Should a crime still be prosecuted even if the victim (or the victim's survivors) wish it not to be?

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

"My" welcome? What about it?


-Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[RhondaLea 3]

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"My" welcome? What about it?

Occasionally taking the cheap shot is funny.

Always taking the cheap shot is indicative of a lack of creativity and an inability to think.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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"My" welcome? What about it?

Occasionally taking the cheap shot is funny.

Always taking the cheap shot is indicative of a lack of creativity and an inability to think.

rl

What of incessantly taking the bait?



I'd say that my ability to think is well-established, whether you in your intransigence want to grant recognition to that fact or not. Creativity is more difficult to exhibit, but I even do that now and then.

I get the feeling that if I said that blue skies and puffy white clouds and moderate winds are nice to have on a skydiving day, you'd find fault with the statement.


-Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[RhondaLea 3]

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I get the feeling that if I said that blue skies and puffy white clouds and moderate winds are nice to have on a skydiving day, you'd find fault with the statement.

Blue skies, puffy white clouds and moderate winds (two out of three ain't bad--but you had to be there the day a wild 70 mph gust took out the packing hangar) are exactly the reason I moved to Florida.

I often disagree with people I like and agree with people I don't. Most of them don't take it so personally or as being a form of stalking.

I don't stalk people I don't like...I save that for those with whom I am totally and hopelessly enchanted and enamored.

But for the purpose of debate, I look for interesting topics to discuss without too much regard for who is discussing them.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[Airman1270 0]

...You think that kids (or adults) who do something very serious and then receive a slap on the wrist "learn a lesson for life"? What lesson? That they won't be severely punished for severe criminal behavior?...
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I don't accept the premise that anything short of full-blown prosecution is a "slap on the wrist." The teen in question would not consider paying restitution a meaningless penalty. He WOULD emerge from the incident with a sense of responsibility and a grateful appreciation of being treated "as you would like to be treated" while still being held accountable. Society would benefit in the long run.

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God help any cop who interferes in a private family matter in my home.

Does that mean that a cop who comes to your door because the neighbors heard smashing sounds, your wife scream, you scream, her beg you to stop hitting her, and called the police, should fear a violent response from you?
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Your premise is offensive; It's based on the ASSumption that my family is at risk. They are not.

She has sceamed, after deliberately cutting me down and provoking me to anger. Not inadvertently; I mean she will try, on purpose, to say the most hurtful things she can to stick that knife in and twist harshly. Enough of this treatment and I will eventually respond with a loud noise, but when the dust settles nobody has been physically hurt, and I resent the accusation.

Without airing the laundry, the short version is that she is a control freak who is never at peace and takes out her frustration on the family. She thinks she's the boss and if I get too close to challenging this idea she throws her higher salary in my face and again recites her "It's MY house, it's MY money...." crap. (Never mind that we are a churchgoing home, that we both claim to be Christians, and that the Bible has plenty to say about how husbands and wives should treat one another, and that this behavior blatantly contradicts Biblical standards. I've come to learn that, while she comes from a family that attends church, they never read the Bible and they never pray. She is spiritually illiterate. Not her fault, this is the way she was raised. This is one example of why pride is a sin, too. But I digress...)

Furthermore, she has hit me on several occasions. Nothing to cause any damage, but the kind of thing that could get either one of us arrested, not because of any serious threat, but because recently-enacted "family violence" laws prevent the cops from exercising discretion. If they show up and are willing to be reasonable, that is a different story. But if their intent is to arrest me, regardless of the facts, then their presence is an unacceptable intrusion into my home. I WILL defend my home, and I don't give a rat's ass what the intruder is wearing or what he does for a living.

The issue is not that I will defend my home against an intrusion that, only a few years ago, would have been considered unthinkable and was understood by all of society to be an unacceptable misuse of police resources. The issue is that the cops are being turned into a bunch of nazi scumbags who think they have a right to interefere in the first place.

I have lived a quiet, peaceful life for nearly 48 years. I've never caused any problems or been in trouble with the law. I don't hurt people and I don't take their stuff. I have earned the right not to be treated like shit by the police. I will go another 48 years without bothering anybody, and if they think this is a good idea all they have to do is leave me alone.

But if the day ever comes that some of these guys decide they might like a bullet in the head, I suggest they target me for harassment. I'll take it, for awhile. I'll put up with it, for awhile. But eventually I will react. It will not necessarily be the right thing to do, but as an imperfect, flawed human I can't claim that I will never have a bad day.

Leave me alone.

Cheers,
Jon

[RhondaLea 3]

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Your premise is offensive; It's based on the ASSumption that my family is at risk. They are not.

It is based on the assumption that emotional and verbal abuse is more often more harmful in the long run than physical abuse, particularly for children, who have an inherent right to be free of it.

Your domestic situation is a problem with which you can choose to deal or not. Children, however, have the right to be reared in a mentally healthy environment, and one in which parents are fighting as you describe is not it.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

I'm sorry you're in that kind of unpleasant situation.

I am no therapist, but I would say that if it's as bad as it is characterized in your post (and its noxiousness is palpable in your writing) then I think the most sensible and safe thing to do would be to extricate yourself from that relationship. Sorry. That may be traumatic and painful and problematic, but is what you currently go through better?

-Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Your premise is offensive; It's based on the ASSumption that my family is at risk. They are not.

It is based on the assumption that ...

Please stand by. I can handle explaining what assumptions I was making. Why would you answer to the accusation that was made against me with such a strident assertion that you know what I meant?

As it turns out, the way Jon explained himself to us makes clear that my assumption was correct: he will not tolerate the intrusion of police into a domestic situation that he personally knows does not involve hiim presenting an actual threat to the safety of his wife. Further, he plans to meet, with deadly force, any such intrusion.

I am on the fence. I am quite sympathetic to his assertion that the police have expanded their sphere of power in recent decades to an unacceptable degree. I also agree that removal of the discretion of the police officers who respond to a domestic "violence" call is tantamount to any other mindless "zero-tolerance" response, and I deplore that. (It's all done for the reason that lawmakers fear that any and all women who say, "I just wanted the police to scare some sense into him," say that only because they are in fear of his later response should they have him arrested now.)

I can't say I fully agree or disagree with Jon. He's right about it being wrong for the police to intrude on personal matters because of the sometimes-phantom fears that legislators have. He's right that police powers are too broad nowadays (like random "DUI" searches on public roads without probable cause, which they defend with bullshit rationalizations about how it's a "privilege, not a right," to be driving).

I know that if a person like him shot a cop who came to the door because a neighbor reported the screaming, he'd probably come through the door later dead and smeared with the epithet "murderous cop-killing wife-beater," not "champion of citizens under the boot-heel of the pigs." Most people would not be sympathetic to a guy who shot a cop who was just checking on a call.

-Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[RhondaLea 3]

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Your premise is offensive; It's based on the ASSumption that my family is at risk. They are not.

It is based on the assumption that ...

Please stand by. I can handle explaining what assumptions I was making. Why would you answer to the accusation that was made against me with such a strident assertion that you know what I meant?

I wouldn't presume to respond for you.

My response was a more general kind of assumption--a legal assumption, actually--not your personal assumption.

A hijack of sorts, since this is not a discussion between only two people, but anyone who happens to wander along.

I mostly don't agree with the rest of your post, btw. I stand by what I said, but I don't really want to turn this thread into a discussion of domestic violence and the various flavors of abuse--subjects with which I have all too much education and familiarity.

I will tell you one story though.

When I was about 10 years old, I asked my mother about the time my father turned the kitchen table over during dinner. I described what I remembered, and the look of shock on her face remains with me until this day.

I was 9 months old and in my highchair at the time of that particular display of temper. I don't believe that children can remember prior to the time they have language, but I was both walking and talking by then. Most of my sharpest childhood memories include some scene of (relatively mild) violence, and in my early adulthood, I repeated certain things my mother did, only to realize later that it was an exact emulation of her behavior.

As adults, we repeat the patterns of our childhood until we gain mastery over them. Some people never get help, and they repeat their parents' problems over and over from one relationship to the next. And even when people think they have it licked, it sometimes crops up in the strangest situations.

What children see, they will do. Over and over again. If two adults want to drive each other crazy, and if they make misery of their life together, well, more power to them. But when children are involved, someone needs to step in and stop the cycle, because it will repeat itself.

If you can't exhibit grown-up behavior, you're not entitled to grown-up privileges. IMO, of course.

Edited to add:

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I also agree that removal of the discretion of the police officers who respond to a domestic "violence" call is tantamount to any other mindless "zero-tolerance" response, and I deplore that.

The reason their discretion was taken away is because the fuckers never did anything. Even today, some of them will do as little as they can get away with. Just this once, take my word for it, as to what used to happen and what still happens sometimes today.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

I mostly don't worry about falling under the axe of this kind of zero-tolerance, since I don't abuse women.

But I know very well that an accusation of domestic violence can be hurled at a VERY undeserving person without a shred of evidence and it can dog him for a long time and also cost him thousands of dollars -- and even cost him his right to keep and bear arms.

It was my brother who suffered this kind of false accusation by a boozing girlfriend. My brother is about the gentlest 6'2" 200 pounder I know, a sweetie to his girlfriends (and now his wife), and would never in a thousand years be a domestic abuser -- not even emotionally or verbally. But this drunk accused him of some sort of grabbing thing -- because she was keeping his cellular phone from him and he took her wrist to get it from the lush.

"Friends" of theirs advised her to call the police. When they got there, she wanted the police NOT to arrest him, but they did anyway. Took this gentle guy away in handcuffs. A few grand later, the charges were not sustained and he has a clear record -- except for having been arrested for domestic assault or whatever the fascists in MA call it when a guy tries to get his phone back from a psychotic alcoholic loser woman.

The fact that women can accuse men of a variety of crimes and have their words taken as gospel regardless of their being completely false is a major problem I have with the state of the law in this country today.

-Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[RhondaLea 3]

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The fact that women can accuse men of a variety of crimes and have their words taken as gospel regardless of their being completely false is a major problem I have with the state of the law in this country today.

It isn't women. It's people.

This sort of thing happens a lot, and it's not just about domestic violence, and it's not just about women.

Massachusetts has gone way overboard on the abuse bandwagon. It's on the "cutting edge" as to theory, treatment and punishment.

Unfortunately, some of what it's doing is wrong--because the theorists are wrong--including the extremes to which it goes.

But the pendulum always swings before it settles--humans are nothing if not creatures of reactionary behavior.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[Airman1270 0]

...Children, however, have the right to be reared in a mentally healthy environment, and one in which parents are fighting as you describe is not it...
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I apologize for the delayed response, but I'm back today...

Thanks. We can say we all have the right to a "mentally healthy environment," whatever that means. Of course, the absence of conflict would be just super. But conflict is a part of life, and it's better they learn to deal with it. Growing up with Mom & Dad making a little unpleasant noise is not going to scar kids for life, but it will enable them to recall how undesirable this is and try not to emulate their example.

By the way, to the extent it's up to me, I DO usually react in a "correct" manner, but sometimes I don't. This occurrs after months of stuffing it down and responding with gentle kindness. (If you knew the details you'd be high-fiving me for holding my temper as long as I have.) As for the things I can't control, well, marriage counseling can be wonderful if BOTH parties are willing to accept this option.

We're veering a bit from the original point of Jeffrey's post. We can pursue this topic elsewhere if anyone is really interested.

Cheers,
Jon

[billvon 2,416]

>Growing up with Mom & Dad making a little unpleasant noise is not
>going to scar kids for life, but it will enable them to recall how
> undesirable this is and try not to emulate their example.

Children learn what they see, and they learn to do it. If they see their parents bickering but remaining together, then that's how they will learn to deal with people. After all, that's what they know - you bicker, then make up, and go on. To them, that's how the world works. They don't know anything else.

Kids watch all the time. If parents are rude to store clerks, waitresses and people on the road, they will learn that - even if the parents tell them not to.

[Airman1270 0]

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I'm sorry you're in that kind of unpleasant situation...I think the most sensible and safe thing to do would be to extricate yourself from that relationship...
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It can be an option, but I consider it a last resort. My parents divorced when I was 13; I'd like to spare my kids that situation if at all possible. Besides, there have been many couples who have been far worse off than we are and they were able to turn in a new direction. In the meantime, she sure is a damn good cook. At least a good meal is something I can get my hands on regularly, without having to leave home to find it.

As far as any of this is related to skydiving, my biggect frustration is cutting way back on my jumping because of my job situation (barely 15 jumps this past year) while she complains about all the time & money I spend at the DZ.

Cheers,
Jon

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[Shotgun 1]

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Children learn what they see, and they learn to do it. If they see their parents bickering but remaining together, then that's how they will learn to deal with people. After all, that's what they know - you bicker, then make up, and go on. To them, that's how the world works. They don't know anything else.

Kids watch all the time. If parents are rude to store clerks, waitresses and people on the road, they will learn that - even if the parents tell them not to.

I don't think that this is true for everyone. Some children will watch what their parents do and repeat the behavior; others will analyze their parents' behavior and decide that they don't agree with it and they won't repeat it.

I grew up with parents that argued a lot. What I learned from being around that was that I didn't want to be in a relationship that involved a lot of arguing, and now I am in a relationship that does not involve a lot of arguing. I have respect for my parents, but I never assumed that the way they did things was just "how the world works." I do know people who are like that though; they're usually the ones who use the phrase, "that's just how I was raised," as the reason why they do certain things or hold certain beliefs. (Of course, that might include both good and bad things.)