Andrea Yates verdict - huh?

[Lissa]

Let's say you're right for the sake of argument. Does that mean that just like animals, we just give in to our urges and emotions? We are not capable of controlling them at all, if they are strong enough? What's the difference then, between this case and let's say Jeffrey Daumer? Should he have been also put in a psycho ward, since obviously he was far from normal also? There's often a reason as to why people do unspeakable things, a reason for those people to have become like they are. Molestation during childhood, some other type of trauma, etc etc etc. Many people go through something very tough in their life and it often leaves them not exactly perfectly fine. Many are born or acquire some sort of psychosis. Only a few of them go on to do something that destroys the lives of others. I attribute that to a lack of self-control and general worthlessness as human beings on the part of the latter. You attribute it to a medical condition. Ok, that is a very big difference between conservatives and liberals. Accountability vs. excuses.
-A

Ok, I have a task for you then if you think that urges and emotions are so easy to control. I want you to, starting tomorrow morning when you wake, not eat any food for the next three days, only drink water. See if you can control the urge to eat for 3 days time. See if you can resist the urges your body keeps throwing at you to eat something and see if you're self control can override it. I'm betting that you'll fail that task.

Is it so hard for you to sit down and think that maybe, just maybe, chemical imbalances and/or situations where raw urges and emotions take over can happen? How would you react if one of your children was stuck in a room in your house, the house was on fire, and there was no way for you to get to that child and there was no chance of you saving them (either the child dies or you both die trying to save the child)? I dare you to answer that without saying that you would try and find some way to get to that child and rescue them even if there were no way possible to do so.

To say that people should have self control at all times is both foolish and totally not understanding what it is to be human. We all at one time let our emotions and urges rule us, that is what makes us human, but sanity is what allows us to look back on those times in hindsight and recognize right from wrong in what we did and allow us to act remorsefully for those wrongs we have committed. Sanity is what allows us to have some measure of self control and in the two cases you present, both were cases of insanity as neither Daumer nor Yates could tell right from wrong.

So, I ask you again, go research about PPD and PPP and then come back after you're read over the information from various sites out there.