Breivik: The Moral Dilemma

[Imperium Sidhicum]

I gather that we have very different concepts of justice.

Yes, my idea is upholding fundamental human rights and defending the people. Yours seems to be to torture and leave to be raped and murdered anyone who ends up on the wrong side of the law.

Pretty much. I don't hold much faith in human rights or their fundamentality. Might makes right, and whoever has the might decides what is right.

As for defending the people, is there really that big of a difference whether a murderer is kept from murdering by being locked up or just killed? And if killed, does it really matter whether it's done in a state-sanctioned execution, or by his own ilk after they've had their way with him? Fact of the matter is, he won't be killing anyone again, which is kind of the whole point of punishing him one way or another.

[Wallenburg]

Pretty much. I don't hold much faith in human rights or their fundamentality.

You won't find many friends here. Or anywhere. People tend to like having rights. I imagine you do.

Might makes right, and whoever has the might decides what is right.

No. Just no. Besides, if might makes right, murderers are obviously in the right, since they have the might to overcome others and take away their lives.

As for defending the people, is there really that big of a difference whether a murderer is kept from murdering by being locked up or just killed? And if killed, does it really matter whether it's done in a state-sanctioned execution, or by his own ilk after they've had their way with him? Fact of the matter is, he won't be killing anyone again, which is kind of the whole point of punishing him one way or another.

Yes, there's a big fucking difference.

[Risottia]

Yes, my idea is upholding fundamental human rights and defending the people. Yours seems to be to torture and leave to be raped and murdered anyone who ends up on the wrong side of the law.

Pretty much. I don't hold much faith in human rights or their fundamentality. Might makes right, and whoever has the might decides what is right.

Try besting the the combined might of the Norwegian people who do hold human rights to be fundamental, then.


As for the bit about the difference between life in jail and a death sentence, the difference is the severity of the violence involved. Locking someone up is a less severe form of violence than killing him, and both would reach exactly the same end, which is preventing him from committing a crime again.

[Gravlen]

Probably. You're most likely owed a sheep and one metric ton of lutfisk. You know, to have sex upon.

We'll take the sheep!

Just... Be gentle

[Fartsniffage]

I live in a place where about half the places are named for Viking raiding. I think Scandinavia owes us reparations.

Probably. You're most likely owed a sheep and one metric ton of lutfisk. You know, to have sex upon.

Sex on a bed of lye? Kinky...

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Pretty much. I don't hold much faith in human rights or their fundamentality. Might makes right, and whoever has the might decides what is right.

Try besting the the combined might of the Norwegian people who do hold human rights to be fundamental, then.


As for the bit about the difference between life in jail and a death sentence, the difference is the severity of the violence involved. Locking someone up is a less severe form of violence than killing him, and both would reach exactly the same end, which is preventing him from committing a crime again.

Correct. Norwegian people, or more accurately, the Norwegian government has the might, hence making them right, at least as far as their own country is concerned.

As for the severity of violence involved in punishment, I suppose that's largely a matter of preference. Personally, I prefer the more permanent solutions. Preferably ones that make a spectacular example. But again, it's a matter of taste, really...

Pretty much. I don't hold much faith in human rights or their fundamentality.

You won't find many friends here. Or anywhere. People tend to like having rights. I imagine you do.

Might makes right, and whoever has the might decides what is right.

No. Just no. Besides, if might makes right, murderers are obviously in the right, since they have the might to overcome others and take away their lives.

As for defending the people, is there really that big of a difference whether a murderer is kept from murdering by being locked up or just killed? And if killed, does it really matter whether it's done in a state-sanctioned execution, or by his own ilk after they've had their way with him? Fact of the matter is, he won't be killing anyone again, which is kind of the whole point of punishing him one way or another.

Yes, there's a big fucking difference.

Sure, I don't mind having rights. At the same time, I'm also being realistic about them - I don't see them as something that I am somehow inherently entitled to or deserving of, but merely as certain privileges that my government has deemed it necessary to grace me with, and could just as easily take away, should the fancy take them. They have the might, and I don't, hence they will always be right regardless of what I have to say about it.

As far as the interaction between a murderer and a victim is concerned, the murderer is indeed right by default, because he, and not the victim commands the power to take life. "Because murder is illegal" is no indicator of the victim's actual right to live, and has never kept murderers from killing, because it is the murderer, there and then, and not some bureaucrat away in his comfy office, who get to decide whether the victim lives or dies.

The victim can either accept that and be murdered, or fight back in an effort to sway the power dynamic in his favour, incapacitating or killing his assailant, thus asserting his own might and therefore his right to live.

It all ultimately boils down to whoever holds more firepower, more potential to extinguish life. A national government will obviously command more firepower than any individual, or even any sub-national group of individuals - which hence empowers them to decide what is right. As we can see from the examples of failed Third World states, governments that lack the firepower to enforce their will are non-entities, their authority being claimed by someone else, people with the necessary might to make right.

[Coalition of Minor Planets]

Evil genius? Definitely no

Lonely attention whore? Yes

[Zoice]

The phrase "might makes right" is a seriously pungent relativistic pipe of bullshit.

[Minoa]

Norwegians do not seem to give up hope on rehabilitating even the hardest offenders like Breivik.

Not only that.

The whole point of jailing people is that, until you are reasonably sure they're not more likely to commit crimes than the average citizen is, they have to be removed from society.
There's no need to add useless violence or discomfort to that. I just have to keep them away from society. Giving them a dirty, small cell isn't going to make them safer than a wide, clean cell.

I concur on this: What on earth is my country thinking?

[Kelinfort]

Breivik is just an attention whore with plenty of free time on his hands, and the lenient Norwegian prison system just facilitates his attention whoring, that's all.

Too bad they can't send him to a Russian maximum-security prison for proper reeducation though. Instead of his personal luxury suite with internet access, TV and Xbox among other things, he'd get a barely-heated 2-by-4 cell with only a bed and a bucket to shit in, a 23-hour lockup time, two meals of thin soup that tastes worse than piss every day, be forbidden from sitting on the bed from 0800 to 1700, and a good beating from the guards whenever he as much as utters a sound without first being spoken to. Or a larger cell with a 200-pound murderer and cannibal named Kolya for company, who would doubtfully be deterred by his excuses of not being gay.

While that feels...satisfying, I don't think it would actually do that much in terms of families coming to peace with what happened.

If anything, send him to Gitmo.

[Gauthier]

The phrase "might makes right" is a seriously pungent relativistic pipe of bullshit.

It's also indicative of a power trip fantasy where someone imagines themselves holding the power. Like how people who demand a return to feudalism never imagine themselves being the serfs.

[Wallenburg]

Sure, I don't mind having rights. At the same time, I'm also being realistic about them - I don't see them as something that I am somehow inherently entitled to or deserving of, but merely as certain privileges that my government has deemed it necessary to grace me with, and could just as easily take away, should the fancy take them. They have the might, and I don't, hence they will always be right regardless of what I have to say about it.

So a liberal democracy like Sweden is as good and just as a psychotic dictatorship like North Korea? I refuse to believe that bullshit.

As far as the interaction between a murderer and a victim is concerned, the murderer is indeed right by default, because he, and not the victim commands the power to take life. "Because murder is illegal" is no indicator of the victim's actual right to live, and has never kept murderers from killing, because it is the murderer, there and then, and not some bureaucrat away in his comfy office, who get to decide whether the victim lives or dies.

If the murderer is always right, why do we have laws against murder?

The victim can either accept that and be murdered, or fight back in an effort to sway the power dynamic in his favour, incapacitating or killing his assailant, thus asserting his own might and therefore his right to live.

Victim blaming.

It all ultimately boils down to whoever holds more firepower, more potential to extinguish life. A national government will obviously command more firepower than any individual, or even any sub-national group of individuals - which hence empowers them to decide what is right. As we can see from the examples of failed Third World states, governments that lack the firepower to enforce their will are non-entities, their authority being claimed by someone else, people with the necessary might to make right.

That sort of thinking worked in the Bronze Age. We've come a long way from calling genocidal maniacs good people.

[Ifreann]

It's fun to see people get to know Imperial Sidhicum.

[Dahon]

Yes and no. For one thing, I've read of his like before -- for the other, I've never read someone state his contempt for human rights so bluntly, or indeed volunteer so enthusiastically to discard the laws so as to slake his bloodthirst.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Sure, I don't mind having rights. At the same time, I'm also being realistic about them - I don't see them as something that I am somehow inherently entitled to or deserving of, but merely as certain privileges that my government has deemed it necessary to grace me with, and could just as easily take away, should the fancy take them. They have the might, and I don't, hence they will always be right regardless of what I have to say about it.

So a liberal democracy like Sweden is as good and just as a psychotic dictatorship like North Korea? I refuse to believe that bullshit.

As far as the interaction between a murderer and a victim is concerned, the murderer is indeed right by default, because he, and not the victim commands the power to take life. "Because murder is illegal" is no indicator of the victim's actual right to live, and has never kept murderers from killing, because it is the murderer, there and then, and not some bureaucrat away in his comfy office, who get to decide whether the victim lives or dies.

If the murderer is always right, why do we have laws against murder?

The victim can either accept that and be murdered, or fight back in an effort to sway the power dynamic in his favour, incapacitating or killing his assailant, thus asserting his own might and therefore his right to live.

Victim blaming.

It all ultimately boils down to whoever holds more firepower, more potential to extinguish life. A national government will obviously command more firepower than any individual, or even any sub-national group of individuals - which hence empowers them to decide what is right. As we can see from the examples of failed Third World states, governments that lack the firepower to enforce their will are non-entities, their authority being claimed by someone else, people with the necessary might to make right.

That sort of thinking worked in the Bronze Age. We've come a long way from calling genocidal maniacs good people.

Not sure why you mention a comparison between Sweden and North Korea. While objectively very different in terms of living and civil rights standards, both of them work on the same fundamental principle - by asserting might (the credible threat of deadly force) over a certain territory. In both of these nations, civil rights are enforced (or suppressed) by the same means - by a credible threat of deadly force, or might. A Swede is confident in his rights not being violated because there's a national police force that will relentlessly pursue any violator, killing him if necessary, and punish him for his misdeeds. Likewise, a North Korean is equally confident that he will be hunted down by the authorities and executed or thrown in a labour camp if he speaks out against the official Party line. Both the Swede and the North Korean know that the authorities outgun him by a factor of thousands against one, and hence feel compelled to obey them, fearing their safety for failure to. That is how might makes right.

---

The reason society has laws against murder is because killing a functional and productive member of society is clearly counter-productive to society's interests, i.e., collective survival and well-being. By carrying out an unjustified killing, the murderer becomes a threat to those interests, and must hence be removed immediately - preferably permanently. Which is why murder has historically been a capital crime pretty much everywhere. The moral value attached to murder is really but a product of pragmatic self-interest of society, i.e., murder is bad because it reduces the chances of collective survival and well-being, not because murder is bad in itself.

Since the notion of right derives from credible threat of violence, i.e., the ability to enforce one's will, to compel others to do something under credible threat of death, a murderer is in principle "right" at the moment of the act, there being no higher authority that could offer a sufficiently credible threat of death to deter him at the moment (or at least one that he would sufficiently care about). Which is why it falls to the victim to become that authority, and either accept his victimhood and die, or fight back, offer resistence and assert his own might to stop the assailant.

---

You can clap and accuse me of victim blaming all you want, but that don't change the fact. A lot of people would still be alive and otherwise unharmed if they had just made the deliberate choice to fight back, to counter the might of their assailant and become survivors, not victims. The wonderful thing about "might makes right" is that it works both ways.

You can, of course, deny that by claiming that it is your inalienable human rights that make you entitled to live, and as long as the state you live in grants you those rights, the authorities are doing their job, and the phones are working, that may be objectively true. But what if it isn't? What if you come face to face with an adversary hell-bent on harming you, and there is nowhere to run, nobody to scream for help to, no way of calling the cops? Worse still, if it's actually the cops/authorities looking to harm you? Who's going to protect your supposed rights then, other than yourself?

In such a scenario you have few options. You can try to reason with your assailant, appeal to your supposed rights, get on your knees and beg for mercy in hopes of catching him in a charitable mood - which is extremely unlikely, given how he wouldn't have picked to hurt you if he was feeling charitable in the first place. Or you can fight back, show the worthless scum-sucking lowlife that you actually believe in it being your right to live, demonstrate that you are willing to do anything it takes to assert that right, up to and including killing your attacker. Yes, you will get hurt, and yes, there's a chance you will die, but in the absence of anyone else putting their lives and limbs at risk for your right, it falls upon you to assert it, or at least die trying.

---

You also make the mistake of assuming that the principle of might making right was exclusive to Bronze Age, and presumably the ages before it. As I already explained in my first example, modern states maintain their authority and integrity by the exact same fundamental means - coercion through a credible threat of deadly force. It does not mean this force is necessarily used to deadly effect, or that it is indeed used at all - merely that this threat of force is present at all times and credible.

Ask yourself, why are criminals really being put in prison? The most straightforward and obvious answer is "to punish them", "to remove threats from society", right? These answers are objectively true. However, another thing these actions accomplish is making an example, demonstrating the might of the state to the common rabble. It is basically sending a message "do as you are told, or we will do to you as we did to this guy". It's maintaining the credibility of their might, their threat of force.

This fundamental principle of might making right is so omnipresent that I find it hard to believe so few ever notices just how common it is. From a wasp informing a potential predator about it's venomousness with it's colors, to a state deterring another state with the threat of mutually assured destruction, with everything in between.

[Jamzmania]

This guy probably lives better in prison than he did on the outside.

[Ifreann]

This guy probably lives better in prison than he did on the outside.

There is no possible way that could be true. In fact, I don't think you even believe that, or at least you wouldn't believe it if you thought about it for any amount of time.

[Khadgar]

This guy probably lives better in prison than he did on the outside.

There is no possible way that could be true. In fact, I don't think you even believe that, or at least you wouldn't believe it if you thought about it for any amount of time.

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

[Wallenburg]

There is no possible way that could be true. In fact, I don't think you even believe that, or at least you wouldn't believe it if you thought about it for any amount of time.

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

Are you talking about a stereotypical gamer's basement?

[Zoice]

So a liberal democracy like Sweden is as good and just as a psychotic dictatorship like North Korea? I refuse to believe that bullshit.

If the murderer is always right, why do we have laws against murder?

Victim blaming.

That sort of thinking worked in the Bronze Age. We've come a long way from calling genocidal maniacs good people.

Not sure why you mention a comparison between Sweden and North Korea. While objectively very different in terms of living and civil rights standards, both of them work on the same fundamental principle - by asserting might (the credible threat of deadly force) over a certain territory. In both of these nations, civil rights are enforced (or suppressed) by the same means - by a credible threat of deadly force, or might. A Swede is confident in his rights not being violated because there's a national police force that will relentlessly pursue any violator, killing him if necessary, and punish him for his misdeeds. Likewise, a North Korean is equally confident that he will be hunted down by the authorities and executed or thrown in a labour camp if he speaks out against the official Party line. Both the Swede and the North Korean know that the authorities outgun him by a factor of thousands against one, and hence feel compelled to obey them, fearing their safety for failure to. That is how might makes right.

---

The reason society has laws against murder is because killing a functional and productive member of society is clearly counter-productive to society's interests, i.e., collective survival and well-being. By carrying out an unjustified killing, the murderer becomes a threat to those interests, and must hence be removed immediately - preferably permanently. Which is why murder has historically been a capital crime pretty much everywhere. The moral value attached to murder is really but a product of pragmatic self-interest of society, i.e., murder is bad because it reduces the chances of collective survival and well-being, not because murder is bad in itself.

Since the notion of right derives from credible threat of violence, i.e., the ability to enforce one's will, to compel others to do something under credible threat of death, a murderer is in principle "right" at the moment of the act, there being no higher authority that could offer a sufficiently credible threat of death to deter him at the moment (or at least one that he would sufficiently care about). Which is why it falls to the victim to become that authority, and either accept his victimhood and die, or fight back, offer resistence and assert his own might to stop the assailant.

---

You can clap and accuse me of victim blaming all you want, but that don't change the fact. A lot of people would still be alive and otherwise unharmed if they had just made the deliberate choice to fight back, to counter the might of their assailant and become survivors, not victims. The wonderful thing about "might makes right" is that it works both ways.

You can, of course, deny that by claiming that it is your inalienable human rights that make you entitled to live, and as long as the state you live in grants you those rights, the authorities are doing their job, and the phones are working, that may be objectively true. But what if it isn't? What if you come face to face with an adversary hell-bent on harming you, and there is nowhere to run, nobody to scream for help to, no way of calling the cops? Worse still, if it's actually the cops/authorities looking to harm you? Who's going to protect your supposed rights then, other than yourself?

In such a scenario you have few options. You can try to reason with your assailant, appeal to your supposed rights, get on your knees and beg for mercy in hopes of catching him in a charitable mood - which is extremely unlikely, given how he wouldn't have picked to hurt you if he was feeling charitable in the first place. Or you can fight back, show the worthless scum-sucking lowlife that you actually believe in it being your right to live, demonstrate that you are willing to do anything it takes to assert that right, up to and including killing your attacker. Yes, you will get hurt, and yes, there's a chance you will die, but in the absence of anyone else putting their lives and limbs at risk for your right, it falls upon you to assert it, or at least die trying.

---

You also make the mistake of assuming that the principle of might making right was exclusive to Bronze Age, and presumably the ages before it. As I already explained in my first example, modern states maintain their authority and integrity by the exact same fundamental means - coercion through a credible threat of deadly force. It does not mean this force is necessarily used to deadly effect, or that it is indeed used at all - merely that this threat of force is present at all times and credible.

Ask yourself, why are criminals really being put in prison? The most straightforward and obvious answer is "to punish them", "to remove threats from society", right? These answers are objectively true. However, another thing these actions accomplish is making an example, demonstrating the might of the state to the common rabble. It is basically sending a message "do as you are told, or we will do to you as we did to this guy". It's maintaining the credibility of their might, their threat of force.

This fundamental principle of might making right is so omnipresent that I find it hard to believe so few ever notices just how common it is. From a wasp informing a potential predator about it's venomousness with it's colors, to a state deterring another state with the threat of mutually assured destruction, with everything in between.

I think there's some confusion here. No one is disagreeing that "might makes possible". But possible isn't the same as right.

[Jamzmania]

There is no possible way that could be true. In fact, I don't think you even believe that, or at least you wouldn't believe it if you thought about it for any amount of time.

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

Is he not living in a 3 room suite with video games, TV, a kitchen, a computer, a typewriter, etc.?

I suppose it depends on how poorly he was doing on the outside.

[Dooom35796821595]

There is no possible way that could be true. In fact, I don't think you even believe that, or at least you wouldn't believe it if you thought about it for any amount of time.

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

Sounds like the conservatives vision of how the poor should live.

[Wallenburg]

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

Is he not living in a 3 room suite with video games, TV, a kitchen, a computer, a typewriter, etc.?

I suppose it depends on how poorly he was doing on the outside.

It isn't a "suite", but it has those things. Maybe not the kitchen.

[Ifreann]

There is no possible way that could be true. In fact, I don't think you even believe that, or at least you wouldn't believe it if you thought about it for any amount of time.

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

I know that's what I'd buy if I won the lottery.

---

Living in a 2mX3m concrete box off of shit food with no social interaction is fucking paradise Iffy.

Is he not living in a 3 room suite with video games, TV, a kitchen, a computer, a typewriter, etc.?

It's not a three room suite like he's being put up in the fucking Hilton. It's three cells. One he sleeps in, one he exercises in, and one he "works" in. Because he's being isolated from just about everyone, lest they try to murder him.

I suppose it depends on how poorly he was doing on the outside.

Obviously he bought his gun and ammo and the shit he made his bomb with using pennies he found on the street, because he was living in cardboard box.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

I think there's some confusion here. No one is disagreeing that "might makes possible". But possible isn't the same as right.

Yet the definition of "right" is always decided by those with the possibilities, i.e., might.

From a legal standpoint, "right" is whatever the law of the land says it is, correct? But in order for laws to be binding, there must be a credible deterrent against breaking the law. There must in fact be a credible threat of retaliation from any group for it to even be recognized as an authority capable of issuing laws. Any legal rights require the credible possibility of retaliation in order to be valid and binding, or they are just wet paper, hence my argument that might makes right.

Same is true from a moral standpoint - moral "right" is also usually decided by those with the means to impose sanctions upon violators. The moral codes of modern societies, while widespread and commonplace now, were once actually all written by a relatively small number of people, who had the means to convince enough followers of their validity to gain power to physically enforce their moral codes.

Hence I fail to see there being any objective "right", moral or legal, outside codes of law and faith that the might of a few makes.

Now as to subjective "right", that's a whole different matter.