So how do we all feel about shooting trespassers?
Rather than punching anyone I would suggest taking a picture for use in divorce proceedings. A much more skillful reaction.
I’m finding myself to be in agreement with pretty much everything said in this thread by Diogenes the Cynic.
I don’t think it warrants violence. However I think it would only be fair to take into account the emotional state of someone who just found their spouse cheating on them.
Marc
Thanks, AHunter3
Violence is obviously not the answer. But this is a stupid question: What would you do in an extreme emotional state which you have never been in? Who knows? Maybe the people who are talking about how angry they would be, and saying that they would get physical, would actually be the ones to walk away, and the people who are quick to deny that they would even think about a physical confrontation would be the ones to get violent.
Part of the point of this it to establish a principle, a firm belief, that jealousy does not excuse violence. If everyone feels that threatening, hitting, or even killing someone because you are jealous is excusable, then we are likely to have laws that accept such behavior, and if not laws, juries are likely to accept the behavior and let even murderers off because their actions are viewed as acceptable. If we can establish that not only is a violent response wrong, it is likely to have quite negative repercussions, we can reduce its occurence. Before AT&T broke up, if you pulled the phone out of the wall, Ma Bell would come and replace it as part of basic service. This routinely happened in the course of domestic battery. When AT&T broke up, the AT&T’s replacement starting charging around $50 to repair a phone that had beem ripped from walls. It did not take long for ripping phones out of walls to stop being a routine part of domestic battery.
There is no good rational or moral justification for violent responses to jealousy. “But I really wanna!” just doesn’t cut it as an excuse. If we recognize now that violence it that situation is wrong and has consequences we are more likely to restrain ourselves than if we believe it justifiable or without consequences. We are also as jury members not as likely to buy it as an excuse and again we can hope that inexcusable violence will have real repercussions.
True enough, lee, but that still doesn’t address the question of what constitutes “violence” in the first place, does it?
Ender, for example, has suggested he would push the guy off of his wife. Whilst this is clearly the use of force, I for one would not classify it as “violence”. Others apparently disagree.
I certainly do not buy a definition that includes and physical contact, no matter how minor.
pan
kabbes, a “wrist lock” is not merely placing one’s hand on someone else’s wrist. It’s grabbing the wrist hard enough and twisting so as to prevent that person from moving their wrist. That is painful, and it is violence.
Battery is legally defined as “harmful or offensive contact”, and I think a “wrist lock”, no matter how politely executed, constitutes a “harmful or offensive contact” insofar as pain occurs, and the individual whose freedom of motion is being restrained is reasonably likely to be offended by it.
Kelly, it’s painful for the brief moment it is applied. Only a real die-hard would claim it to be battery. I know what I’m talking about here: I used to do lots of jiu-jitsu. I applied plenty of wristlocks and had plenty applied to me. It’s a nothing. Used judiciously to simply remove somebody’s hand, it strikes me as an efficient, clean and actually remarkably inoffensive way of achieving a goal.
I don’t know what happened in the specific pit example and I don’t much care, else I’d have responded in that thread. I’m more interested in the general case. And in the general case, I can easily see that a wristlock would not be an inappropriate use of force.
pan
Ahem let’s keep it generic, please… following up on lee and kabbes’ latest exchange:
Do I understand, lee, that your OP, the “resolved” of this debate, is that jealousy absolutely does not justify ANY degree of “violence”, and that this is of strict application. Am I close?
Then kabbes’ 7:20 am CDT response would constitute a questioning as to exactly what is meant by “violence”.
Which I strongly suspect is part of the problem, since some of us in the thread seem to have different threshold levels of what is/isn’t “violence”.
Does “violence” mean ANY degree of unexpected physical contact, ANY level of force or compulsion or of perceived() implied threat thereof, or even of verbal hostility – can the person who just caught his/her SO in flagrante delicto firmly tap one of the parties’ shoulder and say “HEY!!! DO YOU MIND?!?!” ?
( not necessarily intended)
ok, um, so who’s wife did you fuck?
A wristlock for what purpose, Kabbe? What is the “goal” you are trying to accomplish? To control another person? You are not entitled to touch another person and that’s the end of it. Your wife is not your property. She has a right to cheat on you and you have no right to stop her. Let me repeat: the ONLY justification for force, LEGAL OR MORAL, is self-defense. Getting cheated on does not qualify as a physical threat justifying force (The STD argument, I think, has been thoroughly shown up as the red herring that it is). Blackknight’s convienient re-definition of cheating as “abuse” still does not meet a legal or moral justification for violence. It may be grounds to end the relationship but nothing more. Knight’s further assertion that domestic violence is “sometimes morally necessary” is so retarded that I think it is completely self-discrediting. All of you would-be spouse-beaters, can you show me one example in law that says if somebody hurts your feelings (or maybe just your ego) that your allowed to hit them.
I don’t think you have shown the very real and present danger posed by STD’s to be a red herring. We’re coming at this from two different angles. I say it’s a mitigating circumstance. But, you say it’s just revenge. “OK, I’ll play.” I have no problem with the concept of revenge, so call it revenge.
I should have done a better job earlier of stating what I feel to be an appropriate response level. If the other party requires medical attention, that is clearly not justified (to me).
All I’m saying is :
if a woman walks in and finds her husband humping the babysitter and her first reaction is to slap the shit out of him…shrug…“Oh well.” (And that’s they way I’m voting if I’m on that jury.)
I think lee makes an excellent point about discussing this as a way to challenge public opinion and possibly change a behavior pattern, but I’m not sure any amount of talking is going to change human nature. I don’t think this response is rooted in logical reflection. I think this is a crime of passion. Capitol punishment and a societal taboo against murder haven’t stopped that either.
Even if we all agree that it’s (wrong/unjustified/illegal)…
You would have to be a complete moron not to believe your SO might have an illogical emotional reaction to that situation and lash out physically.
[aside]where the hell did this “wristlock” thing come from?
That came from my original rant thread about my now ex girlfriend at the time. KellyM went off the deap end and now brough lee into the fray and decided to take it to a diffrent forum because she was loosing the fight in the pit.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=136370
Anyway as to the debate all I can speak from is personal experience… and if I found someone going at it with my wife. Well he/she wouldn’t consious and I would just pick up the kids and leave. I would never hit my wife or SO but would not have any quams about smacking the shit out of someone that was having sexual relations with them.
Open relationships are fine, I have even been in one and it lasted quite a while, but we were honest with eachother and it worked well. Marriage is one of those things that can be either open or closed, but by most it is understood to be closed, and men have this evolutionary trait to be protectors.
Sorry if I made myself sound like an ass, but this will be my only post to this thread, I was already tired of KellyM in the other and still have no fondness for her.
Anyway I’m disapointed that you didn’t take my sugestion for your thread title… “Is NPavelka a woman hating Lesbian Rapist, who gets his kicks by beating up women???” :rolleyes:
I think the wife-slapping-the-babysitter-humping-husband scenario would probably still meet a technical legal definition of simple battery or misdemeanor assault, but you’re right in that it would be extremely unlikely to be enforced. Look, don’t get me wrong, I have no respect for people (male or female) who betray their spouses like that. It is grounds for divorce. It is grounds for CIVIL retribution. It causes real emotional damage to the cheated upon. But we have to be very careful about how and when we, as a society, sanction violence, and violence as RETRIBUTION cannot be condoned.
And what civil retribution is that?
The cheater already broke the contract. Divorce is a legal formality, not a means of achieving retribution. Punitive asset division is only relevant when the marriage has no children and the cuckolded party brought substantially more assets into the contract than the cheater.
In cases with children and if the financial situation is reversed or even equal, it appears that the divorce proceeding only exacerbates the betrayal of the contract.
Since you can’t sue a cheater for punitive damages, exactly what methods of civil retribution are available?
Boy, are you missing the point in your response to me, Diogenes. I’m not talking about what one is and is not “entitled” to do. That’s one hell of a kettle of worms and I’m not touching it with the proverbial six foot. I’m talking about the line that once crossed would cause me, on hearing the story, to go from ::shrug:: to “that ain’t right”.
If I hear a story of how Party C is, in some way, crossing the boundaries that Parties A and B have previously agreed upon, and the conclusion is that Party A uses a wristlock to simply move Party C out of the way… well. That is ::shrug:: territory every time. My view is always going to be that we are talking about an extremely mild wrong arresting something that I would view as an larger wrong. More to the point, I will view it as Party C playing with fire and getting mildly burnt.
If an SO wants to leave their partner then they should have the decency to do so properly. If they play around and someone ends up getting a wristlock, that doesn’t exactly seem like one hell of a consequence. Regardless of who is entitled to what.
Incidentally, I particularly object to you, Diogenes using emotive language such as accusing us of being would-be spouse-beaters and turning a hypothetical wristlock into something I am doing. For the record, I am an extremely mild person physically and would never use violence on anyone ever, unless I am attacked and have no choice. I have already stated that my personal response to walking in on a cheating spouse would simply be to trun around, walk out and never come back. And knowing others in this thread of old, I can make a pretty good guess that they are similarly restrained people. We’re trying to discuss a hypothetical issue here, not trying to justify our own bad behaviour. So you can keep your baseless categorisations to yourself.
pan
You mean the one you’ve been advocating? The one where you can physically attack someone so long as they’ve physically attacked you? That’s two wrongs.
Or how about placing those who do wrong in prison? Taking away someone’s freedom is wrong. However, in some cases it is necessary.
I really don’t see how you can possibly claim that what I propose is fundamentally different from what you propose. Nearly everyone believes in a “two wrongs make a right” moral code. That’s the very point of punishing criminals. If we didn’t have such a code, then there would be no justification for punishment at all, and those who do bad things would recieve no negative results from their bad act.
I don’t care if persons “A” and “B” have an agreement. B can break that agreement at any time for any reason, with or without notifying A. Furthermore, person “C” has no agreement with anybody and so A has no grievance at all against C.
As to the “would-be-spousal-abuser” charge, I have to confess, I’ve only just now read the original thread which led to this discussion, and I have been under the misapprehension that the “force” in this thread was hypothetically directed at the rhetorical cheater. Therefore, I thought that some people were trying to justify violence against a spouse. I apologize for my own misunderstanding. My use of the term “you” was intended to be a generic use and not directed at you, Kabbes, specifically. It was a clumsy way to express myself and I apologize.
Sgt. J, if you are going to continue to insist on the STD issue, please address the issues I presented the last time you did so. What if it is safe sex? What if the extramarital lover is a virgin? What about STDs from sexual experience prior to the beginning of the committed monogamous relationship? How do you reconcile your answers to those questions with your argument?
But it is not human nature. Certainly, human nature provides the capacity for sexual jealousy. Activation of that capacity is limited to societal conditioning. Changing ones responses to emotional stimuli can occur through reasoned discussion and reflective thinking. An ability unique in humans, by nature.
I have never understood the reasoning at work here. What, exactly, has that person done to you to warrant such an attack? Are you assuming that said person knew that your wife or SO is involved in a committed monogamous relationship? Because, clearly, that is not the case.
If your wife humping the mailman, whose fault is that? I could not support an argument put forward earlier that it would somehow be your fault, but I also don’t see how the mailman is to blame.
If you were to “smack the shit” out the mailman, that would simply be misplaced aggression, taking out your anger toward your wife or SO on someone else. Is that going to make you feel that you were “protective” of your wife or SO?
Please show me where I have advocated any such thing. The closest you will find is self defense, which I would hardly call an attack.
So you want to stand by your position that someone causing you emotional harm should be subjected to physical harm?