Well, now we know

Breaking news—the Norwegian court has declared Anders Behring Breivik sane.

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.