I’m an old fart but my son is 8. I call him Lew Dog.
lieu sleep well. don’t let this interesting debate mess with you too much. It doesn’t matter what we think at all. What matters is you have a daughter and a wife. There is nothing in this wide world more important than that.
I hope to hear happiness from you on this board soon.
Absolutely. You physically attacked him over… a goddamned traffic argument. It’s a criminal act, and it’s immoral, and it’s actually kind of crazy. Ooh, he told you to fuck off; sheesh, you’re not five years old, are you?
Again; who’s the violent one? You are. Both times. MAn argues with you, you punch him. Man #2 argues with you, you punch him. You didn’t think to just walk away and blow it off in Case #1, like a reasonable man would. In Case #2 you had damned good reason to go to the police, but instead you deliberately started a violent confrontation. Case #1 was just sheer idiocy and violence on your part; Case #2 was a horrible error in judgment. Sorry, lieu, but you’re the guy who resorts to violence when a verbal argument isn’t going your way. Not me, not anyone else in the thread, and to all accounts not the people you’ve attacked. You’re a bully by any reasonable definition.
Plenty others have commented on your aggression and stupidity already.
dj: I’m curious. Did I sum up your points correctly?
She was wrong.
lieu did entirely the right thing. Bill’s lucky he didn’t get the tire iron wrapped around his fucking skull.
I agree. To equate the statement that sometimes an insufferable asshole deserves a punch in the nose with the statement that it is okay to kill random people to alleviate overcrowding is indeed a very foolish line of reasoning.
Sue you? This is what I’m talking about. We’ve got entirely too much litigation, and not enough pugilation.
Yeah, I know that’s not really a word.
Look, dj, I don’t think there’s much point in our arguing about this. We’re not going to change each other’s minds. I see where you’re coming from, and I disagree. Assuming lieu has described events accurately (which I do, absent any particular reason to doubt him), I think he acted very much as I would have acted. And yes, I know it was illegal, possibly even unethical, but for my part, I don’t hold it against him. YMM, and obviously does, V.
Well, Man #2 did a little more than argue with him
That may be the case; lieu didn’t bother to gather his facts or call the cops or anything, so I guess we’ll never really know, because he decided ten minutes into the affair to commit a crime and transfer all the legal problems onto himself.
Having said that, it does seem as if Man #2 has invested heavily in starting this feud, too. Hey, I’m not saying the guy is St. Whatshisname. He might well be a colossal asshole. But like it or not, lieu was the one who started punching. And given that we know he’s done this sort of thing before, in a case where he went looking for a fight and got one, I am inclined to think that the escalation of this conflict wasn’t as one-sided as he claims it to be. The other man didn’t hit anyone, did he?
People who assault other people ALWAYS have an excuse. Always. You hardly ever hear anyone say “I hit him just for the hell of it.” It’s always that the other person “provoked” them, or was being an “Asshole,” or there’s always a post-assault rationalization “he was threatening me/my family/someone else.” Of course, the puncher always claims the punchee was entirely responsible for all the conflict, the feuding, and was always the irrational one (up until the physical assault started, anyway!) Always with the excuses, the rationalizations, the post-hoc explanations. But 999 times out of 1000, the problem is that the guy swining his fists just can’t control himself when he gets really angry.
I’m amazed by the number of people who claim they would “do the same thing.” Bullshit. Most people do not haul off and pound people they’re having verbal disagreements with, and those who do SHOULD be punished by the courts. There’s a law against that sort of thing for good reason.
What, you’re saying that people who claim to be short tempered and violent are actually lying? What fucking planet are you from?
You really don’t get it, do you, Desmostylus? RickJay clearly said that the people who claim to be short tempered and violent are lying about their justification for their violent acts. He didn’t say jack about them lying about their claims to being short tempered and violent.
OK, smartass. Let me put it this way. The ends doen’t justify the means. You cannot use any means at your disposal just because the outcome may be good. Hey, maybe the world would be a better place if we wiped out a few countries. But we shouldn’t. To do so would be immoral. Maybe the world would be a better place if I beat up all the mimes. But I shouldn’t. I can hope that mimes come to their fucking senses and willfully abandon the most irritating art, but I can’t beat em up cause it would be morally wrong. Maybe the world would be a better place if I beat up everyone who pissed me off and wouldn’t apologize to me. But I shouldn’t do it, because it would a barbaric way to behave and the law and civilized society agree that such actions would be immoral.
Neither of you gets it. 
I said the remarkable number of people IN THIS THREAD, and the other “I hit him for giving me the finger” thread who claim they’d do the same thing are real big talkers but wouldn’t actually be nuts or brave enough to pound someone else over a traffic dispute or somesuch thing. lieu obviously would, but he is the rare exception of a guy who apparently can’t keep his fists by his sides. Let’s be honest; 99.9% of the population doesn’t go around punching people. I’ve never done that. My boss has never done that. I just asked a coworker; he’s done that. My father’s never done that. My best friend has never done that. The folks who say “oh, yeah, he was asking for it, I’d have done the same thing” probably wouldn’t have done it either.
However, Monty’s right about one thing for sure; I do think people who attack other people almost invariably lie about it afterwards (or are just self-deluded about their own reasons for attacking people, which isn’t really lying, I guess.) They twist, they rationalize, they leave out big chunks of the story.
Sorry, my coworker has never punched anyone. Missed a “never” there.
I think I do actually get it. I think you underestimate the number of short-tempered violent people, RickJay.
Monty: RickJay dealt with two different topics:
My post addressed point (2).
No, you should. 
Seriously though, I think lieu knows he did wrong and didn’t handle the situation well. The only thing he can do is make sure he learns from it. lieu, I wish you well with that and the court case. You had a crappy dose of luck in getting this guy as a neighbour, but console yourself with the fact that you have a loving family to return to and it could have been worse. The neighbour will probably have a lonely life if he continues to act in this way.
RickJay: I do believe you’ve hit the nail on the head about them rationalizing it. Read lieu’s account of the situation in this OP & also the way the thread’s titled. He doesn’t seem to accept that it is he, and not the neighbour or even the situation, on trial. Well, he kind of does accept it, but it takes some parsing of his postings throughout the thread to glean that. You’re also right about “leaving out big chunks of the story.” lieu didn’t mention the size difference between him and Bill. Say you’re on your property and someone much larger and stronger than you comes storming over, obviously angry. Are you going to just stand there or are you going to take action to protect yourself? lieu also doesn’t relate what he meant (& I did ask, btw) by “almost hitting.” Was it Bill walking by and throwing a punch but missing? Was it Bill running into his car and trying to run them down? Or was it Bill just happening to be driving his car and the folks who got “almost hit” having a momentary lapse of attention and walking in front of a moving vehicle? How would you feel if you’d just had such a scare–not your fault–and then someone much larger and stronger than you came storming over, obviously angry? Are you going to just stand there or are you going to take action to protect yourself?
I also note that a few posters who were so vehement in lieu’s defense and vitriolic towards you, dalovindj, me, and a couple of other posters are conspicuously absent now (of course Opal’s absent now, her appearance here was solely for the drive-by bitching that I expect from her as sure as the Sun rises in the East) that dalovindj posted the “prior bad act” which lieu brought to the public message board–which, btw, can only be serving lieu’s vanity as, IIRC, dalovindj mentioned earlier when he described it as bragging. lieu, as you pointed out, never said if he got into any trouble over the road rage incident. The possible outcomes for that are few: (1) The other driver called the police and the police blew him off {unlikely and illegal, regardless of lieu’s descriptions of the police in his area}, (2) the other driver called the police and both of them got talked to, separately, by the police and instructed in what road rage is, or (3) the other driver didn’t call the police at all and possibly holds a grudge to the point that he’ll “take action” the next time he sees lieu on the roads–or a car he believes lieu is driving, or (4) the other driver “learned a lesson” and is magically transformed into a sheep.
Now that more information has been brought forth, I believe I wouldn’t’ve acted like lieu. My comment back in the beginning referred to if I had gone over there and someone started swinging a crowbar at me. Sadly, I screwed up my presentation of that comment. I really don’t think I’d’ve gone over there in the first place.
An added note: I still don’t get what lieu was referring to about the guy with the .45 showing up on his doorstep. Did that happen or was it just a hypothetical lieu used to justify his uncontrollable violence? & if it did happen, was it or was it not the guy he punched in the road rage incident?
Demo: What you were addressing wasn’t clear in your posting. Thanks for the elucidation.
Well said. This is the way I see these situations. On both occaisions there were clear non-violent ways out. The violence happened because lieu wanted it to.
Monty …
… damn good points
I also am of two minds over what should be taken into account when sentancing someone. I also have no dependants, but feel that the suffering that a sentance may cause to the fellons dependants should be taken into account. I don’t know if the same is available in USA, but UK has experimented with methods for ensuring that a minor crime perp can be allowed to stay home and work at his/her job, but using tagging technology is required to remain inside their house during curfew hours (about 7pm to 7am). If the fellon breaks the curfew, then the sentance reverts to a prison sentance. This allows someone to do their time without damaging their family, or breaking their work situation. I believe the keeping in work would be most important.
Too often it seems that when someone is prosecuted, they are then punished in such a way that they can never again (or not for a long time) get gainful employment. So what can they do after the punishment, but find ‘less legal’ employment to pay for their day to day living expenses.
Cheers, Bippy, and thanks Monty.
Bippy: Truce?
The sentencing aftermath situation is pretty much the same here in California.
Bippy,
NY also has the electronic bracelets that signal if you leave the area.