I was responding to someone who said specifically that "fossil fuels only get more expensive," a statement that is demonstrably false. If you don't like oil as a specific, take natgas or coal. My statement is equally valid for either of them.
See the other discussion in this thread that I'm involved in. I see no evidence that either terrorist was ever diagnosed with a mental illness that would substantively change the facts. At least one was specifically cleared as competent. Merely being disaffected, unhappy, or down on your luck does not make you mentally ill. Likewise, neither does participating in unpopular behavior--in this case terrorism--necessitate mental illness.
Try this on for size [montrealgazette.com] (there's more).
It appears that at least some of the information in this article is factually incorrect and has been superseded--notably regarding Bibeau-Zihaf's conversion. Beyond that, you have some theorists who never met--and have no firsthand knowledge of--the two terrorists (viz. "This is my hypothesis, as I am not saying with certainty that these two young men were seized by this pathology, but the theory that emerges the most strongly is that these two young men — the both of them — were suffering from a severe lack of identify"). They're engaging in pure speculation that doesn't really change any of the facts.
... you can switch Islam with anti-abortionists bombing clinics, the Branch Davidians at Waco, Timothy McVeigh against "the gubbermint" over Waco, Hindu Inderjit Singh Reyat bombing Air India flight 182, Protestants vs Catholics in Northern Ireland, and pretty much some members of any disaffected group will be attracted to violence. The recent violence in the US over police shooting blacks does not have its' roots in religion.
This is the best thing you've written! You're absolutely correct. I wholeheartedly and without any reservations condemn violent anti-abortion activists and ideology. I condemn the Branch Davidians and their ideology. I condemn Timothy McVeigh and his ideology. And so on. Why do you find it so hard to condemn militant Islam and instead pretend that it is merely an aberration bought into by a few mentally unwell individuals?
It's an extremely easy cop out to explain away unpopular behavior as merely being the result of mental illness. Most of the time it's also incorrect.
As an areligious bastard, it seems to me that anybody who cares enough about religion to convert "isn't in his [or her!] right mind."
Both of the people were mentally ill. Bibeau, the homeless Ottawa killer, had a history of violence, drug addiction, and mental instability, including 12 convictions in Quebec between 2001 and 2011 for crimes including drug possession, impaired driving, weapons offences, assault causing bodily harm, theft, and possession of break-in tools, which started long before he converted to islam.
Mentally ill by what standards? You (or others) didn't like the way he acted? I can find no evidence of any clinical diagnosis of any mental illness for Bibeau-Zehaf, though he was a convert (though his father was Muslim and Libyan). Your claim is that despite his Islamic family heritage, despite the fact that he had converted to Islam for "all the wrong reasons" over decade ago, and despite the fact that he had family members fighting for jihad abroad, he was was just misguided due to some previously non-diagnosed mental illness or possible drug use? That does not seem logical to me.
Rouleau, the Quebec killer, had been taken to a psychiatric hospital by his father, but they couldn't keep him when he said he wanted to leave. He had drug problems, had to be in a special school for kids with discipline problems when he was younger, his personal life had fallen apart, his business had failed and last year at 24 he turned to islam, looking for something to cling to where he wouldn't feel like an inadequate failure, and was attracted to the extremists on the net and in the media.
Your argument for Rouleau is perhaps more apt, since you avoid the unverifiable claims of mental illness, but you make a huge error. You assume that converting to a new faith due to some kind of adversity is "all the wrong reasons" and implies (or infers) metal illness! I think you are perhaps not very clear on how religions tend to start and spread. Founders, missionaries, and other zealots always target the margins of society. Look at who Jesus hung out with--the disaffected. Look at who Muhammad hung out with--those whose power was distinct from the dominant tribal structures (and look at how he targeted the weaker Jewish clans after several military setbacks). Look at Buddha and his life as an ascetic. Look St Francis. Look at how both Christianity and Islam spread in South Asia--starting from the dalits--the disaffected. Almost universally, the most powerful religious symbols, figures, and acts, involve those who are somehow disaffected. To trivialize this is a huge mistake.
That brings us to today. Despite what you might want to believe, Muslim belief in what we in the West would call "militant Islamism" is pretty darn popular and pretty widespread. There are many opinion polls covering Islamicate countries across the world that back this up. There is a strong militant missionary movement. Giving the religion/ideology a pass and writing off incident after incident as "merely" a lone wolf makes absolutely no sense.
Most people are able to make the distinction between a nutbar using a religion as a smokescreen to their using violence to escape their own failures or shortcomings, and the majority who peacefully practice that same religion. This applies equally to muslims, christians, atheists, or whatever your personal preference or poison.
I disagree with this incredibly strongly. Religion, ideology, and violence are so tightly intertwined they almost cannot be decoupled. Today, Islam clearly holds a siren's song appeal to some disaffected members of society. You give the religion/ideology a complete pass. Have you not considered that the religion/ideology places a major role in motivating these individuals to commit their heinous actions?
Nice of you to be able to speak for the adherents of other religions and to blindly through the "mentally ill" label around. I daresay that might earn you the label of orientalist.
Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada
