Post by RS Davis on Jan 18, 2004 3:11:33 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Theodore Dalrymple Wrote:[/glow]
According to the psychiatrist, Heinrich Wilmer, the German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who killed Bernd Brandes and then ate at least 44 pounds of his flesh, is suffering from “emotional problems.” We might say the same, I suppose, of Brandes, who answered Meiwes’s Internet advertisement for “a young, well-built man who wants to be eaten”—though his problems are now past curing. Brandes also had a slightly offbeat sense of humor. On discovering that both he and Meiwes were smokers, he reportedly said, “Good, smoked meat lasts longer.”
The case raises interesting questions of principle, even for those who take the thoroughly conventional view that eating people is wrong. According to the evidence, Meiwes and Brandes were consenting adults: by what right, therefore, has the state interfered in their slightly odd relationship?
According to the psychiatrist, Heinrich Wilmer, the German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who killed Bernd Brandes and then ate at least 44 pounds of his flesh, is suffering from “emotional problems.” We might say the same, I suppose, of Brandes, who answered Meiwes’s Internet advertisement for “a young, well-built man who wants to be eaten”—though his problems are now past curing. Brandes also had a slightly offbeat sense of humor. On discovering that both he and Meiwes were smokers, he reportedly said, “Good, smoked meat lasts longer.”
The case raises interesting questions of principle, even for those who take the thoroughly conventional view that eating people is wrong. According to the evidence, Meiwes and Brandes were consenting adults: by what right, therefore, has the state interfered in their slightly odd relationship?
I think the guy's got a point.
- Rick
