How can a good person understand evil?
In my last article on political psychopathy I wrote this:
Paul Babiak and Robert Hare describe these individuals as “organizational destroyers”. They successfully climb the corporate or political ladder by looking brilliant, confident, and rational. However, because their underlying motives are entirely self-serving, they will happily burn down the institution, the country, or the company to ensure that they are the ones standing on top of the ashes
Fundamentally, these people are parasites. They destroy their hosts.
When one host dies, they find another.
They are highly successful at protecting themselves, but their decisions are fundamentally irrational for the collective good.
It is very difficult for most people to understand the mindset of political psychopaths, which is why they are so easily taken in.
Since political psychopaths have no moral boundaries, they do not care a wit for values, feelings, fairness, or truth— only self aggrandizement . That does not mean that they don’t understand other people and their feelings— they do. But they are predators, and you are prey.
The empathy you and I experience is emotional empathy: we actually feel what someone else is feeling as they do.
Psychopaths have something else — called cognitive empathy or sometimes cold empathy or tactical empathy.
A high functioning psychopath logically analyzes emotions, values, and vulnerabilities— so they can use them— not always against you— but always for their own benefit. They read body language, micro expressions, listen for nuances and accurately map your innermost desires, fears, and moral boundaries. They know exactly what makes you tick.
They dissect you like a cadaver — but emotionally.
The ends justify the means. And the end is always personal power and satisfaction.
Inevitably, these people are attracted to politics.
Ted Bundy for example, was active actively in Republican politics and government in Washington state during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He worked on local campaigns, attended the 1968 Republican National Convention as a delegate, and served as an aide to state party officials. But his arrest spoiled his plans.
Still, after that Bundy received about 200 letters a month— romantic declarations, marriage proposals, and photographs.
One can only imagine what he would have been like elected to office. President Ted?
We haven’t had a serial killer as President, you say?
Wrong, Most of our Presidents have been serial killers, far more prolific than Bundy. Can you name one that did not preside over the arbitrary slaughter of innocents?
We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. Ted Bundy
Everywhere? Especially in government.
Barak Obama liked to boast about how good he was at killing and he was indeed very proficient - women and children and old people, blown to bits or maimed horribly. He didn’t lose any sleep over it — he was proud of his power. So were the rest of them.
Most people don’t seem political figures this way. Because they don’t think that way and they can’t imagine anyone who does.
About 20 percent of people are on the psychopathic spectrum but only a very few are high function psychopaths who lie and cheat their way up the ladder. Some were gifted power in the form of their parent’s political background — Bush the Half Wit or through financial largesse as with Donald Trump, and their lack of ability is obvious. Still, the public always misconstrues them as thinking as they do. Assuming they are their role.
What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. Adolph Hitler
In the end, however, psychopaths degrade the organizations where they achieve power. The US has checks and balances built in — a system borrowed but bowdlerized from America’s original participatory democracy—the Iroquois Confederacy.
But our colonialist system is ineffective. It is not participatory, so the people are alienated from those who lead.
One psychopath is replaced by another, with little effect, partly because each is self-serving and follow pre-existing policies since it is the easiest way to maintain power. That’s why presidents, regardless of party end up doing the same things and rarely change anything for the better.
Now Trump is not very smart, and getting older, and delusional. He is getting richer and richer, but he is also presiding over a failing state, and accelerating its decline. He is both parasite and destroyer
In other countries, we have the leaders of the European countries, the EU and NATO. Starmer was a psychopathy idiot but not much worse than the rest of the group, of course, replaced by another psychopathic moron— Burnham. Not to worry about their futures After all, Tony Blair was a liar, a cheat and a war criminal who is now worth over $60 million (publicly documented).
Then there is the guy who got his start playing the piano with his dick. There is no way of knowing how rich he is! But, he is named in the Pandora papers, and could be worth well over $30 million—or more, given Ukraine’s endemic corruption.
By contrast, Putin’s assets are modest.
He earned 67.6 million rubles (roughly $753,000 USD) earned over a six-year period from his official presidential salary, a military pension, and interest on bank deposits and securities which total 54.4 million rubles (roughly $610,000 USD) distributed across 10 separate Russian bank accounts. Of course, the State houses him and pays for all his expenses. And he is not leaving office for a long time yet.
Oh, and Putin is NOT a psychopath.
Zelensky is an obvious psychopath who thinks nothing of bombing women and children — but he is also totally incompetent —which is why the Russians keep him alive for now. If they took him out, he would probably be replaced by someone more vicious. In any case, he is destroying the Ukraine as a country, which will result in the Russian Federation probably absorbing it, except maybe for Galicia, which they might gift to Poland, who hate Ukrainians eve more than they hate Russians.
Who is my favorite philosopher?
George Carlin, of course.
So, today, a George Carlin video. This is the Age of Irony. So when you feel “trapped” listen to George.
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