Sociopaths needed

Are we doomed to a future of hating, killing and stealing, or can we improve human nature? This has been a central question for me for a long time.

I think a lot of us have come to our own conclusion about it, based on experience or ideology. I had mine, and I am pleased to say that I feel I finally feel comfortable with my answer, and that there is good news.

It was looking grim recently. I previously felt that if only "those people" would stop doing what they're doing, everyone else would be better off.

My new understanding is that sociopaths and psychopaths are an important part of society, and they let us know that something is not right.

They are human versions of a canary in a gold mine, or the part of our immune system that alerts us that we have a virus. They tell us that something is not right, or human versions of our immune system sentries.

They alert us that there is a problem in society. Their greed sees an opportunity, and they do their best to take advantage of it, just as a virus will exploit our suppressed immune system.

In the human body, our options are to 1) kill the virus with antibiotics or more natural remedies, 2) boost our immune system with herbs or vitamins and minerals, or 3) we can eliminate the cause of the suppressed immune system.

Perhaps we have too much stress, we are putting off life changes, etc.

If we kill the virus, our immune system won't benefit, and we will be susceptible to the next infection. If we boost our immune system, this will provide a temporary solution, but at least we'll be able to fight off the virus.

The best option is to address the reason our immune system is suppressed. We can also employ the other options in addition to changing our life, diet, etc, and in fact, we may need to if the infection is acute enough.

Changing our lives is the most difficult, but the most important option.

It is the same in society. Sociopaths show us what is wrong with our society as they try to find a way around (or over) the rules. They are showing us how our society looks to them and pointing out a vulnerability in the system.

To use all three options, we as individuals can criticize or ostracize the sociopath based for their unacceptable actions, we can empower our legal system to punish them and we can think more deeply about what in our society invites or rewards this behavior, and change that.

Recognizing sociopaths is a skill we ought to develop. Showing a lack of empathy should be a huge red flag. Let's harm other people because they don't matter, you're with us or against us, God is on our side, etc. are further red flags. It would be useful to have a list that we can refer to.

We need to be better educated on the foundations of our society so we can speak up quickly when things start to go in a direction that doesn't work for us. Martin Luther King, Jr taught us that worse things happen because good people don't speak up than happen from what sociopaths do.

There was no shortage of sociopaths in Germany after WWI. Non-sociopaths didn't have the discernment to identify what was happening in real time, and when they did, they didn't have the tools to make their voices heard.

If people had spoken up early on, like when Hitler claimed that Germany was under persecution from Poland, we wouldn't have had the problems we had, and we would be on a different track altogether.

Since then, the world has grown a lot and gained a lot, but sociopathic principles have taken hold in most of the world due to "necessary" reactions to WWII. That's when we interned Japanese-Americans and when the Military Industrial Complex got control of our country.

We will have a very difficult time getting rid of them. It will require that we spot sociopathic behavior and disallow it. How many overseas military bases do we need? We have somewhere between 662 and 900 bases around the world. Why do we have any (besides to support US corporate interests)?

We must also become aware of our own greed and keep it in check. We want something for nothing. As long as we try to take advantage of those situations and act greedy, we will put ourselves in the hands of sociopaths.

In  healthy society, sociopaths live a controlled and externally-controlled life.

In an unhealthy society, they find lots of opportunities.

Our world is currently being run by sociopaths who have free reign and will always lead us toward our own destruction if we they can.

The bottom line is that sociopaths work for us and help us keep our society healthy, or destroy it to make room for another, more balanced society.

If we want to follow them or put them in check, we must decide quickly. They won't allow us to improve the country and planet until we learn to put them in their place.

We all have the candida virus in our bodies. We get an overgrowth if we lose the healthy gut microbe balance by too much stress or poor diet. There is no getting rid of them, and they are part of us. We must learn to take control of our micro biome to stay healthy.

A virus or a sociopath must always be ready to jump at an opportunity, and thereby point out to us that we are out of balance.

We have lost our moral authority

The United States has lost its moral authority by supporting dictators, toppling governments, and losing touch with the intention of uplifting all of humanity.

The Republican Party has pledged itself to emptying the treasury and ruling the country as if we have a monarchy. To counter this, the Democrats could rededicate themselves to our fundamental principles of unalienable rights and the encouragement of life, liberty and happiness, but I doubt they would have the courage to take this step.

This means giving up pandering to special interests (even teachers, unions, etc.), and by focusing on the most good for the most people…to improve the entire country without appeasing particular groups.

We must also reconsider giving increasing powers to the President that were not intended by the Constitution. Historically, this is how a democracy turns into a tyranny.

On a practical level, we must define what the “general welfare” means as used in the Constitution ( google “Commerce Clause” for more info). This is at the root of the deep divisions in our society and government.

Gain perspective- go above the clouds

I remember my first plane ride. It was raining heavily for a long time, and on my way to the airport it felt like that’s all there was ever going to be…rain and wind. The plane took off during a lull in the wind, and we climbed into the rain clouds. We kept ascending, and finally popped through the clouds and into the brilliant sunshine, which I hadn’t seen in about a week.

At that moment it occurred to me that it’s always sunny above the clouds, and if we can just get there, it will be fine. Think of the sky above the worst hurricane- it’s ALWAYS sunny during the day and starry at night.

We often get mired in our day-to-day downpours and hurricanes, and forget that it’s sunny somewhere else, and will be sunny again shortly, and to regain perspective, it's often enough to remember that above the rain is sunshine.

Torture you, torture me, or "What goes around, comes around."

my take on things

Torture
If you think it'’s OK to torture others, then you'’re also saying that it'’s OK for others to torture you. On the other hand, if we say we don'’t allow torture, we must make sure that it doesn'’t happen in our name. Picture someone you know being tortured- or maybe even yourself. If that's OK with you, then torture may be OK with you.

We can say that there is one standard for the world and another for us, but if we torture others, then Americans will be tortured, maybe even someone you know. Whoever says torture is OK is condemning other Americans to torture. Will you be responsible for it?

We know that information given under duress is not reliable. We don'’t allow confessions and evidence so obtained in our courtrooms for this reason. So, there is no benefit to torture, and it will cause problems, why are there even a few people who want it?

On the other hand, if torture is OK, I have a few questions for Karl Rove.

The uselessness of partisanship

Partisanship is like...

...calling the plumber to fix any problem in the house just because you
had good luck with the plumber once in the past. Sensible people call
on the person with the appropriate skills for a specific job. If there
is an electric problem, do you call a plumber? Of course not.
Similarly, why would someone apply the same solution regardless of what
the problem is? Would you apply the brakes any time you needed to do
something to correct the velocity of a car? Of course not. You apply
brakes, accelerator or steering inputs to guide the car where you want
it to go.

Why do some people try to apply the same conservative or liberal
solutions to every situation? It makes no sense.

What's up with the bird flu?

It seems to me that this bird flu business has four intentions.

1. To scare people more. It is useful to make people scared because they will do your bidding blindly, even if it's against their own interests. To create a slave state, you need to first create a fear state.

2. To earn money for a few people, including Donald Rumsfeld and Goerge Schultz. Keep in mind that the transmission of the flu between humans does not happen. You have to catch it from an infected bird. The hysteria is based on the possibility that a random mutation in the flu virus will make it infectious between humans. Is there evidence that this will happen?

When you see any government plan in the future, ask yourself whether it incites more fear, or reduces fear and increases thoughtful discussion.

G. Bush ordered the government to buy $2 billion worth of vaccines (Tamiflu) that are not sufficiently work against the flu. His Nov. 1 speech asks for $1 billion more.

Rumsfeld was Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, the company that developed Tamiflu, and still owns between $5 million and $25 million in stock. Gilead gets a 10% royalty on sales of Tamiflu.

This isn't the first time that Rumsfeld directly profited from his own and administration actions. He signed the order that military personnel would receive smallpox vaccines and a drug called Vistide, which was claimed to reduce side effects of the smallpox vaccine. Vistide is also made by Gilead Sciences. Is this OK?

The British plan is to produce flu-resistant GMO (genetically modified organisms) chickens to replace all chickens in the world in 4-5 years.

3. It's good for large-scale chicken farms. Even though the flu is dramatically more contagious at the large farms (since the birds are much closer together and unhealthy), the independent farmers are the ones that face destruction of their flocks, when it should be the large farms if anyone at all. It would be interesting to see who owns the large Asian chicken farms.

4. To cause chaos and profit from it. This is the oldest trick in the book, and I'm surprised that we keep falling for it. It's like watching Charlie Brown try to kick at the football only to have Lucy move it at the last second. He believes that this time Lucy will really let him kick it. We respect his optimism that next time will be better, but don't respect who he chooses to trust.