Choke a chicken? Go to jail! Choke a woman? Slap on the wrist!

[margin]

I need to adjust my standards lower whenthis stuff here shocks me. The story doesn’t require registration.

Representative John Graham Altman called cock fighting savage and said it reminded him of the Roman coliseum. That bill was passed. A bill that would have made DV a felonythe same as cock fighting, was not, meaning another year must pass before it’s considered again.

That’s bad enough, but Altman got defensive when asked about the difference in seriousness between the first bill—protecting chickens—and the second bill----protecting women.

Both cockfighting and domestic violence are currently misdemeanor crimes, punishable by 30 days in jail. If the bill passes, cockfighting will become a felony, punishable by five years in jail. Domestic violence crimes will remain a misdemeanor.

News 10 reporter Kara Gormley asked Altman, “That’s fine if you feel you will never be able to explain it to me, but my question to you is: does that show that we are valuing a gamecock’s life over a woman’s life?”

Altman again, “You’re really not very bright and I realize you are not accustomed to this, but I’m accustomed to reporters having a better sense of depth of things and you’re asking this question to me would indicate you can’t understand the answer. To ask the question is to demonstrate an enormous amount of ignorance. I’m not trying to be rude or hostile, I’m telling you.”

Translation: I’m sorry IF you feel that way, but damn, I got nailed, and the only way out is to act both superior and offended. There’s no depth here but I have to pretend there is. Shit, man, I’m fucked.

Rep. Altman spoke about domestic violence, “There ought not to be a second offense. The woman ought to not be around the man. I mean** you women **want it one way and not another. **Women want to punish the men, **and I do not understand why women continue to go back around men who abuse them. And I’ve asked women that and they all tell me the same answer, John Graham you don’t understand. And I say you’re right, I don’t understand.”

Let’s see—maybe you don’t understand because you’re such a black and white asshole who hasn’t yet figured out that “Why doesn’t she just LEAVE, the stupid bitch?” isn’t the answer to kind of a complex issue. A lot of these women have been isolated from family and friends by the batterer; a lot of them have no money whatsoever. How do they leave then? Where do they go then? And OMG, women want to punish a man who beats them! The horror! He doesn’t say one thing criticizing the batterer at all, just the woman’s response to it. There’s also something kind of scary about a guy who says that ‘women want to punish a man.’ Uh, yeah, why is this bad? He beat her up, she deserves justice. That uppity bitch! He just totally characterized all women who want retribution for the wrongs that have been done to them as vengeful. Guy sounds really threatened to me.

Rep. Altman, “I know you are after a story. And it’s kind of a nice story, that we’ve tabled a CDV bill. Because then you can talk about the insensitive man, the insensitive legislator, but it’s not the case. But I don’t know why a woman, there would ever be a second offense.”

Just leave, bitch! We wouldn’t have this problem if you would just stay away! How simple. Aren’t you glad that a big strong man like me pointed this out to you?

Rep. Altman doesn’t agree with the training, “What are you going to tell a family court judge that a family court judge doesn’t already know about domestic violence?”

It might be a good idea to train them so they’re not as stupid as you are. I’ve read of cases—this happened to an LJ friend of a friend—where a judge sneered at a domestic violence victim, and turned aside her concerns, only to have her be murdered shortly thereafter.

So let’s recap, shall we? Domestic violence is because women keep going back for more, and they could avoid it by just staying away. Also, those women are ‘vengeful’ a word which suggests the desire for revenge, not justice. When one’s talking about crime victims, it’s just a tad inappropriate. Those bitches, trying to get back at men who—what, exactly? Altman doesn’t talk about them at all. Maybe, just maybe, though, it’s not a bad thing to want to kick the shit out of a guy who beats women. Yeah, yeah, yeah, violence isn’t the answer, but somebody keeps asking women that question without getting a taste of their own medicine in answer.

And let’s just ignore the fact that leaving is not a simple matter of just packing up the old suitcase, tossing it in the Rolls and toodling off to Mummy and Pere. Leaving is the time when the woman’s most likely to get killed by the abuser. Actually, let’s just ignore a whole mess of facts about it, so we can blame it on women who keep going back for more. Feminism aside, there’s just something disgusting about a guy who’s basically kicking on women while they’re down.

And, you, Rep. Altman? You need to resign because you are an embarrassment. I want a new Ku Klux Klan group devoted to posting your comments on your lawn in buring letters. I suspect this is not the first time you’ve said stupid insensitive things because your stupidity is of such a size that it can’t be contained and must therefore be vented frequently. I bet you’re proud of your ignorance: I bet you regard it as being decisive and not pandering to those rabid man-hating feminazis.

Well, you give people the excuse to hate men. Congratulations. Not that that will stop people from whining about it. You say you’ve worked with domestic violence victims. What a joy for them that must have been. It’s also a really good way of saying, “Some of my best friends are black/Jewish/whatever.”

So here’s a proposition. Why don’t you just be a little bit more honest, okay? Just lay it out on the line and stop holding back. I’m sick of assholes trying to assholes lite, trying to hide their hatred while they utter polite versions of what they really want to say. Racists now talk about ‘welfare mothers’ when they want to shout how they really feel from the rooftops. Anti-Semites mutter darkly about Dresden, when what they really want to bellow is, “The Holocaust was a fake! Jews control banking!” Woman-haters bitch about Andrea Dworkin and man-hating, when what they want to get off their chests is that women are stupid, shallow, and lazy, and that feminists who believe otherwise just need to shave their legs and get vigorously fucked.

So just be honest. It migth even get you more votes, Representative. I doubt you were Mr. Tact when you got elected. Just spit it out. You know you want to. You get to relieve the tremendous pressure, and we get to see what you really want to say, but keep concealing.

I’d call him an asshole but it doesn’t really work with him. He’s so proud of himself and yet so petty, ignorant, and vicious that I want a whole new word. My apologies. Besides, it would be an insult to assholes everywhere.

[cuauhtemoc]

I’m confused about the focus on the woman “going back”. If a woman doesn’t leave an abusive situation, or returns to it after having gotten out of it, does that make the abuser’s crime less serious? Someone please tell me another way to interpret this guy’s comments, because I’m not seeing one.

I admit I haven’t read this DV bill. But if he’s really concerned that it’s unfair to the accused, he should be able to articulate why he feels that way, rather than acting like a little bitch about it.

[margin]

There’s a follow up story here. It seems that the shit is truly hitting the fan for this guy.

You know, what gets me is the phrase about how ‘these women want vengence.’ It’s like no matter what was done to them by those unnamed guys, it’s just not bad enough. They’re just not good enough, not good enough to worry about, not good enough to so much as complain about it.

The idea that women aren’t good enough isn’t limited to scumbags like that, though. There’s a thread about feminism going on where Malacandra is whining that women didn’t do shit while men ploughed the fields and built the railroads, and so why should w ebitch? Oh, yes, and we want all the nice cushy jobs but we don’t want the crappy ones where we get injured. So this Rep is not a lone asshole: he’s got company.

[Nightingale]

I think my favorite part is how “there should be no second offense”, like it’s okay for the guy to smack her once, that’s a freebie :rolleyes: . Rep. Altman needs to get his head out of his ass.

Frankly, I think the way that Altman treated the reporter who interviewed him probably says a lot about his attitude toward women in general.

[Greathouse]

@margin

There’s a thread about feminism going on where Malacandra is whining that women didn’t do shit while men ploughed the fields and built the railroads, and so why should w ebitch? Oh, yes, and we want all the nice cushy jobs but we don’t want the crappy ones where we get injured.

Can you link to this thread? I think it might be worth a read. I always enjoy a good trainwreck when someone gets thier ass handed to them. Thank.

[Greathouse]

Shit! :smack:

Thank you, even.

[margin]

That’s the way he behaved and talked in public, on camera, with a woman he didn’t know. I have to assume that his private behavior is much, much worse.

[Greathouse]

Oh yeah, I forgot to add, This Altman guy is a total fucking knob!

[Khadaji]

Let us hope that the system works well and this cretin is not reelected.

[margin]

Oh, yeah, he definitely is. He’s got company, though.

Not really, margin. The patriarchy built the civilisation in which you now live – tamed the landscape, ploughed the fields, laid the roads, built the houses, pioneered a zillion and one technological advances and gave you water, power and sewerage on tap – and yet you feel no shame in decrying its manifest and innumerable injustices. Therefore merely being the inheritor of some set of advantages is not, I deduce, grounds for even showing gratitude towards the providers of the same, still less aligning yourself with them.

You deliberately read my earlier post alluding to the achievements of patriarchal society as a claim that men had done all the work and women sat around idly doing nothing and yet couldn’t manage to be grateful for all that men had done for them. Sadly, that’s not actually what I said. The only point I was making was that deriving the benefits earned by a particular form of society or movement does not necessarily commit the recipient to unending gratitude to the benefactor. The rest was your own invention.

There’s a preview.

[Wile_E]

Wow, just wow. When you think politicians can’t get any more ridiculous and out of touch one comes along to prove you wrong.

I have to wonder if any male reporters attempted to ask that question and what response they got.

[BwanaBob]

:smack:
And I thought the OP meant I could go to jail for chokin’ the chicken.
I’d still be in the slammer.

Seriously, I have no problem with people going to jail for animal abuse, but hell, battering should be a “jail” no-brainer.

[Guinastasia]

Perhaps Altman can sympathize with chickens more because he obviously has more in common with them, intellectually, than a human female?

[Jackknifed_Juggernaut]

I’ve never heard of Altman and am not trying to defend him. But if I can play Devil’s Advocate for a moment…

Altman’s response could be interpreted this way: These are 2 unrelated crimes. One has nothing to do with the other. Whether or not spousal abuse is a felony does not have anything to do with game fighting. Therefore the reporter who asked the question is the bigger idiot. I’d say Altman was just pissed that such a nitwit would be asking him stupid questions and wasting his time.

After this, Altman did point out the obvious. A gamecock is basically a prisoner. The bird cannot just leave. A victim of spousal abuse really can just get up and walk away. I understand that things are complicated with family, children, fear of retribution and lack of money. But the fact is still that the victim has the ability to walk away, and is thus partly responsible for his or her predicament. If the victim is forcibly imprisoned, then it’s a different crime altogether and I’m guessing that it is indeed a felony.

Additionally, some of the complexities of an abusive relationship could be the very reasons that the crime is still a misdemeanor. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m in no way defending the abusers, who I feel should be punished heavily. But if the claim is that an abused person can’t simply walk away due to financial reasons, then what will that person do when the abuser is in jail for several years? It basically amounts to the same as getting up and walking away. If the claim is that he or she had been isolated from family and friends and has no one to turn to for help, then how does this change when the abuser is in jail for several years?

I’d give Altman the benefit of the doubt here. He could have answered the question in a more politically correct manner. But I’d say his opinion of the reporter was on point: “You’re really not very bright and I realize you are not accustomed to this, but I’m accustomed to reporters having a better sense of depth of things and you’re asking this question to me would indicate you can’t understand the answer. To ask the question is to demonstrate an enormous amount of ignorance…”

[Malacandra]

@Greathouse

Can you link to this thread? I think it might be worth a read. I always enjoy a good trainwreck when someone gets thier ass handed to them. Thank.

You’ll be disappointed then, because that’s not happening. But getting the whole story in context might be an improvement on margin’ disingenuous editing.

[Bricker]

It’s hard to understand.

While it’s clear to me this guy’s a tool, I agree with the concept that it is hard to understand, and sympathize with, women that return to their abusers. Now, margin correctly points out that sometimes those decisions are motivated by what the woman views as practicality: she has no money, no support network, and fears that she has no where else to turn. That’s not so hard to understand, and it can be combatted by making sure people know about shelters and other community resources.

But I’ve spent a fair amount of time in and around shelters, in my volunteer work in the K of C. And quite frankly, that kind of attitude existed, to be sure, but it was the minority of cases.

The majority of cases, in my observation, were not about a woman lacking material resources or support. It was the woman insisting, “But I love him,” and WANTING to go back to the abuser – being offered… begged… to take her kids and come live in a shelter or halfway house, and take vo-tech training that we offered… and absoultely refusing.

It is that response that is so difficult to understand.

[margin]

Let’s see:

The patriarchy built the civilisation in which you now live – tamed the landscape, ploughed the fields, laid the roads, built the houses, pioneered a zillion and one technological advances and gave you water, power and sewerage on tap – and yet you feel no shame in decrying its manifest and innumerable injustices. Therefore merely being the inheritor of some set of advantages is not, I deduce, grounds for even showing gratitude towards the providers of the same, still less aligning yourself with them.

The patriarchy, huh? No mention of women. Mention of shame, though, in daring to criticize such a civilization. Mention of inheriting those advantages, and decrying the ingratitude toward ‘providers’ of those advantages, still less ‘aligning myself with them’.

You bitched that I was imferring that you believed that women sat around all day and did nothing while men toiled. It’s a clever piece of plausible deniability, Mal, but just because it’s plausible doesn’t mean it stands. You’re trying to weasel out of saying that women didn’t do shit, that men did all the work, that there should be in shame in criticizing this, and that women merely inherited those advantages and that they should be grateful. I notice you didn’t answer a request for a cite to prove this charming picture of world history. Should you contiue to refuse to do so, I am afraid I will have no further use for you.

**Jacknifed Juggernaut, ** you actually are minimizing what’s going on. You’re doing pretty much what the asshole in the OP did. A chicken can’t walk away but a woman can?

[SteveG1]

Hopefully, Altman is now toast. I’m in full agreement that cockfighting is cruel and barbaric. That new law is a good thing.

But to minimize and insult anyone with any interest in anti-battering laws is “really not very bright”. Maybe someone should bitch slap him for the rest of his life. I suppose this was the “family values” we keep hearing about?

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

I just set up a Google News Alert for this doorknob.

He’ll be good for shits & giggles for years!

Best of all, he ain’t in Tennessee.

[Dung_Beetle]

@Greathouse

Can you link to this thread? I think it might be worth a read. I always enjoy a good trainwreck when someone gets thier ass handed to them. Thank.

Don’t go anywhere. This one’s startin’ to look good!