JudeA said:
The only time I have argued with someone has been when lies have been said about me.
So, basically, if you were a part of, say, Hitler's circle, and he never told a lie about YOU, you would not object to the lies he told about the Jews? If he was instituting his annihilation program, as long as it had nothing to do with you, you would not object?
It's the same thing, the only thing different is scale.
JudeA said:
There are so many disparate people in what is euphemistically called The Patriot Movement. Each person puts a piece into the puzzle. I believe that there is room for us all.
The problem here is that there are many people putting in puzzle pieces that do not belong to the puzzle, that are designed to prevent a unification of views and the majority of the masses of people that need to be reached only see that there is no unity of voice and purpose; that there are so many contradictions and puzzle pieces that don't fit that the picture is chaotic. In short, you are subscribing to the "blind men and the elephant" interpreation of reality, and suppose that, in this way, you can tell the masses of people about the true nature of the elephant. And so, while one person may be declaring "it's a trunk! a trunk!" another is declaring equally vigorously "it's a tail! a tail!" while still another one is declaring "no, it's an ear! an ear!" and so on. And so, all the audience who have not gotten close to the elephant are telling one another "so and so says it is a trunk, but so and so else is saying it is a tail, and still so and so else is saying it is an ear! They obviously haven't got a clue, so let's us go away and ignore those crazy people."
And that's what essentially has happened, only worse. The point is: it cannot and never will go anywhere with that approach.
And that is why, of course, that our psychopathically constructed reality norms promote such ideas as "everyone has their own truth" and "there is room for everyone's truth" and "each one adds a piece and it will all add up" meanwhile, they are directly involved in declaring such things as "no, it's not a trunk, tail or ear, it's small, soft and furry."
JudeA said:
The problem that I have is the fighting that goes on in the movement and I do not see Alex Jones guilty of that. On the other hand, Daryl Bradford Smith and his Galpal, Eric Hufshite, are the worst offenders.
Certainly "fighting" in any movement is a problem. You, of course, only will fight if someone tells a lie about you or YOUR ideas. Now, what about someone else over there about whom someone else has told a lie. Why do you view someone else's objection to being lied about as "fighting"?
This reflects another problem of our psychopathically created reality norms: such things as "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," or "least said, soonest mended". Those things condition us to be silent and not speak about wrongs that are done because it is perceived as "telling tales" or "gossiping." And that is why psychopaths are able to control us because we have believed such paramoralistic garbage and when a deviant does us wrong, we don't tell others because it is "gossiping." And so, the deviant is free to go an do wrong to others because no one has called him on his lies and deceptions.
I frequently get emails and letters from readers who simply cannot understand how psychopaths - and other related or similar psychological deviants - can move into positions of power, how they can "put one over" on so many people. It strikes the average person as preposterous that even they can be taken in by a deviant. As I wrote in my blogpost, "The Cult of the Plausible Lie":
"Our culture agrees on the signs of lying. Ask anyone how to tell if someone is lying and they will tell you that they can tell by "lack of eye contact, nervous shifting, or picking at one's clothes." Psychologist Anna Salter writes with dry humor: "This perception is so widespread I have had the fantasy that, immediately upon birth, nurses must take newborns and whisper in their ears, "Eye contact. It's a sign of truthfulness." [Anna C. Salter, Ph.D.]
The problem is, if there is a psychopath - or those with related characteropathies - who doesn't know how to keep good eye contact when lying, they haven't been born. Eye contact is "universally known" to be a sign of truth-telling. The problem is liars will fake anything that it is possible to fake, so in reality, eye contact is absolutely NOT a sign of truth telling.
The practiced liar: a category of liar that even experts find it difficult to detect.
Problem is, even when dealing with people who are not practiced liars, such as college students who have volunteered for a research study of lying, most observers are not as good as they think in detecting deception. The research shows consistently that most people - even most professional groups such as police and psychologists - have no better than a chance ability to detect deception. Flipping a coin would serve as well. [Anna C. Salter, Ph.D.]
The fact is, MOST psychopaths are not like Hannibal Lecter or Patrick Batemen, the Harvard educated banker with murderous proclivities as portrayed in "American Psycho." Most psychopaths are not physically violent, though they most certainly do extensive damage to the soul of their victims.
All of us have many encounters with other people in our lives; most of these encounters are stimulating and encourage us to do our best.
There are other kinds of encounters that always and inevitably, in one way or another, lead to destruction.
This is accomplished by individuals who are quite charming, often evoking feelings of admiration or protectiveness and even "instant likeability" in their victims. These are individuals who give the right impression, who look and sound like superior specimens of humanity, and carefully conceal the dark side of their nature; a side that is deceitful and manipulative in ways difficult for a normal person with conscience to even conceive. They are capable of infiltrating any kind of social or organizational group, creating a "power base of helpers" in a covert way that escapes all but the most careful scrutiny, and ultimately generating confusion, tumultousness, bad feelings, and eventual destruction of the social ties holding the normal people together.
The destructive personality traits of the psychological deviant - the psychopath in particular - are so well hidden that they are virtually invisible to most of the people with whom they interact. They often tell others how ambitious they are to achieve a particular goal, and they will include a hard-luck story about how they have overcome incredible odds to achieve something remarkable, (growing up poor or underprivileged, or abused as a child), but over time, it will be noticed that they are actually quite lacking in conscientiousness, diligence, and hard work. Somehow, they always manage to create a "support team" that does the actual work for them while they take the credit.
Psychopaths are quite adept at weaving stories that are very emotionally stimulating. They can do this with a fantastic, deft touch, restraining a furtive tear, or clearing a cracking voice at the right moment, so that even the most practical of normal humans is taken in and convinced that here is the "real thing," a noble human being who needs my help, my support, my all.
They are master manipulators, able to sense with ease what their target wants and needs to hear. Personal interactions are where they excel because they are so skilled at telling exquisitely acted stories that may, indeed, contain some elements of truth. They can tell these stories so impressively that normal due diligence is cast aside as being insulting to such a noble and oppressed character.
Psychopaths are masters of rising to the top in any field or organization. They know how to worm their way into the good graces of those at the top, and how to get those who work alongside them to carry the load for them and be happy doing it! They deliberately seek to build emotional attachments between themselves and those with power thus making sure that they have guardians and boosters to their "careers."
The fact is that the most pronounced traits of the psychopath just happen to be traits that American Capitalistic society values: egocentricity, lack of concern for others, superficiality, manipulativeness, an ability to "play the game" better than others. Looking at these characteristics in isolation is a big mistake, we are told by Prof. Robert Hare, an expert on psychopaths. Yes, many of these characteristics are valuable for accomplishing all sorts of different things - politics, business, show biz - for example. These characteristics can lead to productive output. But it is when they are combined with the hidden part of the psychopath that they become disastrous.
People might say that a psychopath is "charismatic", "high profile", "gets things done", and that is exactly the impression that they wish to create and are able, with preternatural cunning, to do so.
The fact is, to a psychopath, the entire world is one big feeding trough and they are going to get in and get it all and they'll do whatever it takes to accomplish this, including playing weak and defenseless, maintaining an incredible cover of lies for as long as necessary, and using anybody and everybody, including their own family members.
Psychopaths live their lives incognito: outside they are often lawyers, politicians, entertainers, religious leaders, military leaders, union leaders, media moguls, artists and critics; and most often they are at the top. They are persuasive, charming, charismatic, and easily able to make masses of people like them. They are fun to be around because they are everything that the usually neurotic, guilt-ridden, normal human wishes he could be. It can take a long time before anyone figures out that there is really something missing, that the image is not the reality.
Inside, the psychopath is really insincere, arrogant, untrustworthy, manipulative, insensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, remorseless, shallow, irresponsible (blames others for anything and everything that goes wrong), impatient, unreliable, selfish, parasitic, and quite willing to take shameless advantage of the goodwill they manipulatively engender in those individuals they intend to use to get to the top. They treat all people, including their families, like objects and can do incredible damage to anyone who crosses them or frustrates their goals. And, the horrifying fact is, most of them never get caught.
We live in a high speed, high pressure world where a lot of the traditional social structures that used to contain and protect us have been stripped away. Many of us are involved in virtual interactions with others and this presents its own set of problems. As the old-fashioned way of doing things is forced to change with the times, pressures for speed, technology, new systems, create a sort of frontier capitalistic reality where ideas and information are the new commodities.. Psychopaths thrive in this type of chaotic, high-pressure world. In the realm of ideas as commodity, there's no shortage of opportunities for psychopaths to rise to the top.
The 9-11 Truth Movement, Historical Revisionism, Alternative Media are part of this Frontier. Such venues are ripe for takeover by people who are high-energy and fast-moving, two of the characteristics of psychopaths that rise to the top. Psychopaths are impulsive and thrive on stimulation; they require it. They can do many things at once, though they often do not finish them, but leave that to their "lackeys." It also happens that things may move so fast that no one notices how they change and shift their position according to the wind of the moment.
Psychopaths are more likely to join organizations that offer them the possibility of getting to the top such as those that are formed on the basis of "cutting edge" ideas, or even revolutionary ideas, because in such an environment, often in a distressed state due to attacks from the outside, it is easier for them to hide. They are able to do this because the kinds of things they say and do under such stresses are the kinds of things the organization seems to want: they are able to pour on the charm, the charisma, to command respect, be larger than life; all things that are natural to the psychopath. Neurotic, guilt-damaged people easily mistake such traits as true leadership abilities, especially when the psychopath builds everyone up with their carefully crafted false stories about how they have suffered to pursue the goal! Never forget that psychopaths are great storytellers and they can weave disjointed facts in so seamlessly, bringing it to such a dramatic conclusion that it almost seems like a vision.
The fact is, the Truth vacuum in our society - the lack of official Truth - has created opportunities for psychopaths to be suddenly cast as great heroes and saviors; someone who can offer us transformational visions of the future. Everyone is searching for meaning, for Truth, for something solid to stand on, and what is so disturbing is the way we are looking more and more to psychopathic types as being above the rest of us, offering charismatic ideals and greater and more glorious visions. The appetite of the masses of people for leadership, even if it is a false leader, as long as he has a good story, is disturbing. It reveals to us that people have become reluctant to look at the truth, that they have become inculcated in denial of reality in favor of the 30 minute drama with a resolution after four commercials.
The psychopathic leader is an interesting study. The persona of the great leader - the archetype - is one of mercurial highs and lows; dramatic achievements and equally dramatic betrayal and losses. The leader is expected to have strong views and to be absolutely confident of his rightness; to make demands of others, to have high expectations that his ideas will serve as the vision for others who will follow him. A real leader has to be a driven individual, ambitious for a certain goal, and with sufficient ego to sustain themselves in times of set-back and betrayal. That's what the masses of people want and need from a leader, and it just happens to also be the very thing that is easiest for a psychopath to fake and generally their motivation is not Truth, but rather envy and rivalry. Nothing is wrong with any aspect of leadership if the views are based on Truth, if the goal is sincere and truly for the good of many others, if the followers are treated with understanding and compassion.
Amanda Sinclair of Melbourne Business School says:
If we actually had a much more well-rounded understanding of the fragilities that often lead people to become leaders in the first place, then we would be better placed to make more discerning judgments when those same leaders we've treated as saviours, just demonstrate the other side of their personalities.
So, how do we tell when the behavior of a "leader" is actually malignant or even psychopathic? What are the signs?
Robert Hare tells us:
The problem for the organization is that only one or two of these people can do enormous damage, particularly if they get very high up in the organization.
An even bigger problem is the fact that, as I mentioned above, the 9-11 Truth Movement, the Alternative Media, and other similar organizations seeking to fill in the vacuum in the Information Frontier are prime targets for psychopaths because they will function very well in an information culture that is designed to manipulate, con, lie and cheat. You could say that the lack of a real structure of vetting "experts" because the field is outside the pale of official discourse, almost compels psychopathic behavior.
So, let's look at an actual case to try to get a handle on this thing. We will be looking at a "corporate" situation, but that is little different from the almost anything goes, "dog eat dog" world of 9-11 research, Alternative Media and Historical Revisionism, not to mention the total global Political Scene.
Paul Babiak is a corporate psychopath's worst nightmare: he knows how they think. Babiak's an industrial/organizational psychologist from upstate New York and a regular consultant to many A-list corporations trying to remedy dysfunctional behavior in the workplace. More than anyone, he's helped invent the term 'corporate psychopath', and has done most of the work in studying how they operate.
It all started, though, by accident, as part of a consultancy job 12 years ago, and a case that had him baffled.
Dr. Babiak had been brought in to help a major corporation in Colorado. His job was to assess a management team that was underperforming. A new recruit had joined its ranks. Morale was low, conflict high.
Initially, Babiak was charmed by the fast-talking guy at the center of the problem. But as his investigation progressed, it turned out he'd uncovered a genuine "snake in a suit". Babiak tells us:
He came across very sincere, and modest, and I only came to realize there was something going on when I got the results of the assessments that were being done, and I found quite a discrepancy. A number of people really, really liked him, and that included some of the higher level people I must say. And a number of people really despised him, really thought he was evil. One person referred to him as a "snake." It was only later really, after the assignment ended and I consulted with Bob Hare, that I saw the light. Bob had sent me the PCL-R, or the Psychopathy Checklist, which he had developed while studying psychopaths in prison samples.
He came out high on the conning and manipulation side of the PCL-R equation and middle-of-the-road on the anti-social behavior side. Thus he was able to hide his manipulations from view of those around him, yet he exerted undue influence, negative influence, on the group.
Babiak dubbed the troublesome manager "Dave."
According to Babiak, there are three main archetypes of psychopaths that operate in such venues. Babiak says:
One we've labeled The Con, and that's the individual who deals one-on-one with individuals, primarily tries to exert influence over them, and then swindles them out of something. It's a very simple process, and they may not make it into the high levels of the corporate structure, but they can do some serious damage.
The second kind of psychopath is The Bully. And that's a person that influences others by intimidation. It could be overt, verbal threats, maybe even physical violence, but it can also be very covert intimidation. [Psychopaths in Suits, Radio program, Sunday 18 July 2004, Produced by Ian Walker]
A few words need to be said about this special category of "covert intimidation." Such individuals use a number of destabilizing techniques common to abusive people: innuendoes, spiteful allusions, lies, and humiliating remarks. They are quiet, cold, and mean in a way that does not alert those around them to what they are doing to their targeted victim. They often set things up so that they appear as the victim and making their target the persecutor. Generally, because they are easily able to create a "pitiful persona," as their foil, even the victims don't react appropriately. The victim may exert themselves to be even kinder, to set an example that they hope will soften the aggressor toward them.
This type of individual usually works with others of the same type. The process of destruction consists of either overt or hidden hostility on the part of the gang of deviants toward the designated target who is a REAL target in every sense of the word. It is effectively possible to destabilize and even psychologically destroy someone with words, hints, inferences, and unspoken suggestions; and usually those close to the target cannot even see it and will thus not intervene. Most often this is due to the fact that the abuser is constantly shifting the blame to the victim. France's premier Victimology Expert, Marie-France Hirigoyen writes:
Perverse abusiveness fascinates, seduces, and terrifies. We sometimes envy abusive individuals because we imagine them to be endowed with a superior strength that will always make them winners. They do, in fact, know how to naturally manipulate, and this appears to give them the upper hand, whether in business or in politics. Fear makes us instinctively gravitate toward them rather than away from them: survival of the fittest.
The most admired individuals are those who enjoy themselves the most and suffer the least. In any case, we don't take their victims, who seem weak and dense, seriously, and under the guise of respecting another's freedom, we become blind to destructive situations.
In fact, this "tolerance" prevents us from interfering in the actions and opinions of others, even when these actions and opinions are out of line or morally reprehensible.
We also weirdly indulge the lies and "spin" of those in power. The end justifies the means.
To what degree is this acceptable? Don't we, out of indifference, risk becoming accomplices in this process by losing our principles and sense of limits? Real tolerance means examining and weighing values.
This type of aggression, however, lays traps in the psychic domain of another person and is allowed to develop because of tolerance within our current socio-cultural context. Our era refuses to establish absolute standards of behavior. We automatically set limits on abusive behaviors when we LABEL them as such; but in our society, labeling is likened to intent to censure. We have abandoned the moral constraints that once constituted a code of civility which allowed us to say "That just isn't done!" We only become indignant when facts are made public, worked over and magnified by the media. [...]
Even psychiatrists hesitate to use the term "abuse"'; when they do, it's to express either their powerlessness to intervene or their fascination with the abuser's methods. [...]
[Psychopathy] arises from dispassionate rationality combined with an incapacity to respect others as human beings. Some [psychopaths] commit crimes for which they are judged, but most use charm and their adaptive powers to clear themselves a path in society, leaving behind a trail of wounded souls and devastated lives. ... We have all been fooled by abusive human beings who passed themselves off as victims. They fulfilled our expectations in order the better to seduce us. ...
We subsequently feel betrayed and humiliated when, in their search for power, they show their true colors. This explains the reluctance of some psychiatrists to expose them. Psychiatrists say to each other, "Watch out, he's a [psychopath]", the implication being "This could be dangerous," and also, "There's nothing that can be done." We then give up on helping the victim.
Designating [psychopathy] is certainly a serious matter... whether the subject is serial killing or perverse abusiveness, the matter remains one of predatory behavior: an act consisting in the appropriation of another person's life.
The word "perverse" shocks and unsettles. It corresponds to a value judgment, and psychoanalysts refuse to pronounce value judgments. Is that sufficient reason to accept what goes on? A more serious omission lies in not labeling abuse, because the victim then remains defenseless...
Victims are often not heard when they seek help. Instead, analysts advise them to assess their conscious or unconscious responsibility for the attack upon them. ... Emotional abusers directly endanger their victims; indirectly, they lead those around them to lose sight of their moral guideposts and to believe that freewheeling behaviors at the expense of others are the norm. [Dr. Marie-France Hirigoyen, Stalking the Soul]
Now, returning to Babiak's Psychopathic Archetypes. The most dangerous of all the psychopaths is a prize manipulator called the "PuppetMaster." Babiak says:
That's an individual who is very savvy, is quite a student of human behavior, is quite capable of manipulating individuals into hurting other people. So it's a two-step process. The Puppetmaster manipulates individuals and these people whom they are manipulating do the dirty work for them. They reap the benefit, but their minions do the work for them. ...
Psychopaths are primarily driven by a thrill-seeking drive... they have perhaps a physiological drive for stimulation. The second thing that operates in them is a need, a drive if you will, to play games, to play the game, to play with people as if they're pawns ... they're game players. And they like to win, of course. And, the third aspect of their personality which I think is a driver, is that they are immune to the damage they do. At some level, they might even enjoy the damage they do.
This last remark seems to be true. In the May 29 edition of the journal, "Nature," British researchers reported that a psychological test designed to detect unconscious or frowned-upon attitudes picked up a decided tendency among psychopathic murderers to have abnormally positive attitudes toward violence.
Paul Babiack still clearly remembers his earliest encounter with the psychopath he called 'Dave'. It took Babiak more than two years to figure out what Dave the corporate psychopath was up to. Please notice this: Babiak was a psychologist, one who should be expected to be able to "see through" people. But he was confronted with a psychopath, and they are often very difficult to detect other than by their effects. Even so, when analyzing a group dynamic where you can tell that something is wrong, it is not always easy to isolate the pathological element. By piecing together parts of the story from many different people, Babiak was finally able to illuminate exactly how corporate psychopaths get away with it for so long.
It turns out that Dave had woven a complex web of manipulation by grooming what Babiak calls the 'Pawns' and the 'Patrons'. He tells us:
When I sorted through the data I found that the supporters and the detractors could actually be broken down into four groups, based upon the amount of first-hand experience they had with Dave, and the amount of help they could be to his career. One group, I called them The Patrons, was made up of the President, the Vice-President and some Directors of the firm, effectively the higher levels of the organization. Now, this group of individuals had considerable formal power in the company but they actually knew very little about Dave. What limited interactions they had with Dave were positive but, I learned later, each had been carefully staged by Dave to get the effect he wanted. As a result, these executives protected and defended him from subsequent criticism.
While Dave was buttering up the upper management who all thought he was a great guy, Dave was equally busy making friends with those who had no power, but could do his work for him and make him look good. They covered up his inadequacies and in exchange, he went out of his way to make them feel special. Babiak offers some details of how this was done:
One in particular, I called her The Soulmate, seemed to glow every time Dave spoke to her. As it turned out, she, being an expert in the technical area that Dave claimed as his background (and I later discovered he didn't have), she did all of his work for him, and actually covered for him when he couldn't complete his assignments. So, in total, this group, despite having little formal power, actually had considerable informal power and utility to Dave, and he played them very well.
The problem is, of course, as Marie-France Hirigoyen, French expert on Victimology, points out: people admire the accomplished psychopath. Why?
Indeed, we often project onto leader figures a better self, you know, the self that we might want to be, but we create leaders in order to destroy them, so it's a pretty fragile kind of thing. We think for a short period of time that they're going to solve everything for us, they're going to turn around organizations, they're going to deliver miracles. But our patience is often not all that long-term, and then we get an equal sort of gratification about seeing the fall from grace.
Did Dave - Babiak's case study - get his comeuppance?
No, he didn't. And that is the way most cases of psychopathy go: they are resounding successes, never mind that they leave a trail of destroyed lives in their wake or that they achieve their positions by stealing work from others who are capable. As it happens, after the "honeymoon period" in the job, the problems with Dave kept growing and Dave's immediate boss, Frank, finally began to figure out that there was something wrong with Dave. He knew he was up to something, but was never able to catch him. Babiak fills in some details:
Later it was discovered that he was taking company products for his own use, selling some of it on the side. He didn't have a degree in the area of expertise he claimed, and the work experience on his resume was, let's say, enhanced, to fit the job requirements. But The Pawns supported him, by making excuses for him, covering him, and basically helping him get through all this.
The third group, called the Organizational Police, includes the Human Resources folks, the campus security, accounting and auditing staff; functions like that. What surprised me was that they were basically ignored by Dave. Because they had no utility to him, he was not interested in dealing with them. And, when one or two of them uncovered some of his behavior and brought it to the attention of upper management, they were just pushed aside. He had successfully neutralized their power, and he sought protection of the higher-ups, his Patrons, who allowed him to continue this behavior.
By this time, Dave's boss Frank, decided to set a trap so as to expose Dave to the Big Boss. He wanted to prove to him that Dave was a liar. Unfortunately, as you will see, he didn't let the Big Boss in on the plan and Dave, like most psychopaths of his type, was way ahead of him. Frank confided a company secret to Dave, making him swear he wouldn't tell a soul. Then, he waited.
It wasn't an hour before Dave went to the Vice-President who was in his office and telling him this information. But the way he told the story was twisted. He turned it around to make Frank look like he was betraying the company, and that Dave was actually loyal and was going to the Vice-President with this information because he wanted to protect the Vice-President and the organization from Frank's deceitful behavior.
The VP was, of course, in on the plan and Frank thought that, with the VP backing him up, they had Dave on the run. Like I said, Frank (and the VP) should have gone right to the top with this one from the very beginning.
Frank and the Vice-President got together, and decided to go to the CEO, got an appointment with the CEO for the following week. When they were in the waiting room, waiting to have their meeting, because they were going to suggest that Dave be removed, the door opens, and who walks out but Dave. And he smiled and walked out.
These two gentlemen then went in to meet with the CEO and you can imagine how shocked they were. They presented their case to the CEO, who looked at them, and basically told them he didn't believe anything that they had said, that he had heard what Dave had said, believed Dave, and felt they should leave him alone.
Two weeks later, Frank was demoted and Dave was promoted. Dave is, apparently, still climbing to the top.
Now, it's not hard to imagine large numbers of these types of people being attracted to professions where they can achieve great power, money, and other attributes of control over others. It's also not hard to imagine the very same types being drawn into the vacuum of Truth where 9-11 Researchers, Alternative Media Personalities, Historical Revisionists, find a venue to set up a "stock-market of information". The question we then must deal with is how to deal with people like "Dave"?
Babiak in collaboration with Robert Hare believe they have part of the answer: an 111-point questionnaire they call the 'Business Scan' or 'B-Scan'.
The thing about the B-Scan is that it is not filled out by the individual in question: his claims or words are not even considered. Instead, it is a questionnaire that is completed by others above and below the 'problem employee' to pinpoint personality traits and behaviors which may be destructive. In short, they have developed a business specific questionnaire (which costs a lot of money, by the way) that imitates what we have long promoted: the idea of a network that honestly and openly shares information about their experiences with others, and does due diligence about those others the instant any questions arise, and shares that information. We are all taught: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," or "least said, soonest mended," or "don't talk about others, that's gossiping," and so on. All of these "rules" are devised and set up by a psychopathic culture that thrives in the darkness that is created by people being afraid to discuss their observations about, and experiences with, others. Additionally, it has to be kept in mind that when you are dealing with psychopaths, about all you are going to get is impressions, opinions, and anecdotal experiences: they are generally that good and don't leave bodies around to be found.
Now, it strikes me that, as a useful JEWISH essayist, one who actually does some work for Rense in writing essays that make him look like he is a real good guy, you are what Babiak refers to above as the "soulmate" type. What is more, not only do you seem to be easily manipulated by these types, there is a characteristic flavor in what you have written on this thread of the person who actually admires the psychopathic type. You have also bought into the psychopathically propagated paramoralism that to call a spade a spade is making a "value judgment" and that you will not do.
More than that, you have also fallen for another psychopathic trick which is to blame the victim. This comes through in the psychological paramoralism "I do not believe that we ever see people as they truly ARE. Our first task is to apply that rule to ourselves. The mirror is merely a reflection."
That's a cheap excuse and evasion for what Marie-Francce Hirigoyen describes:
Victims are often not heard when they seek help. Instead, analysts advise them to assess their conscious or unconscious responsibility for the attack upon them. ... Emotional abusers directly endanger their victims; indirectly, they lead those around them to lose sight of their moral guideposts and to believe that freewheeling behaviors at the expense of others are the norm.
Most of us don't even realize how seriously we have been pathologized by our culture; a culture, I should add, that has been created by Jewish thought, for the most part. The science of psychology, particularly, has been corrupted by Freudian thinking.
As George K. Simon, Jr., writes in his book "In Sheep's Clothing":
...[W]e've been pre-programmed to believe that people only exhibit problem behaviors when they're "troubled" inside or anxious about something. We've also been taught that people aggress only when they're attacked in some way. So, even when our gut tells us that somebody is attacking us and for no good reason, we don't readily accept the notion. We usually start to wonder what's bothering the person so badly "underneath it all" that's making them act in such a disturbing way. We may even wonder what we may have said or done that "threatened" them. We almost never think that they might be fighting simply to get something, have their way, or gain the upper hand. So, instead of seeing them as merely fighting, we view them as primarily hurting in some way.
Not only do we often have trouble recognizing the ways people aggress us, but we also have difficulty discerning the distinctly aggressive character of some personalities. The legacy of Sigmund Freud's work has a lot to do with this. Freud's theories (and the theories of others who built upon his work) heavily influenced the psychology of personality for a long time. Elements of the classical theories of personality found their way into many disciplines other than psychology as well as into many of our social institutions and enterprises. The basic tenets of these theories and their hallmark construct, neurosis, have become fairly well etched in the public consciousness.
Psychodynamic theories of personality tend to view everyone, at least to some degree, as neurotic. Neurotic individuals are overly inhibited people who suffer unreasonable fear (anxiety), guilt and shame when it comes to securing their basic wants and needs. The malignant impact of overgeneralizing Freud's observations about a small group of overly inhibited individuals into a broad set of assumptions about the causes of psychological ill-health in everyone cannot be overstated.[...]
Therapists whose training overly indoctrinated them in the theory of neurosis, may "frame" problems presented them incorrectly. They may, for example, assume that a person, who all their life has aggressively pursued independence and demonstrated little affinity for others, must necessarily be "compensating" for a "fear" of intimacy. In other words, they will view a hardened [aggressor] as a terrified runner, thus misperceiving the core reality of the situation.[...]
We need a completely different theoretical framework if we are to truly understand, deal with, and treat the kinds of people who [aggress] too much as opposed to those who cower or "run" too much.
The problem is, of course, that when you read all the books about such people as Dr. Simon is describing, you discover that "treatment" really means treating the victims because such aggressors almost never seek help.
Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?
The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]
Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.
If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]
Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population....
The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] - a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about 40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.
The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.
Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.
We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.
Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.
Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.
Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference betwen an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha StoutThe Sociopath Next Door]
And it is such people as this you are dealing with. Yes, for now, you are useful to them. But the instant you become a liability (which may never happen, of cours - you may be eternally useful to them), or the instant you begin to disagree with anything they say or do, (especially if you notice how they HAVE harmed other people and, driven by your conscience, empathy for that other person, you stand up for them) you will discover a very different person behind that mask of sanity.
