Yes as Woj, says it is quite simple. If you bow down to legal definitions and reify the rule of law as a definition of violence, then we would be still in a time when a master's violence against a servant, or white man's violence against a black, or the father's violence against a child, could simply be ignored. There is no argument because people like Woj, simply want to ignore the larger moral, class, status, race and sexual issues. In other words such people want to turn the simple moral argument that most people can recognize violence when they see it into a legal truism, and they want to to turn the hard problem of what to do about a rule of law that is structured as discriminatory into a simple matter of definition, and wants to turn the hypocrisy that allows for violence against one group but outlaws it against another group into an eternal idol that we must bow down to.
[WS:] Or the opposite - if a group of people, say Promise Keepers, or x-tian fundies, decide that forcing their wives to have sex, or physically disciplining them does not really constitute violence, or even offence, contrary to what the law says. Historically speaking, legal definitions generally curbed the popular propensity toward "justifiable" violence rather than the other way around. So I'll stick with legal definitions.
I am not sure why I am getting into this kind of debates that turn out to be pissing contests that do not lead anywhere. Perhaps it is the biological propensity of the male ego ;), or perhaps it is my stupid hope that I may learn something useful. This thread, however, looks to me like flogging a long-dead horse. I am not even sure what the point being argued is, as this whole discussion goes on every possible tangent. So I hope you will excuse me if I quit at this point. Have a nice day.
Wojtek
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