“Did it ever occur to you that your violent ‘scumbags’ are human beings who may have been the victims all their life of other such ‘scumbags’.”

Let’s get this right, Phanto, taking these “victims” as the violent criminals whose hurt at Mr Turnbull dissing them was your theme in opening this thread which unleashed the basher lobby. Let’s assume they’re male “victims”.

So they may have been victims all their lives of other violent criminals. So they bash their wives, and rude Mr Turnbull disses them for that. Are these other violent criminals of whom they’ve long been victims their wives? If yes, they’ll have lived a life of having to hide their bruises from others, to tell porkies at A&E departments about where their lacerations and broken bones and ruptured spleens came from, made attempts to get away and hide, been tracked by “er indoors” and given another bashing. So one day they explode and bash back?

But maybe these other violent criminals are not their wives, in which case what the hell right do they have to assault their wives in response?

Disputes are not violence unless bodily assaults or credible threats of assaults occur. Indictable offences under the law. Crimes. Leading to (currently way too short) gaol terms for the perps. Those who commit them are violent criminals. Trying to apply pop psychology to my reasons for practically universally shared hostility to violent criminals is what I call psychobabble.

Scumbags is a Keatingesque word not unknown among police officers in referring (among themselves) to violent criminals. I think it fits.

"Scumbags is a Keatingesque word not unknown among police officers in referring (among themselves) to violent criminals. I think it fits."

Ok then no need to justify its use if you meant no hurt by it.

Meant no hurt to anyone but violent criminals.

"Meant no hurt to anyone but violent criminals." - and those you choose to call the "Basher lobby" who are mostly not offering any support for actual basher's (other than the possibility that some may just be people striking back after years of abuse from an abusive (physically or otherwise) spouse.

People who have recognised that while the ongoing use of DV as a tool to promote gender issues continues it's very difficult to make real headway against the majority of DV. Those you seem keen to hurt.

I doubt we will ever stop all DV (physical or otherwise) but I do think with a more honest discussion about DV we could make some serious inroads.

R0bert

EmperorJulian:

"Meant no hurt to anyone but violent criminals."

Well if you did mean to hurt then why are you trying to justify the use of the term 'scumbag' by saying that Paul Keating and the police use it.

You seem a bit confused about your intentions. On one hand you are saying that you used the word with the intention to hurt violent criminals and then on the other you are saying it is not really a hurtful word because Keating and police use it. Why do you need to appeal to them? Why appeal to anyone at all if your intention was to hurt? Just say what you mean to say if your aim is to hurt.

//Disputes are not violence unless bodily assaults or credible threats of assaults occur. Indictable offences under the law. Crimes. Leading to (currently way too short) gaol terms for the perps.//

So: lock 'em up and throw away the key. We don't even need to involve the judiciary: if you hit somebody you go directly to jail. That'll get the thugs off the streets and out of the homes and we can all live peace, love and brotherhood.

I can only see one teensy little problem with this policy, and at the risk of sounding like a tory politician: where is the money going to come from? It's all very well to have these pie-in-the-sky ideas, but keeping people locked up is incredibly expensive and money doesn't grow on trees. In this case it comes from taxes and the only way the Government would be able to get the extra revenue they need for such an expensive policy would be to raise taxes, which Governments are notoriously reluctant to do.

In this case I consider that a good thing. I wouldn't be happy to have to pay more tax just so we can implement a one-size-fits-none mandatory sentencing policy that sees hefty penalties applied to first time offenders regardless of the circumstances of their case. Policies like that ALWAYS end up in gross miscarriages of justice, and I'm not real keen on paying extra taxes for miscarriages of justice. It just doesn't seem like good value for money to me.