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Notes -
I think that this is a value judgement of society, and I am not sure I agree. I think that once you rule out escalation, the consequences of punching someone at a bar are rather limited. I mean, if you seriously injure or kill your victim, you will go to prison, and if you lose the fight then you might get beaten up, but I would expect that many non-consensual bar fights do not even make in in the police statistics.
Every bar should be free to declare itself a free-for-all dojo. Sign a waiver, enjoy your drink and punch anyone whose face you don't like, if you kill someone we will sort it out just like we would with MMA. Probably not a great place to pick up women, though.
But absent such a consent, I take a very dim view on violence. If you are a adult person of sound mind who was not drugged against their consent, and you think that violence is an acceptable solutions to whatever the fuck your problem is, I have very little sympathy. If the alternatives are that you get to beat up people until you finally maim someone and end up in prison, or you are either motivated enough by the threat of deadly retaliation to keep your fucking barbaric urges under control, or otherwise your third bar fight ends up with you bleeding to death with a punctured lung, then I will very much prefer the latter world.
Totally agree. Prosecutional discretion seems bad in this case. Perhaps the old English system where anyone could bring criminal charges would be better here.
But even without the politics, the incentives for the DA are very bad here. They want to win the high profile case, not some minor battery case. And if the defense can point out that the victim was already convicted for battery, that will lower their chances of winning the big case. So they throw that case under the bus, justice be damned.
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