If these folks really felt threatened and were simply defending themselves, I find it odd they behave the way they do after. If I, and hopefully you, had taken a life we’d be questioning ourselves. Even in the most obvious times when we must decide to end a life, whether it be self defense, abortion, or choosing the end instead of a slightly longer lifetime of horrible pain and the mind going: the final decision is filled with regrets and what ifs.
Instead we have the killer of Trayvon finally talking of regret, saying he’s sorry, then going off and giving interviews where he said he has no regrets. The killer of Jordan: and please don’t bounce back with “murderer,” for I am merely using this term “as legally decided,” Michael Dunn, is a special case of, “What the Hell?” He seems to reek of righteousness, while in jail openly writing about how his fellow black inmates should be executed simply for being who they are. Then you have Zimmerman getting in trouble by threatening two girlfriends, acting odd, at best, in front of cops, trying to get even more press through a highly publicized boxing match.
What in the blankity blank Hell is wrong with these people?
If I had to hazard a guess at what’s going on inside, what’s being openly displayed: they’re sociopaths. They, and their opinions, and their self justified actions are all that matters. Are they ever actually humble when it comes to such things? I doubt it, but I willingly admit I don’t live in their heads.
I think talk radio and the nature of punditry and politics these days attracts sociopaths. What our society is becoming breeds sociopaths. Rush going on and on calling Sandra Fluke a “slut:” and worse, comes to mind. Tweets where people suggest assassinating Obama, and to be fair some of the Left’s comments about Bush II a few years ago, to me indicate sociopathic behavior is becoming an epidemic. There seems to be a constant Rush: pun intended, to say increasingly outrageous things and then double down on them. When backed into a corner they may mouth the correct phrases, but it’s all for show.
Another sign of the deepening sociopathic nature of society is when it becomes more and more popular to negatively label, to frame, all the members of any single group. Pro-Choice and Pro-Life folks are “all,” what? Christians and Atheists are all… what? Left and Right are all… what? Those kinds of statements are damn good signs of a sociopath who is insisting the most important thing in society is to over generalize, to frame, any group they don’t like, don’t agree with. More important than the very real lives of other people. Yet by definition, any group of people tends to be a mix: some may somewhat fit your framing, others not so much. A good example of this is the recent racist joke where a person is born black, a woman, gay, circumcised (a big, “Huh?”), but the “worst” thing is they’re a Democrat. Suddenly the joke teller’s over generalizations of many groups have to be accepted to find the joke, instead of the obvious sociopathic nature of those would even think that “funny.”
I willingly admit I am by no means perfect in these matters.
I’m sure there are jokes on the left that could have been inserted in the previous paragraph, however many on the right just seem to be damn good at it these days, at least from my perspective.
What can we do? Well I’m not much for banning what people say, though I am for us, as a society, deciding who we should socially ostracize when someone becomes so obviously a sociopath. And certainly such statements should be used in any civil cases, though I admit I am no fan of a justice system that won’t admit trying someone under a different label a second time is still double jeopardy.
But, simply put, the best way to stop this is going to be long and generational. My father taught me to do the right thing, even if it’s wrong for me. That goes for what we say and how we feel about what we’ve done too. We need to feel conflicted when we do or say things that hurt, even kill, someone. And we need to teach what my father taught me more.
Otherwise we will continue to spin downward into this living Hell called a Sociopathic Society.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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