The 27-year-old man who police say shot and killed a California business owner over a Pride flag draped in her store appears to have had a yearslong history of posting disturbing — and often violent — anti-LGBTQ messages on social media.
The suspect, Travis Ikeguchi, gunned down Laura Ann Carleton, 66, on Friday, after confronting her and “yelling many homophobic slurs” over her clothing store’s Pride flag, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at a news conference Monday. Shortly after fleeing the store, Mag.Pi, Ikeguchi was killed in a shootout with law enforcement.
Honest question - where do we draw the line between mental illness and reactionary/far right politics? Noone of sound mind would believe the ludicrous conspiracism that the mainstream conservative media like Fox constantly spews forth - and that’s to say nothing of the more extreme OAN and Infowars.
Case in point - gay and trans people are inherently paedophiles (honestly wtf?)… A super-common talking point that begs the question what do we do about the people (the lunatics stupidly think are) raping our children?
We’ve reached the point in the medicalisation of everything where being an asshole must be a mental health problem because ‘no sane person would think that’. Being irrational and believing lies is not mental illness, it is normal human behaviour. Cruelty is normal human behaviour.
Unless this can be proven, it’s a bold claim to say it’s normal human behaviour to be cruel. Current research suggests the opposite. The majority of humans are born with empathy and the desire to help others and be nice.
Of course they’re assholes, but that’s not the point - they’re brain-broken delusional, and victims of genuinely unhinged conspiracism. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Believing the transparent, self-contradictory nonsense is absolutely pathological… I assume you think someone that believes they’re Queen Victoria are delusional - where do you draw the line?
I think the courts use the criteria that if they knew what they were doing would get them in trouble. Running away, hiding evidence, obscuring identity.
Having beliefs that don’t match the real world isn’t mental illness in of itself.
I’m curious why you jumped to the legal argument. If someone is unaware of the consequences of their actions, it becomes difficult to hold them legally or morally accountable. This is also the basis for an insanity defence.
While having beliefs that don’t match the real world isn’t inherently mental illness - it definitely is beyond a certain point. The clinical definition can be found in DSM5 297.1 (F22).
It’s the difference between “I believe Jesus is my personal lord and saviour” (delusional but understandable) and “I am Jesus… No I can’t swim, but watch me step off this boat and walk on water.” (delusional to a clinically relevant, harmful degree).