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by notahacker 1680 days ago
I don't think anybody has said he (probably) deserved it. They've suggested he was a complicated character whose suicide appears to be the culmination of an unfortunate pattern of self-destructive behaviour, not a hero or victim.

And I'm not sure what you consider to be "ordinary standards of evidence", but you started this subthread by insisting that we should automatically assume allegations were not credible, even in a case where multiple people have independently testified to the same pattern of behaviour and a court has ruled them to be credible, and then went off on an entirely irrelevant tangent about how a half-jokey comment some trashy talk show host made about how to have a second baby with a partner who changed his mind about more kids could, in theory, lead to "18 years free money for the mom". I'm struggling to understand any connection at all between the points you're bringing up other than the repeated insinuation that women are inherently untrustworthy...

1 comments

How to put this. Not all suicides are created equal. I think some have more of a point than others. It is a final, powerful shout of hopelessness, an expression of resistance against a society that has thoroughly abandoned you. And, in the case of a parent forcibly separated from their children, a statement that if you're going to have your children taken away, you might as well be dead.

But of course we attack the victim here. Because he's a man. Because he's been accused of DV. Because he's a wimp and couldn't take it. Because he's selfish, self-destructive, and abandoned his kids. Right?

Well, if I had my way I'd investigate each and every suicide that was a result of a justice system action. I would take a microscope the proceedings and to the allegations. This man spent his life to say something, to warn us, and I think we could at least take his last, most serious complaint, seriously. (And by implication, don't use the act of despair to further heap blame and abuse on the man.)

And make no mistake, it IS a warning, to the ~10% of marriages that will end in a high conflict divorce, and our concept of right and wrong, just and unjust, is not reflected in the family court system. It is arbitrary, personal and extraordinarily biased for the mother. For those women willing to take it, the high-conflict divorce DV allegation is a super-weapon that you can use to utterly destroy your opponent - not just win, but take all his tools away for fighting, and take all public support for him and his rights. It's extraordinary.