Saturday 18 June 2016

Explaining murder

 

At first the news was very confused, just that a woman Member of Parliament had been shot and stabbed by a lone man. The cab driver had an immediate explanation: “He’ll turn out to be a bloke who hasn’t taken his meds”.

Other commentators were somewhat more circumspect but, as is the modern way, a picture quickly emerged of the perpetrator: a socially isolated, unemployed, reportedly kindly man who helped elderly neighbours, with former or current right wing political views. There was no mention of previous violence. Within a day there was some evidence of earlier far right links, other reports of his being a recluse, and then an account of his calling in at a clinic the day before the murder, saying that he had walked past it for five years without having the courage to come in for treatment. In a brief 15 minute discussion he complained of long-term depression, and was offered an appointment for later that week. A very reasonable response, in my view.

Most of the coverage, quite properly, was on the person who had been doing the usual thing, in this case the MP meeting constituents at her political surgery. Her work, her character, and her brief political career were celebrated respectfully. Political campaigning was suspended for some days, though on the basis of what we learned about her wish for strong political engagement she probably would not have wanted that.

Public curiosity, of course, latches on to the person who did the unusual thing, murdering another person. The public want explanations, and fast. It would be sensible to avoid a rush to judgment, but probably futile and even wrong: data pours in quickly now, as social networks commonly report the real facts very quickly: the perpetrator’s name (“named locally”, as the media say, cautiously and somewhat disdainfully) is quickly found, and local witness and neighbours give their impressions. We need to be Bayesian about the torrent of information. Some of what is said will turn out to be wrong, but most of it is highly informative. Nowadays the basis of the “why did they do it?” case is assembled very quickly, and possibly 80% of what we will know as members of the public will be known within a week. Left outside the picture will be the mental health records, the bread and butter of clinical work, those bulging files which lay out the progression of troubled lives.

Years ago a psychiatrist friend of mine gave instructions about the management of a particular locked-ward schizophrenic in-patient which were not followed, and he murdered a passer-by in a London park. She was pursued in an enquiry, and heavily criticized. The specifics of the case lead to a larger issue, which is how much compulsion on psychiatric patients should be applied in order to protect the public. In the jargon, what we need to know are the Numbers Needed to Treat, and the Numbers Needed to Harm. Many psychiatrists say that the numbers needed to treat are impossibly high, and that many people would be on forced medication in order to prevent one murderous event. Perhaps so, though that might be improved with better diagnostic techniques, and the downsides of taking medication are less than the downside of being murdered. 

Since the UK murder rate is 1 per 100,000 (actually 14 per million) it is clear that with 4 MPs murdered since 1979 out of 650 per year, the rate is sky high above the population average. If one doubles the number to include a parliamentary aide for every member of parliament, then at 4 MPs plus 1 Parliamentary Assistant murdered per 1300 the rate is even higher. The perpetrators’ backgrounds are shown below.

2016 murder of MP Jo Cox by probable British Nationalist.

2010 attempted murder of MP Stephen Timms by Bengali Islamist woman (no mental illness defence).

2000 MP Nigel Jones stabbed, aide Andrew Pennington murdered by British male judged mentally unfit to stand trial.

1990 MP Ian Gow murdered by Irish Republicans

1984 MP Sir Anthony Berry murdered by Irish Republicans

1979 MP Airey Neave murdered by Irish Republicans

Personally, I would not jump to conclusions about these backgrounds, other than to say that political justifications are prominent, as one might expect if political representatives are the target, with mental illness a contributing factor for the lone operators.  Also, the backgrounds should be compared with population figures to detect over-representation of any particular classification. Furthermore, in looking at apparently conflicting descriptions, it should be remembered that people are multi-faceted, and can be good with dogs whilst running death camps; helpful to elderly neighbours while hating politicians; mild and retiring most of the time and enraged in specific circumstances. Public behaviours are less informative than private readings and writings.

Politics as normal resumes tomorrow.

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I'm interested in the MP being treated as a secular saint, when her main political interest seems to have been in invading Syria and, we must presume, getting lots of Syrians killed, and not a few British soldiers. Her preferred military action would have been effective, comprehensive and ethical. Of course.

    At least the lunatic killed only one person. Which one was madder, which more evil?

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  3. Poooor Cox

    sleep in peace....

    IF it is not a FALSE FLAG...

    but i know that hb'dears'' are those respectable persons, ;)

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  4. Orrr

    if the guy who killed this angel pathologically guilty and [literally] enriched wasn't that guy..

    oops, sorry

    wrong blog

    respectable people don't think in conspiracies or some-thing similar...

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  5. http://paradiseisanywhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/sheep-clouds.jpg

    just lov

    god love you coxx

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  6. I have seen some speculation that the precipitating event for the attack was the news of the sentencing of the 15 Pakistani men convicted of rape and sex trafficking of a British teen girl. This group had apparently been based about 10 miles away from the attack on the MP, and it is said they had some official cover and that pressure from the Pakistani community was brought to bear on officials to prevent their prosecution. None of this is confirmed.

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  7. The rape gang was in Bradford, five miles from the killer's home in Batley, ten miles from the the MP's constituency, and twenty miles from Rotherham, which recently had about 1,400 underage victims of Pakistani rapists and pimps. Only 15 of the 100 men accused in the Bradford case were convicted.

    The MP, a career political networker for international aid organizations was an advocate of settling Syrian migrants nearby, and of bombing Syria. "Invade the world, invite the world". She wasn't ever quoted as disproving or even acknowledging the existence of these foreign rape gangs.

    A lady of the BNP said:
    "The killers family state he had absolutely no links to British right wing and in fact, his affiliation was to a white South African nationalist Party. It appears he singled out Jo Cox for her vote to swamp his town with Syrian refugee’s [sic] whilst voting against white South Africans being given refugee status in the UK."

    His concern with the ongoing ethnic cleansing in South Africa (e.g. White farmer murder rate 139/100k, ~11% White children under 12 HIV+ vs.~6% Black children) is borne out by the left-wing SPLC, which reprinted two old letters by the killer to the editor of a white nationalist magazine. Given the disparate treatment of White South Africans in the UK compared to Syrian "refugees" and Commonwealth Muslims, it is easy to see the killer's motive. For an instance of the treatment of South Africans: Widow, 92, must return to South Africa after losing deportation battle. Another outrageous recent case was the White Zimbabwean farmer who was dispossessed and his farm handed over to a Black British M.D. absentee landlord related to Mugabe's wife.

    It's clear that the motive for the killing of the MP was patriotic, yet the predictable effects were so contrary to the killer's aims that it is possible the act was due to insanity. Speaking against this, though, is the planning and competence he needed in order to manufacture his own gun, and also the apparent success of Anders Breivik's massacre in moving Norway to the right.

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  8. Here's the reference for childhood HIV rates in South Africa: Evidence of iatrogenic HIV transmission in children in South Africa BRITISH JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS & GYNAECOLOGY, Volume 110: Pages 450-452,
    May 2003 The actual age 2-14 HIV rate was 5.6% (131/2348) overall (almost all Black), while for Whites it was 11% (16/145).

    Which I found in a link from the essay: "Improbable caring as an indicator of evil" at jim.com, which was so incisive and original that I hope you won't mind me quoting from it at length.

    "No one cares about far away strangers, still less about far away strangers very different from themselves. Claims to do so are lies or self deception.

    People near one are always the big threat. So if one wants to destroy everyone near one, one justifies it by piously announcing love for those far away. ... Are most do gooders planning democide?

    Empirically, actions taken to benefit far away strangers very different from oneself are usually performed terrifyingly poorly, perhaps always performed terrifying poorly. For example African AIDS turns out not to be heterosexual AIDS, but do gooder AIDS. It is spread by clinics, which have financial incentive to use contaminated needles, in that the more of their clients they make sick, the more money they get.

    Similarly, remember “We are the world, we are the children”. All the good and the great got together to raise money to help the victims of the Ethiopian famine.

    But the primary cause of the Ethiopian famine was not drought, but forced collectivization, government confiscation of crops, government destruction of the crops of rebellious populations, and civil war, in other words socialism. Being good progressives, did not want to admit the role of socialism, so wound up paying for the cattle trucks to take the peasants to death camps.

    And, very recently the [Moldbug's figurative] Cathedral was funding and arming the Army of the Congo to vaginally impale Tutsi women with very large objects.

    Thus near 100% intent to commit democide fits available data better than near 50% intent to commit democide.

    (continued)

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  9. [Jim's quote continued]
    Observe the total non reaction among do gooders to complicity in crimes against the Tutsi in the Congo, and the total non reaction among do gooders to the ongoing AIDS scandal in Africa. This behavior fits the assumption that all do gooders, as near all of them as makes no difference, are aiming at war against near, and contradicts the assumption that many of them or most of them intend to benefit far.

    If status competition was driving the purported caring about far, we would expect to see more monitoring of each other’s performance “Hey, your caring for far is producing horribly bad outcomes, which I, your holier and more moral superior will now correct.” So, the data compelling fits the theory that concern for far away people of other races is a lie driven primarily by monstrous and horrifying goals, and fails to fit even the relatively innocent explanation of competition to be holier than thou." (end of Jim's quote)

    So Jo Cox with her Oxfam and Save the Children may plausibly be seen as a mass murderer of children, or at least an accessory, even without considering her penchant for bringing in thousands of able-bodied young Syrian men, some of whom will rape young British girls, or her advocacy for bombing Syria which would not only result in indiscriminate killing but further population displacement. Further, she can be seen as doing these things not because of benign incompetence, not in spite of the damage it would do to her "less enlightened" countrymen and -women but because of that very damage, and as part of an overwhelmingly powerful network devoted to that end. If that's the case, then greater culpability is with those who abet such monsters than with those who fight them. Is there the slightest whiff of a chance that those who caused millions of AIDS cases by funding mass vaccinations and clinics without single-use syringes will ever be held to account by the law? Of course not. Nor for slowly replacing the British people, importing and protecting gangs of child rapists, bombing the Middle East or so many other things which seem inexplicable unless their monstrous motives are recognized.

    If the law is in the power of monsters, rebellion is right and courageous, defeating them is a moral obligation, allowing them to continue on their course is complicity. Should that judgement be left up to the media who tell the public what to think? Can it? No, each man of conscience in the nation has no choice but to be judge, jury and executioner, because the law is unavailable, it is in the hands of monsters and they will continue in their crimes unless stopped. Thomas Mair may or may not have been crazy, but he is a sign or a forerunner signalling growing deep forces within the men of Britain, Europe and the Anglosphere that may erupt into wars and revolutions, the next few months being particularly risky. Small arms and ammunition have been bought at record rates in the US over the last eight years, constant online wargaming has trained millions, drones cost less than a thousand dollars, past methods of social control are failing, radicalization went mainstream years ago and is growing ever-faster. Anything could be the precipitating event.

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