I think you're missing on how responsibility works. It is ideal to diffuse a situation before it turns violent, but once again the only person who is at fault for making the situation violent is the person who made it violent.

We're talking in general situations, let's talk about a specific one. Maybe someone is insulting you or your family, and they've done so for a long time. Maybe they've had a lot of racist sentiments that they've been spewing for a long time. So finally, you confront them because it's effecting you, it's effecting your life. After verbally confronting them and breaking down their behavior they get defensive, and say your boyfriend needs to put you on a leash or whatever, perhaps a continuation to the harassment they've been giving you before. If you back down at this point, it could avoid a scuffle, but perhaps you know that you can't due to the situation in general so you stand your ground. You haven't done anything or said anything wrong, you haven't been the antagonizer, you defended yourself. So now they throw the first punch. Whose fault is that? It's there's.

Here's a specific situation. My boyfriend was in high school, and he had a tormentor who sat next to him and continually talked shit. Bullied him everyday. Finally he confronted him, only verbally, and defended himself. The bully threatened him, and warned him to back down. In these situations you can make or break a harassment situation, he refused to back down and the bully put him in a head lock, choking him. My boyfriend responded by breaking his nose, and the bully retreated with blood gushing everywhere. The teacher never found out what happened because it was a trashy school. The guy never bothered him again.

Sure. You should know how to pick your battles. An argument over a mundane opinion, such as lyrics to a song, escalating to a physical fist fight is pathetic... But the most pathetic person in that fight is the one who escalated it to violence. If someone wants to make that fight physical though, you should walk away. It's not worth the potential bruises, it if it happens it's still the person who threw the first punch's fault. Still if you are defending something that is worth defending you are not responsible to back down just because threatened you with violence, you aren't at fault if it escalates to that point. I don't believe we should encourage people to adhere to a bully's warning, because it only empowers them.

I'm very strongly opinionated on this because this is what I grew up with. My dad is from hispanic, from El Salvador, and we believe in confronting people if they're treating you, your family, or your loved ones like shit. Living in Houston, it happened often, but it became less of a problem with time. If they resort to violence that is on them to deal with licking their wounds after. You aren't responsible for it, the person who escalated the situation is. For a similar idea to what I am talking about, I'm referring to racial harassment here - should people in the civil rights movement of yielded to threats of violence? And where they responsible for the violence that ensued because they didn't heed a warning of violence? No, and no.

Like I've said before, I don't insult, I don't demean, I don't mock when I argue, I am logical, direct and respectful. I do not antagonize situations. What many people here fail to realize is OP has not indicated she is an antagonizer herself either.