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So the Somali who murdered a woman in London might be a jihadi after all… Gosh who ever would have thought? Trouble is, as the authorities pretty much everywhere seem so keen to banish the very notion that any Muslim who murders someone is motivated by Islam, it is now impossible to believe anything the police say. Yes he may be a nutter, but that does not actually change anything if said nutter was motivated to act on his nuttiness by Islamic notions.
This now means any genuine non-sectarian violence by a Muslim will be assumed to be sectarian by the general public regardless of the facts, and regardless of that the authorities say. And those authorities have only themselves to blame, because they have been misleading or just outright lied so often nothing they they say is credible any more. And that is a great pity. Maybe he was indeed just a common or garden variety nutter (the linked article is hardly conclusive), but I doubt many people actually think that is the case, and that includes me.
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I posted this on Harry’s Place earlier today. But I would just add that what makes me REALLY suspicious when the ‘mental’ excuse is trotted out is the rather odd delay that allows as much embarrassing social media evidence to be scrubbed. In this instance it seems the guy was removed from social media. If that is true I wonder why???
This has now joined ‘not a real muslim’ as the new go-to excuse. They’re often combined, as in, “He wasn’t a real muslim, and clearly had mental health issues.” It’s getting on a par with, “The Koran is God’s word because it tells you so in the Koran.”
But putting to one side the unconscious use of the ‘No true Scotsman’ logical fallacy, and the viscous slander of the mentally ill, it really must be pointed out that it is a remarkable coincidence that so many people who are not muslim or sane choose to kill others in the name of one particular God.
Let’s take the ‘insane/wicked’ theory at face value. We have a mentally ill, or socially dysfunctional drinking, smoking, whoring scumbag with a deep-seated desire to murder/suicide. They look around and say, “I want to kill innocents in the name of something but, blow me down, the Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Zoroastrians all say that they’ll damn me if I do. What am I to do?”
Luckily there is one faith that offers huge rewards, praise, benefits and everlasting peace from the slaughter of innocents.
Its instructive to compare and contrast the immediate reaction here (‘mentally ill man runs amok, definitely NOT terror attack or anything to do with Islam’) to that in the immediate aftermath of the Jo Cox killing (‘Brexit/Racist UKIP campaign made man kill MP’). In both cases the assailant may or may not be mentally ill, lets assume both are. In one case the ideas that tipped the killer over the edge are considered to bear no blame whatsoever for his actions, in the other the ideas are entirely to blame to the extent that one should reject those ideas entirely.
And they think we can’t see the hands behind the curtain? Can they not see that they are now into counterproductive territory with the lies and constant exhortations that Islam has nothing to do with the rising body count?
Excellent point, Jim.
In the case of Jo Cox’ killer, it swiftly emerged that he had been treated for mental health issues and had gone to a medical facility to request anti-depressants the night before. In the case of the Norwegian-Somali, I’ve yet to see any such specific details (I could have missed them, of course), just repeated emphatic assertions that it was “mental health, nothing to do with islam”. This narrative is now fraying, with both social media and a neighbour indicating otherwise.
In other news, “The Boy who cried Wolf” has been withdrawn from libraries as it is triggering and fails to address how the boy’s lack of community facilities led to his becoming bored with his job. A new text – “The boy who denied it was wolves” – replaces it.
Put another way, if “genuine non-sectarian violence by a Muslim” is statistically outweighed, at least as regards news-grabbing items, by sectarian violence , then the boy loses little by crying “no wolf, nothing to do with wolves” every time. That sceptics among the public will therefore believe that all dead sheep died at the hands of wolves matters little if most (that get reported) did in fact do so. If our leaders were logical, this would be the rational deduction from their behaviour.
And they think we can’t see the hands behind the curtain?
Perhaps they really do think that. Perhaps we are dealing with a generation of senior politicians and public sector apparatchiks who don’t understand that the old media age has ended, and that they can no longer control public opinion by putting the right spin in a few national publications. They may still believe that they can manufacture reality to order, like Tony Blair appeared to do at the height of his popularity. But it was an illusion then and it’s a delusion now. The longer they cling to it the more they will destroy their own credibility, and if their goal is to avoid provoking alarm or hostility towards Islam then they are already a hundred miles into “counterproductive territory” and accelerating fast.
Anyway, there’s a lot of mentally ill people about. But somehow most of the ones who turn to slaughter just happen to be Islamic.
Similarly, there are lot of people around who are on drugs, whether recreational or anti-depressants. An awful, awful lot. Despite this, pace Peter Hitchens, most of the drug-takers who end up murdering people are the Islamic ones.
As soon as the Mayor announced he was cutting short his Mediterranean holiday, which he had only just started, to come back to London, I knew this guy must be more than a random nutter.
He just happened to murder an American and wound an Israeli – striking out “at random” according to the P.C. police )(literally the P.C. police.
Cal, lately I have been thinking very much along the lines of Stuck-record’s explanation posted here earlier:
Shall I go further? Stuck-record is right but it is deeper than that. Murder of the innocents is a form of atonement for the drinking, smoking, drugs, casual sex, not going to mosque etc. It is doing the ultimate plea bargain with Allah. Slate wiped clean and dark eyed houris for all eternity. That is what “radicalises”. It is a self-starter. It is like a Christian who has been a “bad Christian” going off and helping the disabled or doing missionary stuff or whatever. I believe that is exactly how these terrorists see it. I seem to recall the 9/11 mob partied in nightclubs beforehand. Why not sin if you are going to do something that absolves all sins? There is a twisted logic.
The conundrum for all libertarians- how do you protect yourself from the garden variety “nutters”, assholes and typical criminals preying upon society? How do you protect yourself from individual and also ideologically sponsored terrorists? And how do you protect yourself from state sponsored (read N. Korean, Chinese or Putin leveraged violations of rights and national sovereignty? ) If the system of Liberty can’t deal with all these-WE’RE SCREWED !
How is this a conundrum, gongcult, and why couldn’t the system of Liberty (which is not what we have now) deal with all these?
I am a minarchist rather than an anarchist for more or less that reason, gongcult. It is also why I prefer a population that is not disarmed by the state.
Stateless society = private road ownership
Private road ownership = right to deny access
One of the factors in profitable private road ownership = safety
=> Private road owners have every incentive to deny access to dangerous nutters.
After reading all of Tom Szasz, I find it mind-boggling that people still use the term “mental illness” as an explanation for any behavior rather than trying to determine this murderer’s real motive. Because your behavior changes if you take powerful drugs does not mean you have a disease. You may just be evil. Giving you drugs and hoping you behave better solves nothing.
According to this BBC report Zakaria Bulhan has been remanded in custody, not sectioned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36995550
“How do you protect yourself . . . ”
I’ve sort of fallen into a new fun hobby.
I buy, via the internet, maybe $400-$600 worth of various parts.
I sit down to watch television at night with these parts strewn out before me, mixed in with several simple tools.
Three hours later, I have this cool, customized toy sitting in front of me, built out of those parts. Each time I do this, I have intended that this new toy be my own, for my own use, but when I take it out in public to play with it, people express eagerness to give me $700-$1500 in exchange for it, depending on what features I have included in the build.
So, that, I think, is how SOME people handle that “protect yourself” issue.
A quick google of the knife murders in London this August lead me to think there have been five deaths so far in August.
Peckham, NewCross, Wandsworth, Kilburn,
and of course, Russel Square. The fellow in Peckham was particually sad, as by some accounts he was a talented rapper.
The Mayor of London returns to London early from his holiday for the Russel Square murder.
Mystery!
Sadiq Khan likes to make a thing of ostentatiously cutting short his holidays.
Strictly speaking, since when is someone who murders a “loved one” because of one’s preternatural religious convictions NOT a nutjob?
Entertaining ideas of what MIGHT be possible is one thing. It can even be philosophical.
Murdering people over what you’re convinced an invisible spirit thinks….is loony.
‘Nothing short of cult-think in action.
Patrick Crozier wrote,
But, but, but…EQUALITY! Think of the children.
Isn’t everyone entitled to everything?
I have a right to everything I want! (LOL)