What’s the silliest thing you’ve seen this guy quoted as saying so far? The stuff about South Korea and Japan was pretty good, but I’m sure there are others I’ve missed.
Regarding punishment - my assumption is that he does not actually have the guile to do much other than offer up “I meant to do that” for whatever shit he finds himself in. So when he says:
[
“To send a political activist to an asylum is more sadistic and more evil than killing him!”
](Norway massacre: Breivik disputes psychiatric report - BBC News)
and
[URL=“Anders Breivik prefers execution over 'pathetic' jail term | Anders Breivik | The Guardian”]
Anders Behring Breivik would rather be executed than receive Norway’s “pathetic” maximum punishment of 21 years in jail for the bomb and gun attacks that left 77 dead last summer, he told a court on Wednesday.
“There are only two just and fair outcomes in this case,” he told Oslo central court: “Acquittal or capital punishment”
He said he didn’t want to be killed, but said he would “respect” the decision. “I consider 21 years of prison as a pathetic punishment,” he said, later describing himself as a “militant Christian” who believed in the afterlife.
I generally take that to mean that probably they should let the weirdest shrinks they can find open this guys skull and party in there until he croaks. I think it’s interesting though how people (such as I did here) kind of start at the end of things - the deserved punishment - and you sort of need to work backwards from there to work out what else they think about the case. Which then probably has nothing to do with how the actual justice system he will be tried under even works :)
Was he insane? Can you execute the insane? Can you believe anything the man says now, or said previous to going on a mass murdering rampage? Did he fucking seriously assemble a thousand page plus manifesto from tabloid articles and wikipedia entries and expect people to take that seriously?
I’m not sure exactly what the term is but I feel if there isn’t one there needs to be some equivalent of “high functioning batshit” to cover this.
I hope he gets a lifetime stay at a secure mental health facility.
The kind of medical assistance he requires is something nobody knows how to provide, and probably won’t know in his lifetime. In the mean time he’s demonstrated that he’ll massacre his fellow human beings for the weird shit that goes on inside his head, so letting him run free just isn’t an option. And he’s too broken to understand any kind of punishment society can inflict on him, so attempts to do so would be no more than simple cruelty for its own sake.
Prison is a shitty idea. They’re not intended for permanent people storage, they’re intended to punish and empower. The psycho can’t be punished or empowered, and he definitely needs to be permanently stored somewhere. Moreover, both he and the other inmates would seem likely to pose a serious danger to each other. Him because he’s so incredibly broken. They because it’s impossibly difficult to be all reasonable, distanced and intellectual about someone so revoltingly broken when you’re within choking distance of him every day.
To continue the other thread, in which Erlend posted a commentary. As a fellow countryman I had some instinctive knee-jerk stuff going on when I read that, and usually I do enjoy Erlend posts.
However seriously, you don’t usually generalize like that, and if a moron like Breivik made you reconsider the Norwegian glory, then be it, but damnit, there are words, and then there are fighting words…you’re close to the latter.
To understand what they are doing in the court process is difficult, for me its like this, we are not going to sink to his level, period, the ancient order of blood feuds are gone, and we can LIVE with that even if we have to endure morons.
I think the poster Strategy gave you a solid enough smackdown on most subjects, but I’d like to remind you as he did, we live in a capitalist society, our democracy is the only bulwark against it, you want to take important social functions and give it to random people with money, go ahead, but it isn’t working for -anyone- else.
I think the last time he was in court this came up and here’s the exhaustive list of things he went through before deciding this was the only way to attract attention:
12.08pm: The court is back in session and Breivik is asked what he did to avoid the need for violence. He responds “everything”; violence was the last resort, he claims.
Breivik: violence was last resort: previously tried "everything that was possible through peaceful means until I lost my faith in democracy"
— Helen Pidd (@helenpidd) April 20, 2012
"Everything" means "normal involvement through political parties, writing essays, communicating or writing comments on the internet"
— Helen Pidd (@helenpidd) April 20, 2012
So … that doesn’t work out, you get to pretty much do whatever you like to whoever you want. Good to know!
In response to Erlend’s post (geez Tom stop locking threads) a mass murderer is a mass murderer no matter what ideology they believe in or whether their country is communist, democratic, or whatever other dubious justification for murder. If Norwegian’s are unhappy about the state of their country then they need to use the political system to change that. Not shoot 70+ people.
There is no justification for what happened. Norway isn’t going through a civil war. I think you are being far too kind to Breivik trying to link him to problems with your country. The guy is a nutter and needs to be silenced, locked up in some hole, and the key thrown away. Although judging by the sludge that passes as his brain I’d think a full frontal lobotomy would be the most humane way to deal with him.
Norway, like Denmark and Sweden, is like a spoiled child (probably the most spoiled of the three), and Breivik is like the spoiled child of that spoiled child.
He wants to keep everything for himself, as do many spoiled children.
But he’s different in that he thinks it’s ok to murder people to send a message about wanting to remain spoiled.
Questioned by prosecutors, Breivik said his original plan was to build three bombs. One would be placed at the government district and the second at the office of the governing Labor Party.
He had several options for the third target.
“I settled on the palace in a setting where the royal family wouldn’t be hurt,” he said. “Most nationalists and cultural conservatives are supporters of the monarchy, including myself.”
“Militant nationalists are split in two,” Breivik said. “One half says you should attack Muslims and minorities. The other half says you should attack elites, those who are responsible.”
Yes of course how obvious, if you’re planning an attack to raise public awareness of an issue, you would want to make sure that you only target elites - not royalty - and make sure not to harm that most responsive of institutions to public opinion.
Remember it is important to take this very seriously and not even think of ridiculing him or his important ideas.
The Norwegian justics system behaves like some sort of submissive, weak and frightened entity in this case. It’s a shame Breivik gets the chance to spread his hate possibly creating copycats. No sane person is really interested in hearing his sputum and watching his dumb, hate-driven face again and again and again.
If he had partners he’ll never tell us about their identities. There is no need to hear this guy any longer. He admitted his guilt already. It doesn’t matter if he gets thrown into jail or an asylum. He must never see the light or the sun again. He has lost all his rights as a human being, except to live and think about his actions.
I wanted to reveal the knee-jerk. I want people to feel themselves responding and reacting irrationally, because that usually means I’ve hit a nerve. I’m still proud of my home country, but the pride is wearing itself thin.
I feel pretty strongly about Norway. I feel it is headed in the wrong direction, away from egalitarianism, away from democracy, away from socialism and towards the same neo-liberal “mixed-economy” fuckfest that the rest of the EU and US have been cultivating for about 35 years.
I think the level of discourse in what I’ve seen of the trial so far is low. It’s a show trial, meant to rally the people around Arbeiderpartiet and “Norwegian consensus reality” and to deter right-wingers from airing their grievances or contradicting the conventional political narrative. It ridicules and infantilizes Breivik’s political views and ideology, which is rather thoughtless when dealing with a paranoid, militant strain of xenophobia.
I think Strategy chose to read my post in the least generous fashion imaginable, assuming intellectual dishonesty and political ideology behind my points. I responded to him in a PM, where I elucidated on my points, explaining where I believed he had misunderstood me.
I’m not much of a capitalist. I’m not as fond of socialism as I used to be, but I still find capitalism to be an even more perverting form of social organization than socialism. Capitalism as described by Adam Smith is just as beautiful as Communism described by Marx & Engels – but it’s pretty obvious that no political or economical ideology ever stands up to scrutiny when implemented. How could it? The model will always be built upon wrongful assumptions, misunderstandings about human nature and behaviour and – last but not least – the endless succession of human folly that precedes each of our thoughts, ideas and actions.
Anders Behring Breivik has compared the pain he caused the families of his victims to his own situation, saying he lost contact with his friends and family after the 22 July attacks.
The 33-year-old rightwing extremist, who has admitted killing 77 people last summer, showed no remorse on Monday as he continued his shocking testimony about the massacre at the annual youth camp of the governing Labour party.
Calling the rampage “necessary”, Breivik compared being shunned by those close to him to the grief of the bereaved. “The only difference was that for my part it was a choice,” he said.
I would hardly call this a scared response on the part of the Norwegian justice system - perhaps it simply doesn’t scratch the itch to wave dicks in the air? I mean, it’s not like they received a list of demands that read - just for example here and not based on any real case - please go and ramp up a clash of that would bankrupt them, demanded the removal of their troops from Saudi Arabia, called for the Taliban to be strengthened and joined by other islamic political movements across the middle east, and for Israel to be pushed up against a wall - and then went and did all of that for him inside of a decade. Like tough guys. They just let him talk and talk and removed any mystery, any doubt, any confusion, about the kind of shit he is and exactly how full of shit you need to be before you go and do what he did.
Erlend, you should probably write Breivik and set him straight on this stuff, he thinks this was all about sticking it to the Marxist Tyrants Of Europe or some similar silly shit.
This is how I feel about what seems to be going on. Letting the nut ramble on only encourages those who feel as he does, it doesn’t discourage them. It makes the government look weak and Brevik gets a podium.
Do you honestly think he is a good advocate for his cause in any way imaginable? Bear in mind that the crazypants goal here was to bank shot this into some vast police state crackdown on right wing political parties, thus making right wing extremism more underground and attractive (this last part is not very well explained), and eventually turn it into a proper paramilitary movement that can kill all the marxists.
Would you say that is working out? Would you say what they are doing now is effective as compared to say - I dunno - disappearing people into holes with no uncensored contact and thinking up a new way every day to fuel some new magical conspiracy about how the government secretly blew up those bombs and shot all those people or whatever?
Like - I get that he is completely disgusting and you would rather not hear what he has to say - but I think he might have miscalculated here in that they have not been goaded into the crackdown he thought he would provoke, and letting him talk really just fuels revulsion and a hasty backing away from would-be allies. This is his podium and he’s hanging himself from it. Do you want to get in the way?
If you are of a like mind as him (and granted that makes you pretty wacked out as well) then yes, you are digging the fact that he is getting “his message” out into the public. It doesn’t matter that his methods were crazy, it’s that he is getting heard when before he did this no one cared who he was or what he said.
The people who think he is “hanging himself” are people who disagreed with him to begin with. They are not his audience.
Look, anyone who would do something like this is probably mentally missing and believes that their belief is actually in the majority.
As I already said, I think he’s much more valuable alive - and I think he’s very much digging his own grave.
You shouldn’t hide someone because you’re afraid they’ll “inspire” someone. People who’re likely to be inspired would find inspiration where you wouldn’t be able to prevent it, anyway.
But for people “on the fence” - or people who might have racist attitudes without really having thought about it - and just people in general, he’s a very powerful lesson.
Also, “putting him away” without speaking - would not take away his actions. His actions would still be there to inspire people, and they’d inspire even more people - because then they could be interpreted more freely.
No, we need to hear him speak. We need to understand how someone gets to that place, so we have a better chance of preventing it in the future.
