[Strategerist]

Between his mother’s immediate reaction to the news and his academic ability, this is beginning to look like another case of severe and dangerous mental illness.

Great post, which will of course be completely and utterly ignorned in this thread.

The other thing which I don't know if you've noticed is that there is a substantial part of FR which seems to literally believe there is no such thing as mental illness.

[Jedidah]

These days, there’s a substantial part of FR that has no common sense whatsoever.

Nice to meet another reasonable FReeper. Lots have left.

I just make it a point to post and ignore most responses. Still hoping to plant seeds for thought.

[jjsheridan5]

The mother’s reaction is not indicative of anything, at this point. She is probably in some state of shock, and people under this kind of stress will often react oddly.

Even if she knew something was wrong with him, we have no idea what that was. Maybe he was showing signs of mental illness. Maybe he had shown signs that he was becoming violent in his political beliefs. Maybe ... anything.

We don’t know anything definitive at this point. Speculation on mental illness is just as speculative as any other speculation.

[nhwingut]

The other thing which I don't know if you've noticed is that there is a substantial part of FR which seems to literally believe there is no such thing as mental illness.

Now that he's not a Tea Partier, and most likely a leftist, here comes the "mentally ill" meme. Now he clearly is. Anyone who commits an act like this is lost.

But the point is this would not have been the case if he was a "mentally ill" right winger. So F the left. They had him pegged as a Tea Partier within 2 hours and broadcast it on national TV. They weren't concerned his state of mind then.

And so now that he's a leftist, I will not allow them to excuse it as "mental illness." He is a lefty, registered Democrat, and OWS type. And yes. Mentally ill. But, liberalism is a mental disorder. So he fits right in.

[stuartcr]

But they will wholeheartedly believe in demonic possession.

[onedoug]

Not so “mentally ill” that he was decked out like Rambo to carry out his “mission” whatever the hell that was.

‘Seems like islamist facilitation to me, whether he knew it or not.

[Lady Heron]

The other thing which I don't know if you've noticed is that there is a substantial part of FR which seems to literally believe there is no such thing as mental illness.

Mental illness does not leave out politics....get real, people who do these things are usually mentally ill to be the type of person who can kill that many innocents for their cause without a war going, to give yourself the go ahead to kill, the trigger that allowed even that crazy person to act out their fantasy...it is those reasons those triggers being discussed, which movements even just seem to attract more of those type of people....those reasons usually have to do with politics or religion that set them off movements that seem to give their personalities reasons to act, movements that seem to attract way more of their fair share of these people from the general population.

Let's go back and look at the reasons behind the mentally ill people who have shot up malls, shot Regan, killed Martin Luther King, rammed planes into sky scrapers, mailed bombs, blown up marine barracks, shot the Kennedys'...etc. ...etc. ..etc.

These political or religious people were the crazies of the movements but the movements themselves were hard for a logical man to follow, you have to be crazy or have no since of logic to follow them or just plane dumb and easily led by propaganda to follow them. Having an off the chart I.Q and no common sense or off the chart I.Q. and a just plane crazy makes these movements the perfect place for more of these types to lean toward in history.

How many crazy conservatives in history have assassinated one of our presidents or how many Christians are there flying panes into buildings, shooting up schools, malls and theaters?

Seriously, if we had an honest media or honest history writers there is cause and effect even in a good number of crazy people and where they migrate in society.

[Gator113]

“... there is a substantial part of FR which seems to literally believe there is no such thing as mental illness.”

Sure, but those are just the nut cases.