Anders Behring Breivik declared sane and sentenced to 21 years
Court decides confessed killer was not psychotic when he went on rampage in Oslo that left 77 people dead. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/24/breivik-verdict-sane-21-years
How can this behaviour be sane? What would constitute insane behaviour then?
Obviously Norway is not in danger of losing its culture to Islam and Intellectual Marxism so in what way is the bloke sane?
If he’s sane, then was the Sikh murderer sane? Was Adolf Hitler sane? Of course not.
This is a worrying trend.
White Christian murderers are never labelled as “Terrorist” yet if it was a dark-skinned person they would be.
If Breivik is sane the rest of us must be mad.
DOG Sharon 
Hitler indeed was insane. But the majority of the German ruling class thought his policies of oppression of trade unions, racism getting attention away from inequality, and war with profits for Big Steel etc., would be “sane” for profits.
August 24, 2012 at 11:57 am
Completely agree. The reason I think ABB is insane is that he felt it was up to him to right the perceived wrongs of Norwegian society. Why should he feel he had to do that? I know as well as you that there are right wing propagandists – but feeble-minded narcissistic people like ABB cannot separate fantasy from reality.
August 24, 2012 at 12:12 pm
As with most wars and acts of terrorism, it was ordinary people who perished. Women and children suffer disproportionately in all conflicts. If Breivik was the soldier he fancied himself as, why did he not go to Afghanistan to take on the Taliban. Killing children is not sane.
August 24, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Thank. You.
This is outrageous. In all cases of mass murder mental illness generally plays a role. Psychiatrists all agreed he’s a schizophrenic with paranoid delusions- how in the world a court can ignore that is beyond me.
August 24, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Abso – if you kill without good cause it’s insane. If not, why have the word?
August 24, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately society is always trying to rationalize behaviours and see them in the context of simplistic and easy explanations: good vs. bad.
We don’t like to accept that sometimes there is simply no good reason other than a serious mental imbalance.
August 24, 2012 at 12:35 pm
No, not all psychiatrists and psychologists agree that Breivik is insane (in the sense of “much more insane than Wiolders, Bin Laden, etc”:
I have blogged about this.
and
and other blog entries.
If you say Breivik is insane, then basically you have to say that semi-establishment xenophobic politicians like Geert Wilders, Vlaams Belang, etc., and, in another category, Osama bin Laden are insane as well.
To say that Breivik is just insane makes people forget his network (Norway’s “Progress Party”, EDL, etc.). It depoliticizes.
August 24, 2012 at 12:45 pm
I draw the line at killing another human being without logical reason. Once someone crosses that line, they’ve crossed into murky territory.
August 25, 2012 at 12:03 am
“Murky territory”
Love the understatement.
I tried to imagine how it would feel knowing I’d murdered dozens of kids – I can’t imagine smiling and peacocking around the court like ABB – his demeanour since being captured shows he’s sadly lacking in normal feelings.
August 25, 2012 at 5:59 am
This is an Alice in Wonderland moment. The act ABB committed trumps any psychological test. The ruling says more about the experts than their test results.
Found this quoted in “Gender on Planet Earth” by sociologist Ann Oakley
A study involving 464 senior psychiatrists presented with an identical case history, which differed only in the name and sex of the patient, found wide differences in the diagnoses offered. Hearing voices and exhibiting bizarre behaviour were not enough to get a patient psychiatric treatment – unless they had the right name. The psychiatrists were divided into four groups and asked to diagnose a 24-year-old patient being held at a police station after allegedly assaulting a ticket collector.
The article was originally published in UK Independent 2000
August 24, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Well said! Although to be fair to the judge, she did refer to him as a terrorist several times, which did surprise me, as they never do that in our media.
August 24, 2012 at 1:34 pm
If you declare someone insane, then you legally cannot say at the same time that someone is a terrorist, which is a criminal. Criminals are responsible for their acts. Insane people are not.
August 24, 2012 at 2:35 pm
You can’t be criminally insane?
August 24, 2012 at 2:45 pm
If a judge declares you to be insane, then you become a psychiatric patient. If that judge declares you to be a criminal, then you go to jail.
See also my latest blog post:
August 25, 2012 at 10:25 am
All terrorism is insane.
August 24, 2012 at 5:08 pm
All terrorism is indeed in a sense insane. Including state terrorism.
However, if there would be a trial against, eg, Tony Blair for state terrorism; and if court psychiatrists then would declare Blair to be insane; then it would be legally impossible to convict Blair as a terrorist, as a criminal. As he would be a patient then.
August 24, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Agreed dear friend. After doing an MA in this very subject I find you saying the same things I argued (usually alone in class with police officers, military and security agents).
I think our positions are closer than we think and you’re the last person I want to argue with as I really respect your brains and attitude.
We both know much of what passes for politics and social activity could be seen as criminal and is clearly damaging for the majority of people.
There will always be nuances we can debate and but let’s not go any further on this as it’s awful however we categorize it.
Love and peace to you. Let the baddies argue – I want to learn and collaborate and value our interactions matey 🙂
August 24, 2012 at 7:16 pm
Agreed 🙂
August 24, 2012 at 7:25 pm
🙂
August 24, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Are you saying that suicide bombing is a sane activity?
August 24, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Didn’t hear that – thanks
August 24, 2012 at 5:08 pm
August 24, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Terrorism is any action that makes political staements by violence and fear. It doesn’t have to be rational.
August 24, 2012 at 5:11 pm
August 24, 2012 at 5:28 pm
OK, as a formerMed stud, I would like to say what a psychosis means. That means that you can not plan in detail to do what Breivik did. It ‘s impossible to plan something and act rationaly and all this did Breivik. He was able to nicely act his plan, that a psychotic can’t.
Man is not psychotic . He is a psychopat. Yes , he is mad and insane but he can’t be deemed as psychotic.
August 25, 2012 at 6:27 am
Thanks for this crucial detail.
Does that mean ABB (and other psychopaths) are fully responsible for all actions? And also, can you shed light on why the authorities only assessed for psychosis, not the full range of mental disorders?
Thanks for enlightening us.
August 25, 2012 at 6:50 am
In the full range of different mental disorders, only in a psychosis you live in another world.might think for example that a bird is an Islamic army! And impossible to be rational like thinking out and carrying out a plan!
August 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Thanks – so what of socio- and psychopathology?
August 25, 2012 at 1:12 pm