Yet more evidence for social conservatives to argue that the French do not share our values.
Yes, psychological abuse between married and domestic partners comes very close to being a “value.”
People arguing against this law are not arguing in favour of abuse.
The law would protect men and women but, yes, the tone of the article is about man on woman violence. Here is the rest of NPR’s story, which features an interview with a expert in the subject of psychological abuse.
The workplace harassment law is not just about sexual harassment as it is here in the USA. These laws cover general workplace bullying.
After you posted this garbage did you realize a little later that it had absolutely no relationship with ongoing psychological abuse in an intimate relationship? I hope you did, because that will make it easy for you to see why recovered memory of childhood abuse as adults has nothing at all to do with ongoing abuse covered by this law. Also you will suddenly remember the earlier discussion where it was mentioned that a psychological interview would only be a part of the evidence. After you remember this you will notice the earlier post that briefly describes a means by which the police can make an arrest without a psychologist’s contribution.
Finally, after you realize all this, you will stop to remember that child abuse is still illegal and expert testimony from psychologists is welcomed despite the scandal from a couple of decades ago.
Hopefully these predictions will come true.
Heh, I’m not claiming that the two are the same. I’m merely refuting your statement that the opinion of a psychologist based on a clinical interview would offer compelling proof sufficient to meet the criminal burden of proof.
The fact is that the two - ‘recovered memory’ and this proposed “psychological abuse”- are similar in one critical respect (and differ from current physical or sexual abuse in the same respect) - in both cases, actual evidence corroberating the subjective opinion or memory of the alleged victim is very likely to be difficult to come by - in the one case by the passage of time and in the other because no person, other than the victim, is in a position to say whether any particular incident is or is not part of an ongoing pattern of behaviour, or indeed whether a particular "damage’ was caused by it.
Sure, other folks may come forward to say that the perp was always mean to the alleged victim, put them down all the time, or whatever. Such evidence is likely to have limited value; so will evidence from a “health care professional” assigning causitive blame for low self esteem etc. How, exactly, is one to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the depression one suffers was caused by your partner being “mentally cruel” for stuff that mostly happens in private? How does one prove that the “abuse” you are complaining of rises above the ordinary arguments that adults have - which no-one in their right mind would want to criminalize?
The problem here is that if you define “abuse” too loosely, a very large purportion of people would “suffer” from it - making the law incredibly invasive.
Your own link is an excellent example. One in four relationships qualify as containing ‘abuse’ according to your cited expert:
Which is it? Are you advocating a provision which will only be used very rarely, or one potentially affecting one-quarter of all relationships?
To my mind, if I was sitting on a jury and I heard an expert saying that one-quarter of all relationships are (in his or her opinion) “abusive” at times, I’d be very, very reluctant to convict a person based on this expert’s assessment that their relationship was “abusive”. I hope I don’t have to point out why.
Malthus, thanks for the interesting conversation but I think this has come full circle. Once again, the worry that this law will be used to punish people during minor conflicts in an intimate relationship is brought up. This is not how the law will be used.
In the link, Dr. Stosny does say that 1/4 of relationships go through periods of psychological abuse. He also, quite clearly, before mentioning this statistic, without doubt or hesitation in his knowledgeable voice, with no reservations, no caveats or modifiers says that you must “distinguish between abusive acts and an abusive relationship”. I guess you saw that but didn’t quite recognize that this is the point I am making and this is also the point the French law makes.
Hurling abuse on your significant other during a stressful time is quite common and within the normal range of human behavior. The French law is not attempting to punish people for this type of behavior. It is attempting to address what happens when this behavior ceases to be part of the normal human range of behavior and has the consequences that Dr. Stosny clearly described.
Everywhere there is a speed limit in California according the the online driving school I recently had to fudge my way through to avoid paying for 5 miles over for the rest of my life via insurance charges.
Call me crazy, but I bet the other 49 states are precisely the same.
No, Dhalnor is probably referring to speed trap cases where the speed limit must be set where 85% of the traffic is if you are planning to enforce it.
(Emphasis mine)
How do you know this?
I have no idea what you’re meaning to communicate here.
Odesio
Several ways. One, current domestic violence laws do not and can not enforce the law against every single instance of one partner pushing, shoving, or even hitting another partner. Two, not a single expert or legislator involved with the bill has said this law would cover what Dr. Stosny described as instances of psychologically abusive behaviors. All such individuals have been clear to distinguish between the short-term and common behavior from repeated abuse. It’s the difference between feeling bad for a day or two and having major depressive disorder. Third, articles that are actually reporting the news and not acting as the reporter’s retarded opinion in disguise make clear that normal occurrences of psychologically abusive behavior are not being legislated against. Fourth, somebody posted a bit about the police procedure and it seems they are being trained to keep an eye out for repetitive behavior.
Wait, is a “period of abuse” a minor thing? Not according to the good doctor.
I invite you to read the interview again.
The doc distinguishes between “abusive acts” and an “abusive relationship”, in the first paragraph. The former is the minor stuff everyone does, the latter is characterized by using abuse to “control or dominate”. Then, the interviewer asks “how prevelant is that?” - asking about the latter, not the former.
In the second paragraph, the doc says “about one in four relationships go through some period where they will have psychological abuse”. The interviewer expresses incredulity (“One in four?”) and the doc reaffirms that this is exactly what he meant (“Yes. It’s a precursor to violence … But psychologically speaking, it actually does more damage than physical abuse …”).
Your read of the interview is simply incorrect. The doc isn’t saying that one in four relationships have the minor name-calling and fighting that is of no concern. He’s of the opinion that everyone does that. The “one in four” refers to abusive relationships which are exactly what is of copncern under this law.
The law doesn’t punish people for being bad people, it punishes bad behaviour. If someone is going through a “period” where they are abusive (for whatever value of “abuse”), and abuse is illegal, then arguably they are guilty.
As for the ability to distinguish between someone going through a “period of abuse” and an “abusive relationship” (again, not something the doc in your quoted source does) - how, exactly, is one to do that? By its effects on the alleged victim? That merely punishes one partner for the low self esteem/depression of the other. As I’ve noted previously, I am not convinced it is easy or even possible to tell exactly why someone is depressed or has low self esteem.
Providing the police the discresion to potentially arrest folks in 1/4 of all relationships and then relying on them not to ever abuse it strikes me as a bad idea, a cure worse than the problem.
Ok now it’s full circle and about ready to finish another lap. Thanks again Malthus, but “this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.”
I don’t think it’s gone full circle; you have yet to address how anyone is going to sufficiently prove injury from psychological abuse with the stringency required for a criminal conviction. There’s no physical evidence whatsoever, rarely will there be witnesses to more than one or two incidents (which would probably fall under the “normal abusive act” category unless systematically observed and documented over time), and the psychological evidence due to cumulative effects is nearly impossible to pin down to a behavior that almost no one but the victim will observe.
I can only see a conviction arising from this if the victim can provide a statement of mental health before the abuse (requiring prescience) as well as careful documentation of every abusive act over a period of time before the accused is brought to trial. I have the feeling that any victim that has his/her shit together enough to do this will be out the door long before the abuser has time to cause permanent psychological injury. Physical abuse cases can be built over time by observing physical injuries and the paper trail left by doctor’s visits or disturbance calls, and they can be observed acutely by the injury or a call to the police. How are these psychological injuries to be observed over time in a useful manner?