To be legally insane, while you were in the middle of doing whatever it was that you did that tossed you at the mercy of the court, you would have had to not known the difference between right and wrong. I don’t think I have ever heard of a more inadequate definition of insanity in my life.
Why does someone not have to understand what they are doing is wrong to be insane? Who came up with this definition anyway?
The world is full of people that do terrible things that know what they are doing is wrong, they just don’t give a fuck.
That can still be crazy in my book.
There was a case where this Mexican illegal immigrant guy thought he was the Angel Gabriel and he was killing those people that hitch rides on train cars because he thought the hobos were demons.
When the prosecutor asked him if he knew killing was wrong the guy said “yeah, I know killing is wrong” but this guy thought he was killing hell spawn disguised as hobos. It can’t be wrong to kill agents of Satan. He didn’t think he was killing Boxcar Willie he was killing Abatu.
How could he not be crazy?
A woman suffering from postpartum depression cuts the arms off her 11-month-old daughter. No, she isn’t crazy because she knows that cutting people’s arms off is wrong.
No, she is crazy for cutting someone’s arms off.
Insanity should be anyone who isn’t functioning in the same reality that the rest of us are working with.
Believing that you are Superman, Christ or the Buddha, or that the CIA has planted a radio transmitter in your forehead are all excellent indicators that you are in fact, insane.
And don’t give me shit about reality being the only word in the English language that should be always be used in quotes. That’s all fine and good, and yeah, I know that “perception is reality”, but we are not talking reality in the philosophical sense here. I am talking about the reality where if I haul back and punch you square in the face you and I will share the “reality” that I just fattened your lip.
That is the reality that I am talking about.