So what’s new about any of this? A liberal College Professor, at the University of California, Irvine, Rainer Reinscheid, has been charged with setting a series of fires at the Orange County high school his son had attended.
He’s been charged with five counts of arson and one count of attempted arson. It was while investigating the fires that police discovered three e-mails Reinscheid sent to his wife and to himself in April from his university account. Copies of those messages were filed in court by prosecutors in an attempt to have Reinscheid held without bail.
He’s due in court for arraignment on August 8th.
In the e-mails, the distraught father asks his wife to forgive him for many disappointments but asks her to understand that he “had to go this way” after detailing plans to kill the vice principal and destroy the school in a firestorm. “You would have done the same if it was your child that you failed,” he wrote to her.
Reinscheid’s emails outlined a plan to buy a dozen machine guns, kill 200 University High School students, rape a school counselor and kill the assistant principal who’d disciplined his 14-year-old son, Claas Stubbe for stealing.
The self-centered misanthrope somehow blamed the school administration’s disciplining his son for stealing, for the death of his suicidal son.
“I will make him cry and beg, but I will not give him a chance, just like he did to Claas,” Reinscheid wrote. “I will make him die, slowly, surely. Next I will set fire to Uni High and try to burn down as much as I can, there should be nothing left that gives them a reason to continue their miserable school.”
How different was Reinscheid’s motivations from those of James Holmes another self-centered me-first “liberal,” who apparently felt success and ease were “owed to him.”
No sooner did James Holmes face some adversity, in the form of failing some of his graduate courses and looking at being jettisoned from a prestigious Neuroscience Program he was attending, than he decided to blame others for his own failures.
BOTH these felons exude the disgusting, oozing rot of what passes for the soft gooey center of contemporary “liberalism.” Instead of looking inward and working to improve THEMSELVES, both these weaklings blamed others for the failures of themselves and in Reinscheid’s case, those of his suicidal son, who apparently couldn’t deal with being disciplined for stealing.
And even before the crimes of these two “liberal” misanthropes were even fully investigated and adjudicated, fellow self-centered “liberals” have fallen all over themselves to blame, NOT the hate-filled, self-centered perpetrators, but the inanimate tools they’d use (guns, bombs, etc.). THIS is the ethos fostered by the modern “liberal” view that “Everyone deserves a cookie,” that “Keeping score in youth sports can have adeleterious effect on those who lose.” Yeah! It may reveal actual character. One of the most basic lessons of competitive sports is learning to accept losing gracefully – everyone loses at some point, it’s how you react to that adversity that reveals your true inner character.
This blaming of objects instead of the misanthropes who’d misuse them, only proves that there are many more James Holmes’ and Rainer Reinscheid’s out there, which shouldn’t be at all surprising given that THAT’S the culture of the day here in the U.S. – that’s what we’ve come to. . .thanks virtually entirely to what passes for this contemporary naïve, self-centered “liberalism.”
How can any of us be at all surprised at any of this – self-centered, spoiled people blaming others for their own failures? What’s at all surprising about THAT?!
“Garbage IN, garbage OUT,” goes the mantra of the Information Age, and what passes for contemporary “liberalism”/“Progressivism” IS indeed ideological garbage. It has become the secular “Faith” of the modern world.
There MIGHT be hope IF any number of such faith-based believers were inclined to some degree of self-reflection, but like all “faith-based believers,” they are generally NOT so inclined.
And that DOES NOT bode well for America’s future, for it will almost certainly take a massively calamitous dislocation to shock these naïve, self-centered true believers back into reality.
Yes. Only liberals go psychotic and kill people.
Steve
In these two cases, yes.
But MORE than that, the underlying reasons for each of their plots is the essence of the contemporary “liberal” ethos, one that celebrates such weakness and seeks to blame society for personal failings. THAT IS,/b> sad to say, almost entirely a “liberal” dilemma.
The capacity to turn this incredibly inhuman activity into a liberal versus conservative confrontation may be at the heart of the true rot of our present society’s ethos. How in the hell can one possibly ascribe this type of behavior to either conservative or liberal philosophy?
Well, to be fair to JMK, from what he has revealed of his life, he suffered from early childhood traumas that left him unable to empathize with, or even understand, the majority of the rest of the human race, how they think, and how they feel.
Is this true? It would explain a lot, and I’m not saying that as a cheap-shot. But certainly a lot of stuff would make a lot more sense.
I don’t know if empathy is an actual virtue, John.
That’s just me. While I DID experience some things others might not have early on, in retrospect, as terrible and even terrifying as some of them where, they challenged my thinking and changed the course of my life.
I was raised a devout Catholic (Altar Boy at 7 and everything) but then just before I turned 8, I witnessed 2 drifters hung from the rafters in a bunkhouse at an uncle’s ranch (a huge spread along the Wyoming/Montana border). It was a slip knot hanging and it seemed to take forever for them to die. . .I used to think that was a faulty memory, but it turns out that it can take over 45 minutes for someone to die that way.
Anyway, one of them had made the Sign of the Cross before the ordeal. I thought that’d spare him by changing the ranch-hands hearts. It didn’t
Then I thought that “Jesus saves” meant, that something would go wrong with the hanging and he’d somehow. . .be saved. He wasn’t.
Two of my older cousins laughed at “the rope dancing,” I pissed myself.
That was the last and ONLY time I reacted so badly to the dying process.
It was also the end of my faith. NOT right away, or instantly, but slowly I began to realize that everything I’d been taught was pretty much bullshit and that I couldn’t rely on teachers and other “experts” not to lie. I decided from then on I’d read and decide for myself.
I began first hating “god,” then the the Church itself, then all religion, until I found Nietzsche’s “The Anti-Christ” at around age 11.
That book made everything crystal clear. Nietzsche is one of the most accessible philosophers and his material is easy to read. Almost instantly all my earlier hatreds disappeared. I understood that religion was ignorant man’s way of explaining the inexplicable. Where it had gone most wrong is exactly where Nietzsche said it had – in elevating “charity” to a virtue.
As he made clear ANYTHING that impedes the natural selection process and development/evolution of mankind makes advancement that much more difficult. In Nietzsche’s eyes charity allowed the worst human traits, the failures the criminally inclined, the slothful and dysfunctional to move forward and pass on their defective genes, hindering mankind’s development. Ergo, from that view, “charity IS “the curse of Christ.”
At two different stages of my youth, I was sent abroad, once to northern Italy and once to Corsica to stay with and be educated by my Mom’s side of the family, partly because I was “gifted” in mathematics and I also had a form of dyslexia, what’s now called ADD and what some testers labeled a “visually photographic memory.” I think I was able to use the latter to cover up some of my many deficiencies brought on by the former.
I greatly enjoyed the educational experience in those places and I was helped quite a bit by that experience, even though I missed “home” very much.
When I came back here I lifeguarded in the summers at a pool in a predominantly black area. That’s where I met Pete R, who was about eight years older than me. He’d held the half-mile record for NY State and had been a Navy Seal in Vietnam….I didn’t believe either of those claims until be brought in a scrap book. Crazy as it sounds I was more surprised that he held the NY State track record. He looked more like a gymnast only taller – he was about 6’2″ with a wide shoulders, long very sinewy arms and a slim waist that had his upper body form a perfect V. He didn’t look much like any track guys I’d ever run with.
He became like the older brother I never had. At the start our differences weren’t that stark, but they became cavernous the longer I knew him.
At age 19, I met Joe “Sonny” S, he repossessed cars and other things and hired me and I helped get Pete hired on as well.
Generally the work SUCKED, you were lucky to find a car or two a week if you followed the rules. . .so Pete and I started circumventing them, but that got us into issues with the police. This was the mid-1970s and the Exclusionary Rule was the bain of Polce Depts everywhere.
The loophole with the Exclusionary Rule was that a Pvt Det or a regular citizen “NOT working in concert with the police COULD uncover and hand in evidence that cops couldn’t touch UNLESS it was in plain sight.”
It was a horrific rule that handcuffed police investigations.
A LOT of cops were just “regular guys” and a lot of them cut corners too. Early on an Officer named Fleming approached us during one encounter in which we had to give back a car, and mentioned that “things could go a lot easier for you guys if you could…er…make yourselves useful.”
We were all ears and subsequently found ourselves in the apartment of a guys Fleming told us was a “child rapist,” they could never find evidence on. That’s where we came in – finding that evidence (he apparently made and kept “home movies” of his acts on an 8mm Bell & Howell). It was mid-July and hot as balls. . .and humid. I was bored scrounging around this shitty apartment looking for something to drink and was royally pissed that this mope had nothing but Tab and Mountain Dew in his refrig.
Seeing that, I was sure this guy was some kinda perv.
Peter had set up the projector and was going through films and must’ve found one that chronicled this guy’s….bad acts, cause Pete’s pacing around the apartment with a baseball bat he’d found.
Pete’s steaming and I peer around the open refrigerator door to see what he’s looking at, but I feel nothing. I don’t know any of those kids…NONE of them mean anything to me, I didn’t get what Pete was so pissed off about….really!
So he looks over at me and says something like, “We should just bash this guy’s brains out the minute he walks in here…whaddaya think?”
I’m still looking at those rows of that disgusting Tab and still pissed that I can’t find a drink in this shithole, when I think about the logistics involved. We’d probably have to toss the guy out a window to make him look like a jumper to cover all the trauma, but that way they get a dead guy and no collar (arrest) and no accolades and promotions.
“No,” I say.
“NO! shouts Pete.
“No, we can’t do it. They need this guy alive to make a case and earn promotions for themselves and we NEED that to happen so that we start making friends with some cops. This guy don’t mean shit to me. I really don’t care whether he’s guilty or not, I’m actually glad he is, but to me…to US, this guy ain’t a person, he’s just 200 pounds of gold bullion to us. This guy’s worth his weight in gold in how this will help us with the cops.”
Pete thought it over and must’ve decided I had a point, so we took a few films and some other stuff, handed them off to a guy that Fleming had arrested a few times for burglary and presto-chango Fleming got his man…and his promotion to detective and we became almost universally loved by a lot of cops!
We did a LOT of “favors” for various cops over that period and we weren’t treated like “fellow cops,” we were in many cases treated BETTER than that, we were treated like a couple of cop’s kids.
That should’ve been the end of a happily ever after story, but that kind of symbiotic relationship always winds up getting abused and Pete was a moralist (just like he really cared about the plight of those kids and would’ve killed that guy). . .well, he also had a thing about “liberating prostitutes from their “slave-master” pimps.” THAT created a huge problem for us.
I was dead set against Pete’s crusade and said flat out, “I’ll never pay for sex!”
Pete laughed and said, “Ya dope! You ain’t paying for the sex, you’re paying for the no-strings. She gets pregnant, that’s her problem, she gets an STD that’s on her too. It’s actually a good deal.”
I’ll admit that I hadn’t thought of that exchange in that way before and seeing it that way didn’t make it any more appealing to me.
BUT for someone who had such an intrinsic grasp of the actual exchange, Pete seemed to have little understanding of the actual relationship between pimp and hooker.
Pete thought that they were all “forced” or “tricked” (drugged) into this, while I had no problem accepting that most of the girls CHOSE this for one reason, or another and that they sought out these “pimps” for protection. This wasn’t a master-slave relationship it was two business partners.
Still, I couldn’t let Pete go on these nightly jaunts alone, I couldn’t afford to lose him (he was “the muscle” in this tandem) and I figured I could “tone down” his often over-eager zealotry.
But that’s yet another long and boring story and this one’s already long and boring enough.
ANYWAY, what I was trying to get to was that, YES, I did go through a number of somewhat traumatic experiences earlier in life, but I’ve adapted and overcame them and I believe they’ve actually helped strengthen me along the way.
I think you’ve done a good job finding ways to cope with a very rough start.
From a strictly Darwinian point of view, empathy must have some survival value, otherwise the practice would have died out long ago.
Too much empathy, obviously can lead to sub-optimal decisions and is best tempered by hard edged thinking. Take the example you cited above. Your friend’s empathy towards the abused children would have led him to kill the abuser. A good ending, but not the optimal way of providing the desired results – from society’s viewpoint.
“From a strictly Darwinian point of view, empathy must have some survival value, otherwise the practice would have died out long ago.” (JE)
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That’s a fair point John, however, just because something has become part of our pore doesn’t ALWAYS make it the best or most efficient way to do things.
Moreover, I’d separate “empathy” feeling/connecting with others, and “charity.”
I DO believe that Nietzsche’s assertion that “charity” allows for the continuation of defective traits (ie. failing, dysfunctional and and criminally inclined traits) and that undermines the evolution of mankind.
I’ve never heard a refutation of that view, only blanket dismissals, which leads me to believe that those who oppose that view are largely unable to make an affirmative and rational counter-argument to it.
So, I’d separate “empathy” from “charity,” in my mind, but I think your point is a very interesting one.
I completely agree with your view of Pete’s “overly empathetic” sensibilities. Although, many people do seem moved to act beyond their natural protocols when they see such things.
I DO acknowledge that they were horrific images and the children’s guttural sounds and muffled screams were pathetic. It could bring a tear to your eye. . .but those acts were over, there was no way to undo them. IF one of them had been related to me, I’d have probably felt a lot like Pete. . .so I do I understand the feelings.
I didn’t really connect well with others, though I had some connection with Pete, although I was very aware he was an extremely dangerous person and that any number of things could set him off at any moment…being around him, was not much different from being around a cobra. He was dangerous and highly volatile so things could “go bad” pretty easily.
Same thing with his feeling for those hookers. I really didn’t (and still don’t) get it, but then I tend to have a much higher opinion of women than many guys.
Far more women than men kill their partners/spouses via long poisonings, etc. A very volatile (often dimwitted) guy may well be more likely to up and shoot a spouse over some indiscretion or betrayal.. .in a rage, but its primarily females who can watch a spouse (someone they shared time with) suffer an agonizing death by slow poisoning. Believe me, I greatly admired that trait back then, but it’s a “gift,” it’s not something easily “developed.”
Women tend to be more calculating and often more ruthless, as a result. I am a little more like that than most guys. . .I’ve often observed that, “I have a highly developed feminine side.”
THANKFULLY for me, I’ve never evinced any effeminate traits – that gets you ostracized, ridiculed and bullied in most societies.
Ed BOTH guys blamed others for THEIR own tragedies.
James Holmes fucked up in graduate school. That shouldn’t have been the end of the world, BUT he chose to blame others for his failures. THAT’S the ethos of contemporary “liberalism.”
Rainer Reinscheid blamed a school punishing his kid for stealing for his kid’s suicide. THAT’S “liberalism” in action.
I’ve made this clear to so many people, “EVERYTHING that happens to YOU is YOUR fault.”
You probably wouldn’t be surprised (but I always AM) that some will respond in outrage, “My cancer, or diabetes is MY fault!”
And the answer is YES, we CHOSE what we ate, where we lived, we TOOK “various “assumed risks” throughout our lives and that coupled with a genetic propensity one way or the other – we suffer from any number of various diseases. It’s NOT that we “deserve” these diseases, but we chose the paths of our own destruction. If you don’t accept that, you won’t find the will to fight your hardest…NOT if you’re feeling that you were somehow “unlucky.”
I was on the roof of over 40 fires from which I AM today the last surviving member. NONE of us wore breathing protection on the roof back then. I’ve chosen a path, and even though it may partly have been chosen for me (there WAS tremendous peer pressure and that’s how everyone did that back then) I followed that path willingly. . .come what may! I accept my responsibility for MYSELF and I embrace my will to fight whatever comes my way and I reject ANY and ALL negative thoughts whatsoever.
Reinscheid’s son’s suicide was that kid’s choice. The failure was his son’s and perhaps somewhat his – for apparently not raising him right.
James Holmes failures were wholly of his own doing. So he finally found himself in over his head, he COULD HAVE went home and regrouped, he DIDN’T.
This all stems from the disgusting “liberalism” that honors people “just being who they are.” The disgusting ethos that claims that “keeping score harms the self-esteem of young children and over-emphasizes competition at the expense of cooperation.”
When I first got on the Fire Dept, a point in my life where I chose to make a number of very significant changes, I volunteered to coach youth football.
I coached it the way I was coached. When I played as a kid, I was a small defensive back, but I learned to “hit big” and I learned that THAT was valued, especially valued if the other guy didn’t get back up right away (coaches LOVED that), so it incentivized ever harder hits. I wound up with 2 consecutive concussions in the span of three games and wasn’t ever as decent a player ever again, though I tried (back then concussions weren’t as much the “big deal” they are today) I just wasn’t ever as effective a hitter again. . .ANYWAY that’s how I coached the kids in the mid-1980s. I’d get on a kid when I felt he could’ve hit a kid harder or “held back.” I told them, “I don’t want the other guy getting up right away, if he does, he’s insulting you, so you’ve gotta lay him out the next chance you get. Make him remember YOU!”
I was subsequently told that that kind of training and coaching could get the league and me sued. They thought I’d just “do the right thing” and just “lighten up” on my style. I walked away. Sports is competition. Football is about getting hit and wanting to hit others and yes, to a degree wanting to punish the other guy for challenging you.
We’ve emphasized this touchy-feely cooperation crap way too much and in the process we’ve de-emphasized some very valuable things like shame, honor and humility.
The pendulum will eventually spring back to those better values. . .the only question is, will it swing back fast enough?
“If you don’t accept that, you won’t find the will to fight your hardest…NOT if you’re feeling that you were somehow “unlucky.””
Depends on what attitude you have toward that “unlucky.” I *don’t* think my cancer is my fault; I exercised, stayed thin (overweight is a risk factor for my particular cancer), ate a reasonably healthy diet, and didn’t smoke (not a factor in my particular cancer, but a big cancer risk factor in general). I *do* think I was, in this instance, unlucky; most people, and most people with my particular lifestyle and known risk factors, don’t get diagnosed with cancer at the age of 51. (Obviously, either I had a genetic risk factor we didn’t know about, or I encountered some environmental hazard that wasn’t well enough known that I had the chance to avoid it.) But, what the heck. Everyone’s unlucky some of the time. I’ve been lucky in other matters. I’ve even been lucky in some matters related to this cancer (it’s a relatively curable cancer, and I got referred to a good oncologist). My cancer isn’t my fault, but how constructively I face it is my responsibility, and that’s good enough for me to find the will to fight as hard as I need to.
Thinking you’re unlucky some of the time strikes me as simple realism. Getting it fixed in your head that you’re unlucky in some permanent sense and the world’s out to get you is another matter.
Here’s the rub, I suppose, while we are all unaware of genetic predilections, they still BELONG to us. They’re ours.
I suppose we could say, they’re NOT “our fault,” BUT they ARE “OUR genetics.” Is it perhaps our parents or grandparent’s faults?
I kept copious notes on the fires I went to (like I’ve kept copious notes on everything throughout my life) and I don’t know why I’m the lone survivor of so many roof jobs. I’m also the lone survivor of quite a few “inside (interior) jobs” as well, but not nearly as many, nor near as high a percentage of those.
I DIDN’T “live better” than most of the guys on those roofs with me (except I didn’t drink alcohol at that time and I DID take mega doses of vitamins, thanks to my nurse Mom, who was a huge Linus Pauling devotee).
BUT I DO accept that I’ve chosen a path and that path has turned out very badly for many others, many men who were better people and far stronger (physically) than I.
Now, the same COULD BE said for diabetes also, BUT, of course, diabetes is much more (almost entirely) a lifestyle driven disease. IF you abuse yourself, you probably will pay, in one way or the other. In that case too, it seems better (more optimal) to accept that the way we’ve lived to date hasn’t worked well and that we NEED to change in order to survive and thrive. Those who’ve felt “cheated” or “betrayed by their own bodies” seem to be more reluctant to accept a new lifestyle and seem to tend to do worse.
You seem to have a VERY realistic view of things. You don’t seem to feel sorry for yourself and you appear fully committed to fighting this. I’ve known a number of later stage cancer survivors and most of them were big into rejecting any negative thoughts and committed to treatment as soon as they discovered it.
Those who put off treatment for various alternatives haven’t fared as well, that I’ve seen.
“I suppose we could say, they’re NOT “our fault,” BUT they ARE “OUR genetics.””
I can’t argue with that :-).
“I suppose we could say, they’re NOT “our fault,” BUT they ARE “OUR genetics.”
I can’t argue with that :-). (LG-S)
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Yes, that’s a better way to put it.
And while genetics aren’t “our fault,” in that we don’t determine or even earn them, they (like our lives) BELONG to us.
I don’t use “our fault” as in blame, but as “our responsibility.”
Life is perilous, under the best of conditions and sometimes it takes a massive event to wake some folks up.
Right after 9/11 a fireman I worked with approached me in our South Bronx firehouse and exclaimed, “That could’ve been any one of us in those buildings that day.”
Jimmy was a good guy and all, and yes, anyone could’ve been detailed down there on that, or any other day, BUT, as I said to him then, “Jim you seem to THINK we’re the lucky ones. We don’t know that yet. All the cards haven’t been dealt. If you or I could see what awaits us, maybe ten years on a respirator with some hideous lung problems, where every single breath is absolute torture, maybe if we knew that, we’d willingly trade all our extra days for the relief of a quick death earlier on. . .it’s hard to say.”
All those guys killed on that day, their fates were sealed once those bells went off and they headed into those doomed towers.
While NONE of that was their fault/BLAME, it ALL was their fault/RESPONSIBILITY, as the path they willingly chose took them to that place. I know because my path took my to a number of places where I believed I was going to die. At some point, when you’ve made every move you can make and it’s out of your hands, a stillness, a peace comes over you.
It’s NOT an “acceptance” as much as a “calm.” Everything slows down and you’re hyper-aware of EVERYTHING. I’ve been lost in fires a few times and in fear for my own life. . .and I’ve been lucky/fortunate each time, but I know that it doesn’t HAVE TO work out that way. Today and tomorrow are new days and anything can happen to any of us.
It’s NOT the challenges we face, so much as how we deal with those challenges that count. . .that define us. How we meet the challenges we face makes us who we really are.
AND all of that is our own fault/RESPONSIBILITY.
JMK says, above:”Far more women than men kill their partners/spouses via long poisonings, etc.” That caught my attention and does not jibe with what I have believed to be the case so I researched it a bit. See http://antimisandry.com/facts-figures/study-spouse-murder-we-already-knew-13782.html#axzz22WTK9SEG
About 1/3 of women murdered in the US are murdered by a spouse, boy friend, or ex spouse. ( http://www.pwc-sii.com/Research/research/spousal.htm )
The data are not real clear but it appears that 60 percent of the cases were male murdering a female spouse or significant other.
Women are found to have been provoked by the male partner (assault, rape, beaten) in about 44 percent of their murder charges and this may account for the higher rate of women being acquitted or given shorter sentences.
So, it would appear that women are at greater risk from their spouse/ex spouse/boy friend than men. In addition, it appears likely that fewer men would be murdered by their spouse were the spouse not in fear of physical injury or being murdered.
My own experience with spousal violence and murder is pretty much along these lines with about 2/3 of the cases being male murderers and about 1/2 of the females doing the murder in a perception of need to defend themselves.
We do not yet know much about Mr Holmes. However, we do know that he was functioning quite well until about one to one and a half years ago and then began to function very poorly indeed. From successful student, he began to fail. He increasingly isolated from others.
I suspect that he has schizophrenia and this disease played a major role in his actions. Knowing little about the cause of schizophrenia, I cannot say if this is his fault or some other etiology (cause).
“The data are not real clear but it appears that 60 percent of the cases were male murdering a female spouse or significant other.” (ETH)
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Nothing you posted contradicts anything I said Ed. I didn’t say MORE women kill their partners than men, did I?
I very correctly observed that, “”Far more women than men kill their partners/spouses via long poisonings, etc.”. . .which is absolutely true and absolutely proves that women are innately more cunning, calculating and often even “devious” then men tend to be.
Men are more impulsively violent. The overall frequency of male violence is much higher and is in every culture on earth.
In fact, in between the lines I noted just that that far more men kill their spouses than vice versa. . .the fact that men generally “snap” over breakups, betrayals, etc. (men are generally emotionally weaker than women) pretty much alludes to that disparity, HOWEVER that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the very valid point I made, which was, “Far more women than men kill their partners/spouses via long poisonings, etc.” (BECAUSE very few. . .almost NO men actually do that! Men are much more volatile and impulsively violent, whereas women are far more calculating then men are). . .“A very volatile (often dimwitted) guy may well be more likely to up and shoot a spouse over some indiscretion or betrayal.. .in a rage,” (which YES, is far more frequent) “but its primarily females who can watch a spouse (someone they shared time with) suffer an agonizing death by slow poisoning, etc.” (THAT too, is undeniable) As I duly noted, “Believe me, I greatly admired that trait back then, but it’s a “gift,” it’s certainly not something easily “developed.”. . .which it IS.
See? We don’t actually disagree at all on that.
We DO appear to disagree over your “diagnosis from afar” about the alleged “schizophrenia” of young Mr Holmes. The SAME armchair diagnoses are routinely delivered after anyone “goes postal,” and in all but a scant few, those diagnoses are wrong.
I had a long extended youth in which both violence was regularly perpetrated against me and I regularly perpetrated horrific violence on others. You’ll have to trust me that I suffered no such maladies. For a very long time I interpreted my earlier Catholic teachings into a general ethos of “the primacy of intent.” That is, I fervently believed that so long as I didn’t INTEND harm (I used to always say, “I don’t mean nuthin by it”) nor hurt another out of anger/rage, then it wasn’t wrong (or a “sin”) because there was no actual “intent” on my part. When I finally rejected that ideal, I also rejected that entire way of living.
Today, I’m living proof that “karma” is (probably) bogus. . .I am generally well-regarded and fairly well-off (“comfortable) and I’ve never been even tweaked, let alone “wracked with guilt” over past. . .incidents.
Armchair diagnosis is certainly not what I raised. I suggested that, before condemning Mr Holmes as a vicious killer, we might wish to consider the possibility of schizophrenia. Fortunately, it does appear that at least some of the authorities in this case are looking into such a possibility. If, indeed, he is psychotic, one can only hope that his future living space will be where he can not further injure and kill others.
Your interpolation of women as being cunning, calculating and devious based upon their choice of weapons with which to murder others strikes me as a long reach. Violence from women whether self directed or outward directed tends to involve overt violence less often than from men. In the case of marital violence, data appear to find that many such cases are based in cause as a form of self defense. Women in abusive relationships are very frequently (i.e., almost always?) subjected to not only physical violence but mental denigration and separation from any form of assistance or family. If they finally opt to escape, they often see murdering the abuser as the only safe escape route. Given lack of access to weapons and strength, poison seems a viable choice to them.
“Armchair diagnosis is certainly not what I raised. I suggested that, before condemning Mr Holmes as a vicious killer, we might wish to consider the possibility of schizophrenia.” (ETH)
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No, no that’s NOT what you did Ed, you “SUGGESTED” no such thing. What you DID “suggest”/diagnose in your post was, “I suspect that he has schizophrenia and this disease played a major role in his actions.”
Yup, that sounds an awful LOT like an (armchair) diagnosis to me.
PERHAPS you MEANT to post something else? Perhaps something a bit less. . .definitive and “diagnosis-like,” maybe?
You know what would really INSURE that Holmes never kills again?
Hanging him by the neck….(until he cheers up) comes to mind. See, that way, we’d KNOW that James Holmes WOULD NEVER kill again, unless he somehow raised himself from the grave, which I believe you’ll agree with me, is pretty damned unlikely.
Escaping from a comfortable mental hospital, or prison infirmary, however, is unfortunately a LOT LESS outside the realm of possibility.
Congratulations. Should it turn out that Holmes does indeed suffer from schizophrenia, your recommended management is not dissimilar to that used several hundred years ago. Perhaps you would like them to use the rack, some nice thumb screws, and a pleasant disemboweling as well.
Once again, your ability to project what you believe others to believe is astounding.
Ed, all I did was call you on an obvious error on your part. You DID, as I clearly proved, diagnose Holmes as a schizophrenic (“I suspect that he has schizophrenia and this disease played a major role in his actions.”)
Can’t you be a bit more gracious to a friend “doing you a favor?”
You “mis-spoke.” I (helpfully) brought that to your attention, as I did with your using yet another gay child sex scandal (the Boy Scouts) to apparently show that (gulp!) “homosexuals are no more likely to be pedophiles than anyone else.” ONLY a true friend would tell you your face is dirty, or your arguments are making you look like an asshat.
It happens. Note it, acknowledge it, learn from it and move on. . .that’s all.
You only make it worse by apparently “sticking to your guns.”
“Your interpolation of women as being cunning, calculating and devious based upon their choice of weapons with which to murder others strikes me as a long reach.” (ETH)
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Apparently you didn’t understand my point.
“Choice of weapons” DID NOT come into play with my prescient observation.
No, as I wryly noted, females are overwhelming the killers who can stomach watching “a loved one” (or former loved one) suffer a prolonged and agonizing death (by, for instance, spiking a victim’s juice with antifreeze, etc).
How prevalent is this?
Well Ed, most modern antifreeze’s have “bittering agents” added to them to make the ethylene glycol much less palatable. Some antifreezes have even replaced ethylene glycol with other ingredients. The reason for that? Yes, so many people, a very large number of them, women using that route to kill a “loved one.”
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“Women in abusive relationships are very frequently (i.e., almost always?) subjected to not only physical violence but mental denigration and separation from any form of assistance or family. If they finally opt to escape, they often see murdering the abuser as the only safe escape route. Given lack of access to weapons and strength, poison seems a viable choice to them.” (ETH)
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Well, as they say, “You’ve been shot in the ass full a luck!”
I’ve walked on (what was a record back in NYC back in 1983, and STILL might be) 78 self-defense homicides!
That’s nothing to brag about and I’m not happy about that, I ONLY mention it, because through that I’ve come to be extremely, you might say intimately familiar with the thorny and complex rules that surround self-defense claims. In my own case, in virtually every case, I was able to prove that I was “attacked first,” and suffered some significant injuries and survived either through the intercessions of a friend (ie. Pete), or good fortune.
The bar to reaching a legitimate self-defense claim are as difficult as are proving “mental incompetence.” A person can be certifiably insane (bipolar, etc) and STILL be declared “competent to stand trial” simply because it can be shown (ie. through their evasive actions) that they knew what they were doing was wrong.
(1) In virtually every jurisdiction you are ONLY allowed to use as much force as necessary to extricate yourself from a confrontation. For instance, if you strike me with a bat and I’m subsequently able to get that weapon away from you, I will probably get away with a single (disabling) blow, BUT if I then stand over your prone body and beat you to death with your own bat – that’s a homicide. One they’ll probably nail me for AT the LEAST manslaughter for.
(2) IF you have a way out OTHER than violence, you are REQUIRED to take it. That is, IF I were to approach you in a bar wielding a knife and yelling at you, “If you don’t shut the f*ck up, I’m gonna kill you,” regardless how seriously you take my threat you CANNOT avail yourself of violence IF you have access to escape (the door) or can avoid my threat by other means, in this case, merely “shutting up.”
(3) If you see person X approaching you in a restaurant with a gun tucked in in his waistband and you decide to “shoot first,” you will almost certainly be tried for murder, or attempted murder, should X live. WHY? Because the threat has to be “palpable and imminent.” With the gun IN his waistband, he was NOT “an imminent threat.”
There are an awful LOT of rules surrounding self-defense.
In the case of the vast majority of women convicted of murdering their spouses (which is almost every woman who kills a spouse) they’ve violated any number of those rules. As an example, IF a woman DOES NOT have a documented history of spousal abuse (police reports & hospital admittances) the claim of “spousal abuse usually WILL NOT be allowed to be entered. Most courts require previous documentation OR require that the accused be able to confront their accuser – homicide victims generally can’t do that.
IF a woman had an option of escape (ie abusive hubby asleep and she shoots him in the head INSTEAD of running) she’s almost certainly going down for murder-1, and RIGHTLY SO!
IF a spouse does ANYTHING “incriminating” like upping the life insurance of the dead party – that’s also usually a fast-track to conviction.
In the case of poisonings, almost ALL of these involve spouses who’ve sought out insurance settlements from the victim, but even in the absence of the “profit motive,” the act of poisoning a victim and STAYING in close proximity to your alleged “abuser,” undermines that self-defense claim and virtually ALWAYS results in a well deserved conviction. IF you stay in close proximity to someone you subsequently (after their death) claim you were afraid of, and slowly poison that person to death (such poisonings generally take awhile) shows (A) a decided LACK of fear on your part and (B) a pre-meditated intent to kill. That almost ALWAYS amounts to a conviction and AGAIN – rightly so.
WHY do you look down on women so much?
I noted this prescient observation as a compliment; “Believe me, I greatly admired that trait back then, but it’s a “gift,” it’s not something easily “developed.” Women tend to be more calculating and often more ruthless, as a result. I am a little more like that than most guys. . .I’ve often observed that, “I have a highly developed feminine side.”
WHY do you insist on viewing women as helpless damsels in distress?
I’m telling you, 95+% of ALL self-defense defenses are completely bogus. . .and 99% of the women who kill their spouses were murdering a husband out of convenience, or profit, almost never in “self-defense.”
“so many people, a very large number of them, women using that route to kill a “loved one.” Yes, indeed antifreeze is a very popular homicide weapon. Here is a chart showing this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3117604/figure/f1-wjem12_3p0296/ As can be seen, it was 14 cases in this poison center compared to a mere 110 accidental and 121 suicidal ingestions.
“Choice of weapons” DID NOT come into play with my prescient observation.” Are you now claiming to be clairvoyant? Prescient implies that you know the outcome before the event occurred. Good work.
“In the case of poisonings, almost ALL of these involve spouses who’ve sought out insurance settlements from the victim,” Of course you can provide some references for this statement. I await them with anticipation.
Somehow you have once again decided what I believe in your diatribe “proving” self defense to not be a viable legal strategem for women who kill their spouse. I have gone back and looked but fail to see where I stated that. I did mention that many women trapped in abusive relationships come to believe that murdering their spouse is their only way out. Perhaps you can show me where I opined that this should be a valid defense. Your prescient capabilities may be of help in this effort since you are so frequently able to tell others what they believe and support.
Most of my observations are indeed “prescient” (“having or revealing keen insight and good judgment”)
As noted very, VERY few women who murder their spouses are found “not guilty” via self-defense precisely because that bar is so high.
Most CANNOT document prior abuse.
Many have upped the insurance policies – adding a “profit motive” to the murder.
Many have access to escape and fail to take it.
You could “perceive yourself to be in imminent danger from me” and failing to flee, or using any more force than necessary to escape will result in a homicide charge EVEN in “stand your ground states.”
In EVERY jurisdiction, self-defense is very, VERY difficult to prove. You have to prove imminent physical harm, (2) an inability to escape – escape routes cut off, and (3) that you DIDN’T use ANY inordinate force, and ANY additional force AFTER the assailant is “down,” or even slightly “disabled” (yes, even sleeping counts) is “inordinate.”
Get some sleep, you’re NOT helping yourself here.
I see that Merriam Webster includes “divine omniscience” in the definition. That explains your inability to read and understand other people. You think you are God.
Not to belabor the fact, but I did not advocate women killing their husbands be found innocent through self defense. It is your invention that I said so. Since you are convinced of it, feel free to provide some data beyond your prescience.
Ed, I believe somewhere you posted that you were like 90, and while I’m very aware that ANYONE can post virtually ANYTHING (true or untrue) about themselves online (you could be a nineteen y/o “hottie” pretending to be a little old man, or I could be a middle aged frumpy British woman pretending to be a swashbuckling “Yank” firefighter, making it impossible for any of us to know exactly who we’re dealing with) I do work to treat my elders with kindness.
Ed, perhaps in your generation “prescient” wasn’t used as it is now – as a synonym for “highly insightful.” WoW! I can’t believe I’m actually defining my own observations in such a complimentary way. . .well, I am addicted to trying to being bluntly honest about such things. You know, I can see where a lot of people find me tough to take – I really am (apparently) very impressed with myself. OK, I’ll say it (about myself) – Whatta DICK!
You (and anyone else) are free to disagree and counter that my observations are not at all prescient/highly insightful, BUT please remember it was I who noted that you gave an example of a big disparity between men’s and women’s pitching speeds, a disparity, I might add, that would argue IN FAVOR of the continued segregation of sporting events by gender.
I say that to remind you that it was I who has clearly had a higher opinion of women then you’ve exhibited!
YES, I agree that sports SHOULD BE gender-segregated because of the precise kinds of disparities in performance you bring up, but I complimented women for often being (generally) more cunning and more ruthless when shit goes bad, and that men tend to be more emotionally fragile.
I respect that, as an “old dude,” you were merely coming to the aid of what you see as a bunch of “damsels in distress,” which is apparently why you took NO issue with my equally prescient/highly insightful observation that men are much more prone to impulsivity (impulsive violence) because they tend to be more emotionally fragile.
STILL, the way you “defended” women wasn’t much more helpful than the way you “defended” gays – by bringing up yet ANOTHER homosexual child sex scandal (this one with the Boy Scouts). You might not be aware, at your advanced age, that some used the Catholic Church “pedophile priest” scandals (overwhelming over man-on-boy sex) to link gays to pedophilia. You (probably inadvertently) did the SAME thing by bringing up yet another homosexual child sex scandal and making sure no one missed the obvious implications by noting “gays are no more likely to be pedophiles than anyone else.” Of course they’re not, which is why you brought up yet another homosexual child sex scandal. . .to prove that.
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“Not to belabor the fact, but I did not advocate women killing their husbands be found innocent through self defense.” (ETH)
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OK, at your advanced age, it must be hard to remember exactly what YOU yourself just posted, like that time you claimed you DIDN’T diagnose James Holmes as a schizophrenic, when your post (““I suspect that he has schizophrenia and this disease played a major role in his actions.”) clearly indicated that you had – now that was a hoot!. . .I mean, of course, it WOULD’VE been “a hoot,” had you been any younger (say like 75 or 80). I even feel bad just bringing that up, in your case, but it DID happen.
NOW, you say, “…but I did not advocate women killing their husbands be found innocent through self defense,” when you very clearly linked most such female violence (especially that against spouses) to exactly that; ” Violence from women whether self directed or outward directed tends to involve overt violence less often than from men. In the case of marital violence, data appear to find that many such cases are based in cause as a form of self defense. Women in abusive relationships are very frequently (i.e., almost always?) subjected to not only physical violence but mental denigration and separation from any form of assistance or family. If they finally opt to escape, they often see murdering the abuser as the only safe escape route. Given lack of access to weapons and strength, poison seems a viable choice to them.”
Poor dear, I’m just glad we have a 90 y/o around who can actually use a computer. I commend you on that old dude. I really like having you around, even when you don’t make any sense at all. At your age, you don’t have to.
Given your penchant for playground like “you said, I said” childishness, I should not be surprised at your continued desire to provide your own definition of words rather than using actual dictionaries. Might I humbly suggest that you consider that the word you are so gamely searching for is “omniscient.” This would imply that you know everything and have no need for study or input from others. The first syllable of prescient (i.e., pre) sort of gives away the fact that it refers to future knowledge.
I agree with you that I am a bit aged. Since you seem unable to find the reference when I mentioned that age, it is 70. In view of my advanced age, I have decided that I will only engage in unproductive discussion up to a point in time. In your case, I exceeded that point. I really am not certain why I continued. Perhaps it is because I find it difficult to think that anyone can be so deliberately obtuse. In any event, I am tired of the current discussions so feel free to insert your final comments so that you can enjoy deciding in your own mind that somehow my ignoring of them means I have agreed with your positions.
Ed, you TWICE claimed you didn’t say what you very clearly DID.
While I respect my elders, I HAVE TO call you on such things. You should take that as “constructive criticism.”
You claimed you DIDN’T diagnose James Holmes as a schizophrenic after you very clearly DID. (“I suspect that he has schizophrenia and this disease played a major role in his actions.”)
Then you claimed you didn’t link female spousal killings to self-defense, when AGAIN, you very clearly DID. . .in your own words! “In the case of marital violence, data appear to find that many such cases are based in cause as a form of self defense. Women in abusive relationships are very frequently (i.e., almost always?) subjected to not only physical violence but mental denigration and separation from any form of assistance or family. If they finally opt to escape, they often see murdering the abuser as the only safe escape route. Given lack of access to weapons and strength, poison seems a viable choice to them.”
In other words I’m not spanking you Ed, you keep hitting yourself (with your own words) and then blaming me for simply reminding you of your own words. In THAT regard, I’m not being “obtuse” at all. . .and neither are you, I’m afraid, though it would be a little better if you’d been so.
Here, you apparently took issue with my very high opinion of women as more calculating and men as more impulsive and emotionally fragile, but you didn’t help your case at all. You didn’t even appear to TRY!
It’s the SAME issue I had with you on your Boy Scouts post, as I initially believed (as any sentient person would) that you were using yet ANOTHER homosexual child sex scandal to take an offhand shot at gays. I’m not gay (but I’ve played one on TV) and I resent that.
I’d spent more time than I should’ve through those Chic-Fil-A discussions defending my “NYC liberal sensibilities” (as opposed to the whacky far-Left views of some folks here). . .I’ve always been extremely pro-abortion and very pro-gay rights.
You’re probably arriving late to such discussions, so you apparently don’t know the players.
BUT that’s an entirely different issue from making arguments AGAINST your own stated positions as you’ve constantly done here.
I don’t mean to make fun, but it is hard not to.