i'm against death penalty, but...

[mourningstar]

your sense of smell, trained by natural inclination and a certain past proximity with yours truly, is fine-tuned for the task at hand. in short: yes.

did you smell of irony, once upon a time?

 

[rahvin]

did you smell of irony, once upon a time?

i still do. ah, the exhilarating scent of not being able to take things seriously.

 

[Taliesin]

People are ever so quick with labeling someone "mad" or "sick", but they dont seem to know what it means. It doesnt seem to occur to many people that a person who just killed her children and claimed it was God who told her to do so, doesnt dispose of a mind that "thinks" and "wants" in the way it usually does. I wonder why

 

[Kitty]

^Ok that article just made me wanna bawl my eyes out.

 

[rahvin]

^Ok that article just made me wanna bawl my eyes out.

violence does indeed breed violence.

 

[mourningstar]

It doesnt seem to occur to many people that a person who just killed her children and claimed it was God who told her to do so, doesnt dispose of a mind that "thinks" and "wants" in the way it usually does

and is that totally different from the definition of insanity?

 

[Taliesin]

"Insanity" is a term that describes the changes of behaviour that can be caused by a variety of mental diseases, like psychosis or affective disorders. It's a very vague term that psychologists hardly ever use.
My post was mainly directed towards perfectterror, because she said that death penalty might be just what she wants or something. It made me wonder why people usually assume every mind is working the same way and so the same standards of reason and guilt can be applied to everyone. I think that the question of guilt doesnt matter in this case, because if someone kills her own children, she obviously is highly confused and has lost track of what she is doing a long time ago.

On a sidenote, Im against death penalty, because I dont think anyone can place himself so high over anyone else, not even with the justification of executing the will of the people, to take someone's life. I know that Im inconsequent and impulsive and sometimes state otherwise. I just did so when I was told that one of my clanmates was beaten up by a group of guys. He's in a hospital right now, doctors are trying to patch his jaw back together and inserting metal plates and shit.
Now Im asking you, what's worse, a disturbed woman who kills her children while she's totally out of her mind, or a group of guys who beat up a young man because they're angry or bored or both and have nothing better to do than to force the world to share their misery? I wish he would have had a gun and shot them, it would have spared everyone a lot of trouble and made this a better place...
Ah I better go to bed before I do something really stupid

 

[mourningstar]

"Insanity" is a term that describes the changes of behaviour that can be caused by a variety of mental diseases, like psychosis or affective disorders. It's a very vague term that psychologists hardly ever use.

while i do appreciate who knows things about the subject they're discussing, i think that sometimes to reply to some threads is pour parler, so one doesn't always have to be so technical or precise.

On a sidenote, Im against death penalty, because I dont think anyone can place himself so high over anyone else, not even with the justification of executing the will of the people, to take someone's life.

ok, i'm with you there.

Now Im asking you, what's worse, a disturbed woman who kills her children while she's totally out of her mind, or a group of guys who beat up a young man because they're angry or bored or both and have nothing better to do than to force the world to share their misery?

a disturbed woman who kills her children. what makes the difference isn't that she was "out of her mind" while those guys were not. the difference is that she killed her children, while the guys didn't kill your friend (i'm sorry if this seems to be an insensitive comment, i'm really sorry for your friend, but i hope you get my point, as i get your's).

 

[Taliesin]

I think you have to differenciate between what someone does and to what effect that is done.
Said woman didnt know what she was doing, to the effect that she killed her children.
These guys did know, to the effect of my friend being hospitalized with a broken jaw, broken ribs and surely some scars no one will ever see.
On that basis, who is more guilty?

Actually, there are a lot of parallels between mental and physical illnesses, you can have a sort of immune system for both, and are unable to do certain things when you're ill, depending on the kind of injury and on how bad you are injured.
It just seems to me that you demand things from this woman you just can't. When someone broke his leg, you dont ask him to run. When someone is psychotic and believes God tells her to kill her children, in my opinion you cant ask to know and understand what she is doing and so you cant find her guilty either. My view might be wrong, but I find this to be quite comparable to reproaching the guy with the broken leg not to have run a marathon.

 

[mourningstar]

I think you have to differenciate between what someone does and to what effect that is done.
Said woman didnt know what she was doing, to the effect that she killed her children.
These guys did know, to the effect of my friend being hospitalized with a broken jaw, broken ribs and surely some scars no one will ever see.
On that basis, who is more guilty?

ok, if you ask who's more "guilty" the guys are, no doubt. but if you ask "what's worse" one has to take into consideration the effects created.

It just seems to me that you demand things from this woman you just can't. When someone broke his leg, you dont ask him to run. When someone is psychotic and believes God tells her to kill her children, in my opinion you cant ask to know and understand what she is doing and so you cant find her guilty either. My view might be wrong, but I find this to be quite comparable to reproaching the guy with the broken leg not to have run a marathon.

where does the comparation lead to? if someone with a broken leg cannot be asked to run a marathon, a woman with mental problems cannot do that, exactly? avoid to kill someone? having to face the consequences her action involves?

this thread is surprising me, especially for what i am writing; i've always felt sorry for unbalanced people, even when they turned out being bad people. when i was a kid i used to say "poor guy" when hearing stories of criminals who'd had a difficult life. but this is beyond me, you just can't think about killing your children.

 

[Taliesin]

ok, if you ask who's more "guilty" the guys are, no doubt. but if you ask "what's worse" one has to take into consideration the effects created.

Of course what the woman did was worse, but the question was the death sentence, which I dont find appropriate.

where does the comparation lead to? if someone with a broken leg cannot be asked to run a marathon, a woman with mental problems cannot do that, exactly? avoid to kill someone? having to face the consequences her action involves?

Yeah, pretty much that.
You see, the comparation is not as far fetched as it might seem. When you think of what you learn as a child, how your caracter is built up and the person you really are comes out step by step, I think there are indeed ways to prepare a child to fight off diseases like depression or personality disorders by teaching him/her values and making him/her more stable and more sure about him/herself.
Therapy is a to a large extent about that, too. Rebuilding or if it wasnt there at all, building up this "mental immune system" and preventing the illness from coming back.
The similarities continue also once you get ill, and like I already said, the mental unabilities are comparable to the physical ones.

I think it becomes clear when you really think about it... I mean, how fucked up must she be to kill her children? This illness is making her more or less momentarily lose almost everything that makes her a human being in the first place, and here we are discussing whether she's guilty or not.
Like I said, my view might be wrong, but it seems to me as absurd as to ask a man with a broken leg to stand up and go running.

 

[mourningstar]

i still believe you can't consider zero what unbalnced people do, but i guess we already got each other's point of view now.

you're a good person, northern

 

[Taliesin]

I wasnt saying that I considered zero what she did, but I think that punishment is based on both the knowledge and awareness of the punishment that awaits you before you do it, and also about that you understand and experience it as punishment. What good is it to punish someone for something she cant remember, or in a sober state of mind deeply regrets she did?
Of course society has got the right, and also the duty I should add, to protect itself from anything like that to happen again, and if that is by locking her away, the right of the people weighs more than her right of freedom, so if she has to be kept in a closed mental hospital for the rest of her life, that's the way it has to be, as hard as it sounds.

About me being a good person.. I dont know, I guess it's easier to say what I said when you havent met her and stay on this sort of theoretical level, you know...
But thanks... Im really flattered.. I try to do what I can