[acb-hsp] Psycho Killer

[peter altschul]

Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce Que C'est?
  Jacob Sullum Aug 29, 2012
  Last Friday, upon receiving the maximum possible penalty for 
murdering 77 people in and near Oslo, Norway, a year ago, Anders 
Behring Breivik smiled.  The prison sentence -- 21 years 
initially, but indefinitely extendable for as long as Breivik is 
deemed a threat -- meant a five-judge panel had rejected the 
prosecution's argument that the self-proclaimed anti-Islamic 
militant was insane when he committed his bloody crimes.
  Since Breivik feared such a judgment would hurt his political 
cause, the verdict was, in that sense, a victory for him.  But it 
was also a victory for individual responsibility and the rule of 
law, both of which are undermined by pseudomedical pronouncements 
that treat extreme ideas as symptoms of mental illness.
  On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a car bomb near government 
offices in Oslo, killing eight people and injuring more than 200.  
He then proceeded to the island of Utoya, about 19 miles away, 
where he shot 100 people, 67 fatally, at a summer youth camp for 
aspiring politicians sponsored by the governing Labor Party.  Two 
others died by falling or drowning while trying to escape.  Most 
of the victims were teenagers.
  In "A European Declaration of Independence," a 1,500-page 
manifesto he posted online shortly before his murder spree, 
Breivik explained his motivation: He was seeking to protect 
Norway from "Islamic colonization" by attacking the agents of 
"multiculturalism." During his trial, he identified himself as "a 
member of the Norwegian resistance movement," called his violence 
"the most spectacular sophisticated political act in Europe since 
the Second World War" and regretted that he had not killed more 
people.
  "I did this out of goodness, not evil," Breivik said.  "I acted 
in self-defense on behalf of my people, my city, my country." He 
urged the court not to misconstrue his deliberate actions as the 
involuntary product of a diseased brain.  "When you see something 
too extreme," he said, "you might think it is irrational and 
insane.  But you must separate political extremism from 
insanity."
  That distinction was lost on the two court-appointed 
psychiatrists who declared that Breivik's crimes were driven not 
by ideology but by psychotic delusions, the result of untreated 
paranoid schizophrenia.  Their report, released last November, 
provoked so much criticism that the court appointed two more 
psychiatrists, who last April rejected their colleagues' 
diagnosis, concluding that Breivik is and was sane.
  "Psychiatry is not an exact science by any means," BBC News 
observed at the time.  In light of such diametrically opposed 
conclusions based on the same evidence, one might wonder whether 
it qualifies as a science at all.
  The same mental-health magic that absolves guilty men of 
responsibility can strip innocent men of their freedom.  The day 
before Breivik was sentenced, a Virginia judge ordered the 
release of Brandon Raub, a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran who 
was forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation based on his 
conspiracy-minded, anti-government Facebook posts.
  Federal agents and Chesterfield County police came and took 
Raub away on Aug.  16 in response to complaints about the posts, 
which mix laments about lost liberty and condemnations of tyranny 
with dark music lyrics, predictions of impending revolution and 
wacky but sadly familiar allegations about the government's 
involvement in 9/11.
  A week later, Circuit Judge W.  Allan Sharrett ruled that the 
petition used to obtain an order committing Raub for a month, 
which was supposed to be based on evidence that he posed an 
imminent danger to others, was "so devoid of any factual 
allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise 
to a case or controversy." Raub's brush with psychiatric coercion 
gives you a sense of how loosening the rules for civil 
commitment, as various pundits urged in the wake of Jared Lee 
Loughner's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., last year, could 
sweep up harmless cranks who pose no threat to public safety.  If 
the reforms recommended by the stop-them-before-they-kill crowd 
had been implemented, Raub might still be imprisoned for his 
disturbing opinions.