Nice Punch, Cowboy! Don't Apologise For It

Men need to stop cringing and stop apologizing for proportionate acts of violence done in defence of themselves or others, or to remove a nuisance or troublemaker.

I’m not talking about flattening or beating the shit out of somebody manifestly less physically capable, or putting the boot in when someone is on the ground. I mean doing just enough to take control of a situation and your personal space and further, doing so with minimal disruption to your planned activities.

What prompted this post is Gold Coast busker David Mulder, the Silver Cowboy delivering a single punch to the jaw of a drunken twit who was sticking a wet finger in his ear and rubbing his face. Nice punch, too.

The guy was being a complete dickhead and even admitted later that he regretted heckling Mulder and probably asked for it. The amount of support for David Mulder shows a large percentage of the general public believe there are circumstances in which people deserve to get hit.

Of course, elements of our nanny state bureaucracy and other assorted oxygen thieves made it their business to condemn the violence and an “official investigation” was launched.

Probably in order to keep his job, David Mulder had to issue the standard mea culpa from the nanny state’s liturgy: “Not proud of myself … don’t condone my actions … we were both in the wrong … violence is never vindicated.”

Yes, sometimes it is. If not, why are the police and most security guards armed? And no, we shouldn’t have to have our day / evening ruined by waiting for the police to arrive and deal with the situation.

Thankfully, common sense prevailed in this case and the matter went no further. It could easily have done so, had the heckler wanted to pursue an assault charge. At least he was man enough to admit he deserved to get hit.

The police handled the matter sensibly as well. Good to see they had more important things to do, like catch burglars.

Maybe someone had a word with the heckler and pointed out that licking your finger and sticking it in someone’s ear, then rubbing their face is also an assault. Notice that his name hasn’t been widely published. It would have had he pressed charges.

Most of us on occasion are faced with situations when an idiot is being aggressive or just a nuisance. Some, mostly men, are capable of dealing with the problem physically: one or two punches in the stomach or on the chin, or twisting the fool’s arm up behind their back and shoving them out a door. In a liberal society, there is nothing wrong with taking this approach.

It’s only a social compact that men (and sometimes women) don’t routinely become aggressive as a means of solving problems. But sometimes that compact is broken. Being able to deal with physical confrontation, being able to defend yourself and others is part of being a man. By that, I mean two things: firstly, to be capable of prevailing in a physical confrontation, or at least seeing off your attacker and secondly, to have the self control to act proportionately.

To do what David Mulder did should be legal. The only tests should be sufficient provocation and proportionality of action.

The One Punch Can Kill campaign is nanny state bullshit. Sure, if it’s a king hit to the temple or you punch an old man. But no decent man would do that.

However, if one punch knocks a man of comparable age and size down and they hit their head and die, there were a multitude of factors contributing to their death, including an inability to adequately defend themselves, despite provoking others, not to mention an inability to not provoke others in the first place.

It does not matter that women are in general less physically capable and don’t have violence as an option. Men shouldn’t have to resile from using their abilities as discussed above just because others can’t. The law should not reduce all to the lowest level of competence.

Men need to become more vocal on this issue. Say what most of us think: that sometimes a modicum of violence is an effective and even necessary solution to a problem. Those who think otherwise are welcome to their opinion, as long as they know to fuck off when told.