Synopsis :: The secret to a sociopath’s successful destruction of an innocent person’s good character is due to the abundance of the truly gullible and ignorant.  P.T. Barnum made a good living from them.

Majority Rules … Universally-Accepted Decision Making.

Majority Rules have long been equated to fairness in determining the outcome that would most favor the multitude. On the surface, it would appear flawless in its ability to consistently satisfy those parameters.

But just below the surface, something is flawed. Ideally, individual votes should all be from individual thinkers. Critical thinkers. So if all the voters are truly individual, critical thinkers, each analyzing the candidates thoroughly and determining the best candidate the fill the actual need, then the Majority Rules will perform flawlessly. But that will never happen.

Instead of a country of leaders, we have a country of followers.

The Fact is, we are all headed in the Wrong Direction.

More and more, we are getting by with less individual thinking. How? [that was a pun] By accepting and allowing others to do our thinking for us.

It’s certainly easier, isn’t it?  As well as totally ignorant, shallow, gullible, dangerous, while leaving us completely vulnerable … what did I miss?

Who will position themselves as a Leader?

How about those with a strong desire to control and manipulate others.

I believe we’re re-visiting that preschool game: Follow the Leader … this one, though, has a dangerous outcome.

Is anyone paying attention?

I suggest, that technically, there is no difference … especially since individuals in society are becoming more follower-types and less critical thinkers. It is my opinion that the general population of the U.S. is continually becoming more shallow, more complacent, and more gullible.*

How the Sociopath uses Majority Rules.

Ignorance and Gullibility are entirely voluntary. Break down the word “Ignorance” and you find “ignore.” These people have chosen to ignore the facts; ignore that they, too, have a brain; ignore that what they heard, and what they are passing along, is but unproven hearsay — even if they are sharing malicious rumors as fact about another human.

“Stuff” that they themselves, have never witnessed, nor tried to confirm. Hence, blatant ignorance … each ignoramus is participating in malicious, immoral, unethical and shameful conduct. Potentially illegal, too.

That’s the foundation that gives the sociopath the ability to manipulate the masses. The sociopath knows …

1.  that people love to spread dirt.

2.  that almost no one will take the time to confirm hearsay, especially if they’re made to believe that doing so will be sticking their neck out with the person … which is the primary objective — that no one will want to talk to, or believe the person.

3.  that there’s power in numbers … i.e., majority rules. Eventually, without any confirmation by anyone, that dirt will be accepted as factual common knowledge.

It began as a maliciously planned and executed, deceptive fabrication to destroy an innocent person’s character, because the sociopath became paranoid that the co-worker (in this case) possibly discovered something that may put the sociopath at risk for exposure. He just “may” have seen something, based entirely on the sociopath’s paranoia.

In this scenario, though, the innocent co-worker saw nothing, and is oblivious to what has begun against him. A sociopath will never wait to go on the defensive — if they sense fear of exposure, they immediately begin their offensive strategy.

That dirt will spread quickly, to the point of,  “Did you hear about so and so?”  “Yes, I would have never imagined. That’s sick … I always wondered why he was so quiet …”  

… Uhh, No. He just avoids office politics, does his job efficiently, and can’t wait to get home to his loving wife, and take the kids to after-school sports.

Summary

100 people all know the same dirt about 1 particular person.

Only one person says it’s not true: understandably, it’s from that 1 particular person.

100 say guilty, only 1 says innocent. Majority Rules? Do those 100 make it true? One lie, repeated by 100 people, is still a lie. Believe it or not, even if one million people repeat it.

Prove it to yourself. Check your sources — be unique.

Ask a few people who told them? … how they found out? When you keep hearing the same person as a source, that’s your next lead … and iterate.

Chances are it will all point to one person with a maliciously vengeful mission. Be careful, since that charming, innocent-looking, even popular co-worker, is likely one very dangerous individual … male or female.

BOTTOM LINE

The concept of Majority Rules is flawed in virtually every situation since it relies on the premise that each and every person is an individually critical thinker.

In reality, though, we are one sorry group of gullible lemmings.

###

*I can cite — as well as you can find — an infinite number of examples on the Web alone … as well as how the majority mistreats minorities … and even how the presidential race was marketed and won in 2000 (i.e., family values and christian principles … smoke and mirrors. They knew their target market).

YOU MAY be wondering how it is that this week the financial industry, which was on taxpayer life support, announced it would be doling out more than $140 billion in bonuses to the very executives who created the mess in the first place. Or how it is that some of these same institutions recently began raising the interest rates on your credit cards to unprecedented levels. Or how it is that there are now reports of new and risky financial skulduggery afoot.

To answer these questions, it may help to consult the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” the handbook for psychologists. The manual describes a broad category called antisocial personality disorder, which includes those whom we commonly describe as sociopaths. According to the manual, this disorder manifests itself, among other ways, in “deceitfulness” as indicated by “conning others for personal profit or pleasure”; “irresponsibility”; and “lack of remorse as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.”

One could easily make the case that Bernie Madoff, R. Allen Stanford, the subprime mortgage pushers, the derivatives dealers, and the rest of the Wall Street gang were all economic sociopaths who were actively hostile to the interests of the American people and wholly devoid of conscience. What they did was not just the result of miscalculation or even greed, but of something much deeper and darker.

Garden-variety sociopaths – say, rapists or serial murderers – are reviled and typically punished. But when economic sociopaths were plundering the country, they were being lionized as bold entrepreneurs, financial buccaneers, even rock stars. In the financial press, they were gods …

To continue reading, CLICK HERE to leave this site and finish reading this on the Boston Globe site.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company

###

Well, of course not, he’s a senator. Isn’t that clout enough? [sic]

This next one — a true favorite — I’m stating entirely from memory. I do not recall the details, but the rest will be difficult to ever forget.

I believe it was during the summer of 2008, when White House-sitter, George W. Bush [R] was asked (or subpoenaed) to testify before a Senate sub-committee. In his formal reply, Bush agreed to testify as long as he was not required to be under oath.

Ironically, he was honest about intending to be dishonest. Maybe it’s my own naivety, but why do people need to take an oath just to tell the truth?

One of my pet peeves is when I’m intently listening to someone — whatever the topic may be — when out of nowhere, they state …

      “… OK, I’ll be honest with you …”

“WHAT!?  What about everything you just said?”

SOUND FX: GLASS BREAKING

This would be considered a wild thought by many, but it would seem that our justice system is severely broken.

I have witnessed, first-hand, how those with limited financial means, and even minorities, are treated much differently than those who do not need to worry (as much) about legal costs. And I also saw first-hand, how “truth” takes a distant second place behind the courtroom-version of the two-foot shuffle.

But since the Justice system is the only branch of our government that police’s itself, I don’t think I’ll hold my breath for any change. An argument for a major overhaul would certainly be placed in the judicial circular file. A request to consider even a minor tune-up would probably also be dismissed as unneeded, and an “unnecessary expense of tax-payers’ dollars.”

That’s always a good one … it’s a very simple formula to go to WAR (spending billions and billions of dollars), and that’s accomplished by simply creating fear, uncertainty and doubt — such as the Homeland Security Advisory System that never drops below yellow — and calling on patriotism (i.e., not real patriotism), but just the appearance of it, which is intended to incite guilt. If you’re not for the war, then you must not be patriotic. [sic]

By the way, the threat level has never been lowered to Low (Green) or Guarded (Blue).

Then consider the Patriot Act. Now, if you are against the Patriot Act, obviously you are not patriotic … there’s that guilt thing again, right. It’s just a marketing ploy.

Name the “Act” without using misleading Marketing Glitz

Imagine if they were required to summarize the major points of the book and how those issues would effect the public. That summary would then be shortened into a title and sub-title.

“The Big Book of Losing of our Constitutional Right to Privacy, and other gotchas” … other “gotchas” because no one read it before they signed it into law late one night.

And, not to forget how the US Supreme Court — a very political group to begin with — decided to give the presidency to Bush in 2000, all behind closed doors. Who told them to get involved? No one, because they’re accountable only to themselves. Their say is final.

Right or wrong, the Judicial Branch answers to no one, unlike the other branches of our government.

And remember, as much as we hear the value of a Democracy: the US is not a Democracy.

###

Nothing … not even perjury.

How was I to know? For some reason, I was led to believe that determining TRUTH and administering JUSTICE was the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY and goal of our Justice System … the most powerful branch of the Federal government.

Hey! Maybe it was the name “Justice System” that threw me.

But now I know that TRUTH apparently can take a very distant second place. In my case, very questionable legal ethics, and of course money, made it initially appear that I had virtually no chance. That makes them easy to surprise.

I faired much better than my ex-wife’s attorney had expected, as I kept them from winning — even though it was based entirely on lies. In the end, though, the judge made it seem almost a risk for me to continue the case.

Much more on this in its context.

###