Good news, ladies and manginas: Apparently some MRAs don’t think it’s time to go out and start shooting people. At least not quite yet.
Some background: In recent days numerous MRAs have taken up the cause of a man named Thomas Ball – who burned himself to death outside a courthouse in Keane, New Hampshire in a protest against what he saw as unfair treatment in family court. Ferdinand Bardamu of In Male Fide has declared him “a martyr for the cause of men’s rights, a casualty of feminism’s stripping one half of the population of their humanity.”
Before killing himself, Ball wrote a long manifesto outlining his grievances and suggesting that the time had come for men “to start burning down police stations and courthouses,” describing the inhabitants of such buildings as “[c]ollaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War … So burn them out. “ (He offered specific advice on how best to do this, including tips on how to select the proper bottles to use for Molotov cocktails.)
All this has inspired some in the MRA to start talking ominously about violence. On The Spearhead, W.F. Price has responded to this talk with a piece suggesting that the time isn’t quite right for the MRAs of the world to take up armed struggle. Not just yet, anyway. As he puts it:
It is never a good idea to pick up a gun and start shooting to address some vaguely defined injustice — that is savagery. Before the American Revolution, for example, patriots took pains to spell out a long list of grievances that justified rebellion. …
We have to make our own lists, air our grievances, and give the state the opportunity to redress them. … Before anyone resorts to the same methods the state uses against us, we must put every reasonable effort into working with the law and the political system we have. Because this effort is still in its infancy, any calls for armed resistance are entirely premature and counterproductive, and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Obviously, the flip side of this argument for delay is a justification for killing people if these “grievances” aren’t dealt with in the way that those in the MRA would like. Price’s reference to the American Revolution is an interesting one, because of course the central issue of that struggle was, you know, taxation without representation. The colonists couldn’t vote out the king if they didn’t like his policies. In case anyone has forgotten: we actually do have the vote now, which was kind of the whole point in the first place.
Of course, many of Price’s readers are a bit more impatient than he is. In a comment that drew (last I checked) more than 40 upvotes and only two dissenting downvote, Taqman took issue with Price’s call to delay the armed struggle:
Tell that to men who are facing imminent imprisonment for failure to pay child support.
They don’t have the luxury of time and can’t wait a couple of decades for the manginas of the world to wake up and decide that a gentlemanly form of armed resistance is now acceptable.
The ironically named Firepower, meanwhile, took a little swipe at Ball’s own actions, but didn’t challenge his advice for the rest of the men of the world:
What IS crazy is having to point out that setting YOURSELF on fire is a ridiculous way to “win” anything.
Set your enemies on fire. To even have to remind this questions the long term chances of victory for such a pathetic lot.
Jean Valjean suggested that political action was pointless — due to all those damned women who vote:
No amount of “stoic logic” will make politicians see our point of view.
Politicians are in the business of getting re-elected rather than the business of good governance. So long as women are the majority there will only be tyranny of the majority.
Peter-Andrew:Nolan(c) — you knew we were getting to him, right? — expressed his profound disappointment that more Spearheaders weren’t willing to embrace a violent solution:
Gee you guys are whimps and tiptoe around the ‘use of force’ like freaking ballet dancers. Are you so scared to speak about this when it is CLEAR the guvment LOVES using force against you and lots of other people too?
And he made the argument personal, explicitly denouncing, by name, the judge he claimed had “criminally abused” him with his rulings:
Judge [name redacted’s] life is now in my hands. He lives by my consent and my consent alone. …
And, like Ball, he declared judges to be essentially treasonous:
These judges pretended to be your servants. They are evil, evil people who deserve the kind of treatment reserved for those who commit treason.
There is more to Nolan’s comment(s) than that, but to get into it would require going down the rabbit-hole into his particular brand of crackpottery, which seems to involve him setting up his own courts to try judges he doesn’t like. (I frankly don’t understand his belief system and don’t care to.)
Now, it should be noted that a few Spearheaders actually objected to Nolan’s violent talk. But the last I checked, the comment I just quoted had more upvotes than downvotes. W.F. Price took more flak for suggesting men wait a little longer before taking up arms than Nolan did for, well, you saw what he wrote. That tells you a lot about The Spearhead, I think.
EDIT: Added quote from Ferdinand Bardamu; removed similar quote from The Spearhead.
Kirby
I brought up false allegations as a suggestion to free up more time for genuine child abuse, because I was asked what I thought we should do about child abuse.
Bell was not falsely accused, by his own words, he hit the child.
He needs to turn on HLN… on almost ANY TIME XD It’s 24/7 Casey Anthony…
DAMMIT PPL!!! You guyz are slipping keeping up the feminist conspiracy! >:| Holly, can you get word out to Overlady Bindel to shut down HLN? xD
I always find it funny too that these trolls go after us, and not like M Andrea or Heart or something xD
Ami – I think it’s because David doesn’t moderate harshly.
(Which I don’t mind–troll-baiting is kind of a sport around these parts–but it does encourage a certain… culture.)
@Nobinayamu:
No problem.
@Eoghan:
“The media is a female teacher who becomes pregnant by a 15-year-old boy described as a” tragedy “. But if a male teacher had done something similar, it will be spoken of as “grotesque”
Well, yeah. In one case a grown woman becomes pregnant, in the other a 15-year-old. And before you get all snarky about focusing on the woman instead of the man, realize that the woman is the one who has to bear the child. That does nothing to excuse the case that both situations are bad ones, like Holly said, no one here is supporting female abusers.
Seriously though, you present “facts” that say that women are the majority of abusers, and then when we point out that is false, you say “Ha, you just want to protect all those abusive women!” No, your facts are just wrong.
David, wanna give that ultimatum to eoghan’s newest incarnation again?
Eoghan: “I said that the fact that he was putting her to bed indicated that he was involved in hands on parenting and the fact that the child was repeatedly licking him and would stop indicated that she wasn’t afraid of him, so going by those parts of the story, he doesnt look like a “monster” but rather someone that lost control. That said, we dont really know.”
The fact that he was putting her to bed and lost control over something so minor indicates that he wasn’t used to parenting. Parents who spend a long time parenting (in non-abusive ways, of course) generally develop a tolerance for antics like licking — at least enough to restrain themselves from inflicting physical injuries on their children.
Furthermore, physical evidence does not support your conclusion that he momentarily “lost control”. If he pushed her away too hard and she fell and hit her head on the crib slats, then I could believe that he lost control. But that’s not what happened. He slapped her — and he slapped her hard enough to split her lip. Considering that there was face-to-face contact immediately before the slap (because she was licking him), he would have to draw back and put sufficient distance between his body and his daughter’s to give his arm and hand enough swing to hit her that hard. That sounds a lot more like a deliberate act than a consequence of loss of control.
And, based on the fact that child abuse usually starts small and then escalates, chances are this wasn’t the first time.
BALL!!!!!!!!!
This is really pissing me off. It’s not that hard.
His name is BALL!
Think of the round bouncy thing, not the loud noise-making thing.
“Lost control” isn’t really an excuse. It’s the problem. Parents are supposed to have control over themselves.
“For fuck’s sake, Eoghan, NOBODY IS DEFENDING WOMEN WHO ABUSE CHILDREN. Nobody is saying women don’t abuse children!”
Ok Holly – Show me a feminist source that doesn’t treat abuse as something that’s generally gendered then.
I’m not talking about the good feminist researchers, like Straus and Gelles, I’m talking about common or garden feminists.
Eoghan/Middle of the Road: I am not, nor have I at any point, denied that women abuse children. I can pull up half-a-dozen cases of women who have been incarcerated for the abuse and, in some cases, murder of children. Earlier, I wrote that women are responsible for the majority of cases involving abuse and neglect.
Your copied and pasted screed is, again, not an answer to my question though I will, at my leisure, review the sources cited. It is still, in essence, nothing more than you ranting against a straw man.
How should our system handle allegations of child abuse?
In the case of Tom Ball, the system ordered him to receive counseling for his loss of control. Was this the right decision? If so, why? If not, why not?
The issue is not what “feminist sources” that you agree are “common” treat child abuse as an issue that is strictly dealt with in gender binary. I’m not doing that.
How should our system handle allegations of child abuse?
Ok Holly – Show me a feminist source that doesn’t treat abuse as something that’s generally gendered then.
I’m not talking about the good feminist researchers, like Straus and Gelles, I’m talking about common or garden feminists.
So I have to show you a feminist you consider good… but it can’t be a feminist you consider good?
Anyway, abuse DOES have a gender component. More women commit physical abuse of children, more men commit sexual abuse, and so forth.
Holly’s blog, my blog, etc etc -_-;;;
Again, I think it’s up to him to prove that ppl here are child abuse apologists… notice when I asked him for in context full quotes, it’s just ignore, and then COME ON WHERE ARE THE FEMINIST SOURCES THAT *DON’T* DO THAT xDDDD
““Lost control” isn’t really an excuse. It’s the problem. Parents are supposed to have control over themselves.”
I’m not saying its an excuse at all. Im saying that rather than jump the conclusions that were jumped to here, from the limited information we have on Bell its sounds like he lost control rather than him being a repetitive child abusing monster as some here want to believe, and of course, losing control is no excuse.
“Ok Holly – Show me a feminist source that doesn’t treat abuse as something that’s generally gendered then.”
Good God Eoghan, you’re gonna hurt someone with those goal posts. So if a feminist source treats abuse as something that is generally gendered (ie perpetrated mostly by one gender, which is a fact), then that source is defending female child abusers? Really? So if someone says that a majority of assault crime is male on male, obviously that person is defending all the female on male, male on female, female on female, etc. criminals, right?
Which is not a conclusion jumped to from limited information either xD
Not coming to conclusions is what I said… (nothing)
And, while I agree that in the media women who sexually abuse children and men are given a pass, I don’t think this is true of neglecting their children – leaving them in cars etc. I remember a CSI episode, just as an example (yes, it’s only one data point), where an auntie (who was a prostitute) was given care of three children and starved them and left them locked up until one of them died…she put him in a rubbish bin. She was represented as the most heinous, selfish bitch ever – she was overweight and Sarah commented that it didn’t look like the auntie had gone hungry even while she was starving the children in her care. The cops made a point at the end of saying that the mother should have known better than to leave the kids with her sister. They mentioned the father once as a dude who ran off, whatevs. No big deal that the father left her to raise the kids alone, it was the fault of the two women for not looking after the kids.
BALL!!!
It doesn’t sound like; it bounces.
losing control is not an excuse for abuse tho -_-;;;
@Eoghan:
It is Ball. That is the name. Holly just pointed this out. Get it right.
“Holly’s blog, my blog, etc etc -_-;;;”
Nope not Holly’s blog. I posted with her there recently and she was rejecting gender parity in domestic abuse, despite the overwhelming independent research on it.
I don’t have the emotional energy to keep up with the whole thread tonight, I just want to reiterate that it’s really, really not ok to glory in anyone’s death ever. Just no.
Remember guys, love goes in, loves comes out. <3
Elephants go in, elephants come out.
MOREoghan: False allegations of abuse and child abuse are dominated by women, its just a fact. A False Fact… actually, a false allegation (and me without the tar and feathers).
Lets look at this thing which has your skivvies in a wedgie: Ok mass false insinuation then?
You disapprove of those? We agree on something.
So…. SAVE: They are accredited.. by themselves. They say they conducted a survey… but the internals aren’t available. They don’t give a margin of error. They don’t list the company which conducted the survey.
It’s only one survey, so the question of randomization (brought up by Nate Silver in the last election cycle when he was hired to examine a pollster who was faking polls), isn’t really asnwerable, but some of the responses were… curious.
The first and second questions are confusing. It is possible the respondents who answered yes to questions 2 (Has anyone you know ever been falsely accused of abuse? 15.5%) were factoring question 1 (Have you ever heard of anyone falsely accused of abuse? 48.4%). We can’t know, but were I building a survey that set of questions would not have been included, at least not without furhter clarification.
I looked at some of their other evidence. Take the ‘Myths of the ABA on DV”
They say the first holding is false. They do this by equivocating. The ABA study is on disputed cutody cases. The “refutational” article is on, “high conflict divorces”. Moreover the “refutation” is from an article three years older than that in the ABA report.
Further still, the total numbers are still small, with only 20 percent of divorces needing to use, “the more formal conflict-resolution procedures offered by the court”†.
Of that 20 percent the study found that only 1.5 percent had to proceed all the way to a judge. So a bit more then .2 percent of all custody cases needed a judge, and not more than 1 in 5 needed formal judicial intervention†
None of the supporting data she cites ‡ܫ is all that recent (the most current having been in 1992), nor supportive of a widespread number of abuse claims.
What it seems SAVE has done is taken he ratios of the small number of cases, from a study published 17 years ago, based on data, much of which is more than 20 years old, and primarily from Calif. and extrapolated it to “all divorces” and made it nationwide.
See, for example, the studies which were about, “families referred for counselling”… We can presume, since they still needed counselling, that there were some problems. That, “almost one-third remained very hostile, and in conflict over child-rearing matters three to five years after separation” that they were likely to have some significant allegations of things seen as wrong. ი ჻
Most telling (and most undercutting of SAVE’s arguments) is this Pervasive distrust about the other parent’s ability to care for their child adequately, and discrepant perceptions about parenting practices, generally typify the couples who are likely to be highly disputatious both inside and outside the court.†
In that environment (which is, recall, a small fraction of the total divorces) acrimony and false allegation is likely to be present.
But it’s far from 1: an epidemic, and 2: a vast conspiracy against men (which seems to be the driving idea behind SAVE)
†Johnston JR. High-conflict divorce. Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1994.
‡Maccoby, E.E., and Mnookin, R.H. Dividing the child: Social and legal dilemmas of custody. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
ܫDepner, C.E., Cannata, K.V., and Simon, M.B. Building a uniform statistical reporting system: A snapshot of California Family Court Services. Family and Conciliation Courts Review (1992) 30:185-206.
ი Wallerstein, J.S., and Kelly, J.B. Surviving the breakup: How children and parents cope with divorce. New York: Basic Books, 1980.
჻ Ahrons, C.R. The continuing coparental relationship between divorced spouses. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (1981) 51:415-28.
@Sarah:
Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.
@Lyn actually I find in the media, BECAUSE they go by the narrative that “men generally are abusers”, women who are (which is many) get sensational treatment (the woman who drowned her kids, Casey Anthony is on 24/7 HLN right now, they CAN’T stop talking about how f-ed up they think she must be even tho the trial is still on going xD OMFG JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS!! GET THEM EOGHAN) and the media and public become FASCINATED w/ them and absolutely outraged… -_-;; the thing is b/c women are considered by some to be natural caretakers of children, or perfect virginal angels on a pedestal, when they are accused of crimes for things we consider anathema to the nature of a good woman, it becomes this huge giant thing >_<;; (which is why we need to cut this nonsense of women are perfect angels and men as beasts that we understand do bad things so we think ill of them but aren't surprised when it happens)