Norwegian government kow-tows to terror

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119271912#Comment_119271912

How anyone can simplify progress like that is beyond me. The scale of progress for me if largely due to Roman/Greek Paganism, Christianity and the enlightenment. A decent amount of the enlightenment figures were Christians themselves too. There' some people that will literally give Christianity credit for nothing, no matter how deserving they are of it.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119269024#Comment_119269024

Most of them are perfectly sane, they are just following what their religion commands them to do.

Pretending that they are insane is a cop out for the West who can't understand that others might think differently.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119277856#Comment_119277856

Most of them are perfectly sane, they are just following what their religion commands them to do.

Sane perhaps, but definitely deluded.

I agree with you. The insanity or mental health "defence" / excuse, for any form of religious extremism, exonerates the perpetrator of any personal responsibility. It assumes that the aggressor was operating on some form of auto-pilot. Rather than being consciously aware of how to plan the attack and secure the means and wherewithal to execute it, the terrorist is characterised as some kind of automaton spectator. He has no real responsibility for what happened. After all he was, well, insane.

But I very much doubt that this kind of crime comes about by chance.

It's far more likely that the perpetrator was well aware in the months or even years previous that he was both willing and capable of committing this kind of crime. The only question was when it would happen. Perhaps this doesn't apply to all cases, but it seems logical to apply to at least most.

This crime was a toxic coagulation of religiously sanctioned homophobia and gutter-level Islamic extremism. The perpetrator almost certainly knew full well what he was doing.

The "insanity defence" is, well, just that - insane.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119277889#Comment_119277889

Sane perhaps, but definitely deluded.

It's not a delusion. It's simply their reality.

It's no different to the Crusades with people being told that to kill an infidel would guarantee their place in Heaven, at a time when Heaven was bought in contributions to the Church. It's no different to (Godwins reference) the SS or Wehrmacht who massacred Russians due to their beliefs in their own superiority, and the inferiority of others. It's no different to the establishment of internment camps during the Boer war, with the intentional killing of women, and children through starvation and disease. And it's no different from a gang of skinheads kicking the crap out of elderly person, because they can.

Reality is shaped by the boundaries we place around ourselves. We are conditioned by the environment we establish ourselves in. I saw this in China.. the conditioning that goes on by culture (absent of religion), and the effect of education. I saw it again when I returned home, and looked around western countries, in the media we feed on, the education that is promoted, etc. I remember years ago, when I first left Europe, I spent some time in Russia, finding out that our history was different from theirs. That shocked me a little, as I didn't realise the arrogance I had within myself, to believe that history is perceived/recorded the same everywhere. And since then, when I travelled throughout Asia, parts of Africa, and a few random countries, I checked off history against what I had learned in school or from western publications, finding a lot of differences.

History also shapes our reality. It's a tool used by governments, and other organisations. Just as religion is.

Muslims aren't delusional when they see Western culture as a threat, because it is a threat to their way of life. We are at polar opposites. The difference between western society and M.Eastern societies is that they recognise the threat that Western culture represents to their faith... whereas Western nations are doing everything possible to negotiate. Very like Chamberlain leading up to WW2. Appeasement, all the way. Doesn't work though with cultures where such is seen as a weakness to be exploited. Negotiation within the Quran is prefaced with the need to do so from a position of strength.. and we are not in a strong position when it comes to Islam in Europe.

The insanity defence is simply another example of how weak Western culture is. Our courts are falling to pieces, with long waiting times for cases to be processed, and even when they are, many criminals walk away free because there's nowhere to put them. No reliable way to reform/rehab them either, and yet, psychological techniques are often recommended even when psychology is about managing conditions, not curing them. And then, there's the overcrowding of the prisons, and the turnover with criminals not even serving their full sentences.

Our justice system, western law, has sought to find ways to escape justice.. and the avoid getting it's hands dirty. The insanity plea is just another aspect of that. Another, in a long line, of compromises to show virtue, empathy, and distain for a working society.

(Sorry. Friday nights bottle of wine. 😀)

mazdamiatamx5

Speculation that todays gun attack in Copenhagen was retaliatory.

Drunken Oaf

He certainly doesn't appear to be from "those" parts. Sort of a biker look off him from the from behind photos of him cuffed.

Looks much older than the initially reported 22 but anyway.

Jaysis, I can hear the own brand champers popping at PBP HQ already.

"tH1s cUd hApPen hErE!" they'll yell, somewhat oblivious that three fatal Islamist attacks have already happened here (Dundalk and Sligo) but received such glossed over media attention that you would barely remember it.