[Mental Illness] Florida high school suspect Nikolas Cruz claimed to hear voices in his head

Harris County DA, a woman who calls herself a staunch conservative and a victims rights advocate has led the charge on the local level. She said she used to be punishment first, victim's rights first, but has come to realize that it's not cost effective, it doesn't change future behavior, and it doesn't necessarily make us any safer.

I know you're a big liberal, and you'll probably take this opportunity to trash her for being conservative to begin with, but, if you truly care about making change, you should be excited that conservatives and liberals have finally come together on this issue.

 

great point and anyone who proposes one solution to end mass shootings one way or the other is a partisan idiot.

donovan mitchel for example, (i love this player and he's a good kid) he wrote #endgunviolence on his shoes in "honor" of the victims. it's just a silly position and strange way to "honor/remember" victims. he's a kid, doesn't realize it, but what about #endgangviolence, #enddrugviolence, #enddomesticviolence, etc... you get the point and again this is complicated.

 

Look at the bigger picture, this an angle to attack Trump.

 

I don't know where my comments indicate that. I am not a fan violence, and I am less of a fan of race based violence. I wasn't intending to upset you so I apologize.

 

You might not like it but Trump is the most popular president ever among White Supremacist and KKK groups, no president has endeared himself to those hateful groups as much as Trump has. And no one can be blamed for that besides Trump, like when he said "there were good people" at that white supremacist rally. I bet that increased his support two-fold with those KKK and White Supremacists groups out there.

 

Please elaborate.

Bear in mind, mental illness as currently defined / viewed is: "any of a broad range of medical conditions (such as major depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, or panic disorder) that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability and that are typically associated with a disruption in normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, interpersonal interactions, or daily functioning"

 

*re-reads Steve Scalise shooting thread to see all the conservative posters readily pinning James Hodgkinson's motives on his liberal politics*

 

I think you can interpret that definition expansively to justify including any murderer. But then I'd think the definition was so expansive as to not be useful. Say I murder my wife in a rage for cheating on me. The rage subsides and I'm back to normal, but she's still dead. Was I temporarily insane or just really pissed off and rash? I would say the latter interpretation is more useful, because otherwise I am a well-ordered and functional member of society. You could say, 'but you'd never do that,' but I'll wax offended that you sell me so short. I think most everybody has the potential to be a murderer in the right set of circumstances. It's not useful to say everybody is insane.

 

...Depends on the reason why a person kills another, I'm told. The assumption that all human life is equally valuable (or more accurately, equally valued) in our society (or any other, for the sake of propriety) is grossly overstated, in my opinion.

When what we say in polite or welcome company is in no way comparable to what we do in practice, particularly under less than optimal or desirable personal circumstances, then the obvious conclusion is probably the most accurate one.

If at times the "...perfect becomes the enemy of the good...", I would suppose that the definition of both "perfect" and "good" would have to be properly established.

I'd say context is key...but then I say a lot of things.

I personally tend to think of conscience before I think of compromise, because you're not going to get to action before you settle on thought.

Thomas Paine once said that he who would defend liberty must protect even his enemy. That sentiment is at the heart of what it means to govern a democracy. We are all accountable to one another at some level...accountable for one another's well-being and state of mind.

Basically, our self-awareness just as easily degrades into selfishness as it can ascend into selflessness. And for me, it is almost always a conscious choice. We only cite the wryness of circumstance as a mitigating factor when it suits us.

And what suits us often, unfortunately, is indifference. Or indolence. Or ignorance. Hard to tell the difference sometimes...they're all hanging from the same coat rack, anyway.

The "perfect", for me in this instance, would be the lives of people. The "good" would be the rights endowed to those people by dint of birth or writ of law. So I wonder, here, who or what exactly is the enemy?

I tend not to quote Benjamin Franklin very much. He was more than a little bit ahead of his time intellectually, of course...and he was like many folks of his day - at best indifferent towards chattel slavery for most of his life (major demerits from me, there)...

...but people often will quote him when he said that he who would give up a little freedom for a little security deserved neither freedom nor security. Aside from the fact that the quote itself is largely taken out of context and thus misrepresented, Franklin's implicit supposition is that, as one nation, we should be able, individually, to trust that we have the well-being of our fellows at the fore of our thoughts and actions, and should not need to be lectured or coerced or forced into compassionate consideration for one another through any construct.

But that's why you need to make (or change) a law or two here or there. Ideas kind of have a hard time existing in three dimensions without some sort of physical container. Nevertheless, the problem remains that we can't seem to agree on what's best for everyone. But it's becoming more and more obvious which way we seem to be leaning.

So maybe, once we've lost enough lives in this way, we can somehow get past what everyone's rights are or should be or are supposed to be...get past the thought that somehow those things are under assault or in jeopardy of disappearing, if those rights are serving something or someone other than oneself.

Maybe, then, we will be able to put the "good" to the service of the "perfect".

Maybe.

....errr....but I'm not really inclined to put any money on it right at this moment.

...did that a lot with the Cowboys this past season...

 

Well, you were temporarily mentally ill I guess...

 

How is that useful?

 

How is talking about mental illness in relation to mass shootings and gun control useful at all??

In a country hyper vigilant about mass shootings, to the extent he was reported, and re-reported, and the high school had preparedness courses on this and some security, in a very well to do area, this still happened.

Sure, all the points in the whole process can be much improved. The FBI and local police responding differently. In school security being much more aggressive. Therapists or what-not doing a much better job helping the criminal's mind.

But your still going to have mentally ill people, permanently or temporarily, systems that fail, etc.

Relative to this thread, he was clearly mentally ill, but that doesn't downplay the crime.

 

Shocking that a gun nut in a MAGA hat would be a racist.


Exclusive: Group chat messages show school shooter obsessed with race, violence and guns
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/us/exclusive-school-shooter-instagram-group/index.html

Racism was a constant theme in the chat group, which was called "Murica (American flag emoji) (eagle emoji) great" -- a name it was given by Cruz.
The hatred he and others in the group espoused met little resistance from its active members. In one part of the group chat, Cruz wrote that he hated, "jews, ni**ers, immigrants."

He talked about killing Mexicans, keeping black people in chains and cutting their necks. The statements were not made in jest.

There are hundreds of racist messages, racist memes and racist Instagram videos posted in the group.

One member even joked about Cruz's particular venomousness, saying that although he hated black people, too, he didn't "to a point I wanna kill the (sic) like nick."

Cruz said he hated black people simply because they were black; Cruz hated Jews because he believed they wanted to destroy the world.
After one member expressed hatred for gay people, Cruz agreed, saying, "Shoot them in the back of head."

White women drew Cruz's hatred as well, specifically those in interracial relationships, whom he referred to repeatedly as traitors.

There are no indications in the group chat that any member, including Cruz, is or was part of a white nationalist or white supremacist group.

 

We get one correction for fake news and then another more fantastical story, I wonder if this will end up just more fake news or if this will prove legit.

 

So basically, if your name doesn't seem like it has European origin (white), you might not be American?

 

A jury had declined to impose the death penalty on the Parkland shooter. Some jurors did cite that he was mentally ill.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nikolas-cruz-sentencing-decision/index.html

 

I never understood what the plus side of the death penalty is over life imprisonment. No cost advantage, no actual practical benefit. Just bloodlust.