Why the ‘lone-wolf’ terrorist is a myth | Hacker News Reader

Why the ‘lone-wolf’ terrorist is a myth

nypost.com

11 pointsrandomname26 comments

"The enemies” aren’t just terrorists overseas but terrorists at home — along with their friends and relatives — and “the battlefield” is in our own communities"

said every fascist movement..ever.

Right? Was that a trump quote? I couldn't find the citation anywhere.

Readers: Consider the source of this article and who owns the NY Post before trusting its narrative. Fact checks aren't one of their strengths, but propaganda is.

This Orlando fellow had quite the history. He sounds like a fairly typical picture of a male workplace/spree killer, but of course in this country we just don't think in terms of that anymore I guess?

He's a terrorist, or he's totally crazy, or some other extreme. Not: He always had issues with violent impulses according to accounts of his time in early school, and beyond. The man had classic warning signs of a particularly dangerous man, with the failed attempts at law enforcement being another red flag.

He's textbook, but the people reading the textbooks anymore aren't in law enforcement or media. He's a textbook spree killer, or pilot who crashes his plane with people on board, or school shooter, or workplace shooter. Textbook. 'Sexual Homicides: Patterns and Motives' among many others.

>He's a terrorist, or he's totally crazy, or some other extreme. Not: He always had issues with violent impulses

I get what you are trying to say but I tend to think long term violent impulses would count as totally crazy in most rational conversations...

"Totally crazy" generally speaking means some flavor of psychotic. His impulses and personality issues would be classified as a mental illness, Axis II in the DSM, but they would be largely resistent to treatment. Nothing that would be easy to ascribe to him (from a distance) would have damaged his hold on reality. There is still a raging debate as to whether much of the world of personality disorders represents actual disorders, or just extremes in the variance of human behavior and temperament.

That is to say, maybe he was rational, aware of the impact of his actions, and yet he wanted to do it because it was egosyntonic. Contrast that with some like Jared Lee Laughner, who is was a classic paranoid schizophrenic. I think that is what most people think of, when they think of "Totally crazy". Someone talking at the air, clanging and chattering word salad; someone broken from reality.

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