he said "No point of blame." so its all ok (that's sarcasm).

I think there is a general point to be had here though. Its not that you shouldn't have the right to feel safe in society or your daily life or anything like that. Its more that you should avoid dangerous situations and surround yourself with people who will not impact physical or emotional harm on you. The onus of responsibility is by no means on the victim, but we could decrease how many victims there are if potential victims (or those in situations that often result in victimization) removed themselves from those scenarios/locations/relationships. The person committing the offense is still the point of blame, but unfortunately there will always be people who do not confine to appropriate standards. This goes beyond domestic issues to all kinds of other ones.

You don't join a gang if you aren't ok with being involved in future physical confrontations.

You don't poke a sleeping lion if you don't want to face it when it wakes up.

You don't walk up to someone in a bar and punch them if you are afraid of a fight.

You don't stick your hand in a dog's mouth if you don't want to risk getting bit.

You shouldn't spend time with people (males, females, strangers, family, "friends," etc.) who are likely to inflict either physical or emotional pain on you.


Now, kids can't avoid these situations at all times so society as a whole should help to remove them from dangerous or neglectful settings, but adults who are fully functioning mentally and physically should be able to seek safe havens on their own. BY NO MEANS IS IT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE VICTIM TO REMOVE THEMSELVES FROM THE SITUATION, BUT IT WOULD BE A GREAT IDEA AND ALLEVIATE A LOT OF THE CASES OF VIOLENCE THAT WE SEE IN TODAY'S SOCIETY IF THEY DID SO. I made that bold and colorful so people will not accuse me of victim blaming since that isn't what I am doing as I am rather just suggesting methods to avoid negative scenarios rather than blaming them for their occurrence.

Maybe this is all too obvious and didn't need to be said, but I don't think its really controversial. I certainly do have many differentiated views on non-violence, but I don't think this is one of them.

Agreed with CDL. Everyone knows that getting into an elevator with your fiance is just asking for trouble.

The "theory from the world of perfect freedom of choice and perfectly rational actors" strikes again

Unfortunately, the two are still not quite the same. If Rice had knocked out a dude that was the same age, size and strength of this woman the reaction would not be the same even though his physical superiority would be.

This is basically correct, which again invites the question "why is this the aspect of this situation that you're choosing to spend your time talking about".

When it's SAS using a national platform to do the same, it's even worse.

Cdl was the one who claimed Ron artest accidentally elbowed James harden in the head like 3 years ago too. Guy is a legend

I never said anything of the like. If Ray Rice is indeed a violent and abusive person or if he has tendencies toward domestic abuse then I would hope that no one maintains any sort of personal relationships with him in order to protect themselves. If this was an isolated incident then it is extremely terrible and deserving of legal and professional punishment, but may not indicate that he is an ongoing danger and may or may not make his, the Ravens, Harbaugh, and her statements on his character valid. In the latter scenario then she clearly had no reason to think she was in danger and even retrospectively probably should not have done anything differently. In the former scenario then she STILL DID NOTHING WRONG, but she may have been more prudent by cutting off all contact with Ray Rice at a prior date and moving forward with her life without him.

The problem is that it's basically impossible to tell the three apart with you, which is genius if you're a performance artist, but I don't think you're quite there.

eta:

Rofl

Because it seems like people are focusing on the fact that he hit a woman. I think this should be a launching point to discourage all violence and set a higher standard for athletes (and hopefully all of society). I would like to see the NFL take a strong stance against violence in general. That way they can start punishing and otherwise discouraging other acts of violence and general fighting (even tho its entertaining in games sometimes I still think it is objectionable behavior morally).

I don't know what the San Antonio Spurs have to do with anything (thats a joke, but I dont know that acronym otherwise).

I was wrong on that and admitted as much in that thread within 24 hours.

Maybe cdl just needs to try a little harder with his posting

There's a focus on him hitting a woman because domestic violence against women is a pretty pervasive problem in our society. The NFL had an opportunity to make something of a statement about that and didn't. That's disappointing. Save for CDL's specific existence, there doesn't seem to be as pervasive a problem with dudes beating up dudes.

Not sure why this has to be so black and white. Rice can be a scumbag and deserve worse punishment while still living in a world that has justifiable scenarios for a woman, elderly, etc, to get knocked the **** out.

It's also entirely possible that Rice has never done this before and will never do it again and made a mistake. He should be punished for his action appropriately taking the context of this specific situation, like any other punishment situation.

Tell me more about this hypothetical world where

A)There is a rational, plausible, totally acceptable reason for uppercutting a woman-- and not just any woman, your significant other-- in a public place and knocking her out, and
B)A person inclined to do that has never struck out in violence before and never will again

Michelle Beadle going off on Stephen A. Smith and First Take on Twitter right now.

Good. Hopefully he says something misogynistic back to her and gets fired for it. **** that guy.

In a situation where a woman is posing a serious threat to a child or has already physically abused one in some way.

In a situation where the woman has a weapon and/or the potential to do life-altering damage to someone.

And I never said Rice's situation is justifiable. I don't think it was. But to say there is no hypothetical situation where a man can correctly knock out a woman is idiotic.

In a situation where a woman keeps getting in the way of your elevator uppercut training sessions

TuT arguing against posts nobody is making ITT.

Okay, yes, in the specific cases of self-defense or defending the powerless, hitting the aggressor is acceptable. That's totally inapplicable here.

I don't know why everyone keeps insisting that Ray Rice would be far inferior to Rashard Mendenhall at managing the multifarious needs of a freshly IPO'd tech company. $how your wørk.

I think goodell will learn from this and not suspend anyone in the future b/c doing nothing wouldn't have gotten anywhere near this level of furor.

The reason why you get accused of "victim blaming" is because you are attempting to make a logical argument for why women should avoid these situations when the reason why they put themselves in these situations is psychological(and often times due to previous abuse and/or a society that has taught them to behave a certain way). For example, women who were sexually abused by their father will often times have a natural tendency to date men who are abusive. There are all sorts of underlying psychological factors at play.

Saying "You should really stop putting yourselves in these situations" to these women is akin to telling a depressed person they should "just be happy." Its a condescending and inappropriate response that assumes the person lacks common sense. And when you do that in lieu of discussing the issue of the man hitting the woman then you are indeed victim blaming(or trolling).


When there is one group that is being discriminated against/abused/attacked then it is appropriate to focus on that single aspect. Attempts to instead look at the larger picture instead can be a way to divert attention from the severity of the one group's issue.

Your idea of using this as a "launching point" to discourage all violence is horrible because it diverts attention away from the severity of violence against women(by equating it with all other violence). It'd be akin to suggesting we use Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat as a means to promote a general idea of human equality instead of specifically focusing on the issue of racism towards blacks in America at the time.