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Youth camp shootings follow Oslo explosion

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Philologos
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24 Jul 2011, 8:46 am

anna-banana wrote:
Vexcalibur wrote:
If he was a Muslim, would you consider religious fundamentalism to be a deciding factor?


I hope religion is not the deciding factor in such cases. my guess in this case would be that fame is his 72 virgins. he must know that he's just done a huge disservice to his cause, religious or political or whatever. just my guess though.



Except for the extremely gullible and weak of wit - and we know they are out there - I think the critical factor is not that an incredibly devout person does such a thing because God or guru commands it.

I suspect rather that a nutter who would really like to kill SOMEBODY finds a "cause" that will license him. Of course, sometimes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman - I am very aware of te case, having spent time in the tower while I was in Texas - you do not NEED a license.



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24 Jul 2011, 9:01 am

Philologos wrote:
anna-banana wrote:
Vexcalibur wrote:
If he was a Muslim, would you consider religious fundamentalism to be a deciding factor?


I hope religion is not the deciding factor in such cases. my guess in this case would be that fame is his 72 virgins. he must know that he's just done a huge disservice to his cause, religious or political or whatever. just my guess though.



Except for the extremely gullible and weak of wit - and we know they are out there - I think the critical factor is not that an incredibly devout person does such a thing because God or guru commands it.

I suspect rather that a nutter who would really like to kill SOMEBODY finds a "cause" that will license him. Of course, sometimes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman - I am very aware of te case, having spent time in the tower while I was in Texas - you do not NEED a license.

I don't know, I suspect active shooters' motives fall along a spectrum.


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anna-banana
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24 Jul 2011, 9:01 am

ruveyn wrote:
anna-banana wrote:

hopefully it will be his fellow white supremacists who'll take care of that.


Why would they?

ruveyn


come on, they have plenty of reasons, starting with the fact that he massacred 95 of his own and made the whole extreme right-wing movement look really bad. I've already seen comments coming from christians and right-wingers who blame his behaviour on him allegedly being a freemason/illuminate and a zionist and not a "true" right-wing/fundamentalist christian and nationalist.

I imagine he has no friends left (given "no true Scotsman" and all that) but he came out of a certain ideological movement and I'd be glad to see them take some responsibility, even if just by making him a prison b***h for 21 years.


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24 Jul 2011, 9:20 am

i think the big oppurtunity here is being missed.

Bomb set off then mass shootings? Clearly this guy got the idea from Uwe Boll's movie "Rampage" where the kid sets off a bomb in a government building then goes on the shooting rampage.

This tragedy in norway can be utilized to help with an even bigger tragedy, that Uwe Boll is still making movies. We need to scapegoat Mr. Boll and find way to blame him for the actions of that day.

This way, in the end, those norwegians will have died for a great cause, the rest of the world will no longer be tortured with even the notion Uwe Boll is doing another stupid video game movie and that will make the world a much happier place to live in.


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ruveyn
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24 Jul 2011, 9:48 am

Philologos wrote:

I suspect rather that a nutter who would really like to kill SOMEBODY finds a "cause" that will license him. Of course, sometimes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman - I am very aware of te case, having spent time in the tower while I was in Texas - you do not NEED a license.


Whitman had a brain tumor the size of a small melon. That might explain some of his strange behavior.

ruveyn



Philologos
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24 Jul 2011, 10:41 am

John_Browning wrote:
Philologos wrote:
anna-banana wrote:
Vexcalibur wrote:
If he was a Muslim, would you consider religious fundamentalism to be a deciding factor?


I hope religion is not the deciding factor in such cases. my guess in this case would be that fame is his 72 virgins. he must know that he's just done a huge disservice to his cause, religious or political or whatever. just my guess though.



Except for the extremely gullible and weak of wit - and we know they are out there - I think the critical factor is not that an incredibly devout person does such a thing because God or guru commands it.

I suspect rather that a nutter who would really like to kill SOMEBODY finds a "cause" that will license him. Of course, sometimes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman - I am very aware of te case, having spent time in the tower while I was in Texas - you do not NEED a license.

I don't know, I suspect active shooters' motives fall along a spectrum.


I'm sure - ranging from the actually brainwashed through ruveyn's tumor [not IN him, guys, mentioned BY him] to Great Patham knows what.



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25 Jul 2011, 12:35 am

I'm not surprised about this.



monty
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25 Jul 2011, 7:54 am

DW_a_mom wrote:
... Lunacy can happen anywhere, anytime, unfortunately, and this was the result of simple lunacy, as far as I can tell.


No. Absolutely not. He was a twisted zero negative, but cannot be written off as insane. He was rational and calculating, no evidence that he was not clearly aware of what he was doing.

The attempts to write him off as a lunatic are usually born out of cultural and political biases, as summed up in this quote:

“Non-Muslim terrorists are mentally unstable, but Muslim terrorists are intellectuals with firm footing in Islamic thought and traditions!”



Philologos
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25 Jul 2011, 9:14 am

marshall wrote:
I'm not surprised about this.


Referent of "this?"



Philologos
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25 Jul 2011, 9:16 am

monty wrote:
DW_a_mom wrote:
... Lunacy can happen anywhere, anytime, unfortunately, and this was the result of simple lunacy, as far as I can tell.


No. Absolutely not. He was a twisted zero negative, but cannot be written off as insane. He was rational and calculating, no evidence that he was not clearly aware of what he was doing.

The attempts to write him off as a lunatic are usually born out of cultural and political biases, as summed up in this quote:

“Non-Muslim terrorists are mentally unstable, but Muslim terrorists are intellectuals with firm footing in Islamic thought and traditions!”


The definition of "insane" needs work. Obviously.



monty
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25 Jul 2011, 11:48 am

I don't see it as a mental illness. I see it as a moral illness.



Philologos
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25 Jul 2011, 12:04 pm

monty wrote:
I don't see it as a mental illness. I see it as a moral illness.


Expatiate, please. What is it to have a moral illness? In the process please provide insight into your understanding of "moral".



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25 Jul 2011, 12:11 pm

Philologos wrote:
marshall wrote:
I'm not surprised about this.


Referent of "this?"


Refer to the thread topic.

I've witnessed more than one occasion of violent anti-muslim pro-nazi sentiment coming from Scandinavians on certain un-moderated political forums. Apparently some Northern Europeans feel extremely threatened by liberal immigration policy, enough to become violent.



Philologos
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25 Jul 2011, 12:23 pm

Thank you. No, not a big surprise that idiots [I still tend to opt for that term] who can do unreasonable things for stimulatoion or release.

When really provoked I used to take off my shoe and hurl it at the wall. Same thing as some of these cases. A tad less desctructive.



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25 Jul 2011, 12:24 pm

Philologos wrote:
monty wrote:
I don't see it as a mental illness. I see it as a moral illness.


Expatiate, please. What is it to have a moral illness? In the process please provide insight into your understanding of "moral".


When someone chooses to steal, kill, or otherwise injure others, it is rarely a medical condition. Sure, a small percent of criminals are legitimately insane and thus not responsible for their actions. But when a person has some capacity for empathy or compassion, when they have an understanding of right and wrong, but they turn those off to advance a political or economic agenda of theirs, that is generally an ethical issue, not something that can be equated with brain disease. Dehumanizing others is the prime cause of violence IMO.



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25 Jul 2011, 1:51 pm

monty wrote:
Philologos wrote:
monty wrote:
I don't see it as a mental illness. I see it as a moral illness.


Expatiate, please. What is it to have a moral illness? In the process please provide insight into your understanding of "moral".


When someone chooses to steal, kill, or otherwise injure others, it is rarely a medical condition. Sure, a small percent of criminals are legitimately insane and thus not responsible for their actions. But when a person has some capacity for empathy or compassion, when they have an understanding of right and wrong, but they turn those off to advance a political or economic agenda of theirs, that is generally an ethical issue, not something that can be equated with brain disease. Dehumanizing others is the prime cause of violence IMO.


Maybe it can be both. An explanation is not necessarily a legitimization. A psychopath may have a physically induced deficiency which causes them to lack any semblance of a conscience. That doesn't make me feel any more forgiving or compassionate towards them.