, I recognize that I'm enjoying a whole heap of male privilege when I say I merely find the misogynists here "tiresome." As a man, I don't have to worry about what violence others might perpetrate on me for daring to own my own body and mind.
>Well, stop.Why?And again, my saying that men in groups aren't inherently misogynistic is in no way the same as saying that women online don't get harassed. They do get harassed, all the time, much more often than men do. There are a lot of hateful misogynist assholes online. "A lot," though, is not the same as "most" or "all."This is very true, Dave. Out of sheer curiosity, I've played as a female avatar in several video games and either muted my voice chat or used text-only chat, and just let other players make whatever assumptions they wanted about my sex.You wouldn't believe how many times I heard people scream "KILL THAT [insert derogatory term for the female anatomy here]" whenever I was on the verge of winning a game. I've also seen and heard plenty of individuals making rude, sexist remarks towards actual female players during many a Halo match. I mean, video games in general are hostile to women and ethnic minorities. There have even been (WARNING: LINKED VIDEO CONTAINS HATEFUL SPEECH)studies pertaining to this.
>@Lady Victoria von SyrusBravo. You're right on all counts. It isn't possible for one to tell when one is going to be an abuser. Christine most likely couldn't tell if this Paul was going to end up like this before she married him, so she couldn't have made any character judgments either way.As they say, hindsight is 20/20. It's easy for us to go on about what they "should have" done when we already know the outcome.Of course, I believe you fall into a bit of a common trap when you suggest that only men can be abusers. Men and women are both quite capable of abusive behavior. However, I wholeheartedly admit that men dole out the lion's share of completely unjustified violence. So then, it becomes a question of how to prevent it.See, I take a stone soup approach to debating things. I start with provocative questions, and I end up with something fruitful to integrate into my own worldview and help me gain a more complete picture of the greater whole. I try and take after the example of Socrates whenever possible. He was in the business of being controversial, because it made people think. It made people question things. It made them look more fervently for answers to pressing problems instead of sitting on their laurels. That's why I offered myself up to be the sacrificial lamb in this debate. To be the OPFOR. It's because I wanted to hear what everyone else had to say on these matters, not because I necessarily feel strongly about what I say.Chameleon-like, I have the amazing ability to play devil's advocate in virtually any argument without having any personal investment whatsoever in anything that I say.
>Of course, I believe you fall into a bit of a common trap when you suggest that only men can be abusersI forget which comment thread it is on this blog, but it was a fairly long one, when I discussed the possibility of female abusers with Tit for Tat. In fact, there were two such threads on this blog. Go into the archives and read them if you have the time. I was talking about male on female abuse because that's what the initial post and ensuing discussion was about. And I also hate it when men try and bring up abusive women IN A THREAD ABOUT ABUSIVE MEN. It's distracting at best and disruptive at worst. Also, Socrates also did not start teaching in the Socratic method until he was fairly old and had accumulated a lifetime of wisdom. Consider that the next time you want to try and feel special by asking 'provocative questions,' and consider that you might not in fact be a brilliant philosopher, but just an annoying ass. I personally find it more beneficial to me when I do argue about things I care about with people I disagree with. I gain insight, sharpen my rhetoric and am forced to put my values into actual words, rather than feelings. And sometimes, I end up changing my mind entirely. That's one of the reasons I like this blog so much, because of the opportunity to do just that.
>Elizabeth: Oh, because at least three people are patronizing me? You, lady Von "Men are not the enemy," and some dipshit who wants to blame the wife for her husband beating her and doing it at such great length it crashed my browser. This is on top of the fact that the conversation is still dominated by idiots who have apparently decided out of nowhere that this dude must have PTSD. And David, I see you're doing something very patriarchal: you're ignoring the very assholishness you permit but bitching when at least one feminist bites back, in this case me. YOu can't have it both ways. You can't let the MRAs run free, and then bitch at me for being pissed about it. So you speak for all woman now? I think some of the other women here will be surprised to hear that. What is it with you and a few other people? Did I SAY that? Answer the question, David, did I? No, what I did was I pointed out to you—as did Flewellyn—what it's like for an awful lot of women, but you got your widdle feewings hurt over something you had to reach for. And now this statement, which is so classic for guys who are usually anti-feminist. It's funny hearing it from supposed allies. So your argument is that women never face harassment ever online, at all, and that all groups of men are hunky dory and wonderful? That groups of men never enforce a culture that encourages the harassment and ostracism of women, at best? Or do you just want to be an asshole and ask me bullshit questions like Elizabeth and Lady Vonwhat's her face that indicate stunning bad faith? So, let's recap: You ignoring the background of this issue and sniping at me, and as a matter of fact, bitching at me more than at the MRAs. And a bunch of people who are theorizing that this woman beating scumbag has PTSD, based on nothing more than wishful and longwinded thinking, and that training in the military invariably produces violent people. It's also a subtle jab against people with mental illness, as if mental illness makes people violent when in fact it tends to make them culnerable to it. All this is fine with you except for me objecting to the bullshit, at which point you demand if I'm speaking for all women, while apparenlty it's totally okay for you to speak for all men. That's one standard for you and one standard for me.
>Of course you like Socrates, THASF, because you are a eugenicist ass and Socrates also was of the opinion that the poor and enslaved were born morally inferior (Protagoras, in fine form, gave him a smack down on that one). Skin color, after all, is genetic too, THASF. My being a queer aspie is no more evil than my being born with a certain skin tone. You have decided to pick out certain parts of human variation and presume that they are deserving of massive social discrimination and are inferior without justifying your position. Asking why someone you specifically and purposefully exclude from education, employment, etc. is not meeting the goals you have set for those areas is absurd. Of course, being a victim of discrimination, having some people think you are ugly (ever looked at issues with societal standards of beauty and black women's social status in regards to attractiveness? Cross cultural differences?), and having children like yourself are the great and horrible crimes you think must be stopped.