We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

A suicide-homicide is an act of ultimate rage. People who do these kinds of things feel like they’re the victims. Their acts of suicide and homicide are a way to make a point. Although they don’t live to see the results, they would probably like what they see: Millions of people not only being momentarily horrified, but agreeing with the murderer’s classification of him- or herself as a victim. Whatever the President and the Pope have to say about this, rest assured that the killer — if he were alive to hear — would be happily applauding.

Michael Hurd.

11 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • PersonFromPorlock

    Not ‘rage’ so much as self-pity.

  • One online comic suggesting using the generic name “Some [Anal orifice]” to describe such shooters in order not to glorify them. However, that move cause cable news channels to shut down, since they wouldn’t have enough to talk about otherwise.

  • Tedd

    I’m currently dealing with someone who’s a bit like that (only less so, I hope). The distinguishing characteristic in his case is extreme closed-mindedness. He passes judgement on everything immediately, without waiting for the facts. And when the facts come in and they contradict his prejudgement he ignores them or, if you press the issue, tries to shout you down. He is determined never to be wrong, but won’t make the effort (to learn from his mistakes) that would make him less often wrong in the future. Everything is a conspiracy, to him.

    It stands to reason that such a person could become a hero or martyr to someone who subscribed to a victim-based view of the world because the victim-based view of the world is, itself, a product of the same cognitive failing.

  • Thailover

    Reminds me of people pretending that it was deep when Marylin Manson said he wouldn’t have said anything the colombine shooters…he would listen.

    Sorry, but those selfish shits didn’t deserve sympathy. (And I use the term selfish in the common sense here, meaning stupidly selfdestructive, which is not really self-ish at all).

    The colombine shooters weren’t beaten wives. They were punks. It wasn’t the music, the trenchcoat clothes (sorry George Will, you dipshit). It wasn’t “society”, it was a handful of human garbage who sought infamy because they knew they were too pathetic to achieve any sort of fame.

    Now, in regard to James Holmes, he is literally sick in the head. I visited his website after the shooting and it wasn’t full of paranoid conspiracy theories, rather it was completely incoherent. Im not sure what punishing the severely mentally ill is supposed to accomplish. That’s sort of like it was in the old institutional days when they beat them BECAUSE they were insane.

  • Laird

    “Im not sure what punishing the severely mentally ill is supposed to accomplish.”

    Of course they shouldn’t be “punished” if they commit heinous crimes like James Holmes did; they should simply be euthanized, promptly, as you would any dangerous animal. They cannot be released into society; there is no point to keeping them alive; and the taxpayers shouldn’t be required to pay for their support anyway.

  • Alisa

    But Vester Flanagan was not a tea party gun nut capitalist. He was neither white nationalist, nor anti-government radical. In a 23 page suicide note faxed to ABC, he describes being a black homosexual who sensed racism and homophobia everywhere around him. He wanted revenge on his white heterosexual oppressors, and said the Charleston church shooting perpetrated by Dylan Roof was his trigger point.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Tedd: Yes indeed, and intelligence is no proof against the failing. Thanks for the comment and for pointing out this trait in human nature, which is so often counterproductive of clear thinking and rational discussion, and which can add to the strength of a lynch-mob’s will to lynch — even an Internet lynch mob.

    (By the way, Rocco has an interesting observation on this posted at Libertarian Home. Look for “A Comment on Ashley Madison.”)

    “Check your premises” applies in this context as well as the original one; and where someone has suggested a hypothetical, it’s important either to stick to the premises as stated therein or else state clearly that one is changing them for purposes of discussion (or of further digging into the issue).

  • Julie near Chicago

    Note: “Euthanasia” has become the euphemism du jour for the act of killing humans, save as individual or national self-defense.

    Webster’s Combined 1913:

    “An easy death; a mode of dying to be desired.”

    A putting to death for humane purposes. Used to refer to the killing of animals to relieve or avoid pain.

    Online OED [no longer generally recommended by YrsTrly]:

    The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The practice is illegal in most countries.

    Even Macmillan:

    the practice of killing a very old or very sick person without causing them pain. When someone in this condition asks to be killed, the practice is called voluntary euthanasia.

    In other words, capital punishment is never “euthanasia,” however humane the method used.

    The word is “execution.”

  • who sensed racism and homophobia everywhere around him. He wanted revenge on his white heterosexual oppressors…

    Isn’t this precisely what the American left, including Obama, has been trying to foster for years? People seeing racism and oppression under every rock? Well done folks.

  • Paul Marks

    The media have often falsely presented such murders as conservatives.

    For example the New York Times implied that the shooter of Gabby Giffords (who also murdered a Republican judge – who was instantly forgotten, because the deaths of conservatives are not important to the media) was anti abortion – he was really pro abortion (and was also a drug addled leftist).

    The person who attacked the IRS office in Texas was presented by the media as a conservative – he was actually a Marxist.

    And on and on…..

    However, in this case, the truth is too obvious to ignore.

    The murderer was an extreme Obama supporter – a man filled with the propaganda of the Frankfurt School about how blacks and homosexuals (and …..) are persecuted by evil capitalist society….

    Even ABC journalists (ABC is not exactly known for hiring conservatives) were really the servants of “racism” and “homophobia” and all the rest of the stuff that the education system (and the media itself) bleats on about.

    Of course the murderer being a leftist has not stopped Mr Obama (and his depraved supporters – such as the BBC) seeking to make political capital out of the murders.

    The blame for the murders does not belong the leftist murderer – it belongs to the evil Republican Congress, for not passing “gun control” legislation.

    Even the father of one of the murdered people has been brought to the front-and-centre.

    If there had been background checks my daughter would still be alive….

    Accept that the murderer actually had passed a background check.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Paul: Applause. In fact Standing Ovation. !!!!!