I think I can answer my own questions. Was the murderer of Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, a symptom of a wider malaise of misogyny in society, or was he just the archetypal crazy loner?
Because it's important to know when someone is representative of a serious social problem and when someone is an isolated example and not representative of general traits of a wider group or a wider social problem.
What separates the perpetrator of the Montreal Massacre from the two recent perpetrators of what stephen harper and assorted idiots are calling symptoms of the rise of Islamic terrorism in Canada? What is the criteria for judging one as part of a larger problem and the others as just individuals with serious mental problems?
I think the important factor is whether the wider problems being described are very much real, or, ridiculous on their face. For instance, is it the case that men are violent towards women? Do we beat our wives? Stalk ex-wives and girlfriends and kill them? Murder prostitutes? Rape? Exclude them from earning livelihoods? Of obtaining educations? Deny them the vote? Disregard their testimony in court? Condemn their sexuality? Consider them defiling entities in our religions? (If we don't currently do any of those things now, did we do it in the past and do we have men among us who endorse doing it again?) And do we not have men attacking the movement ("feminism") that fights back against the systemic oppression of women ("patriarchy")?
The Montreal murderer was an insane individual. But he was also representative of a wider social problem and the precise nature of his insane act was no doubt fueled by concepts encouraged by the culture he lived in.
Now then, on to the scourge of "Islamicism," ... Were those two murderers of Canadian Forces' members evidence of a genuine danger? Is it true that Islamic fundamentalists "hate us for our freedoms" and are hoping to conquer us through isolated acts of terrorism, and subject us all (including the United States) to the insane dictates of a new Caliphate?*
Or, is it the case that even if these two killers believed in all of that, that the whole idea is completely absurd, and that, therefore, whether they believed it or not, they should be treated as examples of mental illness and not a reason for us to line-up behind stephen harper and his idiotic crusades and our elites' serial assaults on our human and political rights?
So, I think it's safe to say that those people who insist that the Montreal Massacre was not just the work of one sick individual, but a manifestation of societal sickness, are correct, and that the people who want to pretend that "Islamicism" is a genuine danger are using the cases of two damaged individuals to make us afraid of a non-problem.
*I'm not even going to present the counter-arguments made by sane people about the problem of Muslim terrorists.
Because it's important to know when someone is representative of a serious social problem and when someone is an isolated example and not representative of general traits of a wider group or a wider social problem.
What separates the perpetrator of the Montreal Massacre from the two recent perpetrators of what stephen harper and assorted idiots are calling symptoms of the rise of Islamic terrorism in Canada? What is the criteria for judging one as part of a larger problem and the others as just individuals with serious mental problems?
I think the important factor is whether the wider problems being described are very much real, or, ridiculous on their face. For instance, is it the case that men are violent towards women? Do we beat our wives? Stalk ex-wives and girlfriends and kill them? Murder prostitutes? Rape? Exclude them from earning livelihoods? Of obtaining educations? Deny them the vote? Disregard their testimony in court? Condemn their sexuality? Consider them defiling entities in our religions? (If we don't currently do any of those things now, did we do it in the past and do we have men among us who endorse doing it again?) And do we not have men attacking the movement ("feminism") that fights back against the systemic oppression of women ("patriarchy")?
The Montreal murderer was an insane individual. But he was also representative of a wider social problem and the precise nature of his insane act was no doubt fueled by concepts encouraged by the culture he lived in.
Now then, on to the scourge of "Islamicism," ... Were those two murderers of Canadian Forces' members evidence of a genuine danger? Is it true that Islamic fundamentalists "hate us for our freedoms" and are hoping to conquer us through isolated acts of terrorism, and subject us all (including the United States) to the insane dictates of a new Caliphate?*
Or, is it the case that even if these two killers believed in all of that, that the whole idea is completely absurd, and that, therefore, whether they believed it or not, they should be treated as examples of mental illness and not a reason for us to line-up behind stephen harper and his idiotic crusades and our elites' serial assaults on our human and political rights?
So, I think it's safe to say that those people who insist that the Montreal Massacre was not just the work of one sick individual, but a manifestation of societal sickness, are correct, and that the people who want to pretend that "Islamicism" is a genuine danger are using the cases of two damaged individuals to make us afraid of a non-problem.
*I'm not even going to present the counter-arguments made by sane people about the problem of Muslim terrorists.
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