Major Explosion in Oslo - Pm's office destroyed

So an emotional drive for vengeance can be strong enough to overpower rational altruistic higher thinking. Who'd a thunk?

I don't think the desire to see justice should be confused with vengeance.

Considering the magnitude of the act in this particular case, and the fact that it was methodically planned, there's no way (imo) that this guy should ever be released from prison.

Who's confusing justice with vengeance? What's more punishing - death or a lifetime in prison?

I dont have any problem w/ a little vengeance now and then. Done right, it can be a wonderful thing

Originally Posted by Thrasher
What's more punishing - death or a lifetime in prison?

Are you implying there's a definitive answer to that?

I'm pretty sure that's going to depend on who you ask.

If he's sentenced to prison he'll get 21 years (30 years if a newly added paragraph for crime against humanity can be applied.)

He can in stead be sentenced to custody for up to 21 years, if he's considered a significant risk to society. This can be extended for 5 years at a time, depending on whether he's still considered a risk or not. The seriousness of the crime is not considered, only his danger to society.

If he's considered psychotic at the time of the crime, he cannot be sentenced to prison or to custody, but can be sentenced to psychiatric treatment, which may very well (!) incarcerate him for life.

Most likely he will be sentenced to custody.

There are a LOT of definitions of justice. One could devote a lifetime to studying the concept, it seems. But there are SOME that define justice in terms of retribution which IS vengeance. Another definition is utilitarian - but that seems to serve to control acts of injustice rather than serve a wronged party. "Justice" is very squishy, apparently…

More here

As a kid, Breivik encountered typical schoolyard troubles. “At the end of sixth grade I noticed that he began to become a bit of an outsider. He was getting a bit bullied,” the friend notes. Unable to deal with rejection from those around him, Breivik reportedly turned to the gym, lifting weights and taking steroids to bulk up in an attempt to mitigate his inferiority complex.

He also allegedly attempted to improve his outward appearance with the help of a plastic surgeon. The friend alludes to the fact that he went under the knife a few years ago in the U.S.: “He was very pleased. He had had surgery on his forehead, nose and chin.” The pictures of Breivik that have circulated recently, culled from Facebook and other online sources, seem to portray a put-together man. It's fitting, then, that the friend describes him as a perfectionist.

Despite a clean shave and well-coiffed hair, Breivik was still unlucky in love. “He has never had a girlfriend, as far as I know,” the friend told Dagbladet, and Breivik may have never even been with a woman. He denied being gay, despite a photo of him dancing at the 2004 gay pride parade in Oslo. Breivik talks up his desire for women in his manifesto, claiming he's "fit like hell" and writing that women approached him on occasion.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/…#ixzz1TFQbwROD

One article in Finland claims that lack of women may drive young men into depression and lunacy and that there are too many such young men in nordic countries today.

Article mentions three nordic mass murderers. Two of them finnish. Apparently they were all unlucky in love.

http://www.aamulehti.fi/Kotimaa/1194…iehenalun.html

I think there were enough Europeans to be found before the tragedy who think the penalties were not high enough in whatever country. Their numbers will not have lessened because of this.

Many countries in Europe have already increased their maximum sentences in the last decade or so. I do however not know what the right number of years is for this guy and I do not know Norway all that well, but like all democracies they have a legal system where they have placed the responsibility of passing judgment and determining the penalty to the courts. Like in my own country I would put my trust in them for determining the right penalty.
That's what the democratic system is for.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
But there are SOME that define justice in terms of retribution which IS vengeance.

Which is ridiculous of course. Vengeance is defined as "infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge".

Justice is about upholding the law, not letting things be dictated by emotion.

That's YOUR definition. According to my link there are many others. Just saying that "justice" is in the eye of the beholder. Apparently, there's no universal definition.

From dictionary.com

"bring to justice, to cause to come before a court for trial or to receive punishment for one's misdeeds"

Here there's no reason given for the "punishment' but the wiki article goes through all the reasons, some of which are vengeance.

from the wiki on retributivism:

"Wrongdoing must be balanced or made good in some way, and so the criminal deserves to be punished. Retributivism emphasizes retribution – payback – rather than maximization of welfare. Like the theory of distributive justice as giving everyone what they deserve (see above), it links justice with desert. It says that all guilty people, and only guilty people, deserve appropriate punishment. This matches some strong intuitions about just punishment: that it should be proportional to the crime, and that it should be of only and all of the guilty. However, it is sometimes argued that retributivism is merely revenge in disguise."

Not saying I agree with this, though. But I do think "Justice" is too vague a term to carry much meaning for me based on how I've seen people interpret it.

EDIT: Which is why I purposely chose NOT to use the word justice in my post and instead said vengeance, because vengeance is not ambiguous. I don't think I'll ever know the meaning of "justice".

Yeah Thrasher, I'd really put MY definition on here and try to claim it as fact.

As far as your Wikipedia link is concerned, do you really expect to be taken seriously with that? I'd think you would know better by now than to quote something from Wikipedia if you want to seem credible.

I'm just saying that emotional terms like vengeance shouldn't be involved with justice. I'm not saying that emotion never plays a part in it, just that it shouldn't.

Not entirely related to this, but since we're on a bit of a tangent talking about justice. Michael Sandel from Harvard has a very interesting series of lecture on it.

http://www.justiceharvard.org/watch/

Well it seems like Glenn Beck has managed to thoroughly embarrass himself with a completely obtuse comment on the situation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43895169?GT1=43001

So I've noticed (Mr. Beck). But surely no more than 30-40% of Americans are like him?

IT WAS A JOKE!!!!

BTW. Every political party in Norway have youth organizations. And I suppose most of them meet some time somewhere during summer.

Originally Posted by pibbur
As you can see, I deleted what I wrote. I found it unfair to target you specifically.

Shake hands?

I had no problem with what you had to say and didn't take it personally at all. You had every right to express displeasure with the direction the thread was taking if you felt the need. I'm still perfectly fine with splitting my tangent out of this thread because I have no desire to give people the impression I'm using a tragedy to score political points. That would be tremendously inappropriate.

Originally Posted by JDR13
As far as your Wikipedia link is concerned, do you really expect to be taken seriously with that? I'd think you would know better by now than to quote something from Wikipedia if you want to seem credible.

So willing to discount everything on wikipedia? Note that the wiki does have references to supporting apparently scholarly texts. At least I recognize Plato and Marx.

Heck I am not an expert, and I am not pretending to be. But, to me, the definition of justice is squishy and is a meaningless term to me.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Well it seems like Glenn Beck has managed to thoroughly embarrass himself with a completely obtuse comment on the situation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43895169?GT1=43001

I heard about that on the radio this morning. So they were Hitler youth and deserved to be killed? What a freak!

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I heard about that on the radio this morning. So they were Hitler youth and deserved to be killed? What a freak!

Such talk is allowed in America? In Finland he would in the least get death-threats for saying somthing like that and people would march in the streets as protest against him.

Currently noone has said anything like that here yet there are public demands for apologies and condemption.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I heard about that on the radio this morning. So they were Hitler youth and deserved to be killed? What a freak!

As far as I've heard - from Norwegian newspapers - he found Breivik just as bad as Bin Laden. His comment on the youth camp itself is more like a - highly inappropriate and uninformed - side note.