The difference between sick and evil..

Many people who hear of my cases against humans who rape, torture, and package children for sale or rent immediately respond with, "That's sick!" Crimes against children seem so grotesquely abnormal that the most obvious explanation is that the perpetrator must be mentally ill—helpless in the grip of a force beyond his or her control.

But that very natural reaction has, inadvertently, created a special category of "blameless predator." That confusion of "sick" with "sickening" is the single greatest barrier to our primary biological and ethical mandate: the protection of our children.

The difference between sick and evil cannot be dismissed with facile eye-of-the-beholder rhetoric. There are specific criteria we can employ to give us the answers in every case, every time.



That complexity is an illusion. The truth is as simple as it is terrifying:

Sickness is a condition.

Evil is a behavior.

Evil is always a matter of choice. Evil is not thought; it is conduct. And that conduct is always volitional.

And just as evil is always a choice, sickness is always the absence of choice. Sickness happens. Evil is inflicted.

Until we perceive the difference clearly, we will continue to give aid and comfort to our most pernicious enemies. We, as a society, decide whether something is sick or evil. Either decision confers an obligation upon us. Sickness should be treated. Evil must be fought.


http://vachss.com/av_dispatches/parade_071402.html

And this is why I hate elitists, bullies ,authoritarians and psychopaths they are evil people.They know what they do is wrong it hurts and they do it anyway and don't care who is harmed by their choices to abuse..That is evil.

:kick:

Hey, Pantherdude! :hi:

i'm around a few in my life, and it's really hard.

Your sig pic = :spray:

I'm sure it's been studied extensively. I think it's a DSM entry. Even if there were treatment methods, they'd probably be extreme, and I bet it's really hard to diagnose in the first place. I know one when I meet one, but I can't put my finger on why.

...primary symptom: NO conscience (ie: George W. bu$h)

Like this...

The tranquility of the place masked its history of brutality, even as it masked the rage that surged within me. … I came face-to-face with the shocking fact that I too had been a slaver, that my job at MAIN had not been just about using debt to draw poor countries into the global empire. My inflated forecasts were not merely vehicles for assuring that when my country needed oil we could call in our pound of flesh… My job was also about people and their families, people akin to the ones who had died to construct the wall I sat on, people I had exploited. For ten years, I had been the heir of those slavers who had marched into African jungles and hauled men and women off to waiting ships. Mine had been a more modern approach, subtler – I never had to see the dying bodies, smell the rotting flesh, or hear the screams of agony. But what I had done was every bit as sinister…

I closed my eyes to the walls that had been built by slaves torn from their African homes. I tried to shut it all out… I leaped up, grabbed the stick, and began slamming it against the stone walls. I beat on those walls until I collapsed from exhaustion…. I knew that if I ever went back to my former life, to MAIN and all it represented, I would be lost forever… I had become a slave. I could continue to beat myself up as I had beat on those stone walls, or I could escape.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1562371

That's from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. There was a review by Time for change posted on DU a little over a week ago, and it's that passage that made me decide to order the book right then and there. It should arrive tomorrow.

What actually happened to Perkins at that stone wall in the Virgin Islands? I can't bring myself to say he didn't have a conscience, because it suddenly woke up and he didn't try to escape from it or rationalize his behavior. But where was it before that, when to all appearances he was an evil person? At least he spent nine years of his life doing things so evil and hurtful I couldn't consider them for all the money in the world. Was he just weak, unable to resist temptation? He must have had some glimmer of empathy or conscience for it to suddenly flame up like that...but if so, where was it before?

I've been turning these questions over in my mind all week without finding an answer. I've known psychopaths in my life and they never really repent as far as I know, although most of them learn to fake the "born again" experience as one of their survival strategies. Psychopaths are oddly attracted to fundamentalist religion, and occasionally it even helps them stop drinking or doing drugs. But they still lie and cheat as much as they ever did.

But what happened to Perkins was the real thing, and I have to call it a miracle because I don't understand it.

Sick vs. Evil. or moreover a "malformed child" vs. a "psychopath"...Anne Applebaum I believe.

http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag/gulag.html

Just my 2 cents.

When reminded of the Nuremburg Trials.

"Evil is a lack of empathy"

I find myself disagreeing, and re-evaluated what defines most evil. I came to the conclusion that:

Evil is when a person needlessly harms another for personal gain.

I think that jives with what you are asserting about sick vs. evil. Evil is a deliberate act, while sickness his symptoms that can be evil.

"single greatest barrier to our primary biological and ethical mandate: the protection of our children."

So you believe that our primary biological and ethical (?) mandate is protection of our children? What if you are wrong, what if self preservation and protection are our primary biological and ethical(?) mandate? If that is the case then virtually anything that we do short of suicide is acceptable.