Posts by BenWilson
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Cheers. This friend has been enlightening to me on the subject of domestic violence over the years. I've known him since we were 10, and he has always been dead set against physical violence, to a degree I found extraordinary as a teenager. Extraordinary because violence between kids around me at that age was commonplace. But somehow, as an adult, he has been a domestic violence magnet. His first wife gave him regular beatings and far worse psychological abuse. He's spoken of being kicked and punched by almost every female partner he has lived with, and just the other day he told me a pretty shocking story of a beating his grandmother had given him. A couple of years back his Dad, who is a pretty old guy, even tried giving him the bash.
This guy is actually quite big, too. He could certainly fight back if he wanted to, but he has a moral problem with it.
I'm absolutely not saying he is asking for it. But it's crazily coincidental how much it has happened to him, that you have to think his choices somehow have led to it. Perhaps it is in his choices of partners? But that doesn't explain his family doing it. Perhaps he goads? In arguments I've had with him he has certainly made me very angry, but so has just about everyone I've known for a long time at some time or another. Or perhaps it is in the failure to refuse the violence? This is my own opinion, that in some way he feels that he deserves it, and this is conveyed to people who then do things that they shouldn't (and always regret, in the long run). Perhaps in some way they actually feel that it's what he wants them to do, and he has never managed to convey that he does not want it.
Which brings me to a point about the "It's not OK" campaign. Only half of it is about trying to convince perpetrators of violence that they should stop. The other half is to convince victims that they don't deserve it, and shouldn't take it. Maybe you could translate that to "they shouldn't ask for it" but with quite a different meaning. The "asking for it" is not just in provoking volatile people, it is also in feelings of low self worth that lead some people to accept it as some kind of perverted form of cosmic justice.
I don't know how typical this is. It's just one case study, but it's over a very long and close friendship.
I'm also extremely guarded about how successful the campaign can be. But that doesn't mean it's a bad or worthless campaign. I will never stop telling my friend he doesn't deserve the treatment he gets, even if he never learns. What else can I do? At least I'm trying.
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From what I've read of Herald opinion pieces, their entire purpose is to say controversial things without any evidence as a dog-whistle to some reader base. Whoever it is out there that would like what Ralston wrote will find it a much better reason to continue reading the paper than the people who don't like it will find it a reason to stop reading it. It is much easier to stop reading a column than it is to find another newspaper (for all those people who still read newspapers in print). The only articles that seem to be filtered out are those in direct conflict with the political views of the owners.
As for Ralston's actual views.
Whether or not the "It's not OK" campaign actually succeeds in reducing domestic violence, it will not be a waste of time or money. To think that is akin to thinking that it would be a waste of time to talk to a friend involved in domestic violence, if it had no effect. Some things just need to be said, for their own sake, and the effects are worthy if they take weeks or centuries to come about.
I have a friend who was nearly killed by his girlfriend in a fairly clear case of domestic violence (she deliberately collided into his much smaller car head on, when they were both traveling at about 50kmh, after a very loud argument in which she had been drinking). I know this friend well enough to also know that it could have been seen coming months earlier. I regularly tell this friend my opinions on his crazy choices of women and his shoddy treatment of them. He has never changed. Should I not say anything about it, because of that? When he got back together with her after the court case I told him it was crazy. Should I have said nothing?
He certainly was hoping to sweep the whole thing under the carpet, but the police don't allow that. She was charged, found guilty, and punished. So the idea that the police are PC and anti-men in cases of domestic violence is total BS in my very limited experience of it. Far more likely is that the higher rates of reporting and conviction for domestic violence by men are actually because they do it more. Which stands to bloody reason to any adult who has ever confronted the opposite sex in any physical contest, as most acts of violence are.
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Daniel, so true. My view that his behavior is likely to have been caused by the alcohol in his drink rather than the sugar is clearly not universally shared. The idea that it could have been because he was just a wanker is almost unsayable.
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Flavour: Rotten grapes
Grown: Anywhere there's grapes
Origin: Planet Earth
Style: So I'm told -
lol, as a prole, Zum Wohl! I fail to appreciate any kind of malt, but I'm glad other people can. I don't know if I'm a super taster, but I've been told my beagle like talent for detecting if there is pot in the house is uncanny to the point of creepy.
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@Russell
As Emma pointed it, it was coming across a bit arrogant, and you weren't paying any attention to what anyone else was saying, including people who brought those sweet, sweet data.
2 things:
1. Having an opinion about underlying causes of behavior and tastes in society is not arrogant. Or if it is, it is arrogance that should be tolerated in debate. I still stand by my opinion, although I of course admit that it is an opinion. Opining that I am wrong is also an opinion, and it displays exactly the same level of arrogance.
2. Saying that I was not paying attention IS arrogant. It is actually insulting. I read and reread and then reread again everything that everyone said on this thread. I simply disagreed with them, and conflating that with not-paying-attention, is doing exactly what Emma was accusing me of - making attributions about my mental behavior which you have no way at all of being privy to.
I used emotive language to convey the depth of my opinion about the taste of alcohol. This was merely a rhetorical device to counter the constant and ongoing assertions about the lovely taste of this and that kind of alcohol. To say it's yucky is no more emotive than to say it's nice. To add the tedious qualifiers "In my opinion", "Some think" "It could be argued that" and so on, are not conventions that proliferate on this or any other blog. It is taken as read that people are expressing their opinions.
As a point, it's not really very important to what I was trying to say. I'm perfectly happy to concede the point that it is possible that some people like alcohol for reasons of taste. I'm quite happy to keep my opinions about the reasons for their tastes to myself if they are going to cause outrage and antipathy (as they seem to have). My main point was that a great many people also do not like it for it's taste, and they are not inferior in any way for continuing to drink alcohol solely for the intoxicating effects. This mainly includes children. It also includes me, and about a dozen adults I know personally. We are not doing it for religious or any other abstract reasons, it really is a matter of taste.
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There seems to be a wee bit of judgementality creeping into this thread for what is really just the diversity and uniqueness of each human brain
Tell me about it. My only motivation for even mentioning my personal (and countless other people's) distaste for alcohol was to point out that drinking alcohol for it's other rather obvious characteristic, that it intoxicates, is not actually childish, wrong and bad. It is simply a natural response for a huge number of children, and a great many adults too. To deride and seek to limit what other people actually do find nice (alcopops) is to be exactly the taste fascist everyone seems to be accusing me of. But I have never denied that people can like the taste of alcohol, I've simply said that not liking it is perfectly natural, for perfectly natural reasons, and liking intoxication is perfectly natural, for perfectly natural reasons. I don't see anything adult or responsible about trying to drag children's tastes toward beer, wine, or unmixed spirits. It's just irrelevant and snobbish, IMHO.
If you want to limit how much children drink then the sensible thing to do is just to limit how much they can buy and where they can have it, not force them to drink things that many of them think are disgusting, in some vain hope that it will civilize them and cause them to drink responsibly. They will just drink beer, wine and spirits irresponsibly, just the way they did when I was a kid, and still do today.
In essence, I simply deny the point that liking the taste of sweetened alcohol is any way at all less civilised, sophisticated, mature or sensible. It's just something that adults do. If you can't understand the distinction then consider that whinging about getting old is something that only adults do, too, but that doesn't make it mature, civilized, sophisticated or sensible either.
Yes, the sweetened drinks target children. But if you really have a problem with children drinking then surely the solution is raising the age at which children can drink whatever their choice of drink is. Then you will also catch the kids who actually do like unsweetened drinks too, and you will not be limiting the choices of responsible adults who may actually prefer alcopops. Being a taste-fascist is missing the point entirely.
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Simon, it is entirely possible that I have associated by pure chance with only the children who don't like alcohol my whole life. I certainly have seen children trying it, but I have always assumed a screwed up face and subsequent avoidance meant dislike. I don't deny other people's experiences though.
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JackElder, I wonder if your dog actually likes being pissed. It's a possibility.
I don't really think the source of the taste is particularly important. My only real motivation for raising the natural distaste for alcohol is simply in response to a number of comments people have made about how bad it is that alcohol that children do actually like is available, and how we could solve problems by teaching children to like the (IN MY OPINION OK EVERYONE) nasty arse shit that adults like to drink. As if liking alcohol for it's taste is somehow superior, or more adult or responsible. It is not.
Which makes me think that the reason people think the sweet drinks should have more limited availability is because they innately know that it would simply put more kids off alcohol period (except of course those ones who by whatever quirk of unlucky fate actually do like the taste). Otherwise I can't make head or tail of the antipathy towards alcopops or other 'targetted at children' drinks.
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Stewart, you are making an assertion. You are asserting that my assertion is wrong. And then you're demanding me to research the case to prove you wrong. When I've got some spare time, maybe, but so far all I've got is quite a large personal sample of anecdotal evidence. What have you got?
Given how widespread the adult love of alcohol is, if it were actually innate in some way, I'd expect at least some children to display it. NONE have, in my experience.
And no, Daniel, I haven't given any children alcohol (well, ok, 16 is technically a child). But I've observed them asking for it off their parents over the 37 years I've been alive and I've never yet seen a taker, with the exception of extremely sweet alcohol. That I have seen children return to. I feel the sweetness throws out that data a little, since it's obvious that children like sweet things. Is anyone going to ask me for scientific evidence of that?
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