I am trying to avoid political discussions, and get into partisan spin things.  I have been noted for posting stuff on here regarding income inequality, the poor and so on.  Ends up people do things by party lines and stand ground.  I swore it off.  However, I ran into this article about the White Supremist shooter in Norway, who gunned down a number of people and detonated bombs:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/world/europe/norway-breivik-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

He says he did the acts in "self-defense".

I begin to think, beyond the obvious he is nuts, to wonder who exactly doesn't end up doing acts of aggression because they think they are threatened in some capacity.  Whether it be wars, or use of lethal force or even the "stand your ground" case in Florida, what the individual from Norway did seems to be a norm.  Maybe I am wrong, but volience seems to be what people use to "even the odds" either to pay back for harm they did, or preemptively strike to protect themselves, or their lifestyle.  Maybe I am missing something.  Anyone else here know of examples otherwise?

People find ways to justify their actions. I bet even Hitler felt like he was a great guy. And with that said, I'm actually going to read the link.

Okay. Read it. That guy is fucking insane.

Great question. Spot on.

One thing that they drilled into us during our use of force training was something called The Reasonable Man Standard. People are always going to feel like they had no other choice or that they were right to do whatever evil thing they do. You have to look at the situation from outside of your own perspective and think, "If this were on TV, would I look like a bad guy?"

Basically, if a "Reasonable Man" would think to himself, "If I were in his shoes, I would have probably done the same thing...." then chances are that you were justified. And not just one reasonable man, either. The general population. If I, a 200lb+, muscular looking, guy with some serious training felt threatened by a 100 pound woman and I felt I had to punch her in the face or shoot her, I had damn well better have a good reason. Maybe I thought she was a trained ninja or something. If, from a general perspective, I had other options, then I'm screwed.

A couple of key phrases are: "The totality of the situation" and "What you can articulate in court" because those are the two things that are going to decide if you were right or wrong. If I can tell a good enough story in court so that people see things from my point of view, I'm innocent. If I'm not as good at getting my point across and people see me as a monster, it's game over, man. The individual will always feel they were righteous and innocent. But this sonuva bitch killed like 80 people in self defense!! What reasonable man would see things from his point of view? Marcus Fenix?

*edit* Of course, this wasn't in the U.S. so nothing I said applies, I guess.

I find it kinda hard to call it self-defence when you're the aggressor.

Stand your ground law, that is at work in the Martin-Zimmerman case, can claim this to be so.  People claiming self-defense end up saying they acted preemptively, to defend themself or get "justice".  It is interesting to find out if more evil has been done in the name of "righteousness" than it had been by selfish reasoning.

Figured that part would be given.  Was mostly looking at the nuances in a sense that could be applied further.

the question is does anyone ever think they are evil themselves?

Well, the nazis killed people in order to defend the master race. Genghis Khan could probably claim self-defence for his invasion of China, and he definitely had a case against the Khwarezmian Empire. I don't think many of the worlds greatest conquerors and evil doers thought they did something bad. They had a "good" reason for doing what they did.

I don't know every detail of the Zimmerman case but that law does sound scary and easy to abuse.