Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
I'm not being flippant, but sometimes? Depending on how you define sane?
I mean, nobody is really, truly, perfectly sane. We all have varying levels of mental illness, especially when you do a post-facto analysis.
I say 'sane' in this sense is cognizant of your actions and their potential consequences. This guy was organized enough that he probably was in control of his functions and 'sane'.
+9
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
All good points. i would say sane folk don't kill 1 person. but for the most part I get you.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
You have to define "sane."
I'd argue you can be competent to stand trial and commit mass murder. But still be insane.
But there are different types of insane. It's arguable that anybody sufficiently lacking in empathy to commit mass murder is insane, but that doesn't mean there isn't a difference between a spree shooter, serial killer, and genocidal dictator. And some may be higher functioning than others on a daily level. And some may have rational (if abhorrent) basis for their actions, and simply lack inhibition.
He drove two hours and then sat there for an hour. Anyone you trust to actually drive a motor vehicle is sane enough to work out the consequences and repercussions of their actions with 3 hours to think them over.
He also got the gun as a gift in april, he killed people in June. Pretty sure he planned this action with malice aforethought. It'll be a nearly impossible insanity defense for any lawyer to pull off. The sitting in church for an hour alone would be hard to argue he wasn't preparing for a particular scenario.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
I would indeed prefer people who committed crimes were rehabilitated rather than locked away in a torturous hole simply to suffer, yes.
I understand why people don't want to bring up the issues related to this besides racism. It is used to as a distraction at times. But at the same time I greatly dislike the idea that mental illness only counts when a person hurts themselves and no one else. If you say that someone's not mentally ill just "broken" it feeds in to the stigmatization of mental illness.
So yeah, he's mentally ill to some degree. And in an ideal world we would deal with that ideally. But as far as how the courts define insanity he almost definitely wasn't so his state of mind apart from the racism will be irrelevant as far as charges go.
As a bit of a thought experiment: if this act were perpetrated by a group of, let's say, 10 white supremacists, I don't think anybody would be saying that they were all insane. They are clearly a hate group and they were executing a plan that stemmed from their hatred.
If it were a group of 5 white supremacists, still, I don't think anybody talks about sanity.
2 white supremacists? Maybe then it starts to creep up.
Only 1 guy? Now talk of mental illness starts to dominate discussion.
Why can one person, by themselves, not do something motivated by hatred, without being called insane, whereas a group of people can?
It's the same hatred, with the same result, just carried out by a different number of people, and I can kind of feel my train of thought being tugged off course based on just the number of people.
As a bit of a thought experiment: if this act were perpetrated by a group of, let's say, 10 white supremacists, I don't think anybody would be saying that they were all insane. They are clearly a hate group and they were executing a plan that stemmed from their hatred.
If it were a group of 5 white supremacists, still, I don't think anybody talks about sanity.
2 white supremacists? Maybe then it starts to creep up.
Only 1 guy? Now talk of mental illness starts to dominate discussion.
Why can one person, by themselves, not do something motivated by hatred, without being called insane, whereas a group of people can?
It's the same hatred, with the same result, just carried out by a different number of people, and I can kind of feel my train of thought being tugged off course based on just the number of people.
The media would probably love to call the 10 people insane, it's just too statistically implausible for it to be convincing.
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
You have to define "sane."
I'd argue you can be competent to stand trial and commit mass murder. But still be insane.
But there are different types of insane. It's arguable that anybody sufficiently lacking in empathy to commit mass murder is insane, but that doesn't mean there isn't a difference between a spree shooter, serial killer, and genocidal dictator. And some may be higher functioning than others on a daily level. And some may have rational (if abhorrent) basis for their actions, and simply lack inhibition.
This is not a remotely helpful model of mental illness.
As a bit of a thought experiment: if this act were perpetrated by a group of, let's say, 10 white supremacists, I don't think anybody would be saying that they were all insane. They are clearly a hate group and they were executing a plan that stemmed from their hatred.
If it were a group of 5 white supremacists, still, I don't think anybody talks about sanity.
2 white supremacists? Maybe then it starts to creep up.
Only 1 guy? Now talk of mental illness starts to dominate discussion.
Why can one person, by themselves, not do something motivated by hatred, without being called insane, whereas a group of people can?
It's the same hatred, with the same result, just carried out by a different number of people, and I can kind of feel my train of thought being tugged off course based on just the number of people.
I'd chalk it up mostly to projection. The thinking that "I as a sane person would never walk into a church and kill 9 people", so how can someone who did that be sane?
As a bit of a thought experiment: if this act were perpetrated by a group of, let's say, 10 white supremacists, I don't think anybody would be saying that they were all insane. They are clearly a hate group and they were executing a plan that stemmed from their hatred.
If it were a group of 5 white supremacists, still, I don't think anybody talks about sanity.
2 white supremacists? Maybe then it starts to creep up.
Only 1 guy? Now talk of mental illness starts to dominate discussion.
Why can one person, by themselves, not do something motivated by hatred, without being called insane, whereas a group of people can?
It's the same hatred, with the same result, just carried out by a different number of people, and I can kind of feel my train of thought being tugged off course based on just the number of people.
We readily accept that people can be influenced by their peers to a large degree. It's not at all uncommon for people to behave completely differently based on what their peers do and say.
Which is also a main factor of why the criminal justice system should be focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. The person who helps a group lynch someone and the person who kills someone on their own could be doing so for identical or completely different reasons. But we rarely make any attempt to identify and fix those causes.
Calling this guy mentally ill totally lets him off the hook, and when his actions were carefully planned right down to letting the last person live... it doesn't work. It was domestic terrorism, not a massacre inflicted by a crazy guy who didn't know what he was doing.
Calling this guy mentally ill totally lets him off the hook, and when his actions were carefully planned right down to letting the last person live... it doesn't work. It was terrorism, not a massacre inflicted by a crazy guy who didn't know what he was doing.
No it doesn't!
+5
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
Calling this guy mentally ill totally lets him off the hook, and when his actions were carefully planned right down to letting the last person live... it doesn't work. It was domestic terrorism, not a massacre inflicted by a crazy guy who didn't know what he was doing.
When has that even happened in the recent past?
Most of the tragic events like this that have happened in the recent past have been incredibly premeditated and have shown detailed and planned out aspects.
Crafting bombs, placing them, and then going on the run.
Assaulting a theater with smoke grenades, planning an escape route, and booby trapping your home.
Those are just the first that come to mind. I can't think of a massacre on this level that was done recently that was just done by a crazy person with no idea what they were doing. They all have misguided and dumb motives. Its like its almost a pre-requisite for the brain to even consider performing this level of tragedy.
My problem with calling him insane is that its something our media wants to do so that another white person who killed people can be an isolated incident instead of an example of the shitty race relations in the south and how they continue to be a problem to this day.
This boy was raised in a culture of hate, and he grew to hate enough to kill 9 black people in a historic church because of that hate. We should not simply say "Well he was insane." No that's too easy, it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, racism is alive and fucking well in our country in 2015, well enough its still convincing people murder is perfectly fine and we should deal with this as a country, we need to have that discussion. And saying he's mentally Ill is not having that discussion its saying.
"isolated incident move along there isn't a history of racial intolerance that continues to this day in south carolina and the country in general!" And frankly the 9 dead people deserve better.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Just going back to the OP, it's entirely possible this was a "lone wolf" terrorist. I don't mean to derail into semantics, but a terrorist who conceives, plans, prepares, and executes an attack on their own would fit the definition. We've recently had several domestic terrorists inspired by ISIL that are still "lone wolves".
As a bit of a thought experiment: if this act were perpetrated by a group of, let's say, 10 white supremacists, I don't think anybody would be saying that they were all insane. They are clearly a hate group and they were executing a plan that stemmed from their hatred.
If it were a group of 5 white supremacists, still, I don't think anybody talks about sanity.
2 white supremacists? Maybe then it starts to creep up.
Only 1 guy? Now talk of mental illness starts to dominate discussion.
Why can one person, by themselves, not do something motivated by hatred, without being called insane, whereas a group of people can?
It's the same hatred, with the same result, just carried out by a different number of people, and I can kind of feel my train of thought being tugged off course based on just the number of people.
We readily accept that people can be influenced by their peers to a large degree. It's not at all uncommon for people to behave completely differently based on what their peers do and say.
Which is also a main factor of why the criminal justice system should be focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. The person who helps a group lynch someone and the person who kills someone on their own could be doing so for identical or completely different reasons. But we rarely make any attempt to identify and fix those causes.
Yeah, one of the primary advantages of incarceration as a means of punishment is that it takes vulnerable people away from whatever environment encouraged them to become criminals, and replaces it with one that provides stability and the opportunity for personal growth.
Assuming whoever designed the prison system doesn't completely miss the point, of course. But what are the odds of that happening?
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
I would indeed prefer people who committed crimes were rehabilitated rather than locked away in a torturous hole simply to suffer, yes.
I understand why people don't want to bring up the issues related to this besides racism. It is used to as a distraction at times. But at the same time I greatly dislike the idea that mental illness only counts when a person hurts themselves and no one else. If you say that someone's not mentally ill just "broken" it feeds in to the stigmatization of mental illness.
So yeah, he's mentally ill to some degree. And in an ideal world we would deal with that ideally. But as far as how the courts define insanity he almost definitely wasn't so his state of mind apart from the racism will be irrelevant as far as charges go.
The guy might very well be mentally ill, but to immediately sort him into that bin based just on the fact that he committed a mass shooting is dismissive of the problem and the other societal factors that may have caused this situation.
My problem with calling him insane is that its something our media wants to do so that another white person who killed people can be an isolated incident instead of an example of the shitty race relations in the south and how they continue to be a problem to this day.
This boy was raised in a culture of hate, and he grew to hate enough to kill 9 black people in a historic church because of that hate. We should not simply say "Well he was insane." No that's too easy, it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, racism is alive and fucking well in our country in 2015, well enough its still convincing people murder is perfectly fine and we should deal with this as a country, we need to have that discussion. And saying he's mentally Ill is not having that discussion its saying.
"isolated incident move along there isn't a history of racial intolerance that continues to this day in south carolina and the country in general!" And frankly the 9 dead people deserve better.
It doesn't mean any of those things unless you decide it has to. One can acknowledge a person has individual problems yet still acknowledge the societal problems that also played a dominating factor.
Reading this thread has been an interesting experience for the D&D crew I see in other threads. In other threads we argue that mentally illness is a rather large facet of "issue" in America that needs to be addressed. In this thread there are bits and pieces of "he must be thrown in a hole" sentiment because of "racism". To me he is obviously mentally ill. And, I also believe, he should not smell free air for a long time, if ever. The two statements are intertwined to each other. But because of a past incidents where a situation such as this could be grounds for "getting off".
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily, and some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability....?
I know, there's literally no other feasible defense here. He went so far out of his way to get there, and sat around for an hour before pulling the trigger. It's premeditated, it's targeted, it's utterly indefensible outside of insanity. Hopefully the already emerging history of apparent racism is enough to take care of that.
But is it? I'm really asking. I don't feel like we can legitimately just lump all behavior we don't understand into "insanity." Actual, real mental illness is, I think, relatively specific in its diagnosis.
I don't think someone is crazy simply because I personally can't imagine doing whatever it is they do/have done.
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
I would indeed prefer people who committed crimes were rehabilitated rather than locked away in a torturous hole simply to suffer, yes.
I understand why people don't want to bring up the issues related to this besides racism. It is used to as a distraction at times. But at the same time I greatly dislike the idea that mental illness only counts when a person hurts themselves and no one else. If you say that someone's not mentally ill just "broken" it feeds in to the stigmatization of mental illness.
So yeah, he's mentally ill to some degree. And in an ideal world we would deal with that ideally. But as far as how the courts define insanity he almost definitely wasn't so his state of mind apart from the racism will be irrelevant as far as charges go.
The guy might very well be mentally ill, but to immediately sort him into that bin based just on the fact that he committed a mass shooting is dismissive of the problem and the other societal factors that may have caused this situation.
It doesn't have to dismiss any of those things. We are in fact capable of pointing out that the shitty culture he grew up in exacerbated a problem he had. We can also, once again, point to our atrocious gun control which was also a huge factor in this.
Reading this thread has been an interesting experience for the D&D crew I see in other threads. In other threads we argue that mentally illness is a rather large facet of "issue" in America that needs to be addressed. In this thread there are bits and pieces of "he must be thrown in a hole" sentiment because of "racism". To me he is obviously mentally ill. And, I also believe, he should not smell free air for a long time, if ever. The two statements are intertwined to each other. But because of a past incidents where a situation such as this could be grounds for "getting off".
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily, and some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability....?
It's more that we're worried that mental illness is going to be used as an excuse to dodge the more general problems that created that illness or shaped it towards murderous racism.
Discussion of mental illness after these events is less about attempting to understand what happened and more about safely cordoning off distressing behavior to a group we can easily malign.
The media will find it too distasteful to face the fact that it was just a guy who was so scorchingly racist he was simply willing to go murder a lot of black people. That's an ugly narrative to cover 24 hours a day.
Do sane people go on murder sprees though? regardless of reason?
Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
I would indeed prefer people who committed crimes were rehabilitated rather than locked away in a torturous hole simply to suffer, yes.
I understand why people don't want to bring up the issues related to this besides racism. It is used to as a distraction at times. But at the same time I greatly dislike the idea that mental illness only counts when a person hurts themselves and no one else. If you say that someone's not mentally ill just "broken" it feeds in to the stigmatization of mental illness.
So yeah, he's mentally ill to some degree. And in an ideal world we would deal with that ideally. But as far as how the courts define insanity he almost definitely wasn't so his state of mind apart from the racism will be irrelevant as far as charges go.
The guy might very well be mentally ill, but to immediately sort him into that bin based just on the fact that he committed a mass shooting is dismissive of the problem and the other societal factors that may have caused this situation.
It doesn't have to dismiss any of those things. We are in fact capable of pointing out that the shitty culture he grew up in exacerbated a problem he had. We can also, once again, point to our atrocious gun control which was also a huge factor in this.
We here are, yes. I have no confidence that the media or our politicians are capable of that.
Reading this thread has been an interesting experience for the D&D crew I see in other threads. In other threads we argue that mentally illness is a rather large facet of "issue" in America that needs to be addressed. In this thread there are bits and pieces of "he must be thrown in a hole" sentiment because of "racism". To me he is obviously mentally ill. And, I also believe, he should not smell free air for a long time, if ever. The two statements are intertwined to each other. But because of a past incidents where a situation such as this could be grounds for "getting off".
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily, and some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability....?
It's more that we're worried that mental illness is going to be used as an excuse to dodge the more general problems that created that illness or shaped it towards murderous racism.
Fully understandable. But I don't think anyone here is arguing as such.
My problem with calling him insane is that its something our media wants to do so that another white person who killed people can be an isolated incident instead of an example of the shitty race relations in the south and how they continue to be a problem to this day.
This boy was raised in a culture of hate, and he grew to hate enough to kill 9 black people in a historic church because of that hate. We should not simply say "Well he was insane." No that's too easy, it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, racism is alive and fucking well in our country in 2015, well enough its still convincing people murder is perfectly fine and we should deal with this as a country, we need to have that discussion. And saying he's mentally Ill is not having that discussion its saying.
"isolated incident move along there isn't a history of racial intolerance that continues to this day in south carolina and the country in general!" And frankly the 9 dead people deserve better.
It doesn't mean any of those things unless you decide it has to. One can acknowledge a person has individual problems yet still acknowledge the societal problems that also played a dominating factor.
I'm talking about how the media talks about it. Just like how guns aren't the problem its mental illness. The media in this country will portray this guy as insane and the racial issue will be ignored. Hell fox news this morning was running with this as an attack on christianity. I guarantee in a month the racial aspect of this case will be ignored and the "he was just a crazy crazy person" will be the narrative.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I know, there's literally no other feasible defense here. He went so far out of his way to get there, and sat around for an hour before pulling the trigger. It's premeditated, it's targeted, it's utterly indefensible outside of insanity. Hopefully the already emerging history of apparent racism is enough to take care of that.
But is it? I'm really asking. I don't feel like we can legitimately just lump all behavior we don't understand into "insanity." Actual, real mental illness is, I think, relatively specific in its diagnosis.
I don't think someone is crazy simply because I personally can't imagine doing whatever it is they do/have done.
I was suggesting that insanity was the only feasible legal defense that has a snowball's chance in hell in court. Not that it was the only possible explanation for his actions.
Reading this thread has been an interesting experience for the D&D crew I see in other threads. In other threads we argue that mentally illness is a rather large facet of "issue" in America that needs to be addressed. In this thread there are bits and pieces of "he must be thrown in a hole" sentiment because of "racism". To me he is obviously mentally ill. And, I also believe, he should not smell free air for a long time, if ever. The two statements are intertwined to each other. But because of a past incidents where a situation such as this could be grounds for "getting off".
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily, and some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability....?
It's more that we're worried that mental illness is going to be used as an excuse to dodge the more general problems that created that illness or shaped it towards murderous racism.
I don't doubt that Fox and whoever probably will. But for the purposes of this thread I think it is safe to assume other posters are not trying to do so. Unless they then bring up him needing to not be incarcerated at all or something along those lines.
Calling this guy mentally ill totally lets him off the hook, and when his actions were carefully planned right down to letting the last person live... it doesn't work. It was terrorism, not a massacre inflicted by a crazy guy who didn't know what he was doing.
No it doesn't!
Yeah, it does. That's the entire purpose of the statement. To write off his behaviour as "crazy" rather then the deliberate application of a specific political philosophy that is widespread enough among the dominant race/class in america that those people are frequently uncomfortable talking about it.
My problem with calling him insane is that its something our media wants to do so that another white person who killed people can be an isolated incident instead of an example of the shitty race relations in the south and how they continue to be a problem to this day.
This boy was raised in a culture of hate, and he grew to hate enough to kill 9 black people in a historic church because of that hate. We should not simply say "Well he was insane." No that's too easy, it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, racism is alive and fucking well in our country in 2015, well enough its still convincing people murder is perfectly fine and we should deal with this as a country, we need to have that discussion. And saying he's mentally Ill is not having that discussion its saying.
"isolated incident move along there isn't a history of racial intolerance that continues to this day in south carolina and the country in general!" And frankly the 9 dead people deserve better.
It doesn't mean any of those things unless you decide it has to. One can acknowledge a person has individual problems yet still acknowledge the societal problems that also played a dominating factor.
I'm talking about how the media talks about it. Just like how guns aren't the problem its mental illness. The media in this country will portray this guy as insane and the racial issue will be ignored. Hell fox news this morning was running with this as an attack on christianity. I guarantee in a month the racial aspect of this case will be ignored and the "he was just a crazy crazy person" will be the narrative.
No you were quite eplicit. You specifically said you don't think he is and you hope he suffers for a long time. Which is kind of awful.
A lot of us are talking past each other and getting confused if we're arguing about how the media will perceive the situation or how we here will perceive it.
Anders Breivik was also ruled sane by the Norweigan courts.
To go out and murder 9 people is obviously not the actions of someone who has a well adjusted world view. Talk of mental illness in a criminal case should be centered around whether the perpetrator is able to comprehend their actions. The level of premeditation that Dylann Roof exhibited indicates to me that he understood what he was doing and is probably fit to stand trial for his crimes.
Reading this thread has been an interesting experience for the D&D crew I see in other threads. In other threads we argue that mentally illness is a rather large facet that needs to be addressed. In this thread there are bits and pieces of "he must be thrown in a hole" sentiment because of "racism". To me he is obviously mentally ill. And, I also believe, he should not smell free air for a long time. The two statements are intertwined to each other. But because of a past incidents where a situation such as this could be grounds for "getting off".
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily. And some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability.
So, here's the thing - why do you believe that he is mentally ill?
Because he's racist? That's a VERY problematic argument.
Because he killed 9 people? This is still a problematic argument, though not nearly as bad as the previous. But still, there are issues with treating the capacity to kill as being a sign of mental illness alone
And this is where I think the problem is with trying to argue that such atrocities are signs of mental illness - it's an argument that those who do so are "different", are "defective". Because we are scared to contemplate the idea of but there for the grace of God go I.
My problem with calling him insane is that its something our media wants to do so that another white person who killed people can be an isolated incident instead of an example of the shitty race relations in the south and how they continue to be a problem to this day.
This boy was raised in a culture of hate, and he grew to hate enough to kill 9 black people in a historic church because of that hate. We should not simply say "Well he was insane." No that's too easy, it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, racism is alive and fucking well in our country in 2015, well enough its still convincing people murder is perfectly fine and we should deal with this as a country, we need to have that discussion. And saying he's mentally Ill is not having that discussion its saying.
"isolated incident move along there isn't a history of racial intolerance that continues to this day in south carolina and the country in general!" And frankly the 9 dead people deserve better.
It doesn't mean any of those things unless you decide it has to. One can acknowledge a person has individual problems yet still acknowledge the societal problems that also played a dominating factor.
I'm talking about how the media talks about it. Just like how guns aren't the problem its mental illness. The media in this country will portray this guy as insane and the racial issue will be ignored. Hell fox news this morning was running with this as an attack on christianity. I guarantee in a month the racial aspect of this case will be ignored and the "he was just a crazy crazy person" will be the narrative.
That reminds me, I'm seriously hoping that gun control advocates mostly stay quiet here, all they can do is muddy the issue. Nothing short of a total ban could have stopped this guy, and even then he'd probably have just built a bomb instead. All advocating for gun control because of this can do is give apologists something that they can actually defend against.
Anders Breivik was also ruled sane by the Norweigan courts.
To go out and murder 9 people is obviously not the actions of someone who has a well adjusted world view. Talk of mental illness in a criminal case should be centered around whether the perpetrator is able to comprehend their actions. The level of premeditation that Dylann Roof exhibited indicates to me that he understood what he was doing and is probably fit to stand trial for his crimes.
I think this summarizes my position better than I was articulating it. The guy obviously has some issues, but I think he was fully cognizant of what he was doing. My concern is that pundits will focus on mental illness and minimize other factors simply because it makes for a more palatable narrative for them to pitch.
Reading this thread has been an interesting experience for the D&D crew I see in other threads. In other threads we argue that mentally illness is a rather large facet that needs to be addressed. In this thread there are bits and pieces of "he must be thrown in a hole" sentiment because of "racism". To me he is obviously mentally ill. And, I also believe, he should not smell free air for a long time. The two statements are intertwined to each other. But because of a past incidents where a situation such as this could be grounds for "getting off".
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily. And some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability.
So, here's the thing - why do you believe that he is mentally ill?
Because he's racist? That's a VERY problematic argument.
Because he killed 9 people? This is still a problematic argument, though not nearly as bad as the previous. But still, there are issues with treating the capacity to kill as being a sign of mental illness alone
And this is where I think the problem is with trying to argue that such atrocities are signs of mental illness - it's an argument that those who do so are "different", are "defective". Because we are scared to contemplate the idea of but there for the grace of God go I.
Calling someone who kills a bunch of black people cause he's a white supremacist "crazy" is basically expanding the definition of mental illness to the point where it applies to anyone that commits a crime.
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Unless you want to write a blanket check for every spree-murderer or mass-shooter to get off on an insanity defense, yeah I would say sane people go on spree murders or commit mass-shootings.
EDIT: More specifically, yes, sane racists kill their hated groups. Black people are lynched or shot. Hate crimes happen. Gay people are beaten to death. Why is it you can shoot one black man and you're a racist asshole, but if you happen to pull the trigger at 9 black people, you're automatically "mentally ill"? Sane people kill one person but only crazy people kill a bunch?
I'm not being flippant, but sometimes? Depending on how you define sane?
I mean, nobody is really, truly, perfectly sane. We all have varying levels of mental illness, especially when you do a post-facto analysis.
I say 'sane' in this sense is cognizant of your actions and their potential consequences. This guy was organized enough that he probably was in control of his functions and 'sane'.
All good points. i would say sane folk don't kill 1 person. but for the most part I get you.
You have to define "sane."
I'd argue you can be competent to stand trial and commit mass murder. But still be insane.
But there are different types of insane. It's arguable that anybody sufficiently lacking in empathy to commit mass murder is insane, but that doesn't mean there isn't a difference between a spree shooter, serial killer, and genocidal dictator. And some may be higher functioning than others on a daily level. And some may have rational (if abhorrent) basis for their actions, and simply lack inhibition.
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I would indeed prefer people who committed crimes were rehabilitated rather than locked away in a torturous hole simply to suffer, yes.
I understand why people don't want to bring up the issues related to this besides racism. It is used to as a distraction at times. But at the same time I greatly dislike the idea that mental illness only counts when a person hurts themselves and no one else. If you say that someone's not mentally ill just "broken" it feeds in to the stigmatization of mental illness.
So yeah, he's mentally ill to some degree. And in an ideal world we would deal with that ideally. But as far as how the courts define insanity he almost definitely wasn't so his state of mind apart from the racism will be irrelevant as far as charges go.
If it were a group of 5 white supremacists, still, I don't think anybody talks about sanity.
2 white supremacists? Maybe then it starts to creep up.
Only 1 guy? Now talk of mental illness starts to dominate discussion.
Why can one person, by themselves, not do something motivated by hatred, without being called insane, whereas a group of people can?
It's the same hatred, with the same result, just carried out by a different number of people, and I can kind of feel my train of thought being tugged off course based on just the number of people.
The media would probably love to call the 10 people insane, it's just too statistically implausible for it to be convincing.
This is not a remotely helpful model of mental illness.
I'd chalk it up mostly to projection. The thinking that "I as a sane person would never walk into a church and kill 9 people", so how can someone who did that be sane?
We readily accept that people can be influenced by their peers to a large degree. It's not at all uncommon for people to behave completely differently based on what their peers do and say.
Which is also a main factor of why the criminal justice system should be focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. The person who helps a group lynch someone and the person who kills someone on their own could be doing so for identical or completely different reasons. But we rarely make any attempt to identify and fix those causes.
No it doesn't!
When has that even happened in the recent past?
Most of the tragic events like this that have happened in the recent past have been incredibly premeditated and have shown detailed and planned out aspects.
Crafting bombs, placing them, and then going on the run.
Assaulting a theater with smoke grenades, planning an escape route, and booby trapping your home.
Those are just the first that come to mind. I can't think of a massacre on this level that was done recently that was just done by a crazy person with no idea what they were doing. They all have misguided and dumb motives. Its like its almost a pre-requisite for the brain to even consider performing this level of tragedy.
This boy was raised in a culture of hate, and he grew to hate enough to kill 9 black people in a historic church because of that hate. We should not simply say "Well he was insane." No that's too easy, it doesn't deal with the underlying problem, racism is alive and fucking well in our country in 2015, well enough its still convincing people murder is perfectly fine and we should deal with this as a country, we need to have that discussion. And saying he's mentally Ill is not having that discussion its saying.
"isolated incident move along there isn't a history of racial intolerance that continues to this day in south carolina and the country in general!" And frankly the 9 dead people deserve better.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yeah, one of the primary advantages of incarceration as a means of punishment is that it takes vulnerable people away from whatever environment encouraged them to become criminals, and replaces it with one that provides stability and the opportunity for personal growth.
Assuming whoever designed the prison system doesn't completely miss the point, of course. But what are the odds of that happening?
Being mentally ill is not a free pass for committing a horrible act.
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The guy might very well be mentally ill, but to immediately sort him into that bin based just on the fact that he committed a mass shooting is dismissive of the problem and the other societal factors that may have caused this situation.
It doesn't mean any of those things unless you decide it has to. One can acknowledge a person has individual problems yet still acknowledge the societal problems that also played a dominating factor.
In the end, from what I have seen, can we just call the mentally ill argument as: Some of us believe he is mentally ill and should still be penalized heavily, and some of us don't want that moniker because it denotes a lessening of accountability....?
But is it? I'm really asking. I don't feel like we can legitimately just lump all behavior we don't understand into "insanity." Actual, real mental illness is, I think, relatively specific in its diagnosis.
I don't think someone is crazy simply because I personally can't imagine doing whatever it is they do/have done.
It doesn't have to dismiss any of those things. We are in fact capable of pointing out that the shitty culture he grew up in exacerbated a problem he had. We can also, once again, point to our atrocious gun control which was also a huge factor in this.
It's more that we're worried that mental illness is going to be used as an excuse to dodge the more general problems that created that illness or shaped it towards murderous racism.
We here are, yes. I have no confidence that the media or our politicians are capable of that.
Fully understandable. But I don't think anyone here is arguing as such.
I'm talking about how the media talks about it. Just like how guns aren't the problem its mental illness. The media in this country will portray this guy as insane and the racial issue will be ignored. Hell fox news this morning was running with this as an attack on christianity. I guarantee in a month the racial aspect of this case will be ignored and the "he was just a crazy crazy person" will be the narrative.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I was suggesting that insanity was the only feasible legal defense that has a snowball's chance in hell in court. Not that it was the only possible explanation for his actions.
I don't doubt that Fox and whoever probably will. But for the purposes of this thread I think it is safe to assume other posters are not trying to do so. Unless they then bring up him needing to not be incarcerated at all or something along those lines.
Yeah, it does. That's the entire purpose of the statement. To write off his behaviour as "crazy" rather then the deliberate application of a specific political philosophy that is widespread enough among the dominant race/class in america that those people are frequently uncomfortable talking about it.
No you were quite eplicit. You specifically said you don't think he is and you hope he suffers for a long time. Which is kind of awful.
To go out and murder 9 people is obviously not the actions of someone who has a well adjusted world view. Talk of mental illness in a criminal case should be centered around whether the perpetrator is able to comprehend their actions. The level of premeditation that Dylann Roof exhibited indicates to me that he understood what he was doing and is probably fit to stand trial for his crimes.
pleasepaypreacher.net
So, here's the thing - why do you believe that he is mentally ill?
Because he's racist? That's a VERY problematic argument.
Because he killed 9 people? This is still a problematic argument, though not nearly as bad as the previous. But still, there are issues with treating the capacity to kill as being a sign of mental illness alone
And this is where I think the problem is with trying to argue that such atrocities are signs of mental illness - it's an argument that those who do so are "different", are "defective". Because we are scared to contemplate the idea of but there for the grace of God go I.
That reminds me, I'm seriously hoping that gun control advocates mostly stay quiet here, all they can do is muddy the issue. Nothing short of a total ban could have stopped this guy, and even then he'd probably have just built a bomb instead. All advocating for gun control because of this can do is give apologists something that they can actually defend against.
I think this summarizes my position better than I was articulating it. The guy obviously has some issues, but I think he was fully cognizant of what he was doing. My concern is that pundits will focus on mental illness and minimize other factors simply because it makes for a more palatable narrative for them to pitch.
I accidentally read facebook comments on a story about this.
Calling someone who kills a bunch of black people cause he's a white supremacist "crazy" is basically expanding the definition of mental illness to the point where it applies to anyone that commits a crime.