shirgall

It's easier to believe that they didn't plan to be good parents than them planning to be bad ones. Intent is important when prosecuting crimes but is oh-so-difficult to prove. Bottom line is that they hardly were a proximate cause or conscious actor in Elliot's plans, and there is some discussion that they tried to intervene. However, when they called the police and asked them to check on Elliot, the cops hadn't seen the videos. When they got the final note of Elliot's intent with mere minutes to spare they didn't call the cops but instead chose to drive to Santa Barbara to intervene. These are poor choices that border on criminal negligence.

Is it possibly ironic of the universe to have a poet pass who writes eloquently about parental abandonment after divorce, just after the troubled man's rampage over the weekend?

As horrible as their parenting may be, they did not coldly plan the death of others and then take actions to carry out that plan. The best you could hope for is manslaughter, willful negligence or reckless behavior that a reasonable and prudent person would know could lead to the death of another, with death as the result (and that's a stretch).

His mother was friends with noted romance counselor George Lucas. It's not a surprise Episode II comes to mind.

I think the it's implied that Elliot's maturation was impeded (if not curtailed) by the divorce and subsequent abandonment of parenting. I heard it mentioned elsewhere that there's very little about his (less than five years younger) sister in the 'manifesto'. Maybe there's something to explore there.

Conveniently, Wired had an article ready to link psychopathy and video games. http://www.wired.com/2014/05/psychopaths-dayz-rust/ That's the punch line. To me, there is a strong undercurrent that people are fundamentally bad when they are desperate. Despite the paragraph above making it seem like people become moral once their needs are met the author shows that rising above abject survival most people become mafia dons and ruthless dictators. Where's the leap to government being pretty much a big mafia? Oh well, it is Wired, after all.

Stef, you ask why the police could not look up the gun registry to see if this boy had bought guns. Because of past and potential abuses, this information is not readily available to police, even in California. Without probable cause, these police cannot search his residence, his bank records, or his firearms purchase history. However, if his videos were enough to prompt a visit, I cannot see why they did not articulate probable cause to a judge to get a warrant to search these things. Sending 7 police to interview him but not getting a warrant? This sounds like a "show of force" to "scare someone straight" rather than an honest investigation into threats of violence.

And never mind that he killed twice as many men as women in his rampage.

Yeah, I bookmarked to go look at the others ones, but I hadn't got to them yet.

I have to say that any if any gal he tried to date got a creepy vibe and said no was justified.

They interviewed the parents in order to set the narrative to be about guns and misogyny... but that's not the same.

Page 16-17 for this stuff. http://cryptome.org/2014/05/elliot-rodger.pdf He seemed to hate "Soumaya" who became his stepmother very soon after the divorce... and she had dark hair. More on Soumaya:

Parents were divorced when he was 7... http://cryptome.org/2014/05/elliot-rodger.pdf

Making more laws is not the answer...

140 page manifestos don't make for quick work. I suspect we'll get Adam Curry's take on it Sunday morning... he loves to dismantle manifestos and legislation. (On the No Agenda show if people are curious).

No one is addressing the elephant in the room: Obviously we need a government program to properly distribute booty to lonely youngsters. "From the needs of the hottie to the needs of the perv."

An interesting video.

I don't think people *want* their actions to become universal laws, but the point is to evaluate actions as if they should be a universal law to judge their morality. Your mind is already pretty good at that "spidey sense" that some action might not be right, and UPB, the Golden Rule, the Categorical Imperative, and their cousins are all there in the toolbox to help you evaluate them.

If you think UPB is hard to grasp, check out its cousin, the Categorical Imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction."

I posted my own comment to this one that looking up public information is hardly stalking, and is probably a good idea. To me, stalking is when one goes past what is public, like when a guy stands there on the public sidewalk and looks in the windows of your house. Not technically wrong (or even illegal) but it sure seems to be pushing it, esp. if he (or she) lingers.

http://www.yourtango.com/2014216512/love-dating-what-women-really-think-facebook-google-stalking-first-date-boyfriend Because "I need to go through your Facebook history and look for statements that set off red flags — republicanism, homophobia, sexism, classism, racism, transphobia, ignorance, etc. If I'm going to spend the bulk of the relationship trying to teach you how to be a decent human, then f**k it; not worth my time." But if a man does any similar research... it's harassment and invasion of privacy.

Listening to the youtube video for Feminist Straw Woman Attacks! the callers are fine, but Stefan's right channel is 3db down from the left, and 3dB down from the callers average level. The entire program runs an average level of -6.8dB, and Stef's right channel is 7.2dB down. The entire video is significantly quieter than a lot of other youtube content. With the new studio I figured you'd want some feedback. Thanks, --jrp (yeah, I know my email is in the screenshot, I don't care)

Judging by the discussion leading up to it, it's the practice of apologetics looking for loopholes and interpretations to justify continued belief that he's denouncing. --jrp

That's what it boils down to, going beyond pretending to know something you don't know to demand that a child share this shaky certainty and forever damning a child to distrust or delusion as a result.

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/186849/ Basically, a man was charged with felony abuse for slapping his 13-year-old daughter. I came out in support of the idea that striking is abuse, and I'm getting the usual treatment. Some friendly folks in this comment thread would be great, especially since it's on libertarian Glenn Reynolds's site. Thanks in advance! --jrp