I agree with you. I don't think all domestic abusers are classically "mentally ill." I think all domestic abusers who make the choice to kill their spouse in front of their own children have something more going on than moral insufficiency.

Mechlemoyre

I think it's the stigmatization of the mental illness spectrum and hundreds of years of pushing "it" into a box that allows society to accept some actions as being beyond understanding.

I don't think attempting to understand the actions of criminals (or oppressors on either a small or large scale) should either minimize or trivialize the impact of their actions on the people they've victimized. In fact, I think oversimplifying the actions of abusers potentially hurts more than it helps.

You're right that it's hard to draw the line, but on the other side, I think it's just as dangerous to frame clearly pathological actions as moral shortcomings. The consequences of that particular mistake are all over Western society's centuries-long stigmatization of mental illness. "Punishing too little" is never…

That's the fundamental problem. Once you get to the punishment/rehabilitation phase, there's almost never a practical difference between "guilty" and "guilty but insane."

I don't think I'd necessarily use the word "lenient," but I get what you're asking, and my answer is essentially "not lenient enough."

I know the insanity defense, its many permutations (some slightly different from how you stated it), and its roots in English law, and it's a draconian, stupid, and broken way to measure culpability (and more importantly, appropriate punishment/treatment).

If "Ozymandias" were to be pitted against every other episode of television from the past year, all at once and working together for the sole purpose of defeating it, it would still win. It's like if one tried to pit the entirety of the earth and heavens against a team of Ditkas. Ditkas, 52-3.

When I try to imagine what could possibly go through a man's head to make them shoot his wife in front of their children, especially as a dad, I become all the more upset that "insanity" is considered a shot-in-dark defense to murder. I just have no clue how people can look at crimes like this, and not immediately…

I grew up in Belleville. As a little kid, seeing Jeff and Jay in their high school band, The Primitives, is what made me want to be a musician one day. The Primitives used to open for my parents' friends, Joe Camel and the Caucasians, in weird places like indoor mini-malls and chili cookoffs. There was such a…

Expecto Preciosa!

You can waste time with your friends when you've finished installing the puppy gate.

It's actually sawdust. They're filming at a Lowe's.

The press release promises matzo laughs

Westeros side, bitch

I wish I was like Mountain-high
So I can sex a Tyroshi
Cause she gone blow me while I drink some wine
You know I see her all the time in the brothel, yo
And even in my dreams I can scheme a way to make her mine

I wonder if she calls him Reek.

Their remix of "Party and Bullshit" is fucking great.

This story is useress.