Would you intervene?

"Mental violence" as you call it is still not a crime.

I know it's not the Stockholm Syndrome, that why I said "might", but the entire concept of identifying and sympathizing with the aggressor remains the same, and it could actually be the SS, if the person in questing is having their freedom taken from them. (Stockholm Syndrome applies for people being kept against their will, not specifically hostages) However, not important, he concept remains the same.

No, I don't want to make any decisions for anyone. You seem to believe that by calling the cops you have automatically sentenced someone to a lifetime in jail, that is not the case. All you can do in these cases is to say "Hey, my neighbor is screaming like she shot herself in the foot, and it sounds like the man is hitting a punching bag at the same time, care to check it out?". The coppers will come, have a look around, and do their thing. If there is no problem, then there is no problem, if there is a problem, well, congratulations, you just stopped someone from beating up their partner. Either way you'll probably get rid of the noise.

Monitoring has nothing to do with this argument. I don't make decisions for anyone, but if I see a crime I act on my civil duty and do what I can about it.

With your arguing you could just go past someone being stabbed in the stomach going "Meh, he probably WANTED to get stabbed, not my prob" and go on about your business. This is not about being some kind of vigilante seeking out people that beat there partners, but what you do when you're put in an extraordinary situation.

I'm not a Man-Hating Feminist. I'm just a man who had a wife beating father and who has directly intervened in a situation like this. I do not believe it is in male nature to abuse, but having your wife tease you is not an excuse to beat her.

One thing I want to know Tachyon. Why do you think arguing the fact that women do it too make it any less real or give you any less reason to do something about it?

You are not only going "Meh, not my problem." in a case where someone is getting the shit beat out of them, but you are even trying to justify it with what I can only classify as nonsensical reasoning.

No, you don't have to do anything about it. But don't try and justify you not doing anything about it with whatever crap your spouting. That's just beyond cowardly behavior to do so.

@Chlor:
Mental violence may not be liable to prosecution, but it's still morally a crime. I am sure all of you heard the stories of people committing suicide because they were mobbed.

I don't believe that you sentenced anyone to jail by calling the cops, but you interfered in his private life. And for some people this is worser than spending time in jail. And superficially seen you can't do anything wrong by calling the cops, but as I mentioned already, you also show a lack of respect for the people concerned. And here monitoring comes in as well, because as soon as you believe the cops know how to handle private affairs the best, why not let them handle all private affairs?

With my arguing I would help someone being stabbed against his will on the street, but with your arguing you would call the police if someone was stabbed in a BDSM game. You must know where to draw the line, between both marginal and grave, as well as moral and legal.

"Morally a crime"? Really? Jesus H Christ, first of, morals is relative and doesn't really exists, secondly; even so, it is not a crime. You do know that if you are witness to a crime, or have reason to believe a crime is being committed, you're supposed to call the police and have them check it up? Hearing someone screaming, and the clear sound of someone being beaten, is something I'd call "reason to believe a crime is being committed", thus I would call the cops and have them check it up. Not because I believe that the cops know how to handle private affairs, but because I trust they'll do something if a crime is proven to be committed.

With my arguing I would call the cops if someone was stabbed in an public area, where nothing were indicating that it was some BDSM game yes, since the probability of that scenario is so low that I can be more or less sure that the stabbing is against the victims will. You must stop making up impossible scenarios, even if they're the only time your fallacious reasoning is justified.

Hypothetical answers will only yield hypothetical answers.

You'll never know how your brain will react when push comes to shove. Conflicting emotions of fear, shock etc will lead to a multitude of scenarios that can happen. And you might think it's easy, but pushing out of the social norm is harder than you think.

@Chlor:
You seemingly misunderstood something. Why is beating someone up a crime? Because you are hurting him and disturbing the way he functions (mostly psychically). Aren't you doing almost the same with mobbing? And of course there is a "overall moral", the legal system is based on the moral values of a country. And yet again you come back to monitoring, if you believe the police needs to know and investigate everything, just because there is a potential that there actually is a crime.

BDSM stands for Bondage, Dominance, Sadism and Masochism. Masochism means harming oneself. So obviously if he gets stabbed in a BDSM session he WANTS IT. It is HIS CHOICE, not yours. I do not choose impossible scenarios, but rather extreme scenarios, because there your error in reasoning becomes most evident.

Again: Crime vs. "Morally wrong", I would report a crime, I wouldn't report someone calling someone else names, because it's not a legal crime(How do I make you understand the difference between law and societal guidelines?), however "morally wrong" it is. And sure, according to a lot of people morals are something that exists, I don't agree but go with a more nihilistic view on the matter, but that's a discussion for another time.
And no, not monitoring, monitoring people is something I am strictly against, this is about what you do when you stumble upon an extraordinary situation, not about seeking them out in order to try and be some vigilante, big difference. Sometimes you don't have to seek out trouble to get it you know.

And yes, I know what BDMS stands for, thank you very much, but if you can't tell if the person in question wants to be stabbed, but witness it anyway? How do you reason? Personally my first conclusion is that it would be against his will, not "Oh hey, that guy might be into BDSM, he probably wanted to get stabbed, I should just let them go on about their business." In my opinion that's one of the most cowardly(and weird) excuses I've ever heard for not having to act on your civil duty.

[font=Verdana][color=green]Hmm, what country are you from? This is something that should be cleared up; for previous reasons as well.

However calling people names can be a crime; a legal crime. It all depends on how it's done. It is under the common law offence of assault. Noteworthy point I think.

I'm from Sweden, and yes, even here calling people some things can be a crime, but right now were just talking about something that is considered morally wrong, and I used it as an example. Calling people things that can be classified as racist remarks or slander are obviously illegal, but you see my point. Calling your partner a dirty whore and other humiliating remarks is wrong, and a douche move, but it's not illegal.

[font=Verdana][color=green]I meant these types of remarks in the first place. In England, they could be classified as assault. Surely Sweden has a similar offence?

@Chlor:
Learn to read properly please. I said "if he gets stabbed in a BDSM session he WANTS IT", not "if someone gets stabbed, he might be into BDSM". I have no idea how you managed to conclude this, lol.

I think you are the one who doesn't understand the difference between the law and morality. Personal conflicts are not battled on legal ground. If f.e. someone repeatedly calls you names, you have the moral right to beat him up, but not the legal. So, do you let grown up people battle their marginal conflicts on a moral ground, or do you always call the police? I think the latter is just idiotic, and I already explained where it leads to.

Yeah sure, if it's in a BDSM session I wouldn't care either, but how the fuck do you know if it is one? Especially if it's in a place where you can see it yourself. Imagine this scenario: You're sitting at your front porch, and you hear a muffled scream coming from your neighbor, you look over and see through the window that the man(or woman) put the backhand to his/her partners face. Do you just assume that they're having a BDSM session in their living room, or do you conclude that he's assaulting her? I know what conclusion I would draw from that pretty fast, and what I would do against it. You must have missed the parts where I wrote "where there is nothing indicating that it's a BDSM session". You tell me to learn to read properly, but miss these things as well, hypocrite much?

I wouldn't call the cops if I weren't pretty damn sure that a crime was being committed, (as I wrote in my very first post in here.) but I also really wouldn't consider the probability of a situation where someone is stabbed being a BDSM session higher than the probability of it being an assault. See my point? If I could KNOW that it was a fetish-session going on, then I wouldn't care either, since then it wouldn't even be a problem in the first place.

And I wouldn't really call domestic violence a "marginal conflict", but that might just be me.

@Sam. I actually had to look it up, and it appears that we do, although I've never heard of it being invoked.

I know that it's their private affair, and I would conclude that they are having a BDSM session, rather than assuming that he is going to murder her, lol! Besides, people are more and more into "weird" fetishes, and murdering someone at your home while you didn't even take precautions against eye-witnesses, is very rare.

Yes, you clarified yourself two post ago, but not in the last post. I on the other hand clarified myself in both posts, so your mistake in skipping my assertion is still bigger than mine skipping yours. :)

Actually you can't be pretty damn sure that a crime is committed, only because you saw "that the man(or woman) put the backhand to his/her partners face". And you ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW what your neighbors are doing in their home. That is called privacy. I don't consider drawn-out domestic violence a marginal crime either, but an argument of 1-2 minutes where merely physical violence is involved is marginal. We need to respect privacy, even if it is sometimes a risk, or we are heading straight to big brother.

Waitwaitwait, slow down there speed-racer, who said anything about murder? Slapping someone across the face with the back of your hand =/= murder, but w/e, if you think so than that's your thing. And I can't argue with you here, since this is just what conclusions we draw from the situation; I think that the person in question is comitting a crime, you think that they're doing it for their sexual pleasure, but I will tell you that I believe that conclusion to be extremely far fetched, you might think the same about mine.

Yes, I had hoped that "if you can't tell if the person in question wants to be stabbed, but witness it anyway?" would be enough, apparently I overestimated your ability, I'm terribly sorry.

I can be sure enough to assume that it is a crime, and if I have a view into my neighbors livingroom from my porch, what's the problem? (I actually do.) The reason for me looking over is because I hear a scream, if someone hears a scream they would normally glance over towards the source of it, and if that happens to be my neighbors house, then so be it, that's not invading on someones privacy, that's just poor building planning when the houses were built.

Causing harm to another person like that is always a crime, no matter for how long it goes on, and what do I know? This might be a one time thing, it might have been going on for years, and will keep doing so if I weren't to intervene right? My sense of judgement tells me to call the cops in that situation, your sense of judgement seems to say that their privacy is more important, I just hope we can agree to disagree on that matter.

And agreed, we need to respect privacy, always. As I've tried to say countless of times this discussion is about what you do when you stumble(<-Keyword) upon a situation where there's indications that a crime might be committed, not about doing any attempt to find it.

We are running in circles. Bottom line is, you would intervene if you were NOT 100% sure that a crime is NOT committed, I would only intervene if I were 100% sure that a crime is committed. And this is not out of laziness, or cowardice, but because of higher ideals like respect, freedom, TRUSTING other people's maturity. Once we lose these ideals, we are nothing more than cattle, and risking that someone might get slapped because of this is well worth it. For anything else there are enough laws and regulations to ensure that no one really suffers from domestic abuse.

Indeed, we are. Bottom line is that your way always intervenes too late, while my way might actually help, but my way might also be just a misunderstanding and thus cause someone to be offended, a risk I am more than willing to take. This is from while I too believes in respect and freedom, I also believe that most people are assholes and I'd never trust someone without reason for it. Personally I find that sort of trust naive, even if it would be great if you were actually able to do so without consequence. No one should have to live a life of abuse because everyone is too afraid to step on someone else's toes to notice that something is afoot.

But it seems that we can agree to disagree on this matter, and that's cool. If you wish to continue the discussion anyway, you can always PM me.

[font=Verdana][color=green]@Chlor It doesn't surprise me that there was a law. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.

I would. But before I'd go in and get myself bruised, I'd call the police and hope by the time they come, I wouldn't need to be in the hospital.

Let me start by saying: Rock on. Anyone drumming at 12 at night, is okay with me. Matter of fact I would want to join in on the fun!

To anyone and everyone who said they had to think about it, or no, all of you sicken me. If I did not hear the abuse happening, then how can I stop it if I don't know about it? But if it were just as loud if not more so than the drumming, I would hastily intervene. Just because your afraid of a man who beats his spouse, you won't help? Regardless if he is a muscle bound steroid freak, who eats protein and injects himself with muscle fixer, I would let him beat me instead of her, because I am a man, and can take a beating worse than any woman could.

Woman should feel pain only to give labor, not to take a worthless guys bullshit.

I will admit I am not always chivalrous, but in this scenario, Ladies first.