Zen 1145: What is the point of Anders Breivik?

Say what you like about Hitler, he killed Hitler. It's a shame we can't say the same for Anders Breivik, the squinty-eyed fascist mass murderer currently having his day in court in Norway. If only he'd started his killing spree with himself, the world would be a happier and brighter place.

Utoeya island: because I didn't want to use a picture of Breivik

As it is, the loathsome little prick is still alive and apparently loving it. It is a credit to the civilised values of the Norwegian people that this insecure, infantile sociopath is facing justice and not hanging by his balls from a lamppost.

But many are still asking: what's the point? He's admitted his guilt. The police aren't looking for anyone else. Why give him a platform for his warped world view?

I'm inclined to agree that he shouldn't have been handed the opportunity to strut and posture as he has, but a trial - or perhaps more accurately a dissection - is precisely what is needed. It really is a very good thing that he's still alive, so he can be examined in minute detail and we can learn from him, the better to stop someone like him happening again.

As Stanley Baldwin so aptly put it "the bomber will always get through", and so we can expect more horrendous, meaningless one-man massacres in the future. But stretching the bomber analogy to breaking point, we should nonetheless ensure that we study the enemy and array the best defences possible against him, especially if the dumb fuck surrenders and lets us do it.

It's when he's been wrung dry of useful insights, and only then, that Anders Breivik should be hung by his balls from a lamppost.