Did Ray Rice's Girlfriend Deserve to be Punched in the Face?

That was the first question that I asked aloud in the room of people watching PC_SPN this summer when I first heard the story.  Does that question shock you?  It shouldn't.  Allow me to explain.



First, though, the reader should note that I have not researched the evidence involved in the case.  In fact, I try to avoid reading or listening to the media on any issue like this because the standards of objectivity tend to be inversely proportional the passion for a cause.  So if there is sworn testimony which details the events out there which contradicts what I say, great.  I'm not trying to be a judge and jury; loudmouths in the media and social media have pretty much already done that.  I'm only interested in this case insofar as it generalizes to other ones.  So if the facts as I see them are false, take everything I say below merely as hypothetical.

The only evidence I'm going on is the video evidence.  What does it show us?  We see Rice's girlfriend backhand him in the face outside the elevator in front of some bystanders.  They then get on the elevator.  The video isn't great but it looks like Ray might push her hand away or...who knows.  Then it looks like she elbows him in the head and he swipes back at her.  Then she rushes him to (presumably) hit him and he left hooks her in the head for the KO.  If that's not exactly right, fine, I did my best.  Again, take all this as a hypothetical.

So it looks like she does deserve to get hit.  Or better: we don't know that she didn't deserve to be hit.

"But how can you say that you woman hating misogynist bigoted jerk-face!?! Someone should take your blog away!!!"

Now, hold on, hold on, hold on a minute.  Don't get your feminist panties in a wad.  I never said that Ray Rice should have hit her nor that she deserved to be knocked out.  But it looks like she deserved to be hit.

"AHHHHH!!!!  Be quiet!!!  You are evil slime!!!!  What happened in your childhood to make you such a messed up woman hating freak!?!"

Chill for a minute, hypothetical media consumer with a penchant to talk before you think.  I think what Ray Rice did was wrong, indeed very wrong.  He shouldn't have slugged her.  I stand with those who hold to the last vestiges of chivalry from those "dark ages" of the past where men were men and women were women, and men loved women like Christ loves the Church--suffering for and protecting them, cherishing them and doing their level best to make them happy.

Unless you are protecting someone else or protecting your own life and there's nothing else that can be done about it, you don't punch women.  Ray should've tackled her or held her when she rushed him.  And, again, I don't have a great handle on what all was going on in the situation (and neither do you, I'm guessing).  Ray may have deserved to get slapped in the first place.

"What is all this talk about who deserves what!?! Why do you keep talking about desert in this case?? Women never deserve to be punched in the face!!"

Oh, really.  Do women ever deserve to go to jail?  Do women ever deserve the death penalty?  Of course they do!

When do they deserve the death penalty?  They deserve it in exactly the same set of circumstances that men deserve it: when they have intentionally killed another innocent person.  When do they deserve to go to jail for n number of years?  When they have done something to deserve going to jail for n number of years.  When do they deserve to be punched in the face?  When they punch someone else in the face.

"WHAT?!?  I thought you were a CHRISTIAN!?!  Christians don't believe in an eye for eye!!!  Christians don't believe in retributive justice!!!"

Well, I don't have time for the sort of exegesis required to convince you otherwise, but I do think Christians should believe in retributive justice because I think the Bible, in both the Old and New Testament affirms that punishment consists in retributive justice.  Jesus never denies that the offender deserves punishment proportional to the crime.  What he does do is command us to love the other person and stop thinking in terms of getting even--of evening the score.  We are to love and forgive.  But he never says that people should think that they don't deserve punishment (and he never rules out that loving someone can sometimes take the form of just punishment).  On the contrary, I think his Sermon on the Mount makes little sense if we give up on the idea that people deserve to be punished.  You can only forgive someone if there is something to forgive.  You can only forgive someone for wronging you if someone has wronged you. And if you wrong someone you deserve a just punishment proportional to the wronging.

Unfortunately, we now live in a society that (a) willfully ignores mitigating circumstances and (b) thinks that women can do whatever they want with their bodies (at least when directed towards or involving men).

But to think that way is not to be an egalitarian in what I think is the proper way to be an egalitarian.  Women and men have intrinsically equal worth.  As such both women and men have the same stock of natural rights.  This entails that they have the same stock of natural duties.  This entails that both men and women cannot do whatever they want with their bodies.

Thinking that women can never deserve harsh treatment is to think that women can never deserve punishment.  Thinking that they can never deserve punishment entails thinking that they can never do anything morally wrong so as to deserve punishment.

I have two daughters.  It is bad for men, bad for women, and bad for my two daughters if they start thinking that they can never do anything morally wrong and that they can never wrong a man.  We should forgive, but we should always remember that forgiveness is not deserved.  And sometimes the proper authorities must give us our due punishments.

"Instead of writing this LONG blog post, shouldn't you be telling men not to hit women!?!  Instead of defending Ray Rice shouldn't you be defending his girlfriend!!?"

I'm not defending Ray Rice (expect insofar as I think that people should think before they rush to judgment and that there are such things as mitigating circumstances which shouldn't be dismissed without proper investigation.  I'm not pro-Ray Rice (or pro-Ravens for that matter!) but I am pro-due process and I am anti-mob).

Besides, is there anyone who will read this blog post who needs to be told not to act like Ray Rice?  Is there anyone who will read this blog post who, if he thinks it is OK to beat his wife will change his mind because of something I said?  Aren't there already plenty of people on the internet already saying all these things?  Is the only thing that is ever worth mentioning what is being mentioned by the media?