That last sentence really answers that point. The majority of them certainly believed they were there to do some good (whether you agree with them and their politics or not, that was what they believed), but within their ranks were undoubtably some criminal elements who were just there to cause chaos (and some of those who initially went with the intention of doing good may even have been drawn into doing things that were less good by some of those elements - 'starting a riot' for their own entertainment and/or criminal ends is a well-known aim of such elements, and once such things start others (often on both sides - public and police) inevitable get sucked into doing things that they never intended, and would never have dreamed of doing under other circumstances). The entire crowd as a whole couldn't really be said to be any single thing - such judgements would have to be considered on the basis of each individual 'character'. And that individualism is the point, with reference to this attack. Whatever politics or comics or movies or other things were going on in his mind to justify what he was doing, it isn't an issue about them and their supposed 'merits' or 'effects' - it is an issue about the mental problems (whether they be defined as 'insanity' or 'evil', as I said in my previous post) of the individual who has selected the particular elements he wanted from them to justify his actions, and twisted them into something entirely different from what they really were (fantasy, movies, politics, whatever), without recognising that such an attack would simply be wrong, and without being so overwhelmed by the thought of the effects of such an attack on its victims that he could never entertain inflicting such horror on other people. The attack was certainly planned, but in order to plan such an attack an individual has to have something wrong in their head (whether that 'wrongness' is defined as 'evil' or 'insanity') - without that, they just wouldn't be able to detach themselves from reality enough to even consider doing such a thing.
The Joker is kind of an extreme case. He placed a bomb on a barge of criminals and ordinary people and place the detonator for each on the other barge, in order to make Gotham confront their own morality about what was right and wrong. Ultimately, the Joker's motivations, if I understood them correctly, was to peel back the order that he thought falsely served as a mask for the citizens of Gotham to reveal the chaos that was underneath. He probably thought he was a hero, or at least doing the right thing, by revealing the "truth" to them.
Not until we spend a ton of money on him and he is not worth it. It is not my job to judge but I think we should send him to the man who does the judging right away. Any reasonable sane person will admit he is crazy but that is not the point. Public hanging might be a good option.
How about we just view this as a regular american nutter that decided to kill dozens of bystanders??? I mean it's not like this is an unusual circumstance. It's a pathological occurrence for american whites is it not?
There are several types of Chaotic Evil though. Here - look at this list and see where OWS might fit in. It even has a quote from the Joker in it! http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticEvil
Holmes will surely diagnosed as schizophrenic. So glad that they have no problem buying automatic weapons.
Yes, but the majority of OWS are communists and believe they are serving the greater good. I will have to think on this.
I was referring less to their political views and more their criminal actions. I'm thinking the OWS guy defecating on a police car is making some kind of statement independent of communism I also have a feeling the two of us have taken this thread to the geek side!
I'm not sure I would call defecating on a cop car evil, but... Is there ever anything wrong with that?
I dunno, I think he's a bit more like Anonymous, just not a hacker. Either way, he has probably latched on to a fringe activist group (some sources are saying Black Bloc) and is doing this -- at least in his own mind -- for that cause. Which explains his desire to live, he wants to give the talking points.
Yet there's no indication of his political affiliation or that he had any cause. What IS clear is that he modeled himself off the Joker, which specifically speaks against doing it for any cause but anarchy and chaos.
I imagine it'll take several psychiatric evaluations to pinpoint exactly what he is and his family will be able to shed a lot of light on his problem.... w/his mother saying 'you have the right person' when she was contacted....... There's different types of schizophrenia - paranoid is the most dangerous if unmedicated.... This was a well-planned execution that had to have taken quite a while for him to have methodically put together and succeed at it......
This guy is obviously playing the good old "im sick" routine to avoid excecution.I think he knew what he was doing.He meticulously PLANNED to carry out this attack .He planned to get the armor,the guns,the smoke bombs,wired up the apartment building.This man is a "domestic" terrorist,and should be given a 1 way ticket to hell via the death penalty.He didnt wake that morning and automatically decide he was going to go in a theater and start blasting innocent people.Jared Loughner shouldve been pushing up daisies along time ago. Im not buying his "im the Joker,im crazy" crap.He knew exactly what he did,now hes got to pay.Our justice system really needs to hammer down,and hammer down HARD on mass murderers like him to show other people that if they even think twice about commiting a crime like this,they will be dealt with.He showed no mercy to his victims,therefore deserves no mercy back.
Well yes, of course he planned this and knew exactly what he was doing - it must have taken him a couple of months to get it all planned out and everything he needed....... Knowing what he has done, do you really think he's NOT psychotic?
Me,personally,I think hes a wack job that should face a firing squad.But from a legal point of view,its going to take psychological evaluation to determine if a mental illness interfered with his ability to determine right from wrong.Or if he was doped up that night.Its too early to tell.But either way,insane or sane ,if it were up to ME,I would have the SOB executed.
I'm a little worried about that, actually. Everybody remembers The Dark Knight, right? The Joker gave himself up to the cops in that one, and then blew up the station.
I thought about that myself. I'll bet that was his goal, but it got messed up. The police are usually not so hush-hush when they nab a killer.
The trouble is that the justice system becomes effectively irrelevant when dealing with someone like a spree killer - they know that they will be dealt with,they know that they will either be executed or be deprived of their liberty for the rest of their lives (many, if not most, of them kill themselves anyway). The threat of harsh sentencing doesn't make any difference to them, and it never will - they really don't care about it at all. The only thing that they are likely to care about at all in terms of outcomes is their own noteriety - the best thing that could have been done would have been to not name him, not give him the fame, and not give him the mass media coverage - that's the way to persuade others that this isn't a short cut to 'making their mark on the world', but of course in the modern media age it would probably be just about impossible to achieve.
That's the problem with people like this - to have done what they have done they can't possibly be right in the head! How do you define 'evil' as opposed to 'insane' in such a context? Can a person doing something like this actually be declared 'perfectly sane' but just 'evil'? I would think that it's going to be very hard for any judge to resist a claim that he must have been 'mentally ill', but as long as the result is that he is taken out of society and not able to ever get out to do anything else, does it really make that much practical difference to the world whether he's locked in a prison or a secure mental institution?
