Triumphrat

Demonic

I can remember shortly after the massacre interviews with victims families, and remember one mother saying she did not want the death penalty because simply that's not how they do it in Norway. Different mindset to places like Pakistan, Iran, China, and Texas, where they believe execution is justice...

__________________
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Isaac Asimov
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

HAP

I really think we are talking about two entirely different crimes here. I have reread the original transcripts of the killer and he is not nuts, crazy, psychopathic or a serial killer. He is a right wing nationalist, a true believer in his cause. He targeted young ones because they had compromised to much, lost touch with their roots. He was cleaning the gene pool.

You can call him anything you want in order to justify your position about punishment but he isn't any different than any jihadist for his cause. His killings are war crimes against humanity. The world court would not have given him 21 years I don't believe. If the anti terrorist organizations in many countries would have caught him first he would not be whining about anything. Norway is what it is and truly believes the punishment dished out is enough. Other countries and yes, some American states such as the one you mentioned and I live in still use the death sentence. The light sentence given is that countries right and the sentence given for the same crime some where else is that countries right. Because you don't believe in capital punishment does not make you superior to citizens of countries who employ it.
As an aside, I don't believe in the death penalty and I live in Texas as you well know.

steve betts

Hap, it is quite possible to adhere to an ideology that justifies killing others to further your ends, AND have psychopathic traits. In fact they sometimes complement each other. Psychopathy is not insanity per se, it is a cluster of behavioural, interpersonal and affective traits. It is unlikely that Breivik would score above 30 out of 40 on the Psychopathy Checklist, and hence would not meet the arbitrary clinical criteria for psychopathy, but he would seem to be very high in the psychopathic traits that enabled him to commit this atrocity: e.g. grandiosity, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, callousness. I just call him a psychopath for short.

JakePoppa

The world never ceases to make me laugh. People are nuts.

HAP

I take it then that to you all religious jihadists of every religion are simply psychopaths?

Demonic

I could expand on that, but it would contravene the AUP a little too much, so I won't.

But I will say, as someone who has dealt with mental illness personally, there is no such thing as "SIMPLY psychopathy..."

__________________
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Isaac Asimov
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

steve betts

You can if you want, but you'd be taking me wrong.

Internet forums are similar to television news in that you are dealing with short attention spans and sound bites. So on any complex issue, you are caught in the trap of either offering limited information or expounding on a topic to the point of being a complete bore. If you do the former, it's easy to be taken out of context.

I always regret when against my better judgement, I wade into one of these "serious" discussions on this site. Much better to stick to motorcycles and the occasional laugh.

HAP

Steve, I agree about forums being a hard place to communicate.
My point has been with this politically sick killer is that his ideology (political religion if you will) is the cause of his killings. Like other well known world leaders who grasp Nationalism, Communism, Fascism, jihadists and Baathist to their bosom and used that zealotry to justify killing many, not just a few, in order to further their cause.

Extreme politics, not run of the mill mental illness creates these monsters. Of course IMHO only as no one else here agrees with me.
No harm, no foul, let's move on. Thanks

steve betts

And thanks for that, Hap.

Ideology has indeed driven the killing of a lot more people throughout history than psychopathy. I'll acknowledge my bias of working in the field of forensic psychology, and restate my belief that there is an unfortunate synergy between toxic ideologies and the peculiar pathology of certain individuals who totally miss the point of what it means to be human.

PopPop

In either case there are dead people and a perp who has little regret. Lock'm both up until you are certain they won't re-offend.


Sent from my iPhone

__________________
Even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road. -- Stephen Hawking.