Another example I can think of is child molestation. I was molested as a child. I now have a completely good relationship with one of the people who did it, because he truly reformed. Another person who did it has not reformed but I retain a cordial relationship with him because there are other aspects to him besides that one really horrible one. This does not take away from them having done something awful, but doing something awful is not everything there is to them.

I do think there is a real tendency to dehumanize people who have done terrible things, and I think that tendency to dehumanize only perpetuates the terrible things that are done. It makes it seem like no matter what they do for the rest of their lives, they are wholly evil because they have done something that is evil.

And I don’t think most people understand evil, or the fact that the capacity for evil exists in all of us, or the situational factors that can bring out that evil.

And I think there are points where people are between a rock and a hard place and killing someone might be the best of several horrible options, even while it is still always an act of evil that seriously damages the mind of the person who does it as well as everyone affected by it.

And as a Christian (skip over this if you’re not interested in a quick jaunt into theology-land) I believe that all of us are sinners and capable of evil and that on some level all sin is equally awful in the eyes of God, but at the same time that all people should on some level be forgiven.

At the same time, while I believe just about everyone has the capacity to murder, clearly most people do not act on it. Most of us have something that holds us back from doing it in anything but the most dire circumstances (such as killing someone in self-defense or to protect another, or after being trained to kill as a soldier, etc). Most of us would not do it because the existence of someone else inconvenienced us.

And I think there’s a difference between acting on that potential and not acting on that potential. From what I’ve heard from people who have killed people (I haven’t done so myself), it very much changes some fundamental parts of the person’s mind. There’s a barrier that has been crossed and when the person does so, they know that they have potential to cross it again that they have to always be on guard about. While I would never say that I have experienced that on the level a murderer would, I have experienced a lesser version on the level that a violent person would. I have to be always on guard against doing those things in a way I would not have to be on guard had I never done them.

The fact that most people do not do those things means not all people are the same in this respect.

And while I don’t think that the prison and “justice” systems are a good answer to these sorts of things — in fact I believe they perpetuate them — I also know that when ethical and moral judgement on these things does happen it has to happen across the board, not just as applied to situations where the murder victim is white, non-disabled, middle-class, law-abiding, male, straight, and Christian. (Which is, by the way, why I don’t support the death penalty — I don’t believe that people forfeit their value as human beings by murdering people.)

And because of that, when lesser sentences are handed out to people who murder disabled children, and the murders are used to champion various causes (other than the cause of equality of disabled people or something), then that is a different kind of judgement going on. It’s not a judgement of the murderer. It’s a judgement of the murder victim. Just as when people don’t look too hard for mass murderers of prostitutes, or support the death penalty for certain kinds of criminals, or care about shootings in middle-class predominantly-white schools but don’t care about poor children of color killing each other. In all of these cases the judgement going on is a judgement of the victims as less real and less human and less worthy of being alive.

And when murders of some kind of people are judged to be understandable, then that is another kind of judgement of the murder victims.

So I agree with you on some points, but I don’t think it helps to claim these killings are understandable. I do think it’s important to remember that people who kill are indeed people, as are all people who do wrong (and that all people are on one level or another people who do wrong). And I also think it’s important to remember that we all have the capacity to do tremendous wrong, because we can’t avoid doing it if we don’t believe we’re capable of it. But I think it’s important, for the sake of those who end up dead because of these things, to take a strong stance that it’s wrong when people do make that choice, regardless of what kind of person the victim was. And to save the “understandable” stuff for some other time and place, because I don’t think this is it. That stuff actually (this has been studied) makes people less able to overcome their impulses to kill and abuse.

It’s also important to note that fifteen is about the upper limit of the age range in which a person when pushed to a certain point does not possess certain hardwired neurological barriers against extreme violence or murder. Someone that age or younger who has done those things is not, neurologically speaking anyway, doing the same thing as the act of someone whose brain has fully formed that barrier. This doesn’t excuse it either, but it’s not the same thing going on as what happens in the minds of adults who murder. What is important, though, overall, is maintaining that barrier if it already exists and rebuilding it if one has already crossed it and knocked it over in the process.

I could give you a longer list of reasons why I did it.But that would be giving excuses for murder. Which I don’t want to do. They are no better or worse than using autism as an excuse. Murder is murder and no excuse is valid.

But just because I did an evil thing doesn’t mean my life has lost its value. I am still capable of doing some good in the world. I did an evil thing, but I will not let that one deed dictate the whole of the rest of my life. I will not stick an “evil” label round my neck and decide I am incapable of good.

I believe it’s understandable that those parents murdered their kids. Not because of autism. Because I believe everyone is capable of muder. Because all cruelty is essentially saying “I would rather hurt someone than be put out.” Killing another person is just the most extreme form of that attitude. Everyone has that attitude. It can be as small as a hurtful word or as big as a genocide. But it;a always the same attitude. And that’s why I can’t judge those women, why I ca’t judeg dicatators who kill milloins of people. Becuase we are all the same.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
— Desmond Tutu
(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/desmondtut106145.html)

So, yes, too old to be cute. The dynamic starts fairly young. I didn’t claim to be old. :-) (But I am fat around the middle, no beer to blame it on though.) I do look a lot younger than my age, but I still look too old to get the leeway given to children.