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 Psienesis wrote:
Again, given the personal ties between victim and shooter? Not seeing the terrorism angle. Especially considering that, as a plan of action, it's ill-thought. Did he expect the race war to erupt in the wake of his actions (as Roof did)? Did he expect the race war to cease?

Neither are true, or even possible, because there isn't a race war going on, just human beings being terrible to other human beings, which is pretty much how it's always been.

His manifesto reads like someone who has latched on to current events as both an outlet for, and a justification of, rage at personal slights, either real or imagined, rather than an attack against a larger segment of society or the government that rules it.

You aren't seeing the terrorism angle even when the definition you gave matches the actions and motivation of the shooter? He explicitly said that his deeds were part of a race war. That he happened to choose people that he disliked is immaterial to the fact that he committed violent acts to further a political goal.

I don't actually see the point of discussing terrorism in this case since the man obviously was working completely alone, unrelated related to an organisation or ideology, and anyway he is dead and cannot be tried on terrorist or normal charges.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't actually see the point of discussing terrorism in this case since the man obviously was working completely alone, unrelated related to an organisation or ideology, and anyway he is dead and cannot be tried on terrorist or normal charges.

Your argument presupposes that there are no such thing as a lone wolf terrorist, and ignores the fact that he was ideologically driven by racism.

Was the "Knock Out Game', where violence was used and driven by racism also considered terrorist acts?


Just curious as to where the line gets drawn.

Is racism an ideology? It certainly isn't a political movement.

Lone Wolf terrorists like various attacks in France and London have been inspired by political and religious ideologies promoted by organisations.

From that angle, you get an idea and act on it. If the idea is delusionary, does that make you a terrorist or mentally ill?

I think what's clouding the issue is that it happened on live tv- first thing those who watched assumed was mass shooter. As the day wore on it became clear he wasn't going to shoot anyone else. He basically murdered who he had wanted to murder plus a witness, and then went to post his dirty deed on twitter.

It was also my understanding that it's white supremacists who want a race war to destroy the Black and Latino races in America. His comment was more of a "I'm shooting before you shoot me!" rather than a call to arms to minorities in the US.

Not the first time I've been wrong of course, but these are my observations. I just don't think just because it happened on live tv and he faxed a rant that he was a terrorist. Also he seems to imagine racial slights against him, rather than manifest any hate against other races.

 triplegrim wrote:
I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.

Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.

So do you believe ther guy when he was saying Jehova made him commit this act? Hearing voices sounds pretty crazy to me.

It's possible to be crazy and a terrorist at the same time.

 Vash108 wrote:

 triplegrim wrote:
I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.

Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.

So do you believe ther guy when he was saying Jehova made him commit this act? Hearing voices sounds pretty crazy to me.

Well, there were posters on here who voted in President Bush. And he said God told him that He wanted Bush to be president. God and Jehovah are the same being, just different names. If saying you hear God makes you crazy, then a bunch of you guys should be ashamed of your voting.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:

 triplegrim wrote:
I think we should take people at their own words. If someone says he killed these people because he wanted a race war, and because of the church shootings, I believe him.

Terrorists/bad buys mean what they write and state. I never understood people who read i.e. Hamas manifesto about destroy all of Israel, and then swats it away with "they dont really mean this", and then is suprised when ISIL, after threatening to do the same to the yezidis and christians actually starts mass murder.

So do you believe ther guy when he was saying Jehova made him commit this act? Hearing voices sounds pretty crazy to me.

Well, there were posters on here who voted in President Bush. And he said God told him that He wanted Bush to be president. God and Jehovah are the same being, just different names. If saying you hear God makes you crazy, then a bunch of you guys should be ashamed of your voting.

There are some right now with similar claims

Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.

 Manchu wrote:
Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.

I'm not... that fether is evil.

 whembly wrote:
that fether is evil.

Agreed, except as to tense.

 Manchu wrote:
Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.

IMO, it is entirely possible to be both crazy and evil.

As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks. As a guy, the extremist feminists see me as "evil" just for the plumbing I have. Personally, I think that a person who is out killing people like the guy in the OP did, requires a bit of both crazy and evil.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks.

Please just stop. Just stop. Go and learn more about the world, then you can continue.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Seems we are only calling this guy crazy because we are uncomfortable with the word evil.

IMO, it is entirely possible to be both crazy and evil.

As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks. As a guy, the extremist feminists see me as "evil" just for the plumbing I have. Personally, I think that a person who is out killing people like the guy in the OP did, requires a bit of both crazy and evil.

The difference is that... the religious folks or feminists using the word "evil" in those cases are being hyperbolic.

This dude was unequivocally Evil™.

Certainly seems to add up: guy spends his life being angry at other people, treating them like gak, and blaming them for his faults, justifying his malicious behavior by maligning everyone around him, and this culminated in murdering some people and then plastering it on the internet along with further justifications, including complimenting other murderers.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks.

Please just stop. Just stop. Go and learn more about the world, then you can continue.

Umm... please explain your reasoning here?

In my experience, as well as seeing what goes on on the Internet, religious folks generally fall into two categories when dealing with Atheists: 1. OMG YOU'RE EVIL.... DEVILSPAWN!!! or 2. I'm praying for your poor misguided soul.



@whembly, whether it's hyperbolic or not, the people using the term tend to have a genuine belief that they are using the word correctly. And I agree this dude was full on Evil™.

But, what I'm saying is that evil, by itself doesn't act like this. These kinds of actions, IMO require some measure of crazy.

Here's kind of the brief way I see this:

Evil, without crazy may think bad thoughts (racist, sexist, anti-cat, anti-political) but doesn't really act in any way on those thoughts.
Crazy, without evil, probably posts websites about the lizard-people overlords, their experience when they were abducted by aliens, or how they can prove that they are the 2nd coming of Christ on earth.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
In my experience, as well as seeing what goes on on the Internet, religious folks generally fall into two categories when dealing with Atheists: 1. OMG YOU'RE EVIL.... DEVILSPAWN!!! or 2. I'm praying for your poor misguided soul.

Again, please go learn more about the world. "Most" religious people do not think being an atheist makes someone evil. Posting that kind of tripe is tantamount to admitting you think most religious people are evil or at least stupid.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
As an Atheist, my mere existence is seen as "evil" by most religious folks.

Please just stop. Just stop. Go and learn more about the world, then you can continue.

Umm... please explain your reasoning here?

In my experience, as well as seeing what goes on on the Internet, religious folks generally fall into two categories when dealing with Atheists: 1. OMG YOU'RE EVIL.... DEVILSPAWN!!! or 2. I'm praying for your poor misguided soul.

And clearly group 1 encompasses MOST religious folks...

I would like to see the statistics on that.

 CptJake wrote:

I would like to see the statistics on that.

I doubt those kinds of stats are even collected. And again, I'm basing this on my own experience, as well as what's scrolled through around the internet.

Well, let's abandon this tangent for now and get back on-topic. You don't have to be religious to judge certain behavior as evil. The question is, can people do evil things without being crazy? When we jump to the conclusion that murderers must be crazy, I think we are just revealing that we are uncomfortable with the idea that people can be willfully bad.

 Manchu wrote:
Well, let's abandon this tangent for now and get back on-topic. You don't have to be religious to judge certain behavior as evil. The question is, can people do evil things without being crazy? When we jump to the conclusion that murderers must be crazy, I think we are just revealing that we are uncomfortable with the idea that people can be willfully bad.

Yeah people can do bad things without being crazy. There are plenty of examples of it.

Like Stalin. Unlike Hitler who was crazy and evil, Stalin was just evil.

Perception of evil is all based on your own morale standing. If he was legitimately mentally ill and it were a delusion of some sort, I wouldn't consider him evil. Just someone had failed to help him before someone got hurt, tragically. However the bragging afterwards does point that way.

People can certainly do evil things without being crazy. If they are aware of their actions then yes they're just people evil without needing to be crazy. I agree the jump to saying someone is crazy is too often too fast.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Like Stalin. Unlike Hitler who was crazy and evil, Stalin was just evil.

Yeah, the man who executed all of his officers, he wasn't crazy.

 Manchu wrote:
The question is, can people do evil things without being crazy? When we jump to the conclusion that murderers must be crazy, I think we are just revealing that we are uncomfortable with the idea that people can be willfully bad.

IMO, yes, it's possible to do evil things without being crazy. I do recall that the "majority" of robberies, break-ins and other forms of thievery are desperation/survival driven when you remove drugs from the equation. As in, a normal guy doesn't rob people unless he's thinking that he/his family are going to starve. I think there are plenty of things done that may not be evil by themselves or crazy by themselves, but there are plenty of times where the two overlap (drunk driving, crimes of passion, etc)


To me, this guy isn't crazy because of the premeditation, he's crazy because of the reasons he gives for his actions.

Even the Catholic church is guilty.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Like Stalin. Unlike Hitler who was crazy and evil, Stalin was just evil.

Yeah, the man who executed all of his officers, he wasn't crazy.

Depends on his reasoning and state of mind actually. If it were paranoia for example it's crazy, if he felt they weren't doing their job well enough and that's the way he fired them then that's much more likely to be evil than crazy.

The issue is the two are too often entwined when they really don't need to be.

Ensis, if you 100% absolutely had to have ONE term that fit atheists from a non-atheist viewpoint, I think you'd be better off with the term "unfortunate". It's unfortunate that you don't believe in God. It's unfortunate that according to my belief, you won't get into heaven due to that. It's unfortunate if you have no interest in changing your mind. But evil? Nah. That's Westboro Baptist style thinking right there. Aka, false Christians and terrorists. That's not the majority of us. Most Christians, pastors and ministers included, would happily sit down and have a well thought out discussion with you involving point and counter point as to the existence of God, Jesus and Heaven.