From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Guilty?
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:40:25 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <Bvzn2E.GAo@cs.psu.edu>  beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
> In article <1992Oct11.173632.97990@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.IBM.com writes
> >In  <Bvv5FC.FvE@cs.psu.edu>  beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
> >>
> >> Janis Cortese wrote the following on soc.women (moderated):
> >>
> >> ===   If I had a kid and someone threatened it, I'd slit their
> >> ===   throat wide open and drink their blood with a smile in my face.
> >>
> >> I think not.  In particular, I saw no reason to interpret "with a smile
> >> on my face" as a sign of violent insanity; rather, it seems a figurative
> >> description intended to emphasize her point.
> >
> >True.  To emphasize her point that she *would* kill, with no qualms,
> >if the life of her child was threatened.  Actually drinking the blood
> >sounds dangerous, since you can catch nasty diseases that way.  (Practice
> >safer slaughter!  :-)
> >
> >I see nothing wrong with saying you'd kill to protect your child.  (Would
> >you stand around and let your child be killed?)  That's a far cry from
> >saying you'd kill someone (hypothetical or not) for not showing you the
> >proper respect.
> >
> >Did you have a point?
>
> Now that you ask...
>
> First, several people chose to interpret Mr. Steeves' posting literally;
> would these same people grant the benefit of the doubt only to women
> who make violent statements?

I *did* interpret that she'd kill the attacker literally.

> Second, it seems quite reasonable from his posting that he objected to
> far more than "not showing the proper respect"

It's clear that he also objected to the abortion, but the difference in
the two scenarios was waiting a year before telling him, *not* getting
or not getting the abortion.

> Since certain persons have accepted explicitly violent statements from
> women as figurative,

Note again:  I accepted the *violence* as literal; it was the "drink their
blood with a smile in my face" that I interpreted figuratively.

> Since those persons who complained seem to have an outspoken agenda,
> it is no great surprise that they concluded only "respect" was at issue

No great surprise, considering that his words were:
#And with God or Allah (whomever) as my witness, I will say that in my own
#situation, if the woman had *not* been so respecting as to tell me before,
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
#but in fact had not only told me right afterwards, but had waited a year (!)
#or more, I probably would have snapped right there and killed her where she
#stood.

> considering why she might have waited a year to "throw salt in the wounds,"

Since you seem to have an outspoken agenda, it's no great surprise that
you assume she waited a year in order to throw salt in the wounds, rather
than simply not telling him because she knew it would upset him (or because
she knew that (a hypothetical) he was deranged and actually *would* try to
kill her if he found out), and it happened to come out a year later.

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)