A radical notion

The story of Christiaan Briggs (author of last straw) being arrested for seriously assaulting a British pop star, is a strange one. My first reaction was slightly different from either Idiot/Savant or David Farrar (the fact that I disagree with David Farrar shouldn't be a surprise, I think there are very few things we'd have the same first reaction on). Idiot/Savant said

It's a reminder of a fact the "hang 'em high" brigade and the rest of the baying mob screaming for harsher sentences and more brutal treatment of criminals have forgotten: crime is not solely done by a mysterious class of Others, but also by people we know - our friends, relatives, or people we have met over the net. Anyone can get get drunk and do something stupid, anyone can be a dick, anyone can find themselves in desperate circumstances, and anyone could decide that they could make more money knocking off liquor stores than we would working at McDonalds.

This is the nearest we've got to facts:

British media reports says Leeson was on his way home on a No. 29 bus after performing at a sellout gig when he confronted a man harassing his girlfriend.

The two men got off the bus together in Camden Road, north London, and Leeson was punched.

Obviously there's no way of knowing what actually happened, and what the British media are reporting and what actually happened can often be quite some way apart. So everything I'm saying is with the caveat that if the facts are different, obviously my reaction is different.

But I only wish I wasn't surprised, I only wish I could say 'that's unpossible'. I only wish that I believed that a man who is anti-imperialist, a man who fights capitalism, hell a man who linked to my blog, would therefore treat all women like human beings. I wish that among left-wing men harassing random women, or getting into macho pissing contests with other men over women, was universally recognised as unacceptable behaviour.

Any woman who has spent any time in politically active circles knows that it's not the case.