For me, the standard of psychopathy at the highest levels of political power is readiness to use the massively destructive force of the American military to crush weaker states for the fun and profit of inflicting mass death and immiseration of whole populations. Trump tended to be wary of war, Obama too, and Biden seems to me the paradigmatic opportunist: not so much sadist as insatiably hungry for power and attention. Cheney, Nuland, Hilary are out and out war mongers, and don’t even seem shy of escalating to nuclear. I might be wrong; it might have more to do with the first three being Presidents and the second three not being that.
Obama didn't mind assassinating people on a weekly basis. And some of his assassinations have brought him large praises.
It's also noteworthy that the only times Trump was not criticised by the institutional medias or his political adversaries of the duopoly party, in fact he was unanimously acclaimed by them, was when he bombed something
Absolutely true. Yet falling short of Gracy level psychopathy doesn’t preclude being greedy enough for wealth fame and prestige to kill people for the empire on a regular basis. Maybe it’s splitting hairs, but there is something to the banality of evil: Obama and Trump don’t seem genuinely bloodthirsty, but rather to have been willing to kill en masse as part of the job description of US emperor.
U.S. Emperor? I don't think so. Surely Trump aspired to be such but it just doesn't fit. The Power of the Executive is very real and it's growing and burgeoning with each administration it appears, but the power is the office, not the person holding it. The power goes to the considerable crew behind the mask of the president himself or herself. The person himself or herself, the president, is merely the face of that power but not the power itself despite Trump's grandiose aspirations. There is no U.S. Emperor and never will be so long as there is a United States. Now Russia, that's another story altogether. The Tsars were effectively emperors and as such, Putin is more likened to an emperor than any posturing POTUS.
Emperor is the executive authority at the head of an empire. In many cases, the emperor is a pure figurehead, as in Japan and often in Chinese history. The person who presides over the US Empire is, I agree, more figurehead than autocrat. But if you mean to deny that the US is an empire, then we disagree.
I do not disagree that the U.S. is an empire but it will be a short-lived empire as far as empires go. Thanks for clarifying your use of the word emperor. Some, maybe even many, use it to denote an absolute ruler with absolute power.
My life experience took me inside the halls of political power. I lobbied state legislatures, regulatory agency rulemaking, consulted for election campaigns, local, state, federal. I've been with the Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives in his office, with a US Supreme Court Justice in his inner chambers. I've met US President's, worked and socialized with presidential cabinet Secretaries, been in the homes of US Senators, shared drinks and social company with Governor's...and their mistresses. I've been to more than my share of the social functions, charity balls, holiday gala's, fundraisers, house parties, clinked glasses and shared hors d'oeuvre with the powerful in many communities, judges, corporate executives, medical, media, energy, education, transportation, senior military, you name it, moguls from all walks of life, those who've earned and inherited great fame and fortune. Been welcomed by them, taken calls from them, called on them. I know these people. Some even intimately. It draws the very people you describe.
As for elected officials it takes a special person to even put their name out their to run as a candidate. To submit oneself to the approval or rejection of their community takes a level of ego and confidence. Most people don't have the resilience to deal with rejection. Especially rejection in a race that is usually a close contest. Plenty of people will run fearlessly as shoe-ins or sacrificial lambs. But it takes a strong ego to deal with losing something you could've won. The line between healthy strong ego and unhealthy strong ego is thin.
Take that same ego and have it amplified by approval, winning an election. Ego's grow with approval. Then comes the power of office. Seductive, alluring, especially for the ambitious. Recognize the difference between being in a minority party with little actual power or a majority party with real power. The ambitious get to chair committees, leadership posts, those have even more power. The axiom power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely holds true. Watched many an aspiring politician, the insurance salesman, entrepreneur, nurse, run for the first time, disgusted by the system they see as outsiders, driven to be change agents, become who they wanted to replace once they get power. Rare is the person who's ego stays in check.
All you have to do is look at an HOA board to see how people become when given power. Sames. The human condition is the same. And as the stakes grow so do the egos. The control gets addictive.
The dynamic is very similar to what most of us experienced in high school cafeterias. The "cool kids" tables were where many wanted to be. Few really liked being at the "nerd" tables, who you were seen with said much about your status in the school. That's what the political scene is like. In state capitols, in DC. Lobbyists, legislators, media, even the gadfly's all wanted to be invited to be with the cool kids. Which involved the same type of social interactions and powerplays in high schools, but done by adults...making big decisions about how the rest of society lives. That is just as petty, conniving, duplicitous, etc as school was, but with more experience and skill involved.
All the while pretending to be better than it is, hiding behind protocols and titles, calling themselves, or being called "The Honorable" a lie in and of itself. Those social parties I described going to, all just huge ego strokes. "Hey Bob, hearing great things about your latest nonprofit work, so wonderful you care so much, helping so many in need!" "Thanks Warren, it's hard work, but so rewarding. And how is your investment in African water delivery systems doing? So great when you can make a living doing what you love!" "Let's get together and see how we can help." "We're going to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day next week, so powerful a moment. We'll connect after." Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Ego strokes the whole time, jockeying for influence, networking, access to power. They all eat it up.
I was in the public policy arena for two decades. I observed that decisions are made based on what I called the three C's: Constituents, Caucus and Conscience. Coined for the elected official decision making process, but can apply with slightly different terminology to most any position of power in an organization, Pastors, Executives, Administrators, etc.
Constituents - the community that put them in power. Caucus - the party apparatus that helped them get power. Conscience - their internal moral compass. When all three C's align that's an easy decision to make. But when it's 2-1 or 1-2 that's where negotiating the conflicts occur. And that negotiation is going to be a product of the ambition they have. Do right by constituents and conscience, but go against caucus means future ambitions may be limited. Maybe results in not being able to help constituents or advance personal agenda items successfully in the future. Do right by conscience but cross constituents and caucus, may get unelected and have nothing to show for it. Do right by conscience and caucus but screw over constituents, may get unelected but caucus may make sure you get taken care of. Do right by constituents and caucus but know you sold out your conscience.
The negotiations they make guide all decisions. Negotiations driven by ambitions. Lots of rationalizing and justifying. They truly do talk themselves into believing they are uniquely capable of making the best decisions for others in that environment. They get told it over and over and over by ego-stroking rent-seekers.
Which is why limited government is the only government that can preserve individual liberty and freedom, the US Constitution intended to limit, not expand. Two centuries of expansion has made it unrecognizable, individual liberty and freedom might as well be under glass in the National Archives building in DC next to the original document. The negotiations of ambitious men (and women) over two and a half centuries has used linguistic gymnastics to contort it into a meaningless relic.
I knew these people, many still in power today. Most are not respectworthy. They've made too many negotiations, their ambitions blinded them to the damage they do to the people they lead/control, stuck on rationalizing and justifying why they must harm the people to help them...for the greater good. The cool kids at the high school cafeteria table who weren't that smart to begin with, weren't and aren't very wise, but are very good at playing the game of manipulation and duplicity, silver tongues. Believing that makes them better than the rest of us, makes them good leaders.
The self-deceit that comes with the trappings of power and ambition was known by the founding fathers who studied all attempts at self-rule that came before the US and failed. Because man is as fallen today as he was then. And the absence of faith in God, true faith, has taken freedom and liberty, peace and harmony to a perilous cliff. We must return faith and God to his rightful place in our society, in our hearts. And spread truth, his truth, the truth those of us who have awakened to the awful leaders we suffer to our friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, strangers we meet. Or we will descend into a long, suffering darkness until enough wake up from their apathetic slumber and misguided trust in fallen men.
The only people with the power ti change anything are the very people afflicted with the raw desire to perpetuate and increase their own power. Therefore I agree...we capitulate or pray for divine intervention. Meanwhile, I salute people like Caitlin..someone has to try.
It's difficult in an evolutionary sense to not see this situation as environmental selection for a survival trait. If a certain pattern of gene-driven brain development predisposes to psychopathy in an estimated 1% of the population, then our insane socioeconomic system would be the selective force driving that "brain-wiring" type toward the types of power-acquiring trait expression we see in western societies, and particularly in the US. Greed, militarism, wage slavery, etc. the expression of the neuro-genotype is ultimately guided by the environmental context. Since we can't control genetics, it's only a different socioeconomic context, probably a more collectivist one, that might temper the excesses of psychopaths. Good luck to us.
Neither collectivism nor excessive individualism is the answer. A good place to start is the US Bill of Rights. If consistently observed, it recognizes boundaries beyond which collective power dare not go. Unfortunately, the US government has rarely seen the need to respect the rights of people in other lands, and is now routinely violating the rights of its citizens and resident aliens. Up until now, it has contracted many of those violations out to quasi-private entities corporations that owe their very existence to government. Now that an individual has purchased one of those corporations and says he intends to turn it into a platform that welcomes all political speech, including speech critical of government, the regime has announced the Disinformation Governance Board. No doubt they intend to use this new bureaucracy to control not only corporate speech, but the speech of private individuals.
You make a great point about the boundaries of collective power. But I'm not referring to human power structures, but rather to the brilliant collectivism of biological feedback systems, which predating us, illustrated the minimally destructive path forward. In other words, the collectivism that our socioeconomic system has largely ignored for millennia and which all ecological systems (the many different biomes -- from rainforest to desert --demonstrate variations upon.
Please read Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class. He explains quite clearly how this whole thing started and why it has lasted until today. He says the same thing about selection for the psychological type that would survive in the environment we have created through culture.
It should be required reading in every high school in this country.
You know, the only real difference between a psychopath in politics and a a psychopath in prison is class. The poor psychopaths do anything to survive and could care less about what “anything” entails, while the rich psychopaths rise to the top of their chosen professions and could care less who they step on or harm to get there. The extremely talented (at manipulating others and portraying socially acceptable narcissistic behavior) psychopaths become politicians.
capitalism, through individualism (and its attendant competition where the winner takes all) as its ideology, brings out the worst of humanity so that only the scum floats to the top. look around yourself, no matter how high or low you may be socially, and you know good guys finish last. i haven't personally experienced communism and collectivism, i only understand the concept of "contribute according to your ability, and take according to your needs" philosophically. i sense so much fear of the unfamiliar in my own heart. i can only admire those individuals who have had the courage to take the necessary plunge.
Correction — Civilization itself and all its manifestations is a perverted trap that has inculcated and enabled the ubiquitous malevolence we have witnessed both currently and historically since its accidental advent.
Also, let's not forget, the entire world economy is capitalist and that includes Russia and China.
first off, you seem to be using "civilization" as if it was a self-evident word. and then you project your self image onto Russia and China. individualism as the ideology of capitalism presents capitalism/individualism as universal, objective and inevitable, instead of teaching you its own assumptions and limitations/boundaries so that you can explore alternative systems and ideas beyond.
We need law to psychologically test everyone running for elected office, or senate confirmed positions. psychopaths have no place in the governance of human beings.
They would replace the common criminals that overfill the prison industrial complex. Most have varying degrees of psychopathy. Especially at the highest levels.
The Chinese have dodged that bullet for 2200 years.
Today, they send ambitious young officials to their poorest villages and promise them promotion after they raise their average village income by 50%.
Their promotion then requires them to repeat the feat at the County level, then in a big city, and, a governor, in a province.
Xi Jinping succeeded at every level in his 25 years of preparation, and repeated it since becoming President: he's doubled everybody's real income since he was selected.
He's done it with the assist of multinational corporations using cheap slave labor in Uyghurs and other undesirables, disobedient, skirting the high cost of regulatory compliance for environmental controls and worker safety found in the US and Europe. China's economy is incapable of sustaining itself without outside dollars and euros coming in. American corporatist greed is what has propped up China, now so fully invested in it thanks to Bush's New World Order that real income in the US has resulted in the first generation experiencing lower living standards in US history while China raises its.
We regulated industry to flee our shores, have hollowed out our economy, made ourselves dependent on an authoritarian communist regime that exploits its people to the benefit of a select few. And while it's middle class has grown faster than any other nation it's not been done by means the US should envy: we've destroyed our middle class to enrich theirs.
China's history is one of dynastic families governing regions, with one family dynasty overtaking another as another does the same throughout history. China saw the value of incorporating a communist governing structure to sit atop the dynastic family rivalries. China's highest leaders are members of those same dynastic families that decided to allocate the resources largely to the benefit of the regional dynasties controlling the economic activity, while submitting their traditional dynastic national rivalry to the structure of a communist administrative system.
In short, it's basically Chinese mafia family gangs that have submitted to a central council that keeps the peace and makes each family happy. Little regard for the people they rule, just chattel, cogs in the wheels of economic production.
And the US is being structured the same way, today, The Clinton family Gang, Bush family Gang, Romney family Gang, Cheney family Gang, Biden family Gang, etc. Using our governing structure to enrich themselves, little regard for the people they rule, just chattel, cogs in the wheels of economic production. Just like Godfather George H W Bush wanted when he recognized China over Taiwan as Nixon's UN Ambassador, the first US Ambassador to China under Nixon, Ford's CIA Director who aligned our intelligence agencies to cooperate with the CCP, who turned a blind eye to the Tiananmen Square massacre of freedom protestors, and then turned over our economic future to the CCP under his New World Order vision (today known as The Great Reset/Agenda 2030). With the end of US global hegemony, relegated to a regional power, assigned collective duties as the world's policeman, entertainment and grain exporter. A dying nation that will be exploited of every last penny the family gangs atop it can squeeze out of it/us.
But don't tell me that China is a success story. It's more like the US is a criminal tragedy. Nation stolen by malevolent actors from the people who naively trusted them to ensure our prosperity, given to the CCP, because there's more profit for our criminal family gangs in that arrangement.
"he's done it with the assist of multinational corporations using cheap slave labor in Uyghurs and other undesirables, disobedient, skirting the high cost of regulatory compliance for environmental controls and worker safety found in the US and Europe”.
Nonsense. Chinese manufacturing workers cost their employers more than their American counterparts.
The US is the only country I'm aware of that practices slavery (under the 14th Amendment).
China's Uyghurs are far more prosperous and have far more rights than their cousins living in neighboring countries.
China's environment is in much better shape than America's.
World Population review is a guy living in SoCal who does not provide sources or evidence for his China stats.
There is zero evidence of slavery in China, and 100% evidence of slavery in the USA.
The U.S. government ratified The Slavery Convention in 1929, except for “forced or compulsory labour except as punishment for crime of which the person concerned has been duly convicted”. Sixty-four years later, the U.S. government affirmed the use of prisons for forced labor or convict slavery.
Modern-day slavery uncovered in South Georgia ‘This has been happening for a long time’: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Re Silc).
I grew up a republican, conservative mormon in Idaho. Although some would classify some of my social views as conservative, I have come to despise the right-left paradigm. The author, near as I can tell, believes in humanistic socialism (I could be wrong, but it really doesn't matter). However, we agree on nearly everything because we are both willing to state the truth. The labels we give ourselves and that others put on us are basically meaningless. I think what really matters is loving others enough to face the truth and tell it even when some will blindly hate anyone who contradicts them or the propaganda.
Satanistic psychopaths, or the functional equivalent to psychopaths, run the UN, the WHO, the United States, and most of the NATO countries and every mainstream media outlet in NATO countries. They will go to ANY lengths and commit ANY atrocity required to reach their goals. They hate it when people talk about what they are going to do because they like making fools out of us. They love boasting about what they have done because it makes them feel powerful. They are the lowest form of life, but we shouldn't judge them because for far too many of them this psychopathic lifestyle is generational and they were trapped as children. That said, they must be opposed and stopped. They cannot be allowed to win.
» control over its fate in early childhood when presented with the frightening prospect of being a powerless infant surrounded by giants «
— I disagree. I would say it comes from being the only animal which can imagine its own death. Earnest Becker's ‘The Denial of Death’ is very convincing on this.
— The original Athenian democracy elected people to office by random chance ... they thought the last people you want to rule are those who seek to rule.
— People in ancient Sumer already knew that power is like drinking salt water ... you always need more. The ancient tale of the Tower of Babel is also illuminating, if you read it through the lens of global hegemony and narrative.
I agree. Your item 2 suggests that we are an anomaly in the animal world uniquely equipped for suffering. The Buddhists address this dilemma directly, in fact I have seen no other solution.
Right now as we learn that our own country has been an epitome of evil for perhaps 70 years and there is little we can do about it, I suggest Zen Buddhism as a possible escape hatch. At the same time, all respect to everyone who still thinks jswe can overcome our own natures.
You need to very careful about your choice of words. "We are at a point where OUR desire for control is threatening not just our ability to live harmoniously with one another, but our very survival." Who in this sentence is 'our'? As you have established before, it is those that have psychopathic tendencies and personalities, that are desiring more power, not the majority of the worlds population.
"We've also never seen anything like our current situation, though. There's a first time for everything." True! And you also laid out before, why this is: Psychopaths. Just over time, these personalities accumulated in the top positions in the hierarchical power structure. It is a saturation effect. That is why humanity, thanks to the leader-cult (at least that is what i call it), is at a point where it has never been before: facing the destruction of the ecosphere that it needs to survive.
Only thing though: This does not phase psychopaths in any way.
Power attracts sociopaths the way catnip attracts cats.
This is the driving force behind The Iron Law of Oligarchy, and why a state can be a republic of laws, or an empire, but never both, because an empire cannot allow itself to be restrained by any law other than force, or it will soon fall.
Yes, we are indeed at a crossroads for humanity: we can turn towards power with, collaboration, cooperation, relationship, harmony with others and nature OR we can keep going down the current road of power over, psychopathy, war, hatred, hubris, and separation mentality, ensuring we go extinct and taking down many other species as we do. I don't know the outcome. I pray and take actions in my life and community to bring about "the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible."
I've been making this same case to anyone who will listen who is also not high on the psychopathic-sociopathic scale.
Extreme psychopathy is an illness. It even exists in primate communities. In the case of primates, the alpha male that has the most severe form of psychopathy rules the group. This is usually done by violence, coercion, threats and other behaviors most of us would recognize in our so called "leaders". However, unlike human societies, simian alphas that overstep are dealt with swiftly and mercilessly. They are murdered by the rest of the group; nonstop attacks until the psychopath is dead. It is not pretty, but it preserves the society so it functions with a lot less control than the alpha randomly imposed on the group.
Psychopathy needs to be treated as the mental health / development disorder that it is. And if we don't start treating it, and soon, we may find that there is no humanity on the other side of this "test".
For me, the standard of psychopathy at the highest levels of political power is readiness to use the massively destructive force of the American military to crush weaker states for the fun and profit of inflicting mass death and immiseration of whole populations. Trump tended to be wary of war, Obama too, and Biden seems to me the paradigmatic opportunist: not so much sadist as insatiably hungry for power and attention. Cheney, Nuland, Hilary are out and out war mongers, and don’t even seem shy of escalating to nuclear. I might be wrong; it might have more to do with the first three being Presidents and the second three not being that.
Obama didn't mind assassinating people on a weekly basis. And some of his assassinations have brought him large praises.
It's also noteworthy that the only times Trump was not criticised by the institutional medias or his political adversaries of the duopoly party, in fact he was unanimously acclaimed by them, was when he bombed something
Absolutely true. Yet falling short of Gracy level psychopathy doesn’t preclude being greedy enough for wealth fame and prestige to kill people for the empire on a regular basis. Maybe it’s splitting hairs, but there is something to the banality of evil: Obama and Trump don’t seem genuinely bloodthirsty, but rather to have been willing to kill en masse as part of the job description of US emperor.
U.S. Emperor? I don't think so. Surely Trump aspired to be such but it just doesn't fit. The Power of the Executive is very real and it's growing and burgeoning with each administration it appears, but the power is the office, not the person holding it. The power goes to the considerable crew behind the mask of the president himself or herself. The person himself or herself, the president, is merely the face of that power but not the power itself despite Trump's grandiose aspirations. There is no U.S. Emperor and never will be so long as there is a United States. Now Russia, that's another story altogether. The Tsars were effectively emperors and as such, Putin is more likened to an emperor than any posturing POTUS.
Emperor is the executive authority at the head of an empire. In many cases, the emperor is a pure figurehead, as in Japan and often in Chinese history. The person who presides over the US Empire is, I agree, more figurehead than autocrat. But if you mean to deny that the US is an empire, then we disagree.
I do not disagree that the U.S. is an empire but it will be a short-lived empire as far as empires go. Thanks for clarifying your use of the word emperor. Some, maybe even many, use it to denote an absolute ruler with absolute power.
My life experience took me inside the halls of political power. I lobbied state legislatures, regulatory agency rulemaking, consulted for election campaigns, local, state, federal. I've been with the Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives in his office, with a US Supreme Court Justice in his inner chambers. I've met US President's, worked and socialized with presidential cabinet Secretaries, been in the homes of US Senators, shared drinks and social company with Governor's...and their mistresses. I've been to more than my share of the social functions, charity balls, holiday gala's, fundraisers, house parties, clinked glasses and shared hors d'oeuvre with the powerful in many communities, judges, corporate executives, medical, media, energy, education, transportation, senior military, you name it, moguls from all walks of life, those who've earned and inherited great fame and fortune. Been welcomed by them, taken calls from them, called on them. I know these people. Some even intimately. It draws the very people you describe.
As for elected officials it takes a special person to even put their name out their to run as a candidate. To submit oneself to the approval or rejection of their community takes a level of ego and confidence. Most people don't have the resilience to deal with rejection. Especially rejection in a race that is usually a close contest. Plenty of people will run fearlessly as shoe-ins or sacrificial lambs. But it takes a strong ego to deal with losing something you could've won. The line between healthy strong ego and unhealthy strong ego is thin.
Take that same ego and have it amplified by approval, winning an election. Ego's grow with approval. Then comes the power of office. Seductive, alluring, especially for the ambitious. Recognize the difference between being in a minority party with little actual power or a majority party with real power. The ambitious get to chair committees, leadership posts, those have even more power. The axiom power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely holds true. Watched many an aspiring politician, the insurance salesman, entrepreneur, nurse, run for the first time, disgusted by the system they see as outsiders, driven to be change agents, become who they wanted to replace once they get power. Rare is the person who's ego stays in check.
All you have to do is look at an HOA board to see how people become when given power. Sames. The human condition is the same. And as the stakes grow so do the egos. The control gets addictive.
The dynamic is very similar to what most of us experienced in high school cafeterias. The "cool kids" tables were where many wanted to be. Few really liked being at the "nerd" tables, who you were seen with said much about your status in the school. That's what the political scene is like. In state capitols, in DC. Lobbyists, legislators, media, even the gadfly's all wanted to be invited to be with the cool kids. Which involved the same type of social interactions and powerplays in high schools, but done by adults...making big decisions about how the rest of society lives. That is just as petty, conniving, duplicitous, etc as school was, but with more experience and skill involved.
All the while pretending to be better than it is, hiding behind protocols and titles, calling themselves, or being called "The Honorable" a lie in and of itself. Those social parties I described going to, all just huge ego strokes. "Hey Bob, hearing great things about your latest nonprofit work, so wonderful you care so much, helping so many in need!" "Thanks Warren, it's hard work, but so rewarding. And how is your investment in African water delivery systems doing? So great when you can make a living doing what you love!" "Let's get together and see how we can help." "We're going to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day next week, so powerful a moment. We'll connect after." Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Ego strokes the whole time, jockeying for influence, networking, access to power. They all eat it up.
I was in the public policy arena for two decades. I observed that decisions are made based on what I called the three C's: Constituents, Caucus and Conscience. Coined for the elected official decision making process, but can apply with slightly different terminology to most any position of power in an organization, Pastors, Executives, Administrators, etc.
Constituents - the community that put them in power. Caucus - the party apparatus that helped them get power. Conscience - their internal moral compass. When all three C's align that's an easy decision to make. But when it's 2-1 or 1-2 that's where negotiating the conflicts occur. And that negotiation is going to be a product of the ambition they have. Do right by constituents and conscience, but go against caucus means future ambitions may be limited. Maybe results in not being able to help constituents or advance personal agenda items successfully in the future. Do right by conscience but cross constituents and caucus, may get unelected and have nothing to show for it. Do right by conscience and caucus but screw over constituents, may get unelected but caucus may make sure you get taken care of. Do right by constituents and caucus but know you sold out your conscience.
The negotiations they make guide all decisions. Negotiations driven by ambitions. Lots of rationalizing and justifying. They truly do talk themselves into believing they are uniquely capable of making the best decisions for others in that environment. They get told it over and over and over by ego-stroking rent-seekers.
Which is why limited government is the only government that can preserve individual liberty and freedom, the US Constitution intended to limit, not expand. Two centuries of expansion has made it unrecognizable, individual liberty and freedom might as well be under glass in the National Archives building in DC next to the original document. The negotiations of ambitious men (and women) over two and a half centuries has used linguistic gymnastics to contort it into a meaningless relic.
I knew these people, many still in power today. Most are not respectworthy. They've made too many negotiations, their ambitions blinded them to the damage they do to the people they lead/control, stuck on rationalizing and justifying why they must harm the people to help them...for the greater good. The cool kids at the high school cafeteria table who weren't that smart to begin with, weren't and aren't very wise, but are very good at playing the game of manipulation and duplicity, silver tongues. Believing that makes them better than the rest of us, makes them good leaders.
The self-deceit that comes with the trappings of power and ambition was known by the founding fathers who studied all attempts at self-rule that came before the US and failed. Because man is as fallen today as he was then. And the absence of faith in God, true faith, has taken freedom and liberty, peace and harmony to a perilous cliff. We must return faith and God to his rightful place in our society, in our hearts. And spread truth, his truth, the truth those of us who have awakened to the awful leaders we suffer to our friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, strangers we meet. Or we will descend into a long, suffering darkness until enough wake up from their apathetic slumber and misguided trust in fallen men.
Such valuable insights. This would make a great post for your substack.
This jives with my experience, but the Constitution has been a dead letter for a long time now.
Without a biblical level intervention on behalf of our species, we are doomed.
The only people with the power ti change anything are the very people afflicted with the raw desire to perpetuate and increase their own power. Therefore I agree...we capitulate or pray for divine intervention. Meanwhile, I salute people like Caitlin..someone has to try.
It's difficult in an evolutionary sense to not see this situation as environmental selection for a survival trait. If a certain pattern of gene-driven brain development predisposes to psychopathy in an estimated 1% of the population, then our insane socioeconomic system would be the selective force driving that "brain-wiring" type toward the types of power-acquiring trait expression we see in western societies, and particularly in the US. Greed, militarism, wage slavery, etc. the expression of the neuro-genotype is ultimately guided by the environmental context. Since we can't control genetics, it's only a different socioeconomic context, probably a more collectivist one, that might temper the excesses of psychopaths. Good luck to us.
Neither collectivism nor excessive individualism is the answer. A good place to start is the US Bill of Rights. If consistently observed, it recognizes boundaries beyond which collective power dare not go. Unfortunately, the US government has rarely seen the need to respect the rights of people in other lands, and is now routinely violating the rights of its citizens and resident aliens. Up until now, it has contracted many of those violations out to quasi-private entities corporations that owe their very existence to government. Now that an individual has purchased one of those corporations and says he intends to turn it into a platform that welcomes all political speech, including speech critical of government, the regime has announced the Disinformation Governance Board. No doubt they intend to use this new bureaucracy to control not only corporate speech, but the speech of private individuals.
You make a great point about the boundaries of collective power. But I'm not referring to human power structures, but rather to the brilliant collectivism of biological feedback systems, which predating us, illustrated the minimally destructive path forward. In other words, the collectivism that our socioeconomic system has largely ignored for millennia and which all ecological systems (the many different biomes -- from rainforest to desert --demonstrate variations upon.
Please read Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class. He explains quite clearly how this whole thing started and why it has lasted until today. He says the same thing about selection for the psychological type that would survive in the environment we have created through culture.
It should be required reading in every high school in this country.
Thanks. I've read Veblen, a while back, but not "Leisure Class". I shall indeed check it out.
You know, the only real difference between a psychopath in politics and a a psychopath in prison is class. The poor psychopaths do anything to survive and could care less about what “anything” entails, while the rich psychopaths rise to the top of their chosen professions and could care less who they step on or harm to get there. The extremely talented (at manipulating others and portraying socially acceptable narcissistic behavior) psychopaths become politicians.
capitalism, through individualism (and its attendant competition where the winner takes all) as its ideology, brings out the worst of humanity so that only the scum floats to the top. look around yourself, no matter how high or low you may be socially, and you know good guys finish last. i haven't personally experienced communism and collectivism, i only understand the concept of "contribute according to your ability, and take according to your needs" philosophically. i sense so much fear of the unfamiliar in my own heart. i can only admire those individuals who have had the courage to take the necessary plunge.
Correction — Civilization itself and all its manifestations is a perverted trap that has inculcated and enabled the ubiquitous malevolence we have witnessed both currently and historically since its accidental advent.
Also, let's not forget, the entire world economy is capitalist and that includes Russia and China.
first off, you seem to be using "civilization" as if it was a self-evident word. and then you project your self image onto Russia and China. individualism as the ideology of capitalism presents capitalism/individualism as universal, objective and inevitable, instead of teaching you its own assumptions and limitations/boundaries so that you can explore alternative systems and ideas beyond.
We need law to psychologically test everyone running for elected office, or senate confirmed positions. psychopaths have no place in the governance of human beings.
Successful psychopaths are good at faking it
I totally get it, but the latest testing make it impossible to sneak by.
Of course, then testers move into the position that in turn would require testing to occupy. And so on.
Only established psychopaths have the power to make changes.
They would replace the common criminals that overfill the prison industrial complex. Most have varying degrees of psychopathy. Especially at the highest levels.
Shit floats, contrary to popular belief that cream floats to the top.
The Chinese have dodged that bullet for 2200 years.
Today, they send ambitious young officials to their poorest villages and promise them promotion after they raise their average village income by 50%.
Their promotion then requires them to repeat the feat at the County level, then in a big city, and, a governor, in a province.
Xi Jinping succeeded at every level in his 25 years of preparation, and repeated it since becoming President: he's doubled everybody's real income since he was selected.
He's done it with the assist of multinational corporations using cheap slave labor in Uyghurs and other undesirables, disobedient, skirting the high cost of regulatory compliance for environmental controls and worker safety found in the US and Europe. China's economy is incapable of sustaining itself without outside dollars and euros coming in. American corporatist greed is what has propped up China, now so fully invested in it thanks to Bush's New World Order that real income in the US has resulted in the first generation experiencing lower living standards in US history while China raises its.
We regulated industry to flee our shores, have hollowed out our economy, made ourselves dependent on an authoritarian communist regime that exploits its people to the benefit of a select few. And while it's middle class has grown faster than any other nation it's not been done by means the US should envy: we've destroyed our middle class to enrich theirs.
China's history is one of dynastic families governing regions, with one family dynasty overtaking another as another does the same throughout history. China saw the value of incorporating a communist governing structure to sit atop the dynastic family rivalries. China's highest leaders are members of those same dynastic families that decided to allocate the resources largely to the benefit of the regional dynasties controlling the economic activity, while submitting their traditional dynastic national rivalry to the structure of a communist administrative system.
In short, it's basically Chinese mafia family gangs that have submitted to a central council that keeps the peace and makes each family happy. Little regard for the people they rule, just chattel, cogs in the wheels of economic production.
And the US is being structured the same way, today, The Clinton family Gang, Bush family Gang, Romney family Gang, Cheney family Gang, Biden family Gang, etc. Using our governing structure to enrich themselves, little regard for the people they rule, just chattel, cogs in the wheels of economic production. Just like Godfather George H W Bush wanted when he recognized China over Taiwan as Nixon's UN Ambassador, the first US Ambassador to China under Nixon, Ford's CIA Director who aligned our intelligence agencies to cooperate with the CCP, who turned a blind eye to the Tiananmen Square massacre of freedom protestors, and then turned over our economic future to the CCP under his New World Order vision (today known as The Great Reset/Agenda 2030). With the end of US global hegemony, relegated to a regional power, assigned collective duties as the world's policeman, entertainment and grain exporter. A dying nation that will be exploited of every last penny the family gangs atop it can squeeze out of it/us.
But don't tell me that China is a success story. It's more like the US is a criminal tragedy. Nation stolen by malevolent actors from the people who naively trusted them to ensure our prosperity, given to the CCP, because there's more profit for our criminal family gangs in that arrangement.
"he's done it with the assist of multinational corporations using cheap slave labor in Uyghurs and other undesirables, disobedient, skirting the high cost of regulatory compliance for environmental controls and worker safety found in the US and Europe”.
Nonsense. Chinese manufacturing workers cost their employers more than their American counterparts.
The US is the only country I'm aware of that practices slavery (under the 14th Amendment).
China's Uyghurs are far more prosperous and have far more rights than their cousins living in neighboring countries.
China's environment is in much better shape than America's.
Top 10 Countries with the Highest Prevalence of Modern Slavery (by total number of slaves) - Global Slavery Index 2018:
India - 7,989,000
China - 3,864,000
North Korea - 2,640,000
Nigeria - 1,386,000
Iran - 1,289,000
Indonesia - 1,220,000
Congo (Democratic Republic of) - 1,045,000
Russia - 794,000
Philippines - 784,000
Afghanistan - 749,000
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-still-have-slavery
World Population review is a guy living in SoCal who does not provide sources or evidence for his China stats.
There is zero evidence of slavery in China, and 100% evidence of slavery in the USA.
The U.S. government ratified The Slavery Convention in 1929, except for “forced or compulsory labour except as punishment for crime of which the person concerned has been duly convicted”. Sixty-four years later, the U.S. government affirmed the use of prisons for forced labor or convict slavery.
Modern-day slavery uncovered in South Georgia ‘This has been happening for a long time’: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Re Silc).
https://www.ajc.com/news/this-has-been-happening-for-a-long-time-modern-day-slavery-uncovered-in-ga/SHBHTDDTTBG3BCPSVCB3GQ66BQ/
I grew up a republican, conservative mormon in Idaho. Although some would classify some of my social views as conservative, I have come to despise the right-left paradigm. The author, near as I can tell, believes in humanistic socialism (I could be wrong, but it really doesn't matter). However, we agree on nearly everything because we are both willing to state the truth. The labels we give ourselves and that others put on us are basically meaningless. I think what really matters is loving others enough to face the truth and tell it even when some will blindly hate anyone who contradicts them or the propaganda.
Satanistic psychopaths, or the functional equivalent to psychopaths, run the UN, the WHO, the United States, and most of the NATO countries and every mainstream media outlet in NATO countries. They will go to ANY lengths and commit ANY atrocity required to reach their goals. They hate it when people talk about what they are going to do because they like making fools out of us. They love boasting about what they have done because it makes them feel powerful. They are the lowest form of life, but we shouldn't judge them because for far too many of them this psychopathic lifestyle is generational and they were trapped as children. That said, they must be opposed and stopped. They cannot be allowed to win.
» control over its fate in early childhood when presented with the frightening prospect of being a powerless infant surrounded by giants «
— I disagree. I would say it comes from being the only animal which can imagine its own death. Earnest Becker's ‘The Denial of Death’ is very convincing on this.
— The original Athenian democracy elected people to office by random chance ... they thought the last people you want to rule are those who seek to rule.
— People in ancient Sumer already knew that power is like drinking salt water ... you always need more. The ancient tale of the Tower of Babel is also illuminating, if you read it through the lens of global hegemony and narrative.
I agree. Your item 2 suggests that we are an anomaly in the animal world uniquely equipped for suffering. The Buddhists address this dilemma directly, in fact I have seen no other solution.
Right now as we learn that our own country has been an epitome of evil for perhaps 70 years and there is little we can do about it, I suggest Zen Buddhism as a possible escape hatch. At the same time, all respect to everyone who still thinks jswe can overcome our own natures.
Or we'll lurch into the future, survivor bias made manifest, each generation somehow forgetting the casualties of past war and greed and neglect.
You need to very careful about your choice of words. "We are at a point where OUR desire for control is threatening not just our ability to live harmoniously with one another, but our very survival." Who in this sentence is 'our'? As you have established before, it is those that have psychopathic tendencies and personalities, that are desiring more power, not the majority of the worlds population.
"We've also never seen anything like our current situation, though. There's a first time for everything." True! And you also laid out before, why this is: Psychopaths. Just over time, these personalities accumulated in the top positions in the hierarchical power structure. It is a saturation effect. That is why humanity, thanks to the leader-cult (at least that is what i call it), is at a point where it has never been before: facing the destruction of the ecosphere that it needs to survive.
Only thing though: This does not phase psychopaths in any way.
Power attracts sociopaths the way catnip attracts cats.
This is the driving force behind The Iron Law of Oligarchy, and why a state can be a republic of laws, or an empire, but never both, because an empire cannot allow itself to be restrained by any law other than force, or it will soon fall.
Errm ma cat ignored catnip....😸
Some of us don't like it. For others, it's an acquired taste.
My kitty sleeps on her cardboard scratching pad when I put fresh 'nip on it, She has found her heaven. I digress. Peace
Catnip is pretty good stuff; silver vine is even better when I can get it.
Yes, we are indeed at a crossroads for humanity: we can turn towards power with, collaboration, cooperation, relationship, harmony with others and nature OR we can keep going down the current road of power over, psychopathy, war, hatred, hubris, and separation mentality, ensuring we go extinct and taking down many other species as we do. I don't know the outcome. I pray and take actions in my life and community to bring about "the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible."
I've been making this same case to anyone who will listen who is also not high on the psychopathic-sociopathic scale.
Extreme psychopathy is an illness. It even exists in primate communities. In the case of primates, the alpha male that has the most severe form of psychopathy rules the group. This is usually done by violence, coercion, threats and other behaviors most of us would recognize in our so called "leaders". However, unlike human societies, simian alphas that overstep are dealt with swiftly and mercilessly. They are murdered by the rest of the group; nonstop attacks until the psychopath is dead. It is not pretty, but it preserves the society so it functions with a lot less control than the alpha randomly imposed on the group.
Psychopathy needs to be treated as the mental health / development disorder that it is. And if we don't start treating it, and soon, we may find that there is no humanity on the other side of this "test".