Re: RARA-AVIS: The Talented Mr. Ripley

From: Patrick King ( abrasax93@yahoo.com)
Date: 08 Apr 2007


Nathan wrote: I once sat through the trial of a man who set his children on fire because his new girlfriend didn't want them around. He wanted his new girlfriend more than he wanted his kids, so he lit a match while they slept and, viola!, no more kids.That's not insane.That' s just selfish. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he did it anyway.
********* Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, it's selfish not to pass the cranberry sauce. This man you describe is insane. I'm not saying he shouldn't be executed for the sake of expedience, but he's not sane, I don't care how logically he came off in court. I encounter a lot of folks in district attorneys' offices who don't want to call a spade a spade for fear they'll lose the case.
"Winning" should not be part of their jobs. Their job should be getting to the truth of the matter, not just convicting people to clear the dockett. But that's
"Justice" for you! Unlike "evil" which frankly can be attributed to not passing the cranberry sauce,
"insane" has real meaning. It's behaving in accordance with a belief system that most people would deem unacceptable. Nail biting, bed wetting, temper tantrums are indicators of mental disturbance. When they escalate to eaves dropping, breaking and entering, robbery, and murder, which they sometimes do, the subject is insane. They have mental problems. By all means lock them up, execute them if you don't mind throwing the switch, but don't try to say that anyone might behave like that. You have to be crazy to burn your children to death. The fact that you don't see that as "crazy" is a problem with your orientation, not with the fact of crazy.

Patrick King
--- Nathan Cain < IndieCrime@gmail.com> wrote:

> >Nathan, the term "evil" assumes metaphysics which
> cannot be established empirically. People who bandy
> about the word "evil" tend to be a little on the
> mental edge, themselves, in my experience. Because
> someone performs an act that is not of benefit to
> you
> or your extended group does not make them "evil,"
> however inconvenient their actions may have proved
> to
> you. If they perform these acts based on twisted
> logic, though, they are very likely insane. <
>
>
> Not really. You can apply the same logic to the
> term insane. Just because
> someone does something you don't like and comes to
> the decision to do it
> through a process you don't understand doesn't make
> them insane. Who gets to
> say whose logic is twisted? You? Are you the
> official arbiter of empirical
> sanity?
>
> > When you say "Prisons are full of entirely sane
> people," how do
> you know this? Do you vist prisions frequently?<
>
> No, but I was, for a while, paid to attend criminal
> court at least twice a
> week. I've sat through trials for everything:
> Murder, rape, child
> molestation, drug dealing, armed robbery, you name
> it I've seen it
> prosecuted. Didn't see a whole lot of crazy. A lot
> of selfish, a lot of
> stupid, a lot of mean, but very little crazy. I once
> sat through the trial
> of a man who set his children on fire because his
> new girlfriend didn't want
> them around. He wanted his new girlfriend more than
> he wanted his kids, so
> he lit a match while they slept and, viola!, no more
> kids.That's not
> insane.That's just selfish. He knew what he was
> doing was wrong, but
> he did it
> anyway.
> And most people who are in prison are in for
> mundane things like selling
> dope or stealing. It's generally economically
> motivated crime. Hard to call
> them crazy. For every serial killer there are
> probably 500 murderers who
> killed for entirely mundane reasons. The horrible
> truth about most crime is
> that it's boring.
>
> >When do you decide a person who's committed murder
> is "perfectly
> sane?" Do you think Ilene Wournos was "perfectly
> sane." If you do, see the Biography Channel's
> Notorious episode about her with the actual footage
> of
> her trial. What about Edward Kemper who murdered
> co-eds in San Francisco before he killed his mother,
> set her head on the mantle piece and put her larynx
> down the garbage disposal? Or Alan Blackthorn who
> had
> his ex-wife and the mother of his two daughters
> murdered while she cared for her infant quintuplets,
> leaving her butchered corpse for his daughter to
> discover? The child, of course, knew immediately
> who'd
> done it! When do you think someone's insane? How bad
> does it have to get?<
>
> These people are not representative of most killers.
> You can't draw any
> conclusions by looking at the sensational crimes
> that end up making the true
> crime shows, and books. They don't tell you anything
> about the reality of
> crime and punishment. You want that, go sit through
> arraignments, probation
> revocation hearings and plea agreements. You'll see
> the sort of people who
> end up in the system. They're not monsters, even
> most of the killers. And,
> to bring it back around to crime fiction, here's why
> I think Ripley isn't
> crazy: He goes to great lengths to get away with his
> crimes. He's an
> exceptionally rational human being. He sees what he
> wants and he goes for
> it, with no regard for the people who are in his
> way. He does have plenty of
> regard, however, for the potential consequences his
> actions could have for
> him. He can reason: He can say to himself, "I killed
> X, now I must do Y to
> avoid detection." Anyone who can understand the
> potential consequences of
> their actions isn't insane.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>

 
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