Greyhound Bus Cannibal rehabilitated after 4 years?

lukin2006 wrote:

This conversation going on here is why people who suspect they might need help never seek help ... at too many people still don't seem to want to admit mental illness is a problem ... maybe just call it mental disease and more people will understand it.

Wrong. You have forgotten context here. I'm all for helping the mentally ill to our fullest capacity- just not after they have mutilated someone's child on a bus.

If anything, this conversation speaks to the importance of seeking, getting and providing help for mental illness before something tragic happens.

Like many other traditionally taboo societal items, the stigma people speak of is much lower than it used to be. I know people who have had breakdowns and recovered. Nobody I know speaks poorly of them and all, unless I'm mistaken, support them to their fullest.

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Like many other traditionally taboo societal items, the stigma people speak of is much lower than it used to be. I know people who have had breakdowns and recovered. Nobody I know speaks poorly of them and all, unless I'm mistaken, support them to their fullest.

whether you or someone else gives support after the fact is meaningless in the context of whether a person can build the courage to "come out" as mentally ill before anyone else is aware. it's the fact that they themselves believe they might be "going crazy", and don't want to be labelled as such.

the stigma attached involves so much more than just having support of family and friends.

Why are people talking as if this guy is going to be released and living on his own? I read the article posted and they are talking about escorted visits away from his hospital. I highly doubt he is ever going to be given the kind of freedom to do what he wants or go where he wants whenever he wants like most of us enjoy.

Plus let me pose this question. If someone was driving and had a non-fatal heart attack it cause them to run over and kill someone should they be locked up for murder? If no, how is that different from this case?

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

with his team of doctors and his team of bleeding heart advocates.

I, for one, am getting tired of being constantly insulted with the label "bleeding heart (insert adjective here)". I am a person who advocates for all humans, all victims. That includes the mentally ill.

it's really interesting to me that some people seem to believe that we should treat savage animals as family and mentally ill human beings as caged animals.

I have detailed my position.

I have asked some legitimate questions and articulated an alternative methodology to our current reality.

You keep defending your position while ignoring what I have presented. I'm curious to know where you reside with what I presented.

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

I have detailed my position.

I have asked some legitimate questions and articulated an alternative methodology to our current reality.

You keep defending your position while ignoring what I have presented. I'm curious to know where you reside with what I presented.

your alternative methodology is nothing more than taking the money away from mental health programs and putting it somewhere you deem it to be more useful, and just "lock up the monsters and throw away the key". that's not an alternative methodology. that's a political position.

yes, we obviously need more funding for kids who are traumatized, but we also need more money for insfrastructure, roads, etc etc etc. that is neither here nor there. he is locked up, and the doctor(s) looking after him are saying he is no longer a danger to society. those doctors are already there. are you suggesting that to save money we just have one security guard on staff in front of a big metal door with all the inmates on the other side?

the idea of just locking people up who we don't deem fit for our version of societal bliss is not a solution.

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

You are jumping to extremes to make your position.

I'm not talking about implementing a Turkish prison system.

I'm saying that given what Li has done, I'm not in favour of throwing a ton of cash to try and integrate him into mainstream society.

I'm saying the resources we commit to people such as Li are excessive. Especially when we look at the resources we fail to provide to, say, abused children.

Once again, we are apart on this issue. I can accept where you are at as much as I am comfortable with my stance.

Remember that I am in full support of providing help to those in need. Just not after the fact. You carve a guy up and eat him, well, that's taking things a little too far. The capacity of such an individual places him inside an institution where he needs to remain so that another mother will not have to experience something similar.

I didn't jump to any extremes. This is what you and others have suggested.

This is part of the issue: you say "given what Li has done....". Being not criminally responsible means that when you are deciding the man's fate, you can't take what he has done into consideration, since he was found not guilty due to mental disease or defect. There are probably as many people in that institution that had the same voices and same insanity as he did, but maybe he had family or friends that had them committed before they did similar acts. We can't treat those people differently than we do Li. That's against the law. In the eyes of the law, Vince Li did nothing criminal since he wasn't capable of understanding that he was. He didn't have the capacity to know that what he di was "taking things a little too far".

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

I'm saying the resources we commit to people such as Li are excessive. Especially when we look at the resources we fail to provide to, say, abused children.

this is very subjective. it's obvious that you'd state that you think those resources used for Li are excessive when it is your position that any resource used on him is wasted.

Fair enough.

But this doesn't necessarily mean I am wrong.

You keep thrusting your position at me so it's safe to say you feel the efforts made towards Li have been worthwhile and that we should be doing all we can to get him straightened out so he can become a productive member of society.

If James Holmes is found by the law to be not guilty because he was incapable of understanding what he was doing that we should spend just as much effort rehabilitating him for reintegration as well?

Sorry Hugh. I just am not there with you. And never will be.

people are worried about this guy(who is an abberation) being out in public... but its the normal guy next door with the girls in his basement you should be worried about.

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

one of my first posts resurrecting this thread was how uncomfortable it made me that this guy might someday get more freedom in the public. I have never said I want Li to be reintegrated into society. I made that very clear.

"thrusting my position"? I'm merely responding to your posts. How is that "thrusting"?

I'll try to be really succinct here and tell me what I have gotten wrong from our dialogue or what you may have missed:

Hugh says:
* Li is not criminally responsible for the crime he committed- his illness is.
* Li needs the support he is getting: he is a human being worthy of such an effort on the part of society.
* You oppose the idea of changing funding formulas to benefit (using my example) abused children if that comes at the expense of less care for people such as Li.

30 Bills says:
* Li is criminally responsible for the crime he committed- if he's not... then one would be suggesting that no crime was committed. The parents of Tim McLean and people such as I think there was.
* I can accept some reasonable treatment for Li, but have a problem with the extra efforts being made on his behalf to try and integrate him into mainstream society.
* I wonder why we have our priorities in such a manner that a fellow like Li would receive so much in terms of legal defence and medical treatment when abused children under our care (or even homeless people for that matter) receive much less.

I guess you don't fully understand what "not criminally responsible" means. It means that the person who committed the crime didn't have the capacity to form the intent nor to understand the difference between right and wrong. it's part of our justice system, and until now, I've never heard any rational person argue that it has no place in it.

and I never opposed your idea of changing funding formulas to benefit abused children instead of funding for Li. I just think it's something that can't really be debated, since you can say that about just about anything that politicians decide what should get funding and what should not. I'd love it if more funds went to homeless people or abused children. I'd also love it if more funding went to child care. But none of that has any bearing on whether I think human beings in Canada should receive the medical care they require. Whether it's their liver (which people destroy themselves), their lungs (which people destroy themselves), their heart (which people destroy themselves), or their brain (which, in this case, was of no fault of the brain's owner). Everyone deserves the care they need. That's the foundation of our country's medical system.

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

I guess you don't fully understand what "not criminally responsible" means. It means that the person who committed the crime didn't have the capacity to form the intent nor to understand the difference between right and wrong. it's part of our justice system, and until now, I've never heard any rational person argue that it has no place in it.

No. I do fully understand what "not criminally responsible" means. I just don't buy in to such a concept regardless of its position in our justice system. Realistically, an argument could be made that anyone who commits a crime shouldn't be held criminally responsible because they are sick. Who in their right mind commits some of the offences we have spoken on over the last couple of years? Whether they heard voices or not... the bottom line is in this case, a rather serious offence has occurred and some measure of justice is warranted without people feeling too badly for the fact that there might have been some circumstances leading to the event.