Great! My
question over the last year has been answered! The guy’s not nuts!
That means,
apparently, that he will have to be rehabilitated. That’s the focus of theNorwegian prison system. They take rehabilitation very seriously, unlike the
US.
So they’re
gonna spend pots of money on this guy.
Well,
Norway is hardly a poor country, but is it, well…SANE?
Look, I
believe in rehabilitation too.
To a point.
But I also
think that we have to be realistic. Can everyone be rehabilitated? Does it make
sense for even a rich nation to spend millions of dollars over possibly half a
century trying to reason with a fanatic?
And what
Breivik did is still almost unfathomable, even today. How many lives did he
shred, that Friday afternoon in June 2011?
How would I
feel, if I were the father of one of the victims, paying my taxes year after
year, and knowing some part of it was going not just to sustain but pamper the
killer?
Exercise
room, computer, and special visits by the pastor!
Wow!
I wonder as
well about vengeance. Not a pretty word, maybe not a pretty concept. We talk
about justice and feel good about it. But the shadow is vengeance.
You have
torn my life apart. Now you will suffer.
No. I think
about a person I once hated, and the rot and rage it did…
…to me.
But I don’t
think, as well, that this is justice—spending millions on the very dim chance
that a fanatic can be rehabilitated.
I think
that the guy should be put to work.
Look,
presumably all the victims’ families are working, right? They’re all getting up
every Monday morning, putting on the work clothes, putting on the smile they
don’t feel.
Why should
Breivik be different?
He’s
clearly a guy with energy. Writing a 200 page memoir exhausted me—his screed
was 1500 pages. Oh, and by the way, he apparently is going to use his free time
to add MORE!
OK—remember
that dictum: don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions!
(Ahh, how I
miss the corporate world!)
Here’s what
I’d do. First, isolate him. He’s toxic and cannot be exposed to others. Second,
find the thing that he can do that will be most valuable economically to
society. If it’s folding laundry, let him fold laundry. If it’s designing
computer software, let him do that. Monday through Friday, nine to five.
Oh, and
after dinner? He goes for two hours into a small room, is put in a chair in
front of a screen, and watches—night after night, decade after decade—the
videotaped stories of the victims’ families, talking about their lost children,
their ruined marriages, their nightmares, their alcoholism, their loss.
Night after
night, decade after decade.
That, I think, is justice.
