Excerpt: California: State of Collusion by Array
Introduction to Psychopaths: Mega-law-mania
Traits of a Psychopath
Boldness = Low fear including stress-tolerance, tolerance of unfamiliarity and danger, high self-confidence and social assertiveness.
Disinhibition = Poor impulse control including problems with planning and foresight, lacking affect and urge control, demand for immediate gratification, poor behavioral restraints.
Meanness = Lacking empathy and close attachments with others, disdain of close attachments, use of cruelty to gain empowerment, exploitative tendencies, defiance of authority, destructive excitement seeking.
If you are arrested in California, the deck is stacked against you. For decades, the cops, prosecutors, judges, and politicians in power have eviscerated your constitutional rights to make their jobs easier to perform. Their livelihoods rely on law enforcement winning, and those in their path losing. You are collateral damage along their career path.
Collusion at the highest levels tilts the tables against you, and towards the “police powerists” who use convictions as stepping stones and power chits. These powerful jobs attract people who desire power: psychopaths. Government jobs with uniforms, authority, guns, and badges are an attractive lure.
Studies have shown a number of careers that appeal to those with psychopathic tendencies. Jobs with overt power and authority are overly represented on those lists. Law enforcement jobs are available to a broad spectrum of characters: from school yard bullies to Ivy League “Mean Girls.” There is a position of authority over others for every socio-economic level of abuser.
By controlling the entire legal process: investigation, arrest, evidence, prosecution, sentencing, and even writing new laws, the psychopaths in power are sure to win. But, winning is not enough for a psychopath. Their opponent must also lose. They must be made an example of. A psychopath does not think the way you and I do.
Players in California’s judicial system, from law enforcement to politicians, have colluded against our liberty, rights, and way of life for their gain. Their megalomania is our loss.
‘Psychopath’ is not a medical term. It is used as a catch-all for a number of conditions and diagnoses that involve antisocial behavior. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM) does have descriptions for antisocial, narcissistic, and other personality disorders. However, it is common for these and some of their variations to be lumped under the term ‘psychopath.’
A psychopath does not need to be a raving mad lunatic—far from it. They are usually functioning members of society in positions of responsibility.
Modern Examples of Stereotypical Psychopaths
- Norman Bates, from the aptly named film, Psycho
- Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic psychiatrist from the “Silence of the lambs” movie and book series
- Dexter Morgan from the Dexter books and Showtime series, who worked in law enforcement
- Francis Underwood, the US representative who rose in power to President of the United States in Netflix’ House of Cards
These cool-headed, highly functioning, guileful criminals charm you whilst plotting your demise. These cold-blooded killers, who are defined by their inability for and complete lack of human compassion, are good representations of an archetypal psychopath, rather than the drooling, wild-eyed crazy person that the term ‘psychopath’ may initially conjure.
Psychopathic personality is a disorder that can be generally described as characterized by detached emotions, reduced inhibition, high stress tolerance, Machiavellianism, lacking empathy, lacking guilt, egocentricity, charm, manipulation, impulsivity, and a reckless disregard for others. However, it is these very same traits that define the psychopath, that can propel a person (in certain careers) to a position of authority.
Dr. Kevin Dutton is a research fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. In his book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths, Dr. Dutton lists the top careers that attract psychopaths. Many of these jobs require coolness, charm, and risk-taking, in order to be effective. Some of these career choices also give perfect cover to those with antisocial aspects to their personality.
The Top 10 Careers with the most Psychopaths
- CEO
- Lawyer
- Media (TV/Radio)
- Salesperson
- Surgeon
- Journalist
- Police officer
- Clergy
- Chef
- Politician
These careers attract and require big egos, confidence, charm, stress endurance, and a strong will. Chillingly, because these jobs put people in the limelight, they thereby also put one in a position requiring interaction with and, at least on the surface, accountability to many people.
The functioning psychopath CEO, chef, clergy, journalist, media personality, or salesperson must win our trust in order to succeed at their job. They often have to do so while seemingly in the public eye under public scrutiny. They can be polarizing figures, but they have fans and followers that will willfully follow them, as faithful to these psychopaths as they are to their favorite professional sports team, actress, or poison-laden ‘diet’ product.
However, a person can choose which athlete to cheer for or which chef to dine with. We have no say in which cop arrests us, which prosecutor tries to jail us and charge us with penalties that will stick with us for life, nor the judge who presides over this system infiltrated by bad apples with very little accountability. In fact, the bad apples in the system are often given peer-support by the other bad apples within the same system.
The careers that attract psychopaths do so because they are roles that have authority and power over the public. Remember, power corrupts but it also intoxicates. Indeed, power has been likened to an aphrodisiac many times across the ages and was most notably in modern times described as the “ultimate aphrodisiac” by Henry Kissinger, as quoted by the New York Times in 1973.
Psychopaths can flourish as police officers, prosecutors, judges, and politicians. They used to call these roles “civil servants,” but the tables have certainly turned. We, the public, empower these roles to wield their power complete with badges, gavels, and other totems of authority. This also includes the shield of law that has been built up by this psychopathic class to protect themselves. They are shielded from repercussions if they actually get caught doing something wrong.
It is not a coincidence that psychopaths end up in these jobs. As children, nascent criminal psychopaths often expressed a desire to work in law enforcement. A pair of researchers, Stanton E. Samenow Ph.D. and Dr. Yochelson, studied the criminal mind. They found a large percentage of career criminals they interviewed had aspired to become police when they were younger.
It is important to remember here that law enforcement not only includes police and sheriffs, but also prosecutors. It is also no secret that most judges are former prosecutors. Here is a lawyer joke that illustrates that point perfectly: “Question: Why does the judge sit at the bench? Answer: Because there’s not enough room at the prosecutor’s table.”
According to the researchers studying criminals, “They reported being attracted by the uniform, the badge, the gun, the fast police cruiser and, most of all, the thrill of pursuing and catching the ‘bad guys.’ It was the excitement and the ability to wield absolute power over other human beings that attracted them as well as the prospect of being cited as heroes for doing so.”
One has to wonder if these criminals were the more physical type of kids rather than the intellectual children. I wonder if this same study had been conducted specifically on white collar criminals, criminals who use their intellect to commit crimes rather than physically commit them, if their aspirations would have been to become prosecutors, judges, or politicians.
It is not fair to say that every cop, prosecutor, judge, or politician is a born psychopath. In fact, the moral cops, prosecutors, and judges who are good and just are some of the greatest people that I have met in my life. I don’t doubt that many cops, prosecutors, judges, and even politicians may have gone into their careers with glowing hearts full of good intentions.
While some members of law enforcement and the legal system are inherently good, some were sick people beforehand and were attracted to the role, whilst others were corrupted by an environment that enables psychopathic behavior. Indeed, prisons are full of criminal minds—on both sides of the bars.
It is widely acknowledged that people who are put into positions of authority often abuse their power. No doubt everyone has heard the expression, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
This phrase comes to us from Lord Acton, who used it in a famous letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887. It means that good people will be corrupted into acting badly when given too much power and authority over others. It also means that bad people who are given too much power and authority will act even worse when the veil afforded by their position allows them to act with impunity.
Citizens, us, We the People, can often be subject to the whims of bullies and sadists with the power to destroy our lives. Innocent people can be subjected to a ‘power trip’ police encounter, arrested by a megalomaniacal cop, jailed by a sadist, prosecuted by a manipulative Machiavellian, and judged by an ego-tripping sociopath.
Maniacs with badges, guns, and gavels have undue power over our lives.