> I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into fact

> I wonder, does such a person share a lot of characteristics of his mental state with someone who on the other side of the political spectrum, breaks into factory chicken farms to free birds, or who torches an entire dealership of SUVs to save the planet? If I am convinced that in so doing I'm helping save the planet, a little property damage, sabotage or violent intimidation is a small thing to ask of me. Even if it saved only my family, I'd easily burn every SUV in the world to the ground. I just haven't found any reason to believe that it will save my family, or the planet. > there must be something that goes haywire in the mind to think that "this is so right that I am justified in destroying property, people to get it done" As an example, what is it that's gone haywire in me to believe that the police are sometimes justified in killing? We all pretty much accept different forms of institutionalized forms of violence that destroys property and people. It seems to me like a fundamental aspect of human culture and it shouldn't be surprising that someone who feels cornered or unjustly treated will somehow resort to violence, nor should it necessarily be considered sick behavior. Humans have always used violence as a tool to drive change (or maintain the current state of affairs), to assert their power and to communicate what is right and wrong. We should be extremely wary of the fact that normal, healthy people will resort to it if they believe it's necessary. > Maybe our belief that we are morally right is not as great a motivator of action as we think it should be? I rather think that our beliefs in what is morally right is fungible and circumstantial. We can create a moral framework for ourselves in which meeting our needs and wants at the expense of others' is justified, and we don't always have the capacity to see how our needs and wants can be met. Someone else can even create it for us, more easily if they can construct evidence for our convictions. That's how you get people to agree to shipping their neighbors off to concentration camps, how "yes" is an acceptable answer to "should we send a bunch of 20-somethings halfway across the glove to kill and cause havoc, stabilizing our oil prices?" or how freeing slaves might at one point have seemed as excessive and extreme as freeing birds.