Last September, WF Price of The Spearhead wrote a post about a Seattle area man named Josh Powell, widely suspected of murdering his missing wife. Price’s complaint? Powell’s two boys had been removed from his custody after his father (with whom he and the boys were living) was charged with voyeurism and possessing child porn. Price excoriated the authorities for what he saw as an abuse of their powers, and concluded his piece by saying that “[t]yranny has arrived in the guise of protecting women and children.”
In the comments, there was a lot more talk about tyranny. Natalia, meanwhile, worried about the children:
The kids are already dealing with the pain of missing their mom, and now they are taken away from their dad. How can anyone believe that’s better for the children?
On Sunday, as you are probably well aware, Powell killed these children, and himself. During a supervised visit, authorities say, Powell locked himself and his kids in his house, incapacitated them by chopping their heads and necks with a hatchet, then set the house (primed with gasoline as an accelerant) ablaze.
The regulars on the Spearhead don’t seem much interested in talking about Powell any more. But of the few comments that have been made, several have been rather telling. Responding to a feminist commenting on his original post, Price wrote:
Typical for a feminist to see this as a triumph. Josh Powell was hounded for years up to this point. If he didn’t kill his wife, and there’s still no evidence he did, does the court bear some responsibility for the outcome here?
That’s right. The court is to blame for trying to protect the children from the man who later murdered them.
And not a word of sympathy from him for the murdered children.
Meanwhile, another Spearheader seemed to suggest that the main problem was that Powell had picked the wrong people to kill:
Notice the upvotes. And the lack of a response; the regulars were too busy making jokes about domestic violence and the evils of the upcoming Valentines — sorry, Vagina — Day.
EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to Kendra, Cloudiah, and Crumbelievable for pointing me to Price’s post and these comments. I should also note that there were a couple of comments from others at The Spearhead expressing sorrow for the murdered children. And to my knowledge no one in the MRM has hailed him as a hero, so that’s something, I guess.
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN:
Price digs his hole deeper. Responding to a critical comment by none other than Men’s Rights Activist Lieutenant, he writes, among other things:
If the cops knew he was capable of real violence, and they must have if they suspected him for murder, they bear some responsibility for provoking this.
So if the cops knew he was capable of real violence (which they clearly did) … they should have let him keep the kids? That he ultimately killed?
I’ve heard this argument before from MRAs. Essentially, if a man in a custody dispute threatens violence, or is thought to be violent, the courts should simply hand the kids over to him. So he won’t get mad. That’s the logic of an abuser, or at the very least of an enabler.
@dracula
@historyguy
right now police arent really required to do anything about an abuser, even with a court order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales
@Sharculese: Castle Rock v. Gonzales is another example of the way feminism has perverted and pervaded every aspect of law and the machinery of the state. /End sarcasm! Seriously, I was unaware of that case, and now I am a bit horrified. Anyone know of other states with laws that do require the enforcement of restraining orders? I know restraining orders are not magical force shields, but this is just insane.
@Kendra: You have more fortitude than I do to follow up on what else they are saying about this case. That TomSmith quote just makes me want to smash things.
Oh, why do I go down the rabbit hole? Trying to find more information about restraining orders in various states, I found this lovely quote about restraining orders as the 4th fucking search result on the Google: “No law has been so misused to subvert the rights of any class of people since slavery.” They don’t go all Godwin until the bottom of the page: “Restraining orders are the most egregious abuse of authority by government since Nazi Germany.” Source: http://fathersunite.org/restraining_orders.html
The rest of the page is pretty breathtaking too.
Buttman. Yes you are victim blaming. Cut it the fuck out.
Lots of good men you noted? Yes. And they raise women and girls who go on to expect that men are decent human beings. Which leaves women with no information to spot abusers before the relationship gets too far, or how to deal with it once we’re in. Most women end up on the long, hard and dangerous road of learning while being abused.
Abusers are often charming, and they learn to hide what they really are. They don’t announce to your friends that they will be breaking your arm tonight, and that’s not where they start either. Abusers slowly blur, twist and manipulate boundaries. Then they test to see how much further they can take their abuse. By the time the hitting starts, most victims can’t recognize themselves, they’ve forgotten who they were before they met the abuser. By the time the hitting starts, the victim often finds that they can’t leave.
Holly at the Pervocracy wrote “why does she stay with that jerk” and it explains why people can’t leave their abusers.
MRAL
Contrary to your belief, feminists are actual real live human beings capable of empathy and the full range of human virtues. Many of us have families, brothers, sons, nephews. We actually give a shit about what happens to people other than ourselves and our families, just like other human beings.
Read what the MRA has been posting. Does it sound to you like these guys give a shit?
MRAL, that’s nice, dear. Run along and play now, the grownups are talking.
@cloudiah – do you mean states as in nations? because castle rock is the law in all 50 states of the union?
Buttman said
Buttman, how are women supposed to know which men will be caring and nonviolent, when abusers pretend to be caring and nonviolent? Sometimes the warning signs are subtle, and oftentimes a victim is trapped by the time zie realizes what is going on. There are charts to help someone recognize early warning signs, like the Duluth Wheel, but MRA’s don’t like that either. Even if the Duluth wheel was written in gender neutral terms, MRA’s still criticize the early warning signs. They claim that feminists think it’s abuse for men to use logic or to spend money. They take a tiny part of it, misinterpret it, and blow it way out of proportion.
It’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. If you give out information about the early warning signs for abusive relationships, then MRA’s will say you’re making everything into abuse. If a woman ends up in a very violent situation, though, the MRA’s will say “Why didn’t she see this coming earlier?”
@sharculese: I mean states as in states, but I should have been more clear. (I tend to assume people can read my mind, which is not the best basis for communication!) Based on the Wikipedia page, it seems as though at least part of the ruling was based on Colorado state law; if you read through to the ACLU and NOW reference pages, they make it sound as though part of their response was to organize to improve state laws to require enforcement of restraining orders, and to make officers personally liable for failure to do that.
The ACLU link listed two states as good models:
Not great at HTML, so I hope I don’t break the internet.
Hateful and stupid as ever, MRAL. Welcome back.
It’s interesting that Price goes on, considerably, about how aggressive the boys’ maternal grandfather was being in working with law enforcement on the murder investigation and in seeking custody of his grandchildren.
Chuck Cox believed (believes), and with good reason, that Powell killed his daughter and that his grandchildren were being raised by a murderer. Apparently, this tremendous feeling fathers have for their children, emotions that run so deep murder is a regrettable if understandable “outcome” of being separated from their children, doesn’t apply to Mr. Cox.
Oh, and the ACLU link is here: http://www.aclu.org/womens-rights/aclu-disappointed-supreme-court-ruling-domestic-violence-orders-protection
(Yay, I didn’t break the internet. Small victories, I’ll take ’em.)
Pillowinhell, well, you don’t seem to show it much. I see a lot of mean-spirited sarcasm directed to men, and a general consensus that men are spoiled worthless privileged oppressors. So no, I didn’t think you’d care.
And before you start talking to me about “not giving a shit about anyone else”, I disagree with Price’s politicization of the situation, I found it to be in bad taste, and I told him so.
And I think there’s a sort of fuzzy distinction between “responsibility” and “blame”. Powell committed the double murder because he was clearly a psychopath, and he is do blame. I don’t think this crime is a result of “being pushed to the brink”, but like someone said, police and state incompetence provided a window of opportunity for this fuck to do what he did. So they share responsibility, but not blame, per se.
huh, well i guess i didn’t remember castle rock as well as i thought i did
I’m utterly shocked that MARL cared for someone other than himself for even a moment.
You really disgust me. Making people sick is your goal, I assume? Congrats.
Thanks for the fucking sarcasm, Bostonian. For your information I actually was very upset by this, and hadn’t heard of it till I looked at Manboobz today.
I just let a bunch of MRAL comments through moderation.
You opened with a cruelly sarcastic statement against the people here. What I said was much milder than what I wanted to say, but I am glad it stung you back for a moment.
Buttman: I’m not trying to blame the victim but the best solution to these types of crimes is for women to stop going for men like Powell. I don’t believe for a second that this guy was completely normal and then just flipped. Women need to look at themselves and see why they go for violent men and thugs. There are millions of non-violent, caring men who are ignored by women.
If you aren’t trying to blame the victim, stop blaming the victim. It’s really convenient, for you, that you think abusers have some sort of special tics that make them obvious from the very beginning. That means you can blame the victim, and pretend it’s not what you are doing.
Wow, I hadn’t seen the Castle Rock case. I was up-to-date on these issues in the late ’90s, but have gotten behind. I can’t say I’m surprised that Scalia issued the majority opinion.
I’m not a lawyer, but I wonder if a case could be made under the equal protection clause. This ruling creates a situation where police (the state) might enforce the law in one area, but not enforce it in another. That doesn’t look like equal protection under the laws to me. Sadly, with this court’s emphasis on standing, it couldn’t be challenged until someone gets hurt.
historyguy: You’d have to show that a specific set of cops (i.e. an entire force) systematically failed to uphold specific categories of restraining order.
I can’t think of many (if any) groups who have the money to find that sort of malfeasance; other than the gov’t which has been told it doesn’t have to enforce them at all, if it doesn’t feel in the mood.
equal protection, in it’s most simple form, means that when the government classifies people into groups it has to treat ‘similarly situated people similarly’. people under different municipal authorities arent ‘similarly situated’, in fact you would expect different communities to make different value judgments about law enforcement policy (subject to higher [state and national] authorities and other constitutional limits on police behavior, of course)
castle rock is actually part of a larger trend though, the current supreme court seems to think law enforcement in general has incredible discretion when it comes to deciding whether or not to actually do their job