Day: February 2, 2014

STUDIES IN PSYCHOPATHY : How Psychopaths View The World (part2)

Not only do they covet possessions and power, but they gain special pleasure in usurping and taking from others (a symbolic sibling, for example); what they can plagiarize, swindle, and extort are fruits far sweeter than those they can earn through honest labor.And once having drained what they can from one source, they turn to another to exploit, bleed, and then cast aside; their pleasure in the misfortune of others is unquenchable. People are used as a means to an end; they are to be subordinated and demeaned so that the antisocial can vindicate themselves…

The causes of this sociopathic disorder have been narrowed to several factors through research. One of the primary causes of sociopathic behavior is believed to be neurological abnormalities mainly in the frontal lobe of the brain. This area is also related to fear conditioning. The abnormal anatomy or chemical activity within this area of the brain may be caused by abnormal growth (possibly genetic), brain disease, or injury. This theory has been supported by much research using positron emission tomography (PET) which visually shows the metabolic activity of neurons within the brain (Sabbatini, 1998).The amygdalae, two small regions buried near the base of the brain, have long been known to affect aggression, sexuality and recklessness. Recently, they have also been shown to affect how people interpret the emotions of others. Subtle damage to the amygdalae may explain many of the characteristics of psychopaths – including the difficulty of getting through to them emotionally. It may be that they simply cannot “see” emotions in others.

The psychopath is a manipulator, who knows exactly what makes us tick and knows how to manipulate and influence our feelings.

They have the talent to spot “kind, caring” women.

Mimicry is often used to convince others that the psychopath is a normal human being. He does this to create a false empathy with his victim. The psychopath will try to make you believe he has normal emotions by spinning some sad tale or professing profound, moving experiences; the truth is, most psychopaths go through life as in an incubator, touched by few and having no real compassion for others; but they will lie to convince you that they have normal emotions.

The pity factor is one reason why victims often fall for these “poor” people.

Lying is like breathing to the psychopath. When caught in a lie and challenged, they make up new lies, and don’t care if they’re found out. As Hare states,

“Lying, deceiving, and manipulation are natural talents for psychopaths…When caught in a lie or challenged with the truth, they are seldom perplexed or embarrassed — they simply change their stories or attempt to rework the facts so that they appear to be consistent with the lie. The results are a series of contradictory statements and a thoroughly confused listener.” [Hare].

Often, their behavior serves to confuse and repress their victims, or to influence anyone who might listen to the psychopath’s side of the story.

Manipulation is the key to their conquests, and lying is one way they achieve this.

One almost amusing example of how psychopaths lie can be exemplified by a man who’s footprint was discovered at the scene of the crime. “No, that’s not my foot” he said, even though everyone knew he was lying.

This is how psychopaths operate. They will deny reality until their victims have a nervous breakdown. Often, the psychopath will turn on the victim and claim that the victim suffers from “delusions” and is not mentally stable.

The psychopath is primarily distracted and impressed by his own grandiose self-representation, which often leads to him unwittingly telling people things that lead to his detection. They often forget the lies they told and tell contradicting tales, which often makes the listener wonder if either the psychopath is crazy, although in this case the psychopath isn’t really crazy — he’s just forgotten what lies he’s told.

The most amazing thing, however, is their selective memory. A psychopath might not remember the promises he made to you yesterday, but he will remember something from the past if it suits his purposes in some way. They often do this whenever they’re confronted or caught in a lie.

Most psychopaths are very arrogant and cocky. However, when charming a potential victim, they say all the “right” things and make you believe they are kind-hearted souls; not always, but often enough. The truth is, psychopaths are not altruistic and do not really care about friendships or ties.

Guggenbuhl-Craig states that ” they are very talented at appearing much more humble than the average person, but are hardly so.” Some are also able to feign concern about the lower classes and profess that they are on the side of the underdog, the poor, and so forth. A psychopath may claim, for instance (if he’s from a low socioeconomic class), that he dislikes rich people intensely, but at the same time, he will inwardly yearn and envy what they have. He is like the narcissist, desiring to reflect a false image of himself through his possessions. Among his possessions are included human beings: girlfriends, wives, and children.

Some psychopaths can even be very fond of animals (contrary to the common viewpoint), but still view them as objects in relation to themselves.

In general, most psychopaths will brag endlessly about their exploits and “bad” things they’ve done (often called a warning sign, which will ward off careful souls), but more often than not, the woman who is fascinated by him will not listen to reason, even if she is warned by others who know him about his past behaviors.

Why? Once again, because the psychopath makes her feel so “special.”

Please ladies, if you’re stuck on any man who is like this, you must come to terms with the fact that it is NOT his REAL personality. He is only playing a ROLE for you.

Dr. Black states that one of the most obvious signs of psychopathy is the way the individual will brag about his experiences, no matter “how unsavory…his apparent comfort with his deviant behavior, the ease with which he discuss(es) breaking every rule, (is) consistent with ASP (psychopathy).” [Black, 68].

The psychopath is filled with greed inside, relating to the world through power, even though, as I said, on the outside he can claim to be on the side of the disenfranchised or the downtrodden. I knew one who liked to repeat phrases such as “they have to stop keeping my brothers down” but he didn’t mean a word of it. He was actually a racist. The psychopath can also often identify himself as a revolutionary.As mentioned, psychopaths often claim to settle for second best (being their own worst enemy) and then think they deserve better. This may be manifested in the way they seek power — either through money (i.e. material goods), manipulation and/or treating people as objects. By enacting such behaviors, the psychopath is also trying to “get back” at society and the world, in order to gain retribution. They will spend their entire lives doing this, whether they are rich or poor, or whatever their social background may be, although studies have shown that they often come from an impoverished or lower socio- economic background and/or social status. (In one of Dr. Donald Black’s studies, many of the men were “overwhelmingly white, blue collar, lower middle class, and married, and most had not graduated from high school.”

What is very disturbing about psychopaths, besides their sense of special entitlement, is the complete lack of empathy for normal people, for “antisocials (psychopaths) seem to lack a conscience, feeling little or no empathy for the people whose lives they touch…the antisocial effortlessly resists all regulation, unable to see beyond his self-interest or to adopt standards of right versus wrong.”.

Not all psychopath are uneducated low-class misfits. Some of them are quite handsome and have good careers, and use this all the more to their benefit. Take a look at Ted Bundy; my friend’s mother once went on a double-date with him and claimed he was the nicest person. His mother said he was the “best son any mother could have.” Bundy was also apparently quite good-looking, which made him even more dangerous. So not all psychopaths are derelict, low-class, high school drop-outs, there are many who also work in professional occupations; the fact remains that there are just more psychopaths who come from impoverished backgrounds than not.

Also, not all psychopaths are calm, cool, and collected. Some of them appear strange or odd, and their behavior can be eccentric or unusual. I believe this is what can confuse victims most often. Psychopaths often appear intense and “electrifying”. Do not be misled if someone appears harmless, “foolish”, or seems offbeat. An “angelic” visage can also often fool people. Just picture John Wayne Gacy in his “clown costume” as he entertained children as one example.

Another example which someone on the “Victims of Psychopathy” board came up with was Bill Clinton and his “goofy” yet loveable demeanor (so is Clinton really a psychopath? Many believe he is).

A psychopath (he was diagnosed anti-social) I knew used the harmless cover-up quite well. Everyone thought he was very funny. I did too, at first. Then, little by little, I realised there was something “not right” about him. At first his seemingly harmless pranks were charming, but after a while, he became more of a nuisance and disrupted our work environment, which created havoc and tension between employees. I’ve learned, a psychopath can use these disguises for his own hidden purpose.

Regardless of race, social class, or occupation, however, the psychopath is dangerous to society, for “the nature of ASP (psychopathy) implies that it wreaks more havoc on society than most other mental illnesses do, since the disorder primarily involves reactions against the social environment that drag other people into its destructive web…The despair and anxiety wrought by antisocials (psychopaths) tragically affects families and communities, leaving deep physical and emotional scars…”.

There is much to the psychopathic personality which is baffling and disturbing. 1 in about 25-30 people are psychopathic (also known as sociopaths or anti-social — the correct title being psychopath.) Since the majority or them are men, wendy wrote to warn women about the dangers, especially women online, which I believe is a favourite “new medium” which appeals to psychopaths. I have personal experience with this subject as well. This is because “antisocials (psychopaths) are not just characters in our fictional or true-life entertainments. They are family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, or strangers we may encounter every day.”

Pamela Jayne, M.A., writes that “30% of men are sociopathic.” [QFG note that she is not using the term “psychopath”.] If about every three out of ten men I may meet are psychopathic, I would assume this is not something to take lightly. According to these statistics, that would mean every three out of ten men and maybe every one out of ten females.

The truth is, we do not really know exactly how many individuals are psychopathic; however, there seems to be a rise in the prevalence of psychopathy and that is why some claim that numbers are higher. Dr. Black claims that psychopathy leads right behind depression, along with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, which is an astounding fact.

[QFG note: Hare says that Psychopathy is MORE prevalent than depression, schizophrenia and BPD. For all we know, many people who are depressed, become schizophrenic, or develop BPD, do so as a result of interactions with psychopaths. Psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski says as much in his book “Political Ponerology.”]

Psychopaths are often witty and articulate and almost always “glib.” They can be “amusing and entertaining conversationalists, ready with a quick and clever comeback, and can tell unlikely but convincing stories…

They can be very effective in presenting themselves well and are often very likeable and charming. To some people, however, they seem too slick and smooth, too obviously insincere and superficial. Astute observers often get the impression that psychopaths are play-acting, mechanically “reading their lines.” 

…They may ramble and tell stories that seem unlikely in light of what is known about them. Typically, they attempt to appear familiar with sociology, psychiatry, medicine, psychology, philosophy, poetry, literature, art, or law. A signpost to this trait is often a smooth lack of concern at being found out.” 

One psychopathic individual I knew claimed that he had a genius IQ and that he was studying several different majors at college. “When I found out I had a genius IQ, that’s when all my trouble started” he said. I asked him, “Why?” He replied, “‘Cause I’m too smart for my own good.” In the end I found out these were lies because he was, in fact, a high school drop-out.

[QFG note: Being a “high-school drop-out” doesn’t mean that a person is NOT a genius. In fact, considering the U.S. education system, it is very likely that many geniuses WILL drop out due to frustration and boredom.]

Despite their failures, psychopaths have a very “narcissistic and grossly inflated view of their self-worth and importance, a truly astounding egocentricity and sense of entitlement, and see themselves as the center of the universe, as superior beings who are justified in living according to their own rules.”

They often come across as “arrogant, shameless braggarts–self-assured, opinionated, domineering, and cocky. They love to have power and control over others and seem unable to believe that people have valid opinions different from theirs. They appear charismatic or ‘electrifying’ to some people.” The psychopath is callous, remorseless, and unempathetic, although at first glance he may not seem that way. He is often exceedingly witty, chameleon-like, charming (but not always, especially when not in a “good” mood), the person who attracts a circle of admirers around him at every party, but more often that not, he is usually avoided — once people find out what he’s really like.

Atlanta – Prosecutor John Tanner’s religious remarks get killer new death penalty hearing – Anthony Farina

january, 31, 2014

DAYTONA BEACH — A federal appeals court in Atlanta, citing former state attorney John Tanner’s biblical references during sentencing, has thrown out the death sentence against a man convicted in the killing of a teenage worker during a robbery at a Taco Bell in Daytona Beach in 1992.

Anthony Farina

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has ordered a new sentencing for Anthony Farina, 40, who was convicted in the slaying of 17-year-old Michelle Van Ness during the robbery on May 9, 1992, at the Taco Bell on Beville Road. Also convicted in the killing was Farina’s brother Jeffrey Farina, the triggerman.

The brothers forced four workers into a freezer and then Jeffrey Farina shot three of them before the gun misfired. That’s when Anthony Farina handed his brother a knife and Jeffrey Farina stabbed a fourth employee. All survived except for Van Ness.

Tanner, who lost his bid for re-election in 2008 against R.J. Larizza, could not be reached Thursday.

The state plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Both brothers received the death sentence but the Florida Supreme Court reduced Jeffrey Farina’s to life because he as 16 at the time he killed Van Ness.

The appeals court said Tanner went too far when questioning the Rev. James Davis, a prison pastor who had been called by defense attorney William Hathaway to testify about counseling Anthony Farina at prison.

Tanner drew heavily from the Bible during his questioning of Davis, “urging the implementation of God’s law,” the 11th Circuit ruling states.

“While elevating his own station as divinely-ordained authority, the prosecutor made clear that the death penalty was the sole acceptable punishment under divine law, noting how Christ himself refused to grant a felon forgiveness from the death penalty.”

full article : click here

USA: The death penalty has become a game of chess

Americans have developed a nearly insatiable appetite for morbid details about crime, as any number of docudramas, Netflix series and Hollywood movies attest.

There is 1 notable exception: executions. Here, we’d just rather not know too much about current practices. Better to just think of prisoners quietly going to sleep, permanently.

The blind eye we turn to techniques of execution is giving cover to disturbing changes with lethal injection. The drugs that have traditionally been used to create the deadly “cocktail” administered to the condemned are becoming harder to get. Major manufacturers are declining to supply them for executions, and that has led states to seek other options.

That raises questions about how effective the lethal drugs will be. At least 1 execution appears to have been botched. In January, an inmate in Ohio was seen gasping for more than 10 minutes during his execution. He took 25 minutes to die. The state had infused him with a new cocktail of drugs not previously used in executions.

States have been forced to turn to relatively lightly regulated “compounding pharmacies,” companies that manufacture drugs usually for specific patient uses. And they’d rather you not ask for details. Death row inmates and their attorneys, on the other hand, are keenly interested in how an approaching execution is going to be carried out. Will it be humane and painless or cruel and unusual?

Lawyers for Herbert Smulls, a convicted murderer in Missouri, challenged the compound drug he was due to be given, but the Supreme Court overturned his stay of execution. A district court had ruled that Missouri had made it “impossible” for Smulls “to discover the information necessary to meet his burden.” In other words, he was condemned to die and there was nothing that attorneys could do because of the secrecy.

Smulls was executed Wednesday.

Missouri, which has put 3 men to death in 3 months, continues shrouding significant details about where the drugs are manufactured and tested. In December, a judge at the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals wrote a scathing ruling terming Missouri’s actions as “using shadow pharmacies hidden behind the hangman’s hood.”

States have long taken measures to protect the identities of guards and medical personnel directly involved with carrying out death penalty convictions. That is a sensible protection. But Missouri claims the pharmacy and the testing lab providing the drugs are also part of the unnamed “execution team.”

That’s a stretch. And the reasoning is less about protecting the firm and more about protecting the state’s death penalty from scrutiny.

The states really are in a bind. European manufacturers no longer want to be involved in the U.S. market for killing people. So they have cut off exports of their products to U.S. prisons.

First, sodium thiopental, a key to a long-used lethal injection cocktail became unavailable. Next, the anesthetic propofol was no longer available. At one point, Missouri was in a rush to use up its supply before the supply reached its expiration date.

Next, the state decided to switch to pentobarbital. So, along with many of the more than 30 states that have the death penalty, Missouri is jumping to find new drugs, chasing down new ways to manufacture them.

Information emerged that at least some of Missouri’s lethal drug supply was tested by an Oklahoma analytical lab that had approved medicine from a Massachusetts pharmacy responsible for a meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people.

For those who glibly see no problem here, remember that the U.S. Constitution protects its citizens from “cruel and unusual punishment.” But attorneys for death row inmates are finding they can’t legally test whether a new compounded drug meets that standard because key information is being withheld. Besides, we citizens have a right to know how the death penalty is carried out.

All of this adds to the growing case against the death penalty, showing it as a costly and irrational part of the criminal justice system. We know the threat of it is not a deterrent. We know it is far more costly to litigate than seeking sentences for life with no parole. We know extensive appeals are excruciating for the families of murder victims. And we know that some of society’s most unrepentant, violent killers somehow escape it.

And now we’ve got states going to extremes to find the drugs – and hide information about how they got then – just to continue the killing.

ABOUT THE WRITER Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star

(source: Fresno Bee) 

 

The death penalty, and a passion for pain

Giving full satisfaction to popular sadism always risked undercutting public support, but now politicians feel comfortable calling for a return to harsher methods.

States that kill tell us, in their scientific-technical language, that the death penalty is an unfortunate but strictly necessary activity, always used as a last resort and always restrained by mercy. The precise method of killing is itself a matter of pained, moral exactitude. The question is always how to deter as much brutality as possible, with as little brutality as possible.

So, a question: if you wrap a ligature around someone’s throat and tighten it until it breaks their neck or they choke to death, what is the deterrent effect of this compared with, say, tying them by the neck to a crane and then jerking them violently upward? How many fewer murderers and rapists would there be if we injected convicts with poison, as opposed to gassing or electrocuting them? For if you take states at their word, the sheer variation in both the use and method of the death penalty over time and place necessarily gives rise to such mind-boggling calculations.

For a few decades, this controversy has been moot in the United States. Those states in the union that operated the death penalty had abandoned the traditionally harsher methods of killing, such as electrocution or gassing. The long, agonising deaths associated with these methods had been replaced by superficially serene ones, effected by the seemingly precise method of poisonous injections. Now, as the availability and effectiveness of these drugs is in question, 6 states are attempting to bypass controversy by bringing back the firing squad, the gas chamber or the electric chair.

There are certain ironies here. Electrocution was itself once considered the gentle, civilised method of killing in the US. After centuries of hanging people in public squares, the American state was centralising and consolidating its power. Its ability to contain violent disobedience was expanding dramatically. By and large, it was less threatened by criminal disobedience than by the potential for unruliness among witnesses to such spectacles. It began to use the death penalty less, and in more confined settings, with fewer witnesses.

This did not mean that the element of sadism, which is essential to the social meaning of the death penalty, had been expunged. As a ritual, it effectively harnesses the desire to see satisfaction in pain and humiliation, and as such legitimises the state’s ultimate authority. That is why witness must be made, especially by the grieving relatives of a murder victim, for whom the killing of the convict is apparently the only route to “closure”.

The death penalty is linked to a wider array of sadistic punishment practices – “life-trashing” sentences, and “shame” penalties – which in the US are part of the management of a racial order, in which black people are seen as the potential nemesis of civilisation itself. The merest hint of a breach of their symbolic status has often been sufficient to produce an outburst of repressive violence. In this respect, it is notable that public killings mainly – although far from exclusively – persisted in the southern states, where political authority was weaker and more decentralised, and where racial terror was the dominant means of political control. Yet, while the US started to shift toward less spectacular forms of execution, they were not less public, not less symbolic, and certainly not less racially charged, as a result – until an effective moratorium on the penalty which lasted from 1960 to 1976.

It is telling, perhaps, that the basis of the current recourse to more traditionally brutal forms is an “economic” rationale – what can be done at least cost to the state, avoiding expensive legal challenges. The prosecution of offenders and the pursuit of the death penalty is always a costly and time-consuming process. This is one reason why, as Sister Helen Prejean wrote, African Americans and Hispanics not only do not expect the district attorney’s office to pursue the death penalty when a loved one is killed, but rarely expect even a prosecution.

However, the death penalty today is precisely grounded in an “economic” rationality. The end of the supreme court’s ban on it in 1976 corresponded to the beginnings of a political shift in the direction of neoliberalism. The neoliberals, despite their anti-statist rhetoric, were in fact advocates of a strong, authoritarian state, particularly in order to protect property rights and curb “market bypassing”. Of course, in its application it continued to be “selective” in favour of killing African American suspects. However, the legitimacy of state killing for some was at least partially secured by the introduction of the lethal injection in 1982, which was vaunted as a humane means of death. Subsequently, Clinton’s Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act enabled a drastic escalation in the use of the death penalty.

Yet, while American states – above all, Texas – are killing more people at a faster rate, supporters of the death penalty remain unhappy. It is precisely this “civilising” process – the slow, premeditated legal planning that must go into killing – that outrages them. The government is fighting evil, with one hand tied behind its back: let the forces of order do their work without hindrance and put an end to the chaos. Once the discussion is cast in terms of such moral absolutes, the evidence is that any potential wider costs of the death penalty are as superfluous as “collateral damage” in a war. Unfortunate, but of no real interest. The libidinal energies invested in killing overwhelm any such objections.

This is the bind that the American state has always been in over the death penalty. The regular application of lethal force serves a vital political purpose; but giving full satisfaction to popular sadism has always risked undercutting broad public support for it. If American politicians are now unembarrassed to call for a return to harsher methods of killing, this signals that the bind is loosening and that politics is tilting in favour of a renewed authoritarian statism – inevitably mandated by racism.

“Deterrence” in this sense is entirely symbolic; what is deterred by the binding of popular sadism to state bureaucratic processes is any questioning of the state’s claim to the final say over life and death.

(source: The Guardian)