Althouse: "I used to think I was asexual, but the primary reason why I thought that was because my BMI was 14..."

January 16, 2014

"I used to think I was asexual, but the primary reason why I thought that was because my BMI was 14..."

"I castrated myself when I was 15 to rebel against society... a degenerate capitalistic system results in a commodification of sexuality...."

28 comments:

Pianoman said...: "insanity" tag?

How dare you judge! H4T3R!; 1/16/14, 2:38 PM
Scott said...: Y'all ought to stop reading the Daily News website. It's not healthy.; 1/16/14, 2:46 PM
traditionalguy said...: Th demons in Adam won.; 1/16/14, 2:51 PM
Ann Althouse said...: The kid was obviously crazy. Every time I see that picture of him, I feel sorry for him, even though I know what he did. Why didn't people help him?; 1/16/14, 2:52 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Th demons in Adam won."

Yes, demons. That picture is enough to make you believe that demons enter a person and that he was terrified by whatever was inside him.; 1/16/14, 2:53 PM
Pianoman said...: "The kid was obviously crazy".

I agree with you, Professor ... my sarc is mostly directed at those who believe that "anything goes" when it comes to gender.; 1/16/14, 2:56 PM
Scott said...: Did you realize that in Vermont and New Mexico, capital punishment was abolished for murder, but not for treason?

"Why didn't people help him?"

Yeah, yeah, we're all to blame for what he did.; 1/16/14, 3:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Why didn't people help him? I think it might be that his mother was a master enabler, or at a complete loss as to what to do with him. She let it go too far for too long. She needed help.; 1/16/14, 3:01 PM
jacksonjay said...: BatShit Crazy Mom bought him GUNS!; 1/16/14, 3:09 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I assume that the mother was also mentally ill.; 1/16/14, 3:09 PM
jacksonjay said...: BAT-SHIT CRAZY!; 1/16/14, 3:17 PM
Scott said...: What's the difference between crazy and mentally ill?; 1/16/14, 3:21 PM
jacksonjay said...: 2:52 crazy
3:09 mentally ill

?????; 1/16/14, 3:23 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Well, think about it. I think Lanza was completely insane. I think his mother might not have been completely insane, but terribly deluded and in denial.; 1/16/14, 3:32 PM
Bob R said...: "The kid was obviously crazy. Every time I see that picture of him, I feel sorry for him, even though I know what he did. Why didn't people help him?"

The big problem is that there are lots of "obviously crazy" people out there. There are hundreds of students with serious mental illnesses on any large college campus (as well as thousands with less serious, chronic mental health problems.) For instance, about 1.1% of people are schizophrenic (NIH stat). That's general population, not college age. But if you take, say, a quarter of it, we're talking about 100 students on the UW campus at any given time. Usually we don't see the horrific results of Sandy Hook or here at Virginia Tech. But the death rate from suicide dwarfs the rate from those more publicized incidents.

My point is, if you think you have an answer for "what should we do" you should do a thought experiment and look at what your proposed solution would have done to the tens of thousands of "obviously crazy" people who have done nothing to harm anyone over the last decade.; 1/16/14, 3:34 PM
Wince said...: Scott said...
What's the difference between crazy and mentally ill?

$200.00 per hour.; 1/16/14, 3:35 PM
madAsHell said...: Why do I think of the Corbomite Maneuver episode from the original Star Trek??; 1/16/14, 3:39 PM
Scott said...: @EDH: Well played, sir.; 1/16/14, 3:48 PM
jacksonjay said...: Mom obviously never saw that crazy picture.; 1/16/14, 4:09 PM
DavidD said...: "...degenerate capitalistic system..."?

Hmmm. Sounds like a Leftist; I wonder why the media hasn't been all over this statement....; 1/16/14, 4:18 PM
jr565 said...: Why didn't people help him? Because he probably said the same type of things that his "friends" said, but in a more intelligent but incoherent manner that maybe came across as inscrutable, but not violent.
There's a lot of lefty jargon there. In so much as he fit in he too was discussing the evil capitalist structure that commodified sexuality, or whatever he was on about.
In addition, even if he was crazy, no one wants to be the one to judge him as crazy. Especially his peers. Because that would be judgemental and he was obviously one of those bullied types that must be pitied and not judged to be crazy.

So noone's going to help him because until he lashed out he was one of them. And a victim.; 1/16/14, 5:06 PM
jr565 said...: Nt only that but it sounds like he didn't really make a lot of friends. So they saw him as the really intelligent but awkward quiet kid. They probably never got close enough to up him to see his violent side. Maybe his mom didn't even get that close.; 1/16/14, 5:09 PM
Stephen A. Meigs said...: He's articulate in his call to the radio station. Doesn't sound crazy at all. In fact it is sort of curious how when you first listen to him his style of voice is akin to a nervous crazy person, but he never runs out of breath like a nervous person would, suggesting to me his hesitant style is an act whereas the reality is a kind of robotic calmness.

I still figure the same thing I figured about him shortly after it happened, before it even came out that he went to that elementary school. He was naturally the sort of person who likes to dominate kids by sodomy and torture. He was a first-grader at the same school during Columbine, and probably quite enjoyed thoughts at that time of shooting his classmates, as the Columbine shootings likely suggested to him was something he might want. As typical with serial killers, he never got that people such as him naturally commit violence to terrify for control rather than to kill, but a part of him as he grew older probably was telling himself his fantasies were off, and so he never was able to fantasize about murder with as much pleasure as he did when he was in the first grade, and so he decided to try to relive the fantasy he had had in the first grade. Presumably he was disappointed, considering he killed himself (though cowardice might also have caused him to kill himself).

From digital evidence report: "Instant Message history with SixteenBitElder "The Stranger" and "Smiggles" (presumably the shooter) from December 2010-February 2011. Discussion that focuses on gaming, homosexual fantasies, and day to day activities."

Is this instant message history available? Might it not give some insight into the motives of the killer?

I don't feel sorry for him. Maybe he had the obvious self-serving reason to be a loner, namely that he didn't want people to sense that he was a natural child predator whose favorite fantasy was randomly murdering first-graders. If he had understood his sodomizing nature a little better, he probably would have been a serial killer (who generally sodomize their victims while torturing them to death) rather than a spree killer, and if he had understood them a bit more than that, he'd likely have been a typical sodomizing physically abusive rapist (at least if he had been stronger).

Another possibility is that he was a zombie slave of some worse person, but mostly I doubt it. Still, being such a zombie slave can delude a person enough to turn him from a sodomizing rapist to a mass murderer, so it's not necessarily an either-or thing.; 1/16/14, 5:35 PM
mccullough said...: What sort of help would have worked for him?; 1/16/14, 5:44 PM
Paul said...: So this degenerate himself cut his balls off cause of what he considered a 'degenerate capitalist system in a 'commodification' of sexuality.

Yea right. Well that may be HIS view of what happened but I fell he was just a messed up kid who made a slip with his parring knife and he just could not get over the fact his ying would never yang.; 1/16/14, 7:04 PM
Mitch H. said...: Why didn't people help him?

One of the people in my Tuesday night dinner circle is a social worker at a halfway house in the county. She usually has hair-raising stories about her clients/patients, but this week's damn near severed my scalp. She was talking about one patient who she was worried was going to try to burn her as a witch. This is almost plausible because she's some sort of neo-pagan, and I asked how the heck they had heard that much about her personal life, which obviously could be a serious hot-button issue. Oh, I was told, they hadn't - the patient was in the midst of a serious psychotic break and accused her out of the blue of "talking to demons" in front of him. Then we discussed why he hadn't been committed, and was still in the halfway house facility - apparently in Pennsylvania, it takes a directed threat of violence, without any conditional statements, to provide cause for a commitment. Simple menacing, or vague talk about violence, or even a "if she doesn't stop doing [X], I'm gonna kill her!" isn't sufficient, apparently.; 1/17/14, 9:19 AM
TMink said...: The Reagan administration limited the ability of mental health workers or the state to put people in long term psychiatric custody. Thus, poor, ill people like Adam and the increase in the homeless population. From my perspective, it is a sticky situation as we are a free nation and still some people are not able to manage their lives themselves.

Trey; 1/17/14, 2:02 PM
TMink said...: You know, kids his age tend to keep things hidden from their parents. Is it too much to assume that Adam did too? I am a big 2nd amendment guy, but I completely agree that his deceased mother should have eschewed firearms for the safety of herself, her son, and the community.

Trey; 1/17/14, 2:05 PM