SadakoMoose said:
Not a damn one of you understands psychology...Properly anyway.
What we have here is poor impulse control mixed with emotional imbalance. The idea that someone would do something like this is disturbing to anyone of sound mind. But there's the key word, SOUND. This woman is very obviously disturbed, and most likely has some form of mental disorder. While I know it can be hard to control ones emotions, especially in a case such as this, where there are some very tragic circumstances to deal with. But, I believe that no one has the right to condemn his fellow man, and that we must look for solutions rather than catharsis.
Many of you would be the first to suggest we burn this woman, but if given the opportunity to to in real life, you would differ.
Also:
As comfortable you feel with the black and white, Saturday morning cartoon, "that's what they all say" fantasy that you've created for yourselves. But let's try to be mature, and not talk about clearly ill human beings like they're just inhuman hell spawn without families to consider. We, the mentally sound, must take the moral high ground.
It is the ONLY responsible choice.
I don't think there's any evidence that this woman is mentally disturbed. If she was, that is a mitigating factor, but from what I have read, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that she did.
Some people are simply bad. Hitler wasn't crazy (well, not to start with anyway, towards the end of the war he did go a little loopy) and was one of the most evil people in the world. Stalin wasn't crazy - paranoid, certainly, but he knew what he was doing. I believe, so far based on what I have read, that this woman knew what she was doing. Is she totally, completely evil? Well, no. I don't believe anyone is 100% evil, although there are some people who are 99% evil. I think this woman is easily angered, irritable, and lacking in empathy. If she was cognizant enough to play FarmVille, she was clearly cognizant enough to know that she was hurting her child. She just didn't care. She might not have purposefully intended to kill her child, but she clearly intended to inflict pain in order to make the child quiet, and in the process of doing so, killed her child. That's manslaughter at the very least, and she should be punished for it.
If it turns out that she is mentally disturbed, then I will gladly retract my judgement of this lady. But so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that she was.
Being evil doesn't not imply mental illness. I watched the trial of "Comrade" Duch, the second in command of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who went on trial recently. He was personally responsible for some of the most sadistic acts of torture ever recorded. And when questioned on the stand, he was as lucid and in command of his faculties as you or I. He simply wanted power and enjoyed making people suffer.
I'm not saying this woman is anything like Duch, but what I am saying is that if you examine human history, you would know that there are bad people out there. People who just don't care about others, people who don't consider the consequences of their actions, people who are just plain mean. And I think this woman is one of those mean spirited people who simply cannot empathize with others. As a result, she should be put in jail for her crime, and she should be prevented from ever taking care of children again. If she has another child, I recommend that it be removed from her care immediately.