Why is it that when people do horribly deplorable acts it's always blamed on mental illness? (depressed, mom)
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Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
Would you say that Dr. Kavorkian must have been "insane", by internal criteria, because he did not know the difference between good and evil? And was incapable of feeling remorse about his "crimes"?
No, I suppose you're partly right ........ his behavior indicated his inner state was sane, and a sane person is automatically considered to know the difference between right and wrong by society's standards ...... in a jury's eyes.
He DID know the difference between good and evil according to our society's laws and standards, even though he disagreed with it.
Personally I think what he did was fine as long as he wasn't too eager to kill people who were equivocal - I don't remember if they caught him actually murdering someone against their will.
So you could say that in my personal ethics I don't think assisted suicide is wrong (nor smoking pot) but I do know that society has laws against it ...... so I know the difference between right and wrong in terms of the laws I live under. Therefore I am sane, and so was Kevorkian.
Perhaps we have a tendency to try to find a reason a person would do an act we perceive as deplorable to us. The closer the perpetrator matches our own peer group the more difficult is too believe the person did that from a free will. We need to come up with reason. These reasons are often abstract and difficult to measure, hidden forces that turn a person into evil some various reasons used: Demonic possession, Belonging to a "False" religion, Insanity, Drugs and/or Alcohol, Stress, etc
All of this shows that in our criminal justice system all you have to do is wait a while until the public furor goes down and then some liberal (whether a do-gooder or lawyer) will either get you out now or a reduced sentence.
El Nox
Not really sure that this anecdote shows much of anything. If you have a preexisting agenda to push, of course, it shows whatever you say. The pastor I spoke of may or may not have been a "liberal", however you define it. Given the context, I actually would assume the reverse. I am a liberal, in your eyes I'm sure, and I reject the very notion of incarceration--how's that?
This is a very complicated issue. Having done social work, with mentally ill, some of them criminal, and have a friend with Bipolar I can speak to this.
There is a great awareness of mental illness than ever before. That's good, because there is next to no help for the mentally ill.
Stop and mediate on this. When the son of a politician can't get a bed and kills his Dad, we have a real problem folks, that has been swept under the carpet for years.
Yes plenty of people have tried to falsely use the insanity defense, but look up the stats, 1-4 in their life will have mental health issues.
Some of the addicts we think of, are mentally ill people self medicating with drugs to relieve their chemical imbalance they can't understand. They don't know why they feel rage or want to cut themselves they just do.
What's sad is society itself doesn't have common sense.
We have had the worst economy since the Great Depression, people are desperate, some starving and we wonder why mental health problems are on the rise really?
Not really sure that this anecdote shows much of anything.
Interesting comment. I find the ex post facto court decisions allowing vicious perps to be released or exonerated because of a bad family life to be too true, too often.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
If you have a preexisting agenda to push, of course, it shows whatever you say.
Nice collection of words ... however, I do not understand the point you are trying to make. A preexisting agenda sounds like someone's opinion. And for the record, I have a whole bunch of "preexisting agenda(s)".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
The pastor I spoke of may or may not have been a "liberal", however you define it. Given the context, I actually would assume the reverse. I am a liberal, in your eyes I'm sure, and I reject the very notion of incarceration--how's that?
I think you miss the point. Your pastor gets this creep to work on his property. Wonderful. What about the safety of his neighbors?
Plus ... you have not answered this very relevant question ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Escort Rider
How do you propose to handle Charles Manson and other mass murderers like him?
Of course I do. Someone can be 100% mentally there but still murder, rape etc. no mental illness required.
There is no "100% mentally there" when a person commits a horrific act against another. Everyone who commits a crime has some sort of mental illness condition, there is just the levels of sanity that are used to gage whether a person can be held responsible for their actions. In our legal system we uses the insanity defense to protect the mentally ill and the public from harm. There is no "getting off" on a plea of insanity, they are committed the majority of the time to a secure facility for life. Sanity is defined as a person who is mentally sound or rational, they are able to make choices and decisions on their own to do right or wrong against themselves and others. A mentally sane person has the ability to think about what they are doing, they are able to weight the good and bad of their actions and think about the consequences. A "sane" person can in fact kill a person and know its wrong but have the ability to later decide not to commit such actions again. A mentally insane person will commit an act of murder, have no understanding of why it was wrong and can commit the same act again in the future with no thought of why or how it affects others or themselves. And then you have the mentally ill who have conditions like schizophrenia which essentially takes over the persons ability to think rationally at times and they are unpredictable and when they come out of their episodes and are clear, they show regret and remorse and would have never committed the act if they were mentally sound and in control of their actions.
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