Unabomber - In His Own Words

[BothWings]

The longest manhunt in F.B.I. history, it's worth noting he would have never got caught if he did not have his manifesto published and his sister in law read it and notice words in it not commonly used, but used by Ted. He left behind no clues to his bombs or who was making them, almost all the material was scrounged. He was a different kind of crazy than McVeigh.

I can see that "different kind of crazy" thing. Different motives. Truth is though, I don't think McVey was crazy at all I think he was just angry. VERY angry. Blind with rage. Willing to kill children in order to demoralize his enemy. Let's face it, most soldiers often end up killing some innocent civilians when they attack the enemy. McVey was very determined and capable due to his military background. He was a true soldier fighting his own battle, not the one the government trained him to fight. But "crazy"? I don't think he could plea that in court with half as much credibility as kaczynski. The latter almost seemed to using his formidable intelligence to kill for sport. An occasional hobby. Like someone who goes out and shoots a deer every couple of years for fun... Only in this case it was people.

 

[odanny]

I can see that "different kind of crazy" thing. Different motives. Truth is though, I don't think McVey was crazy at all I think he was just angry. VERY angry. Blind with rage. Willing to kill children in order to demoralize his enemy. Let's face it, most soldiers often end up killing some innocent civilians when they attack the enemy. McVey was very determined and capable due to his military background. He was a true soldier fighting his own battle, not the one the government trained him to fight. But "crazy"? I don't think he could plea that in court with half as much credibility as kaczynski. The latter almost seemed to using his formidable intelligence to kill for sport. An occasional hobby. Like someone who goes out and shoots a deer every couple of years for fun... Only in this case it was people.

The documentary tries to uncover the underlying reasons that he became a homicidal bomber, his dislike of technology and those at the forefront of it, be it academia, major airlines, computer science, etc. The truth is, no one really knows. He doesn't give interviews, other than this one, although his family did, he is deeply uncomfortable being around women and other people, and I would say his advanced mathematical intellect vaulted him ahead of his peers and made him even more isolated as a child. Being subjected to some three year long, bizarre psychological experiment at Harvard when he was only a teenager likely set the hook for life. Interesting they were interviewing a former warden at Florence Supermax, and he said you could not create someone better suited for life there than Ted.

 

[Michelle420]

The Unabomber was responsible for the deaths of 3 people and injuries to about 20 in an almost 20 year bombing spree. A decade or so earlier Bill Ayers and his gang were engaged in the same thing. Ayers was responsible for the deaths of four of his comrades who were killed while making a bomb allegedly intended for a Ft. Dix dance and violation ff a hundred class 1 felonies. The Unabomber received three life sentences. Ayers walked away a free man and is now a college professor. WTF happened?

One had money and the other didn't.

 

[Flopper]

So, just to be clear here, he murdered people and tried to murder more, but he cared about a cause so it kind of makes him a cool guy...

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Only in the eyes of his followers which came out of the publicity of the trial. They thought his manifesto made sense. Actually it made no sense at all. He wanted the world to reject industrialization and technology in particular and go back to the good old days of ox carts, oil lamps, and curing cancer with application of herbs.

 

[Flopper]

The documentary tries to uncover the underlying reasons that he became a homicidal bomber, his dislike of technology and those at the forefront of it, be it academia, major airlines, computer science, etc. The truth is, no one really knows. He doesn't give interviews, other than this one, although his family did, he is deeply uncomfortable being around women and other people, and I would say his advanced mathematical intellect vaulted him ahead of his peers and made him even more isolated as a child. Being subjected to some three year long, bizarre psychological experiment at Harvard when he was only a teenager likely set the hook for life. Interesting they were interviewing a former warden at Florence Supermax, and he said you could not create someone better suited for life there than Ted.

In the documentary, they said he was schizophrenic. That can account for a lot of his behavior. Schizophrenia most often appears in males in their late teens to early 20's. It can be touched off by traumatic events. I had a cousin who was schizophrenic. His bizarre behavior and a break with reality occurred in his early 20's when the girl he was dating was killed in an auto accident. Possibly the psychological experiments brought Kaczynski's schizophrenia to the surface.

 

[Flopper]

He may have been a genius in some ways but.... He was surprisingly ineffective at producing a high body count for a "mad bomber". You'd think that someone of his intelligence and 20year commitment would have been more successful at what he set out to do.

He seemed to be extremely careful, learning bomb making by building bombs, starting with common ingredients and components that would be hard to trace. Also he was mentally ill with a number long gaps between bombings. His lack of personally hygiene, need human contact, and no empathy for those killed or inured indicated that was he was pretty sick.

 

[Flopper]

I can see that "different kind of crazy" thing. Different motives. Truth is though, I don't think McVey was crazy at all I think he was just angry. VERY angry. Blind with rage. Willing to kill children in order to demoralize his enemy. Let's face it, most soldiers often end up killing some innocent civilians when they attack the enemy. McVey was very determined and capable due to his military background. He was a true soldier fighting his own battle, not the one the government trained him to fight. But "crazy"? I don't think he could plea that in court with half as much credibility as kaczynski. The latter almost seemed to using his formidable intelligence to kill for sport. An occasional hobby. Like someone who goes out and shoots a deer every couple of years for fun... Only in this case it was people.

I don't know much about McVey but most mass murders are almost always mentally ill, but not insane. In fact, the American Psychological Association reports that “64 percent of jail inmates, 54 percent of state prisoners, and 45 percent of federal prisoners” are reported to have serious mental health problems.

 

[BothWings]

I don't know much about McVey but most mass murders are almost always mentally ill, but not insane. In fact, the American Psychological Association reports that “64 percent of jail inmates, 54 percent of state prisoners, and 45 percent of federal prisoners” are reported to have serious mental health problems.

Maybe we can agree that to be crazy is to be entirely illogical.... While being mentally ill facilitates emotions that are unusual, either qualitatively or quantitatively. McVey attacked his targets because he was flat out angry at them and he knew why. Extreme, but a logical solution to his issue: simply eradicate what he perceived to be the opposition. But I don't think kaczynski was so much motivated by personal, subjective anger toward the people he killed. I think it was more of a brainiac narcissistic power trip that got away from him sometimes... Like a kid in the woods with a shotgun or a 22 who is an excellent shot, and shoots squirrels for fun. Except kaczynski was a genius with explosives not firearms... and decided to design his own weapons and his targets were people not squirrels.