|
|
|
James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
 Posted - 06/13/2001 : 08:08:27 [Permalink]
|
We would have never been happy with wherever they put him, wouldn't we? Most everyone wanted him dead, but then there are those who say he'll become a martyr. If he was put in maximum security prison for 5 billion life terms, some say he would have written a couple of books. AARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!
IMO, the punishment shoulda fit the crime. McVeigh should've been put on about the 10th story of a 12 story building(or how ever big the building was) and then blown up using the same kind of bomb he used. Would have been perfect justice, IMO. 
"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." -Master Yoda |
 |
|
|
Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 08:27:15 [Permalink]
|
quote:
IMO, the punishment shoulda fit the crime. McVeigh should've been put on about the 10th story of a 12 story building(or how ever big the building was) and then blown up using the same kind of bomb he used. Would have been perfect justice, IMO.
Nah, we should have just put a bullet in the back of his head as he laid face down in the unmarked grave he just finished digging himself. That's about all the money I'd want to spend on him (the cost of the bullet).
I'm not at all in support of the death penalty in our current form, but when the evidence is overwhelming, along with a confession, why waste time and money?
------------
Gambatte kudasai! |
|
|
|
James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 09:28:47 [Permalink]
|
Shooting him straight up would have been to easy on his ass. I agree that we should've shot him, but only if he had survived the blast.
Let him feel what it's like to go through a blast like that and what everyone he killed felt when it happened.
"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." -Master Yoda |
|
|
|
Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
|
|
Piltdown
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 18:30:19 [Permalink]
|
quote:
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20010613/1026564.asp
I guess blaming the victim is still acceptable if the victim is the "US government" and not 168 individuals. Tim had a bad time in the Gulf. So what? There are 40 million veterans in the US, many of whom endured far worse trauma than he did.
"But he said he was emotionally disturbed by his war experiences - including several dangerous near-misses with land mines and mortar shells, and seeing the bodies of Iraqi soldiers lying bloated in the desert, being chewed on by dogs"
I saw this happen to American soldiers in Vietnam; hosing out my Huey to remove blood and other assorted goop was SOP after a dust-off mission. Sometimes it was spattered on the skids and etc. etc. (you've heard it all before). Millions experienced the same thing and didn't become terrorists. I needed counseling and got it. I became a scientist and a teacher, rather than a barbarous criminal.
The pop-culture left is ingenious in blaming the US government for all the evil in the world, givng them a common cause with the wacko neo-nazi right. They have a special license from our real overlords, Hollywood and Madison Avenue, to do it. It won't wash though, the high-profit conspiracy industry and the gun-nut purveyors of neo-nazi garbage like "The Turner Diaries" exploited whatever trauma McVeigh experienced. He needed help but they encouraged his delusions. If anyone shares the blame with him, it is the lying whores of the conspiracy theory industry, not the victim(s).
|
|
|
|
@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 18:34:11 [Permalink]
|
quote:
If anyone shares the blame with him, it is the lying whores of the conspiracy theory industry, not the victim(s).
I agree 100%
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
|
|
|
ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 20:17:03 [Permalink]
|
Actually, McVeigh did not have any reason to wish to stay alive. Killing him put him out of his misery. Lousy people live with lousy people (themselves) 24 hours a day, because they cannot escape themselves (except through mental illness or death). Putting McVeigh to death ended his horrible life.
Look out for the other loonies who will try to avenge his death. On Nightline, some of his old buddies were portrayed and they looked pretty sick. They seemed to have been on his side. I hope that the government keeps this case open for the ones who got away (so far). I do not see how McVeigh could have done this alone. There just had to be accomplices.
ljbrs
Edited by - ljbrs on 06/13/2001 20:20:43 |
|
|
|
rubysue
Skeptic Friend
USA
199 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 20:18:50 [Permalink]
|
Piltdown - Well said!! I couldn't agree with you more. I sincerely hope that Trish and Lisa don't read this editorial; they will quite rightly be completely enraged by it.
A perverted conspiracist's mind (like that of our gratefully departed Timmy) uses an excuse like the "trauma" of the Gulf War to allow his fevered brain to conjure up hate and discontent for something or anything. The target might as well be the US government that trained him or maybe it could be certain Islamic countries or perhaps Israel might become the focus of his animus. Who knows? Reading about our nasty little fiend, it is obvious that he nurtured hate and discontent for all sorts of institutions throughout his life, especially when things didn't go his way. Perhaps he needed help, but as you so rightly point out, he instead fed his brain with the pornography of "The Turner Diaries" and the lies of the conspiracists and goose-stepped his way into complete obsession.
As you also so eloquently state, there are over 40 million veterans in this country who have seen much. much worse and they have not resorted to mass murder to alleviate their "post-traumatic stress syndrome". This editorial and Timmy's friend's comments are a vile affront to the survivors of the Bataan death march or the Battle of the Bulge or Pork Chop Hill or the Tet Offensive, not to mention the Gulf War. There are also many other victims out there who were not part of a military action that have suffered trauma that makes some of these battles seem almost easy in comparison. I sure haven't seen any Auschwitz survivors driving up with fertilizer bombs to blow up the Reichstag, have you?
McVeigh was an absolute yellow-bellied coward who has finally found a useful occupation this week, acting as fertilizer for some piece of poor beknighted ground somewhere.
rubysue
If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
|
|
|
|
rubysue
Skeptic Friend
USA
199 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2001 : 21:52:23 [Permalink]
|
I'm posting to test this to see if it registers (I've made a few posts lately where my odometer didn't seem to turn over - that blue star is hard to get  ) and it did not seem to show up as the last post on the forum.
So, this has nothing to do with the late mass murderer....
rubysue
If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
|
|
|
|
bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2001 : 03:15:05 [Permalink]
|
Aren't people forgetting that often the military is a place where the insane go.
Afterall, when given a choice between a mental home, or being able to go overseas and act our your fantasies of killing people which course of action would the insane person take?
Interesting thing is that many of those who are considered to be great military heros were probably insane.
|
|
|
|
Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2001 : 05:13:38 [Permalink]
|
<>
Where in the ever lovin' blue eyed world did you get such a cockamamie bullcrap notion as this? (Not that I feel strongly about it, mind.)
If you're going to post this sort of claim on a skeptic board, then back it up.
What do you mean by "often"? Is there a higher percentage of 'insane' people in the military than elsewhere? What are your sources?
And just where is this law that gives those individuals about to be sent to 'mental homes' the choice of going into the military instead? (I can see the Recruiters now: "Damn. Slow month. Guess I'd better head to the asylum again.")
And what are your sources on the insanity of military heroes? I'll argue this one case by case if you care to do so, and wager I can find a higher percentage of insane pacifists than military heroes.
And just for the sake of Truth in Advertising, let me reveal a little of my background:
I graduated the U.S. Military Academy in 1984 and spent 9 years on active duty as an officer in the Army with a specialty in Military Intelligence (Counterintelligence as a subspecialty). I have spent 8 years in the U.S. Army Reserves moving between functional areas of Military Intelligence, Psychological Operations, and Civil Affairs.
In my civilian capacity, I have extensive training and experience in security and safety, particularly in healthcare. I am currently the Safety Director of a psychiatric hospital, the population of which is mainly those with controllable/treatable mental illnesses but which also includes those which the media misname the "criminally insane." Not one of these people or the myriad other individuals with mental illnesses that I have met in my positions at other hospitals would make it past the first five minutes of screening if they tried to join the military.
Not once in my years in the military have I met one soldier who lasted more than a few months who relished the idea of "going overseas and killing people." The military does not encourage this attitude nor desire it. As a whole, the people in the military are more likely than nearly any other group to disdain violence; they are in fact usually the last to advocate warfare. It should be no other way. The thing that sets them apart is they recognize that violence is at times unavoidable, and they are willing to set aside personal reservations and be the instruments of this distasteful act. All in the belief that if violence must be used, then better it is used in a controlled fashion and implemented by those professionally trained in its application and whose most fervent hope is that it will end soon.
I'll stop now.
My kids still love me. |
|
|
|
Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2001 : 11:11:17 [Permalink]
|
All,
My point with posting this ridiculous article was that perhaps we could discuss possibe character flaws that were exacerbated by post traumatic stress causing an otherwise normal-appearing individual to be able to justify mass murder of innocent people.
I agree that the article is slanted toward sympathy for McVeigh but several points were brought up.
The post traumatic stress issue is significant. It is obvious that everyone who suffers from it does not become a mass murderer but why did a "nice guy". There must have been a latent character flaw that was undetected prior to the war. What can the military do to weed out possible week individuals who could snap like that, or do we just roll the dice and hope for the best?
The military brass seems to be just blowing off the post traumatic stress idea. Some of you may know what kind of debreifing was done after the war. I would like to know.
I think that there is more to this than that he was just evil or a coward or hated the government. The government (symbolized by the federal building) became the focus of his hatred probably because of all that neo-nazi crap that he was reading. If we don't know what made him such a f***ing monster, it will surely happen again - to the focus of someone else' hatred. We as a people will then try to just forget him/her again.
Regards,
Greg.
|
|
|
|
Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2001 : 12:40:13 [Permalink]
|
quote:
I graduated the U.S. Military Academy in 1984 and spent 9 years on active duty as an officer in the Army with a specialty in Military Intelligence
Cool! I was attached to the O.N.I. in Vietnam myself.
-------
The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
|
|
|
Mespo_man
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2001 : 13:30:52 [Permalink]
|
Quote for Bestonnet_00:
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.
- Robert E. Lee
******************************
Doesn't sound like too much of a nut case to me.
Regards,
(:raig Miller
(USN during 'Nam) |
|
|
|
Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 06/14/2001 : 13:53:23 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Cool! I was attached to the O.N.I. in Vietnam myself.
We're virtually twins, then, me with my Gaelic background (admittedly a mongrel with as much Welsh, Scottish, and peasant English as I have Irish). Got off the ferry from Fishguard to Ireland and found for the only time in my life I could vanish among the natives.
quote:
The post traumatic stress issue is significant. It is obvious that everyone who suffers from it does not become a mass murderer but why did a "nice guy". There must have been a latent character flaw that was undetected prior to the war. What can the military do to weed out possible week individuals who could snap like that, or do we just roll the dice and hope for the best?
The military brass seems to be just blowing off the post traumatic stress idea. Some of you may know what kind of debreifing was done after the war. I would like to know.
Yes, it is important, but it's not new; the name has simply changed. It was 'shell-shock' in WWI. Rest and time fixed most of those cases, just as rest and time fix most cases of PTSD today.
And regarding what the military can do to "weed out" those characters most likely to snap, I can't name one particular thing, but the whole military induction/indoctrination process is geared toward that.
Actual Recruiters don't have the time or incentive to look for those who have deeply hidden problems, so we expect to find them during Basic, AIT (Advanced Individual Training), and most importantly, in the soldier's unit during the course of everday duties and training. This is bread-and-butter NCO stuff; good NCO's are worth gold and good officers listen to them.
A problem that has begun to crop up since the late 80's is Political Correctness and a forced liberalization and sterilization of military training, particularly the army (the Marines, god bless 'em, have managed to avoid the worst of it). The limits on NCO methods and the growth of soldier authority has made it extremely difficult for the military to gauge and mold the character of its recruits. This is a bad thing. Still, we do a pretty good job.
On top of that, the counseling opportunities are numerous and, in some instances, mandatory. There are substance abuse counselors, marriage counselors, fitness trainers, weight counselors, financial counselors, academic counselors, and the ubiquitous chaplain (one of my favorite resources as a commander, actually). And there is no commander worth his salt who would not have his troops see/talk to somebody after something like what McVeigh saw in the Gulf.
But the military system is not, of course, perfect, just as the hiring process in the civilian world is not perfect. Never will be.
Now for Garrette's personal opinion supported only by personal experience without the slightest bit of empirical evidence or published literature to support it:
The problem is not that the stress of combat is ignored by the brass, but that all POSSIBLE stressors are given too much importance, mostly at the requirement of Congress.
As a Company Commander (325 people, which is far larger than average), I spent huge amounts of my time making sure the soldiers were trained (read: got scripted, mandated briefings) on alcohol abuse (and the free passes for bad behavior we had to give out), drug abuse (ditto), sexual harrassment (the mere definition of this is a stressor to anybody in a position of responsibility), cultural diversity, ad infinitum. Then the constant reminders that drinking is a bad thing, smoking is a bad thing, cussing is a bad thing, dirty jokes are a bad thing, vulgarity is a bad thing, a killer instinct is a bad thing. Followed by five minutes somewhere on the training schedule to remind them: "Oh, yeah, guys, remember that we may have to shoot somebody someday. But do it nicely."
Frankly, I don't smoke, I drink some, I enjoy the occasional dirty joke, I don't mind flirting, I cuss, and most people consider me quite polite. But I'm still fairly old school about the military. You can't expect soldiers who train like choirboys to fight like warriors. And you can't expect someone who is constantly told that a simple dirty joke is evil to react well to a blown-up and bloated body.
---
I've written this is snippets, and on re-reading it it's awfully choppy to me. Sorry. But it touches on one of my peeves: the tendency in the U.S. to force a global solution (which turns out really just to be a sugarpill that makes the doctor feel better for having prescribed SOMETHING) onto what is after all a personal problem or a buddy-to-buddy problem or a small unit problem where it can be best dealt with.
I'll shut up. It's been a busy 24 hours typing for me.
My kids still love me. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
