dagblog - Comments for "The Return of Hinckley"

The statement by Kent

moat — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 01:54:05 +0000

The statement by Kent Scheidegger;

The Guilt is a legal and moral construct, not a medical one,

exemplifies how psychological categories are poorly understood.

There is a psychological construct supporting the established legal standard that asks, "does the lawbreaker understand what they were doing." It is not a straightforward matter to completlely separate that sort of psychology from the diagnostic forms of "medical" psychology.

Without having the answer to sort out the mess surrounding the act of pronouncing people guilty, it does seem to me that it would be an advance to separate the findings of what happened and who did what from the question of whether someone should be punished, treated, or allowed to commit suppuki.

Jeez I pick up a lot of new

Richard Day — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:41:41 +0000

In reply to Richard, agree with you on

Jeez I pick up a lot of new information here. Thanks for the link.

It must be so crushing to have a child who is so troubled and soooo very hurtful to others.

Richard, agree with you on

NCD — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:29:00 +0000

In reply to Now think real hard about

Richard, agree with you on the merchants of death. Given the "breadth and depth of the intellectual and moral limitations of many of our fellow citizens" there is little hope of even a restriction on magazine size, which even Dick Cheney says 'may be appropriate'. Even some here at Dag have the 'moral and intellectual limitation' to equate guns with cars, motorcycles, and elsewhere I have seen, with, yes, swimming pools. ('kids drown in swimming pools, so do we outlaw pools?").

On the topic of who cares if someone like Jared L. goes to a mental hospital or a prison, you might care a lot if you were a politician, as may be the case with Arizona's Governor Brewer, whose son was committed in 1990 as 'criminally insane' with a 'mysteriously sealed file'.

I am not denying their role

Elusive Trope — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:22:16 +0000

In reply to Now think real hard about

I am not denying their role in what happened. But his sentence should have nothing do with them. We cannot justify his punishement be the symbolic victory of the punishment we would like them to endure.

Now think real hard about

Richard Day — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:17:15 +0000

In reply to I'm not following you. My

Now think real hard about what you are saying as far as societal values

The fucking gun manufacturers, the fucking gun dealers and the fucking clip makers have everything to do with this goddamnable massacre as well as glenn beckerhead and palin and the rest of the gun enthusiasts.

That is the issue here.

Not this piece of garbage who will be will us for decades to come.

Fuck laughner.

I'm not following you. My

Elusive Trope — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:04:28 +0000

In reply to We do not have to worry about

I'm not following you. My worry is that feds/state tadem team will nail him when in the end this not justice. And he should have the appeals open to him. Given your blog on Miranda, I would think you would also agree that the appeal system should be there. Or are you saying that the society can determine that "hey the guy is pathetic human being doesn't deserve the basic right of legal appeal."

And do you think both the guards and the inmates will treat this guy like gold. Wishful thinking. He killed a little girl. If the guards do him in, the inmates will. Look at what happened to Dahmer.

And what the gun manufactures etc do is irrelevant to what we as a sane civilized society should do in regards to someone like Laughner. He should not have to pay for their sins.

We do not have to worry about

Richard Day — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:48:35 +0000

In reply to But do you hope we make a

We do not have to worry about that one iota; especially with all the videos, all the information gathered on this nutcase, with all the money that will be spent by the state and the Feds and the defense counsel.

And believe me if the Feds don't nail him (which is improbable) the state will.

This is not OJ.

And when he is sent to prison,there will be ten years of appeals all the way to the Supremes--state and Federal. Meanwhile, this pathetic human being will be treated like gold in some Federal prison and not in tent city and the psych's and the Dr.s will all be there with all the drugs in the fricking world.

And the gun dealer and the gun manufacturer and the clip manufacturer will be free to commit their heinous felonies forever.

But do you hope we make a

Elusive Trope — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:15:20 +0000

In reply to No, I do not care if the son

But do you hope we make a sincere effort at justice, as flawed as we are in our attempt?

No, I do not care if the son

Richard Day — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 02:27:48 +0000

In reply to And who cares if one is put

No, I do not care if the son of a bitch shot 20 innocent people Trope.

I just don't think we should kill him.

Well, first I would say that

Elusive Trope — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 02:09:09 +0000

In reply to I'm really curious here. What

Well, first I would say that you are applying your own standard of cohert onto his thinking. From his point of view he was utterly coherent, and that is the point. I doesn't mean that society should therefore affirm its righteousness, which would realitivist.

All I really need to point to that is that Loughner believed that the action was "necessary." Why it was it was necessary is irrelevant. If it is necessary, then it is the right thing to do to the purpose of that time. At some level, there is a connection to the behavior of the addict or the manic actions of the bi-polar. The aneroxic believes they are doing the right thing, even though all the evidence points to the fact they are killing herself, or himself.

To borrow a phrase, one can say that Loughner was purpose-driven. We cannot at this time, nor may we ever, understand that purpose. But to him it made sense. To not carry out the action would be the wrong thing to do.

There is a scene from Saving Private Ryan that pops into my mind. After to making to the top of the cliffs, some of the American soldiers are confronted with Germans with their arms raised up and obviously surrendering. The American soldiers, after mocking the Germans, kill them. Some might say execute them. Some might say murder them. Some might say gave them what they deserved. But on what system of right and wrong would we judge them. They were under no threat from these unarmed Germans. But they did what they thought was right. I would say legally they murdered those Germans. Yet I have not gone through what they did. How could I bring myself to judge them? But if someone brought it to court, judge them we would have to do. Many similiar things happened during the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

The point being those who do not leave behind an articulated ethos are not necessarily operating with a lack of ethos born of their situation. We might be more sympathetic to the soldiers on D-Day with their ethos born of the momentary trauma they experienced, but it is no more an ethos born of the human reaction to the world around them as that of Loughner's. It is just that his was personal, contained within his own private Loughner culture and experience.