Varg Vikernes will have his revenge on OsloFollow

Would he, though? It's easy enough to point to crackpots who find an ideology and use it as an excuse for their crackpot behavior. In the absence of their finding such an ideology, we can't say, because they don't go around shooting a bunch of people and getting into the news. The world is full of crackpots who don't kill people but maybe that's just because they haven't found the correct ideology to inspire them yet.

If it takes Crackpot + Ideology to equal mass murder, does the Ideology deserve any of the blame?

I haven't researched enough to rebuke the claim that most of these guys tend to be far Right extremists. Honestly, looking for some broad concept to demonize instead of looking at specific individuals strikes me as eerily similar to what these nut jobs do.

If I were searching for something broad to blame, my first thought wouldn't be anything political. It'd simply be that almost without exception, these guys tend to be...guys.

I agree with Belkira's unstated point here. 12-year old prostitutes are the issue here.

Or Jodie Foster is.

What were we talking about?

Maybe it was the same dog David Berkowitz talked with.

I don't know. It's a hard question, honestly. On one hand, I feel that if you kill someone, that's on you. If you're crazy or not, you killed someone, that's your bad. You can say that Jodie Foster told you that it was the path to world peace, but you pulled the trigger.

But on the other hand, when someone asks someone to kill someone else, they're held liable, aren't they? I don't know enough about the group that this particular crackpot was involved in, but if they are urging their members to go out and kill people, yeah, they should be held liable.

I guess what I'm saying is, Palin drawing "cross hairs" on certain people is tacky and crude, but she shouldn't be blamed for what happened to Gifford. The Taliban urging people to blow up restaurants should be blamed.

Right, that's what I'm saying. What she did was idiotic, but shouldn't be blamed for anything. If this guy was the member of a group advocating the death of young people to save Norway from extremism, then they should be blamed.

But the two are connected, in a way.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to say.

See if I try to explain someone elses post again. I get sucked into a debate I wasn't invested in that much to begin with.



With the above said, if you had the option to walk away completely, then you're at fault for pushing the button, flipping the coin, or rolling the dice, no matter how good the odds are that someone won't die. It's your fault that person died.

Edited, Jul 25th 2011 4:28pm by Belkira

I don't disagree with that. But I also don't agree that without extreme groups preaching hatred and violence there would be zero victims of crazy people who think they're saving the world by setting up a bomb.

While that's true, it doesn't mean all Muslims act upon those mandates.

It's kind of like how the KKK is a Christian organisation with very Christian ideals. Yet you Conservatives seem to have a problem connecting their actions to Christianity.

Catholicism?

If you don't feel like responding to me that's fine. I'll understand you simply find this boring and would not consider you to be evading at all.

Just to make sure I am understanding you correctly

-"Am I responsible for that death only if it lands on heads, or do I bear a responsibility for even taking the risk and flipping the coin?"
-You would say making the gamble (regardless of the odds) makes you responsible.

-"Is there a difference between the two responsibilities of pressing a button that will 100% kill and having a 50% chance to kill? "
-You would say that outright murdering someone makes you equally responsible to risking their life (regardless of the odds).


That seems odd to me, because every second you are knowingly gambling with the lives of others (though it is usually an extremely safe gamble, like 1 in 1 trillion). Driving to work risks the lives of everyone on the road. Feeding your child risks her catching a food-born illness. Money you spend could in some small way be funding terrorism.

These are all very safe gambles, but they are all gambles. Everything we do has an incredibly small chance to harm someone, and we know this, but since it's such a safe risk we choose to make the gamble anyway. If risking lives to any degree gives us responsibility and equal responsibility to outright murder, then we are all murderers.

Edited, Jul 25th 2011 6:06pm by Allegory

I know. Twas a joke.

The greater point is apparently Allegory needs $50.