RhondaLea

Ian, You missed the point, and parleyed it into something weird. But just so you know, I don't find you funny, and I wouldn't drink with you under any circumstances. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

What exactly is your core question? We'll have to, because I don't agree that being born to a human mother makes one human. It makes one homo sapiens, but not human. Trying to play the "pick your side, I've picked mine" card? Implying that I don't have compassion with the victims? Forget it... Nope. Just telling you one more time that I have no empathy to waste on sociopaths. I'm quite sure that if you empathize with them, you empathize far more with their victims. If you want a hostile argument, go elsewhere. Well it was you who took it to the personal level (telling about your own experience with sociopaths 2 posts up), I only referenced it. If you don't want this discussion to include personal experiences, just leave them out of your posts. I have my share of experience with weird/twisted/sick people too, but it has nothing to do with this thread and I wouldn't share it anyway. Your opinion of my argument is fine. Your opinion of how my experience affected me--or not--is irrelevant to the issue. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/conger3.html When the jury came back with its not-guilty verdict, Randy Weaver turned to his lawyer, Gerry Spence. "I’ve learned something about the system," he told Spence. "This is a good system. This system will work." I don't even know what to think about that. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Is the part I don't understand. The death penalty symbolizes ALL that is wrong with the criminal justice system. To you, John, not to me. If you had said "the improper implementation of the death penalty," I'd have agreed with you. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Y'know, Ian, I don't like you. No surprise there, right? With that said, and even though I have an opinion about your psyche, I think that there is a good reason why this test must be professionally and carefully administered to obtain a valid diagnosis. It is very unlikely that you are a psychopath. All personality disorders reflect normal human behaviors, magnified and twisted out of proportion. We're all going to exhibit some, if not nearly all, of these traits at different times. It is when these traits, in a cluster, become an ongoing, pervasive pattern of behavior that a diagnosis of this sort is made. So I'm sorry to disappoint you. But I think your self-administration of the test is probably not all that accurate. Let's try not to muddy the waters any more than they already are, eh? rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Ted Bundy did not have an inferior mental state. He was brilliant. Most of those people who fit into the very narrow niche I'm describing are quite bright. Here's a plain language description of the sort of person I'm talking about: Psychopaths are neither sociopaths nor psychotics but rather are people who are well aware of the difference between right and wrong and ignore the distinction. Additionally, they are egocentric and have no feelings of empathy, guilt or remorse. They view others as potential victims, and they leave a trail of unhappiness behind them in those who have succumbed to their deceitful manipulations. I have been using the word "sociopath" to describe what Robert Hare describes as a "psychopath." I'm not going to argue the semantics; it's not about the label you apply, but about the action these people take. I'm talking about the sort of person who has no humanity. And if one has no humanity, one is not human. I've defined my terms. If you want to feel empathy for the persons described above, feel free. I think it's misplaced and wasted, so I'm saving my care and concern for their victims. And just because you made it personal, know that I got off pretty lightly, but there are many others damaged beyond repair by such people. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

He could arrange to get email to Mike, Liz and Sangiro--as well as anyone else who took a hit in those threads--with his apology and permission to publish same here. That would be a start. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

I thought ideas like that had been overcome 60 years ago, at least in the western world? The whole "less than human" argumentation is disgusting, no matter how much you try to make it sound politically correct. Put aside the nice-wording-gift-wrap and let's look at the underlying principle, which is: There are humans... and there are "non"-humans. From 1933-1945 they were called "Untermenschen" here in Germany. Now how anyone in their right mind nowadays can still try to draw a line between humans and "non-humans" is beyond me. Sociopaths are as much humans as you and I. Now accepting that as an axiom and continuing to develop our society from there is where the real challenge is! "Getting rid of all the low lifers" is no solution. It was called "die Endlösung". You say it, same post, different line... but have you tried it? Yes. I've tried it. I've tried empathizing with the unempathic all my life. I had to learn--in therapy--how not to. History is littered with the remains of those who empathize with sociopaths. Nothing good has ever come of it, except more carnage. I'm boggled by those who want to equate sociopaths with the people they have tortured down through the years. You and others in this forum have made a leap from those who have not a care in the world for the value of individuals to those groups of people who have been singled out for harassment and worse because of skin color, ethnic origin, sexual preference or some other totally inconsequential reason. I don't get that at all. I don't see any commonality between Tookie Williams, for example, and a generic Jew, lesbian, black man or . To each his own. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

I can't make what you wrote make sense no matter how many times I read it. I'm not willing to have Cory Maye punished at all. It's not the method of punishment that I object to here. It's that he's being punished, period. What part of that don't you understand? Would this situation be okay with you if he were sentenced to life in prison instead of receiving the death penalty? It's not okay with me. I posted this because I find a great deal of irony in the fact that there has been a huge public outcry on behalf of a man who murdered four people in cold blood, but there has been little done about an obvious miscarriage of justice. I have also posted (in two other threads) links to three websites that detail the results of a fouled legal system. A major overhaul of how we handle justice in this country is certainly in order. It may even be that we will be required to call a halt to executions until that is accomplished. But as far as I'm concerned, it's not the death penalty that's the problem, but the way we currently administer justice in this country. Again, what part of that don't you understand? rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

He needs to apologize to Mike and to Liz and to anyone else who got part of the fallout. My own take is that he went over the edge, and I believe he needed and deserved the support of everyone because he was in a very bad place, but that doesn't relieve him of the responsibility to make amends. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

You meant to post this to alt.tasteless. Well done, btw. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

I never thought I'd see the day that an aversion to sociopaths is considered a prejudice in the pejorative way the word is commonly used. But I can live with it. One of the not-so-small differences between a personality disorder and a mental illness is that someone with the former does know the difference between right and wrong. Someone in the midst of a psychotic episode is in an entirely different subjective reality, and has no clue. You're on a very slippery slope right here. You've taken my aversion to those who intentionally do harm to others and turned it into a case for getting rid of anyone who does not fit a very narrow definition of "normal." If you want to get rid of the mentally ill and the genetically "defective," I don't want to be involved. The river of normal is very wide, but a sociopath stands well away from the banks of that river. For the sake of clarity, this is what I'm talking about when I say "sociopath": Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion The article is long, but it distinguishes between the DSM criteria of Anti-Social Personality Disorder. (I know and love a lot of people who could very well get a diagnosis using the DSM standards, and I don't expect them to go on a killing rampage any time soon.) The PCL-R criteria, which defines the kind of person I'm speaking of when I use the word "sociopath," can be found here: Diagnostic criteria (PCL-R test) In contemporary research and clinical practice, psychopathy is most commonly assessed with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R), which is a clinical rating scale with 20 items. Each of the items in the PCL-R is scored on a three-point scale according to specific criteria through file information and a semi-structured interview. The items are as follows: Factor 1: Aggressive narcissism Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Pathological lying Cunning/manipulative Lack of remorse or guilt Shallow affect Callous/lack of empathy Failure to accept responsibility for own actions Factor 2: Socially deviant lifestyle Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Parasitic lifestyle Poor behavioral controls Early behavioral problems Lack of realistic, long-term goals Impulsivity Irresponsibility Juvenile delinquency Revocation of conditional release Continual acceptance antisocial behaviour Traits not correlated with either factor Promiscuous sexual behavior Many short-term marital relationships Criminal versatility Score 0 if the trait is absent, 1 if it is possibly or partially present and 2 if it is present. The item scores are summed to yield a total score ranging from 0 to 40 which is then considered to reflect the degree to which they resemble the prototypical psychopath. A score higher than 30 supports a diagnosis of psychopathy. Forensic studies of prison populations have reported average scores of around 22 on PCL-R; control "normal" populations show an average score of around 5. If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Yes, I am. I am not in favor of punishing Cory Maye by any means at all. He did not commit a crime. He doesn't belong in jail, much less on death row. In this case it isn't that the particular punishment is wrong, it's that any punishment is wrong. So do I. More info and links rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Zip, zilch, nit, nil and bobkes in the shame department. Reporting to you from DeLand, Florida, rl You're right. You should be proud to be able to bend like that..... Only for you, dear. Only for you. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Zip, zilch, nit, nil and bobkes in the shame department. Reporting to you from DeLand, Florida, rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Now that Tookie is dead, let's talk about a guy who shouldn't be on death row. http://www.theagitator.com/archives/025962.php#025962 Sometime in late 2001, Officer Ron Jones collected a tip from an anonymous informant that Jamie Smith, who lived opposite Maye in a duplex, was selling drugs out of his home. Jones passed the tip to the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force, a regional police agency in charge of carrying out drug raids in four surrounding counties. The task force asked Jones if he'd like to come along on the raid they'd be conducting as the result of his tip. He obliged. On the night of December 26, the task force donned paramilitary gear, and conducted a drug raid on Smith's house. Unfortunately, they hadn't done their homework. The team didn't realize that the house was a duplex, and that Maye -- who had no relationship with Smith,-- rented out the other side with his girlfirend and 1-year-old daughter. As the raid on Smith commenced, some officers - including Jones -- went around to what they thought was a side door to Smith's residence, looking for a larger stash of drugs. (Note added on 12/12: This is Maye's first attorney's account of the raid. Police did have a warrant to both residences, though Maye wasn't named in either) The door was actually a door to Maye's home. Maye was home alone with his young daughter, and asleep, when one member of the SWAT team broke down the outside door. Jones, who hadn't drawn his gun charged in, and made his way to Maye's bedroom. Police did not announce themselves. (Note added on 12/09/05: Police said at trial that they did announce themselves before entering Maye's apartment -- Maye and his attorney say otherwise. I'm inclined to believe Maye, for reasons outlined in this post. However, even if they did, announcing seconds before bursting in just before midnight, isn't much better than not announcing at all. An innocent person on the other end of the raid, particularly if still asleep, has every reason to fear for his life.). Maye, fearing for his life and the safety of his daughter, fired at Jones, hitting him in the abdomen, just below his bulletproof vest. Jones died a short time later. Maye had no criminal record, and wasn't the target of the search warrant. Police initially concluded they had found no drugs in Maye's side of the duplex. Then, mysteriously, police later announced they'd found "traces" of marijuana. I talked to the attorney who represented Maye at trial. She said that to her knowledge, police had found one smoked marijuana cigarette in Maye's apartment. Regardless, since Maye wasn't the subject of the search, whether or not he had misdemeanor amounts of drugs in his possession isn't really relevant. What's relevant is whether or not he reasonably believed his life was in danger. Seems pretty clear to me that that would be a reasonable assumption. It apparently wasn't so clear to Mississippi's criminal justice system. In January of last year, Maye was convicted of capital murder for the shooting of Officer Jones. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid. The story gets more bizarre from there. -continued- rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

HEY! HEY! Back off, and play with your free fly friends, rl is going to train ME! I don't think I ever told her she could get out of the box. Peter has the advantage here, o darling one. He's right down the block. Literally. In a place where plenty of lines and harnesses and velcro and webbing and stuff is readily available. rl P.S. to Karen: The hijack really needed to be hijacked. Do it again, please.

As long as he lives, there exists the potential for him to do harm. My cost/benefit analysis says his life is not worth taking that chance. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

By whose absolute measure? The Earth as the center of the universe was considered quite objective at its time. And psychology is a far less exact science than physics or astronomy. The same was said about the Jews. And the Armenians. And the Tutsis. I'm sorry for whatever you went through in life to which you reacted with such strong feelings against other human beings, RL. I truly hope you can heal and be free once and for all from those heavy, confining shackles. I've answered this in a way already. I don't understand how sociopathy equates to racial, ethnic, sexual or other differences between groups of human beings. I am talking about the kind of person who lacks empathy for any human being. This crosses all racial and ethnic barriers, although white males do seem to have a large share of the market. I don't have strong feelings against any other human beings except those that have no qualms at all about doing harm to others simply because it is to their benefit, or worse yet, because they feel like it. Of all the prejudices it is possible to have, it would seem to be a rational one, based on good sense and a sense of self-preservation. Psychiatry may not be an exact science but the product of the sociopath is most definitely quantifiable in terms of the carnage they leave behind. rl P.S. I'm not really very appreciative of the condescension. Just so you know. If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Addendum: My life is what it is. I wouldn't change any of the bad, because there has been too much good, and I would not choose to have missed any of it. And I would not choose to be anyone except who I am. To say that I have a prejudice against sociopaths, however, is entirely accurate. If you want to liken that to racial and sexual prejudices, you can feel free to do so, but it doesn't make much sense to me. The latter is not rational. The former is a matter of self-preservation. Niggers and fags [sic] aren't hurting anyone by the mere fact of their existence. Sociopaths hurt everyone they touch. Big difference, Steve. I'm sorry you don't see it. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Sociopathy is not about an ingrained reaction to a specific situation, Sudsy. It's about ingrained patterns of behavior. And all of those patterns are human behaviors, taken to the extreme. Don't turn what I wrote into what it is not. I know plenty of situationally-pathological people, and I know where my own pathologies lie. We're all fucked up, some of us more than others. But being fucked-up is not the same as being sociopathic, and it isn't the same as being totally without the capacity for empathy. The point is, it's not subjective. The criteria are objective. There may be hope for the narcissistic personality, the borderline personality, the schizoid, the histrionic, et al., and such people do seem to improve with age, especially with targeted therapy. The only cure for sociopathy is prevention, except that there are sociopaths that grew up in perfectly normal households, and there are people who grew up in hellholes who are not sociopaths, so it's not entirely environmental. Sociopathy is not about behaving badly. I may not want to be around people who behave badly, but that doesn't mean that they're sociopathic. I'm not even saying that all killers are sociopathic, because they're not. I am saying that sociopaths are a blight on humanity, and they need to be eradicated. I don't know how Down's Syndrome got into the discussion, but just IMO, anyone who would kill a child or adult with Down's lacks empathy. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

I was never really that big on Pern. I was talking about the Tower & Hive series, which is related in a way to the stories about the Talents. All of the women related to the Rowan are hot, btw. And yes, I do remember Sassinak, vaguely. I don't ever recall reading anything of McCaffrey's more than once, and it has been awhile since I've read anything at all. Acorna drove me crazy (not in a good way), and I haven't been back. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Well... ...we're still talking about harnesses and lines and velcro and webbing and stuff... Close enough, don't ya think? rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

Here's what frightens me. I posted these links in another thread about the death penalty. I'm going to post them again. I think it was LawRocket who posted earlier that we need to fix the system. And we do, because we have put to death innocent people, and I don't think that anything--even my horror of sociopaths running loose--is adequate to justify that. Centurion Ministries The primary mission of Centurion Ministries is to vindicate and free from prison those who are completely innocent of the crimes for which they have been unjustly convicted and imprisoned for life or death. We also assist our clients, once they are freed, with reintegration into society on a self-reliant basis. If we can vindicate the wrongly convicted, then there was no good reason to convict them in the first place. The legal system needs an overhaul, as do our law enforcement agencies. Today, the whole thing is nothing more than a game, lawyers vs. cops, and they play to win, whether it is just or not. The Innocence Project The Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, founded by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld in 1992, is a non-profit legal clinic and criminal justice resource center. We work to exonerate the wrongfully convicted through postconviction DNA testing; and develop and implement reforms to prevent wrongful convictions. This Project only handles cases where postconviction DNA testing can yield conclusive proof of innocence. For more information regarding what we do and what kinds of cases we handle, please click on the Innocence Project tab or visit our FAQ page. Same as above. And finally: Wrongfully Convicted: The Webpage of Edmund S. Higgins, MD In 1997 I began compiling a database of wrongfully incarcerated people who have been arrested and/or convicted of a crime and later proven innocent. This database now contains 360 people who were innocent, yet convicted of a crime - many were sentenced to death. This'll really knock your socks off. It makes me gag. I don't want innocent men put to death. I do want the guilty put to death. I want us to stop wasting time and resources for the personal gratification of lawyers, prosecutors and cops, and get down to cleaning up what can't be fixed. It can be done, but it won't be done. We'll ride this fucking merry-go-round forever. rl If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

No, they aren't. They lack the essential qualities of a human being. What, like 23 pairs of chromosomal goodness? Bipedal locomotion? Jeepers creepers, RL, you're frightening me here.