Sunday, June 8, 2014

A Former Hammer's Lament: It's No Fun to be the Nail





Sandy, Utah resident Mark Shurtleff was thousands of miles away when he received the news that his son and daughter had joined the ever-growing ranks of Americans whose homes have been violated, and families have been terrorized, by SWAT raids. 

The Berserkers who invaded his home “showed up in masks,” Shurtleff protested, relaying the account provided by the victims. A dozen officers wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles “burst through the door screaming and yelling at my kids.”

Shurtleff’s 17-year-old daughter was in the bathroom when the strangers in body armor burst in and painted her body with the laser sights of their assault rifles. The raiders – a combined force of state police and FBI agents -- “trashed” the home, Shurtleff insisted, seizing the children’s computers and memory cards from his wife’s digital camera. They also intimidated his 20-year-old son into providing them with computer passwords and the key to the family’s gun safe. 

“These John Wayne wannabes, freakin’ Clinton Eastwood `Dirty Harry’ tactics were absolutely unacceptable and unneeded,” Shurtleff complained on a local talk radio program. He characterized their behavior as “recklessly negligent,” and accused Scott Nesbitt, the chief investigator who presided over the raid, of making deliberate misrepresentations in the affidavit that resulted in the search warrant.

“When I’m cleared … and I will be cleared, there will be accountability and there will be liability on the part of these people,” Shurtleff promised. 


The invasion of Shurtleff’s home followed a similar raid on the home of fellow Utah resident John Swallow. Neither of them is suspected of a violent crime. The treatment they received is increasingly commonplace in Utah and elsewhere in the Soyuz, but Shurtleff and Swallow were somewhat uncommon targets. Shurtleff served for twelve years as Utah’s attorney general. Swallow was his successor; he was forced to resign amid scandal after less than a year in that position. Shurtleff and Swallow are under investigation for suspected violation of campaign finance laws

Complaining that the investigation had injured his reputation, damaged his career prospects, and traumatized his family, Shurtleff insists that he is “done standing back and being quiet.”

“I think if they’ll do that to me, with my entire life and career in service to law enforcement and public safety, they’ll do it to anybody,” Shurtleff declares, speaking with the incontestable credibility of someone who made a career out of ruining lives and terrorizing the helpless. 

“He knows our procedures, he knows how we operate – this should come as no surprise to Mark Shurtleff,” observed Juan Becerra, a former FBI agent who had carried out SWAT raids carried out during Shurtleff’s tenure as attorney general. “He knows what all law enforcement procedures are because they’re common across the board.”

As in all encounters between the state’s credentialed emissaries of violence and the public upon whose honest income they prey, the primary emphasis during a “door kick” is the sacred imperative of officer safety.


Police who invade a home enter “with authority,” explains Becerra, invoking the statist shibboleth used to sanctify aggressive violence. “What you don’t know is what’s on the other side of the door.”

As it happens, behind the bathroom door in the Shurtleff home was a tiny 17-year-old girl.

“They burst [in on] my little girl – my 17-year-old – going to the bathroom, screaming at her to get out of there,” recalled Shurtleff. “When she steps out there are four men in body armor with weapons pointed at her chest.”

Shurtleff described the assault on his home and children as “unlawful.” The Utah State Police and FBI insist that the raids were carried out in strict compliance with the standard operating procedures that were followed during Shurtleff’s reign as attorney general – during which he saw nothing amiss in the deployment of a platoon-sized contingent of fully militarized officers to attack a an outdoor concert in Spanish Fork Canyon. This took place in August 2005, about four and a half years into Shurtleff’s term.

Utah County resident Trudy Childs and her family are owners of the “Smoky Mountain Ranch,” which would be leased to concert promoters for summer music events. This was done with the understanding that the promoter would comply with county ordinances dealing with public assemblies of 250 people or more.  The Childs and their business partners obtained all of the proper permits, hired EMTs, and otherwise crossed all of the myriad t's and dotted all of the requisite i's. 


The Utah County Sheriff’s Office, burdened with puritanical conviction that any gathering of young people must involve improper conduct, carried out two raids during the summer of 2o05 – one on July 16, the second on August 20th

The second assault, according to Mrs. Childs, involved “armed and battle-ready uniformed SWAT officers, deputy sheriffs, and other law enforcement officers” as well as the deployment of a helicopter for air support. In a subsequent lawsuit, Mrs. Childs recalls that despite being the owner of the ranch she was “ordered off the land by officers during both raids. During the second one she was arrested without legal justification “because I questioned the authority of the officers to stop the concert and order me off the property.”

Prior to the concerts, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office dispatched undercover officers to purchase controlled substances, which – as anybody with a scintilla of knowledge about popular music culture knows -- are frequently available at such events. This provided the police with an excuse to describe the event as an illegal “rave.” 

 

Few things more readily bring to the surface the latent heroism and sheer martial prowess of a police officer than the prospect of beating down a skinny, unarmed, terrified teenager. Mark Shurtleff’s teenage daughter can attest to this on the basis of personal experience. The same was true of the concert-goers who were on the receiving end of the August 2005 SWAT raid that Shurtleff found to be unobjectionable.


One performer who witnessed that blitzkrieg described seeing “a guy dressed in camouflage … toting an assault rifle…. A few `troops’ rushed the stage and cut the sound off and started yelling that everyone `get the f**k out of here or go to jail!”

Some of the Jackbooted intruders held leashes restraining drug sniffing dogs. One of them “alerted” to a concert-goer, who was attacked by four of the officers who “kicked him a few times in the ribs and had their knees in his back and sides,” the witness recounted. Another dog attacked a small, terrified teenage girl: “As she struggled to get away from it, the police tackled her. Three grown men proceeded to kick her in the stomach.” Similar accounts were offered by other eyewitnesses. Scores of attendees were arrested, the youngest of whom was 15 years old. 

Seeking to justify this atrocity, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office described it as a didactic exercise. “Police want parents of teenagers to know the dangers of illegal, clandestine rave parties,” explained the Salt Lake Tribune, reciting from an official press release. The chief danger of such gatherings, of course, is that they attract the malign attention of tax-fattened sociopaths looking for targets of opportunity. 


In this case, the raid not only offered SWAT operators a chance to kick ass in an entirely risk-free environment, it was an overture to an attempted land grab. 

Following the August 20th SWAT attack, the Childs, who had planned to hold a benefit concert in 2006, received a snotty letter from Stephen Sorenson, the gelded hack who served at the time as acting US attorney for Utah.

“The United States has received information that you are again considering leasing your property for an outdoor music concert,” declared Sorenson. “If you choose to lease your land again for another similar event, we can assure you that there will be drug trafficking on your property. You property can be civilly forfeited to the United States if it is merely used for or facilitates the distribution of narcotics.” 

“The Childs think Sorenson's sudden interest in their concert plans stems from the federal government wanting to get its hands on their land,” reported the Salt Lake Weekly. “Just one day before the US attorney sent the latter ... Sorenson had telephoned the Childs' attorney to make an offer on their land on behalf of two federal agencies.” The Feds had coveted that property since 1990.

“If they don't want to sell the land, all they have to do is say so,” simpered Sorenson. “If they want to avoid the risk of criminal or civil liability, all they need to do is not allow the rave on their property.”

The Childs weren’t planning a “rave,” but rather a benefit concert for Parkinson's disease research. As Trudy Childs pointed out, politically favored figures aren't put through the same wringer into which she had been fed.

“I attended the Rolling Stones and U2 concerts [in 2005] at the Delta Center, and my guess is there were probably drugs being used and probably people under the influence of drugs at both those concerts,” she pointed out. “Why don't [the Feds] send a letter to Larry Miller [who owned the Delta Center and the Utah Jazz]?”

The obvious answer is that Miller (who has since passed away) didn’t have what the Feds – of whom the petulant fascist Stephen Sorenson was a perfect specimen – were interested in stealing at the time. 


None of this aroused the slumbering moral indignation of Attorney General Shurtleff, our newly minted paladin of civil liberties. The lawsuit filed by Childs and her associates was dismissed a year later

Shurtleff continued to confer his benediction on SWAT raids, including one carried out by a specialized task force that targeted video merchants suspected of copyright violations.
 
In February 2011, the Statewide Enforcement of Crimes by Undocumented Residents (SECURE) dispatched combat-equipped officers to raid warehouse and homes in search of pirated CDs and DVDs. 

“Piracy is stealing and it doesn’t just keep Lady Gaga and Angelina Jolie from making a few more dollars,” warbled Shurtleff, supposedly consumed with zeal over the plight of the creative community. “This crime affects artists, writers, directors, backup singers, stage crew workers and every taxpayer in the U.S.”

How, exactly, does music and video piracy injure “every taxpayer in the U.S.”? It doesn’t – but it does deprive the tax-consuming class of its cut. Leo Lucey, the tax-feeder who grandly styled himself the SECRURE Strike Force Commander, explained: “These pirated goods are being shipped by train, truck, and air. This means taxes and fees are not being paid.”
Shurtleff and his SECURE Strike Force commandos – at least some of whom were probably involved in the August 2005 raids that shut down a CD release party in Spanish Fork Canyon – received honorary gold records from the Recording Industry Association of America for their anti-piracy crackdown

As Attorney General, Shurtleff saw nothing exceptionable about using military tactics to execute warrants dealing with non-violent offenses. All of this occurred, of course, when he was part of the “who,” rather than the “whom” – when he belonged to the exalted fraternity of official coercion, before becoming a mere Mundane. 

Shurtleff's perspective on routine acts of state terrorism has changed in predictable ways now that he’s a nail, rather than a hammer.  

Obiter Dicta 

My thanks to Darryl Brown for suggesting this story.

Follow me on Twitter @BlarneyConCarne

Listen to, or download,  the most recent Freedom Zealot Podcast here






Dum spiro, pugno!



36 comments:

Anonymous said...

"If you choose to lease your land again for another similar event, we can assure you that there will be drug trafficking on your property...

Even if the cops have to plant drugs on the scene.

swiftfoxmark2 said...

Everyone is always happy with police brutality and excessive force.

Until it happens to them or their loved ones.

non de guerre said...

^So very true. 21st Century America is a nation of unempathetic buttholes.

RC said...

What goes around...

kirk said...

shurtleff is an obvious hypocrite, as i am sure all present and former abusers of the public are. it is too bad the former abuser-in-chief was not at home when the goons came over for a 'visit'. THAT would have been the supreme irony. too bad that irony was not presented to the former abuser, in his face, on his own property.

shurtleff's words are hollow. IF he believed as he said, he would have STOPPED, not caused, such raids during his tenure. that he did cause such raids to be allowed, he has nothing - absolutely nothing - to complain of. his complaining is, without doubt, rank hypocrisy.

'do as i say, not as i do' seems to be the credo of this former master-become-slave, given his history of actions prior to becoming a slave. that he is offended when his own tactics are used against him and his reveals his mindset: he is superior to the remainder of us and, while it is quite alright to visit terror upon us, he and his are, somehow, different, and are different because he and his are, in some way, superior.

superior? yes, in his own deluded thoughts. such is the mindset of those made of a 'finer clay' than the remainder of us.

in the end, instead of 'do as i say, not as i do', he should have adopted the saying 'be careful of what you send around, for it will come back around'.

the irony of this situation is rich...very rich.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Thank you, God.

And thank you, Mr. Grigg, for this uplifting story, which left me feeling happy, unlike your usual essays. You made my day. May I quote Galatians 6, verse 7:

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap."

Perhaps Komissar Shurtleff should have been paying more attention in church, (I'm sure he is a churchgoer of stunning piety and self-evident humility - such people always are, it's good for their careers,) when the minister quoted those words of St. Paul.

During the French Revolution, all those who started and directed The Terror ended up with their own heads chopped off. (Bravo. St. Paul strikes again.)

The people running the show in America and the world, who have unleashed upon us peasants the forces of violence and corruption, should know that in the end they will be consumed by these forces also. Those who sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.

I wonder what "sin" against The Powers of Darkness was commited by Prokuratori Shurtleff and Swallow, to be treated in this manner? Got to be a reason. Do you know, Mr. Grigg? I love to hear about the Evil Ones fighting among themselves.

- LG

Anonymous said...

Yet another reason why I have zero sympathy when one of those fascist costumed bastards dies "in the line of duty."

Anonymous said...

The 2 Cops in Vegas were not ready for their No Knock Warrant.

William N. Grigg said...

For my view regarding the subject of the two comments immediately above, go here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/three-murders-in-las-vegas-feeding-the-beast-rather-than-starving-it/

Keith said...

It is unfortunate that statist illogic appears to suggest that adding ever more wrongs will somehow result in right - or at least, result in no unintended consequences.

And what huge a midden of piled up statist wrongs these fowls are crowing from the top of.

First, regardless of the statism of the father, no one deserves to be on the receiving end of a riot of costumed thugs. Not even that apparently still thuggish father, and certainly not his sprogs [assuming his wife didn't do the honourable thing and find a better man to be their biological father]

What of his sins?

If Mr Grigg's quote of Shurtleff is correct, and knowing Mr Grigg's work, I have no reason to believe that it isn't: ...me, with my entire life and career in service to law enforcement and public safety... then Shurtleff realizes that his service is to a monopoly, to a gang, not to volountary customers with the ability to seek better value service from someone more to their liking.

If defence of person and of justly acquired property is the one essential and special service - different from all other goods and services.

Then it is far to valuable to be held by a monopoly - with all of the high prices, poor service, low quality goods and corruption that are immediatley implied by the concept of monopoly.

Shurtleff's "Crime" - allegedly to defy laws which are intended to deny access to publicity for any but the officially sanctioned candidates.

Those laws serve to preserve the illusion of an open contest and popular choice by an electorate - to bestow on a candidate, rights which none of that electorate, can either individually or collectively possess, let alone grant to others - rights to steal to coerce and to initiate force.

But it isn't even an open contest, as a less well known candidate is legally prevented from paying for additional publicity for their platform.

Shurtleff's blustering threats suggest that he has learned nothing from his experience, and I don't have any hope that he will do.

That is a shame, a loss for all of us - Shurtleff included, he has been offered the red pill, but has declined to take it.

I wonder whether he'll continue to bluster threats of the zero sum outcomes he has spent his adult life ["working life" would be to stretch the definition well beyond its breaking point]inflicting on others?

Or whether, in true socialist purge style, he'll offer a grovelling confession and self denouncement (aka "plea bargain") ahead of his show trial?

Keith said...

Will, I must have been typing when you posted the link to your piece on Llew Rockwell.

You are right - in a brutal conflict, those who are the least disadvantaged are the most brutal - ultimately all are poorer.

The Hobbesian war of all upon all, which is the base claim of statists for the supposed necessity of a state - is itself a manifestation of having a state.

Statists create the conflicts and provide both the fora and pugilists for the fighting out of that war - all the better to further try to justify their unjustly claimed special privileges.

under any system, there will always be bad individuals (and stupid and foolish ones). Hopefully, one day we'll no longer have a system where any individuals are granted special privilege to prey on the rest of us.

That day will not be brought any closer by more people participating in aggression, or from different people being on the receiving end of it.

Anonymous said...

In the 16th paragraph, I think you mean "prudish" instead of "puritanical". Contrary to popular notions, the Puritans were not against having fun, sex, strong drink, and bright colors.

William N. Grigg said...

That line was meant as an allusion to Mencken's famous definition of Puritanism as the haunting fear that somewhere, someone is enjoying himself. :-)

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Keith,

If I recall, you have posted a lot of links and observations regarding psychopathy.

This is NOT a challenge to your observations here, but a point of discussion: Do you think perhaps some or most of these LEOs are psychopaths, and do you think kindness and understanding will change a psychopath's attitudes or behavior?

True, psychopaths leave a wide trail of broken hearts, empty wallets, and disillusionment in their wake, including their families, and these deserve our sympathy. Nobody here has said, "Well done!" to the sufferings of the Gremlin's children, who were not responsible for their father's viciousness and criminality, only to the Gremlin's own whining about being hoist by his own petard.

Your thoughts?

- Lemuel

Keith said...

Hi LG,

I've been pondering those questions for a few months now.

It was a comment on yours which I didn't really pick up on until several months after you'd made it - along with some others which I'd seen, that got me reading up on Psychopathy and the ponerogenic influence on society, which giving some psychopaths special privilege results in.

Cops and psychopathy?
Undoubtedly some cops are, and the opportunities for abusing others afforded by the special privileges which come with putting on a blue costume... are certain to act as a magnet for all sorts of despicable individuals, with psychopaths amongst them.

We know empirically that policing, lawyering, politics, journalism, medicine and religious ministry all attract disproportionate numbers of actual psychopaths and people with a higher degree of psychopathic traits than productive sector of the population have.

One question I've been pondering, is, whether psychopaths are a vital ingredient for the bad outcomes which we are seeing?

or, whether the bad outcomes are implied from the very begining by the vicious axiom that some have a right to aggress against others, while those others have no right to defend themselves (Don Duncan explains the idea very clearly here http://wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.5932 ) ?

I think that Milgram's "prison" experiments in the late 1960s (inspired by Adolph Eichmann's defence of "I was only doing my job"), show us empirically that psychopaths are not an essential ingredient, that the bad outcomes are implied from the very start.

to be continued (If it's too long, no one will bother to read it - and I need to feed my eighty cups a day tea habit)

Keith said...

Cont:

Do I think kindness and understanding will change a psychopath's attitudes or behaviour?

No, but I think that depriving everyone and anyone of special privilege will limit their capacity for causing harm.

How do I propose to end special privilege? - Danny Sanchez articulates pretty much what I've been thinking here; https://medium.com/@DanSanchezV/peacefully-staring-down-the-state-ed2a2ecfa3ac

I honestly hope that it is taken the whole way, and that the specially privileged institution, in which predatory and parasitic behaviours are preserved, developed, refined and passed on to new generations (the state) is rendered null in the process.

Away from monopolies and positions of special privilege - psychopaths are neither useful nor productive.

Suggestions that I've seen that the cold decisive action of a psychopath is necessary in some circumstances, seem to be either post hoc justifications for gratuitously callous actions - (and/)or are begging the question.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think I've encountered a few psychopaths, or at least highly psychopathic and narcissistic individuals during my career. Most made a lot of noise, presumably that impressed their superiors, but those who had to work around them, generally found another job as soon as possible. Others took increasing amounts of sick leave, and those who were left behind were usually paralysed by their avoiding doing anything they could be blamed for, or were just inept and useless suckers who no one else would employ.

Some of the people I suspect were pretty psychopathic were actually fun company, with big collections of Ice Age and Shrek DVDs. They were just completely lacking in any semblance of a conscience. As Cleckley ("mask of Sanity") points out, a Psychopath is not necessarily an unpleasant person to be around.

Having some idea of what warning signs to look out for, would allow managers to hopefully avoid having their business trashed by a psychopathic employee - and would give colleagues, customers and others, a chance to put some distance between themselves and the dodgy character, hopefully before any lasting damage occurs.

Possibly the same thing applies to families who find themselves burdened with a destructive n'er-do-well.

Some time ago, a female friend (who is a psychologist) was bouncing ideas off me, for how to handle a grossly inappropriate female colleague who had attached herself to my friend.

My friend said that the colleague was displaying characteristics of a "borderline personality" (think of a stroppy, gross, slutty, emotionally extremely high maintenance teenage diva, but this one was in her mid thirties, the "borderline" is the one between "neurotic" and "psychotic". Some have cited Monica Lewinski as a possible example).

During my getting up to speed on the background reading, I found an interesting comment, that families of such bratty women, once the characteristics of the "condition" are explained to them, tend to be less sympathetic than before.

I suspect that if the characteristics of psychopathy were more widely known, fewer people would fall prey to the unworkable grandiose schemes of psychopaths, and few would be sympathetic to the blame spreading and the excuses for yet another failure.

A psychopath faced with the prospect of such lack of sympathy and shunning (or unwelcome scrutiny from private insurers and defence agencies) if his nature is discovered, is likely to be eager to keep the tells of that nature very well controlled and hidden.

Exactly where psychopathy starts and finishes, I don't know.

I do know that some engineering firms have a reputation for being really crap places to work - because of the proportion of socially imbecilic engineers. Is there an overlap between aspergers and psychopathy? are technocrats as dangerous or perhaps even more dangerous than the socially high functioning psychopathic politicians? I don't know.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Hi Keith,
I'm away from my home computer - will respond to your post as soon as I get home and can send you the URLs of some bookmarks for you to study on psychopathy. They address many of your points.

Mr. Grigg,
Just came across an excellent quote, which explains why awakening the sheeple is such an uphill battle - here it is for your consideration:

"The will of men is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided. Men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence. It does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, until each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

– Alexis de Tocqueville

Interesting, his characterization of Leviathan as "The Shepherd." This implies the subjects - all of us - are "The Sheep." Some of your readers may never have encountered a herd of sheep, but out there in Idaho, I'm sure you have. Their behavior is exactly that of the mass of the American public: timid, fearful, and complacent.

smokin45 said...

Thank you for the article. Would you please tell me how to contact you? This harassment has continually gotten worse since 2005. You could private message me on facebook. Trudy Childs facebook.com/trudy.childs1

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Keith - Check this out:

http://www.sott.net/article/148141-The-Trick-of-the-Psychopath-s-Trade-Make-Us-Believe-that-Evil-Comes-from-Others

And this:

http://www.sott.net/article/260411-The-psychopathic-personality

And this article:

http://www.sott.net/article/272150-Psychopaths-in-power-The-Parasite-on-the-Human-Super-organism

That last link contains this stunning insight:

"But what we see happening all over the world today is the worst case scenario - the parasite destroying its host, complete imbalance, where the psychopathic parasite is ravaging the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual well-being of the host. It's particularly pronounced in certain Western countries, but no corner of the planet is immune. People are 'losing their minds' in ever-greater numbers. The 'common sense' of ordinary people, of a higher intelligence than that of their ruling classes, has been eroded as they become sicker.... As Lobaczewski wrote in 'Ponerology': "Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing."

THAT is why the psychopaths are insane to the point of stupidity. Their exploitation of the social contract, or what they see as human weakness, which elicits only their amused contempt, will eventually cause the proliferation of psychopathy to the point where their host, society, will die, along with the psychopaths. However, since psychopaths are devoid of emotion, their own deaths would probably seem to them merely as a curiosity, not even to be lamented or mourned, just as the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans move them not one iota.

It's not a pretty picture, and not a hopeful future - if the human race even has much of a future.

I have a friend who believes we humans are an alien genetic experiment carried out some 50,000 years ago on some advanced species of ape, perhaps Neanderthals, and which has now gone horribly wrong. We GMO's are currently destroying the planet and its diversity of species, and may soon destroy ourselves. For the sake of the rest of the living creation, it cannot come soon enough.

The Bible says God promised, after Noah, never to destroy the world again by water. There was no promise not to destroy it by fire. If we keep this up, that's what's coming, for sure.

- Lemuel

PS: I think the conclusion of "Dr. Strangelove" was the best ending of any movie, ever: Vera Lynn singing....

We'll meet again,
Don't know where,don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day.
Keep smiling through,
Just like you always do,
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds, far away.
So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know,
Tell them I won't be long.
They'll be happy to know
that as you saw me go
I was singing this song....
We'll meet again,
Don't know where,don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day.

- Fine epitaph for the Once Great Human Race. - LG

Libertarian Advocate said...

I do feel bad for Shurtleff's two kids who should never have been subjected to such a wild and over the top warrant execution. Him??? Not so much. In fact part of me wishes he'd been there to experience it in full.

Keith said...

Hi LG,
Many thanks for the Refs.

I bought Lobaczewski's ponerology book a few weeks back, and began reading it, got distracted, and haven't gone back to it yet.

What I did read was badly written and thin on any real meat. Hopefully it will improve as I get further in. the part I've read so far would benefit from being completely re-written.

I also downloaded Cleckley "The Mask of Sanity" from Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Cassiopeia site.

Cleckley is a good read, and the characteristics which he highlights in his case studies are clearly visible in the higher functioning psychopaths who claim to "lead us"

The grandiosity and narcissism, the lying, manipulation and parasitism.

And of course, the disgusting thrill seeking and ego trips; whether it is [I'd better say "allegedly"] raping children http://youtu.be/ORU5x-ryedU

or [again allegedly] getting caught soliciting sex with strangers in a public toilets ("cottaging"), prior to becoming British prime minister...

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Keith,

Perhaps "Ponerology" is weak because it's the THIRD draft (from memory) of the book: Lobaczewski had to destroy the manuscript and all his case notes in Poland when he was tipped that the Stasi were coming to search his place. He rewrote it again after he came to America, then gave it, poor guy, to Zbigniew Brzezinski, (one of the planet's supremely dangerous psychopaths, who may yet destroy us all,) who promised, as a fellow Pole, to get it published for him. He never saw his manuscript again, and had to rewrite it a third time from memory. (In English, a language not his own.) I think Lobaczewski will someday become one of the eminent thinkers of our time, who led the way to a study of the deformed brains and sick personalities of the psychopaths among us.

- LG

Anonymous said...

"Interesting, his characterization of Leviathan as "The Shepherd." This implies the subjects - all of us - are "The Sheep." Some of your readers may never have encountered a herd of sheep, but out there in Idaho, I'm sure you have. Their behavior is exactly that of the mass of the American public: timid, fearful, and complacent."

from: 'Out there in North Dakota'...I'm always a bit miffed when the worst traits of human behavior are compared to 'domesticated' sheep behaviors. Maybe my Lincoln cross sheep are abnormal according to the accepted notion of what sheep do.

One of my 300Lb rams can butt a 6'5" man out of the ball park. My ewes will stand together & face off a stray canine. I have had a few coyote 'kills', but only of grazing lambs out from the crew.

For the most part, I don't 'shepherd' my flock. They know to stay close to shelter during their afternoon rest and especially toward nightfall. They view humans as 'useful' to their well being and express appreciation for winter sustenance, however, I suspect they would figure it out themselves if abandoned. They stay together in 'family groups', even mourning their kin being hauled off to market.

Our united efforts as 'shepherds' to get the market lambs up the ramp onto the trailer are met with an ever expanding 'trick bag' of strategies to escape, at which time my usually gently disposed husband speaks 'in tongues'.

Keith said...

Hello Anon with experience of sheep.

I'm waiting for the water to heat so I can wash away the smell of the buggers. I've been helping keep a bunch of shearers supplied with a constant stream of them for most of today, and the older, more experienced (and obstinate) ones have been doing their best to resist.

my usual trick is to only let two or three into the funnel at the start of the catching race - that way they feel more directly exposed to me and to the dog.

I also stand in their way - if they think I'm chasing them, they'll try to double back - so I pretend to chase them away from the race, and they usually run past me and up the ramp.

If they don't think they can escape, then they act as obstinate as they can manage - no bitchy human can match their level of passive aggression. I think it is intended for me to waste my time and energy, while their sisters and daughters make good their escape.

I think that is what a tired old ewe is doing when she stops acting as though she's no different to the rest of the flock, breaks back with a flamboyant prancing run, then lies down in the huff.

She's drawing the dogs to her - "come and get me" but when she lies down, she's guarding all of the vulnerable bits and denying them a quick kill, they'd have to go through horns, muscle and bone to achieve that kill and while they're busy with her, the rest of the flock puts some serious distance between themselves and what they perceive as predators.

I think we have quite a lot to learn from real sheep.

One of the local stories is of a devout old methodist [that one appears to have been genuinely devout and to have lived his faith - rather than the far more frequently found hypocritical moral busy bodying type], who, when the sheep and the dogs really got to him, would get down on his hands and knees and pull grass and heather up by the roots with his teeth, rather than, as you put it "speak in tongues".

Lemuel Gulliver said...

I stand corrected. Nice sheep. Lousy stinking humans.

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, said: "The more I see of people, the more I like my dogs."

Most animals are far more moral, loyal, intelligent and perceptive than most people. (Except for children - before they get "educated" by the acolytes of Satan.) I sincerely believe that - not just saying so. I marvel at how some people can figure it out to drop their pants BEFORE they take a dump, and not after. Yet they drive BMWs and Volvos. And work in Washington "serving" us by relieving us of the burden of some 45% of the money we earn. America is truly a wondrous place. A paradox and a puzzle, just like how flies always manage to find carrion or faeces and make little maggots. Miraculous.

But a few people are better than the angels. Maybe that's why God has not exterminated us all - yet.

We are very clever, and have invented marvelous methods of stealing each others' property, lying to each other, and killing each other for fun and/or profit. The denizens of the mental/moral cesspit, whom Mr. Grigg profiles here, epitomize all those traits.

Keith, I watched the video you recommended. Devastating. Horrible, in fact. One wonders how much longer Mother Nature, or God, will tolerate our pollution of the planet with our presence.

One of the best-ever essays on the "sheeple" was written 400+ years ago in 15-something, and is still extant, having stood the test of time. You can easily find it on the Web - takes about an hour to read. It is by Etienne de la Boetie, entitled "A Discourse on Voluntary Servitude." He marvels at how one single man, in his case the French King, can exert his will over, and control, millions of other men. A very important discussion, which totally explains your video, and explains the power of psychopaths to get away with their crimes. Check it out.

Enjoy the next cuppa.
Regards,
Lemuel.

Keith said...

Hi LG
I could probably type out a list of about thirty headings for why those who ignore the Non Aggression Principal, are wrong.

Starting with Hayek's "knowledge problem", von Mises' "calculation problem", conflict with the "Golden Rule" and "Categorical Imperative", the inability of people who do not possess a right individually to grant that right to others, Rothbard's scholarship on monopoly theory...

All are absolutely damning of the institutionalized aggression that is the state, and the minions who man it.

I don't know whether to call it the cherry on the top of the cake, or the turd at the bottom of the jug - that the "leadership" positions are almost always filled by such depraved monsters.

If the allegations in the video are to be believed in full (and if they aren't why haven't those wealthy politicians sued those two guys arses off?),

then we have two leading ministers in the Thatcher cabinet, along with a scummy back bencher (Harvey ["a good spanking never did me any harm"] Proctor - he was later disgraced when his spanking of rent boys became public), associating with a known soviet spy, with right wing extremists and with a leading member of Sinn Fein / IRA.

From 1974, through to the end of the 1980s, the "prevention of terrorism act" was renewed annually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_of_Terrorism_Acts , It contained draconian powers over mundanes (as do it's present day equivalents supposedly justified by present day "terrorism") and was justified by politicians at the time on the basis of IRA bombing campaigns.

Under the act, Sinn Fein and IRA were "proscribed organizations"

Yet here we have allegations of senior cabinet ministers attending the same kiddy fiddling parties as a leading member of what was then considered a "terrorist organization" and which was allegedly setting off bombs in Britain at the time.

Whoever was setting the bombs off, they were real and were killing mundanes, destroying property and disrupting our lives.

The press in the Irish Republic, and to a lesser extent in Britain, has carried many stories of links, infiltration and possibly agent provocateur actions by British agents with paramilitaries on both extremes of northern Irish politics.

The IRA is also blamed for a hotel bomb at the Tory Party conference, In which senior Tory, Norman Tebbit and his wife were trapped in the rubble. She recieved significant injuries and was left paralysed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing

From the wikipedia piece:
One of her biographers wrote that Thatcher's "coolness, in the immediate aftermath of the attack and in the hours after it, won universal admiration. Her defiance was another Churchillian moment in her premiership which seemed to encapsulate both her own steely character and the British public's stoical refusal to submit to terrorism".[9] Immediately afterwards, her popularity soared almost to the level it had been during the Falklands War.[10] The Saturday after the bombing, Thatcher said to her constituents: "We suffered a tragedy not one of us could have thought would happen in our country. And we picked ourselves up and sorted ourselves out as all good British people do, and I thought, let us stand together for we are British! They were trying to destroy the fundamental freedom that is the birth-right of every British citizen, freedom, justice and democracy"."

Meanwhile two of her cabinet ministers (one of them, Home Secretary - equivalent of Attorney General) were [allegedly] raping young boys at the same parties as a senior IRA/ Sinn Fein man?

cont

Keith said...

cont:

In libertarian and I think some conservative circles, it is pretty much accepted that the Falklands war was engineered by the Thatcher regime to distract from her incredible unpopularity at home at that time.

I don't think there is any depravity that the woman (and [allegedly] some of her ministers) was not capable of.

I wonder whether that bomb blast was one of those depravities?

Michael Dobbs, author of "house of cards" which the currrent American TV series is adapted from, was a tory member of parliament during the Thatcher regime.

Dobbs' absolutly ruthless fictional prime minister Francis Urquhart (the initials "Eff You!", follow from a confrontation Dobbs had with Thatcher's whips) was very fond of using faked IRA bombs to murder people who got in his way. Artistic license? or was that what Tory politicians at the time, thought might really be happening?

The British TV version has aged remarkably little since the late 80s and early 90s I can recommend the box set- http://youtu.be/sDIdrbHuoWU

amongst the characteristics of psychopathy are grandiosity/boastfulness
and thrill seeking

If that is what politicians of the time thought was really going on, I wonder whether Dobbs got a kick out of presenting it as fiction and thinking people would never believe it could be real?

Too many ifs?

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Keith,

Too much to respond to all your points. I agree with you. It seems to be the same everywhere - just that our own politicians, media and churches tell us how "special" we are, SO much better than the Congo or Gabon or Yemen, but when you get down to brass tacks there is no difference between those countries and this one.

Do read Etienne de la Boetie - here is a link:

http://mises.org/rothbard/boetie.pdf

You see there that the Mises Institute thinks it important enough to post on their site. The full title is:

"The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude"

You'll be happy you read it.
Regards,
LG.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Keith,
Excerpts to whet your curiosity:

"It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it
would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned
your property, your families, and even your very lives."

"But O good Lord! What strange phenomenon is this? What name shall we give it? What is the nature of this misfortune? What vice is it, or, rather, what degradation? To see an endless
multitude of people not merely obeying, but driven to servility? Not ruled, but tyrannized over? These wretches have no wealth, no kin, nor wife nor children, not even life itself that they can call their own. They suffer plundering, wantonness, cruelty, not from an army, not from a barbarian horde, on account of whom they must shed their blood and sacrifice their lives, but from a single man; not from a Hercules nor from a Samson, but from a single little man."

"Nevertheless it is clear enough that the powerful influence of custom is in no respect more compelling than in this, namely, habituation to subjection. It is said that Mithridates trained himself to drink poison. Like him we learn to swallow, and not to find bitter, the venom of servitude. It cannot be denied that nature is influential in shaping us to her will and making us reveal our rich or meager endowment; yet it must be admitted that she has less power over us than custom."

"A people enslaves itself,cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it."

"From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great
Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces."

- Lemuel

5WarVeteran said...

Yet this story does not reveal WHY his home was invaded. I would like to know!

Anonymous said...

from donna - the sheep disciple - in North Dakota:

I've puzzled over this 'freedom dilemma' since childhood. My people always ran ahead of civilization until they hit the Pacific Ocean in the early 1900's making it necessary for my generation to double back to the 'wilderness' of the once lone prairie. Sadly, no more. USDA has been using drone tech to 'spy' on farmers out here for at least 12 years I've known.

I read the Bible a lot. The answer to being free is in knowing and living the LORD's LAW.

We are totally outclassed by the array over our heads. Humbling, it is!

Better to be humble before the LORD than the luciferians.

There are several accounts in scripture describing our challenge. Those who stand before the LORD in righteousness, prevail.

2Chronicles 20
12 O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.
13 And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.

17 Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you.

I don't know how events will play out, but it is obvious to me that those who love the eternal principle of freedom are becoming stronger in their conviction, while those who have chosen to be enemies of freedom increase in theirs.

Keith said...

Thanks LG, I down loaded the .pdf of de la Boetie, last night. It's into the list, with some of Gustav de Molinari, Sam Konkin and David Gordon ahead of him.

The literature and media sections of the Mises inst site really are treasure houses of free thinking.

I have several tens of hours of audio lectures and audio books from the Mises site, on my phone, to listen to through the ear phones on long drives.

The sheep shearers I've been working alongside have had a radio playing a BBC local station. My Goodness! the constant torrent of statist sewerage coming from it.

I try to avoid labels; anarchist, volountaryist, agorist, all give an approximation.

but, my goodness, am I glad to get a fix of critical free thought from the host and commentors at sites like Mr Grigg's, especially after a day of gritting my teeth against statist gobsh!te, and trying not to take it out on the poor sheep.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Donna in ND:

You are lucky, to work with and be able to appreciate those sheep. Animals are far smarter than we give them credit for. They may not have the ability to invest on Wall Street, or elect Representatives to a Legislature, and hence some people may say they are stupid, but when one sees the rate of success of most investors, and the decisions made by most legislatures, one can also say the animals may actually be smarter than us.

Here is the bottom line: We can never get involved in a fight, even as bystanders, without getting hurt. Most likely, the greed, paranoia and hubris of the rulers of this country, who seek also to rule the whole world, will lead them to do things which will cause the highly complex systems which sustain our lives to fail.

When those systems fail, (such as the financial system, the energy system, the food distribution system, the climate system, and the diplomatic system between states,) there will be widespread suffering and perhaps very many deaths among the people. Perhaps a very high percentage, even.

The eventual end result WILL be deliverance from our oppressors, but the price will be high. Most of the world is too busy "wasting their substance in riotous living" to even care. Like the Prodigal Son, only when they hit rock bottom will they even consider any alternative to their present behavior.

The Bible is full of wisdom, whether one believes its message or not. Your prayers and worship DO make a difference - they ARE heard and felt in a higher plane of existence, quantum physics confirms it - and for many of us it is the only thing we can do to help our world.

Faith and trust in the Higher Power, whatever name we give Him, are the most useful and productive attitudes we can espouse.

- LG

Keith said...

Hi Donna,

Having religious faith seems to be a great help.

I'm not an athiest, perhaps something of a very thin dei-ist, I can't claim to have faith though.

In the past, professed athiest thinkers, such as Ludwig von Mises, rejected Natural Law, incorrectly believing that it required belief in a deity of some sort.

von Mises, instead identified with the extremely dangerous idea of "utilitarianism"

Interpersonal utility can only be measured on the basis of individual free exchanges, and only at the time and place the free exchange took place - yet what piece of tyranny is there which hasn't been "justified" by appeal to "the greater good for the greater number"?

Indeed, a gang rape can be an example for both an act of democracy and an act of utilitarianism. Where simple reference to the non aggression principal, the "golden rule" or Kant's "Categorical Imperative" will immediately show why gang rape [or any other rape] is never an acceptable action.

Fortunately, as Murray Rothbard and others have pointed out, Natural Law, does not require belief in a deity - only in there being natural rules within the universe.

At the very simplest - two atoms of hydrogen combine with one of oxygen to give one molecule of water - every time.

that simple combination doesn't give strawberry milkshake one time, a sheep disease the next, and a small bottle of expensive perfume, some other time

Those simple rules also extend to humans and our individual interactions.

It is interesting that customary laws right across the world, all share the same basics, whether the Law of the Israelites, Irish Brehon law, English common Law, Somali Xeer [the traditional Somali Law system] or legal systems of remote tribes on islands in the Pacific Ocean

All approximate to the underlying Natural Law.

There's a very interesting site maintained by a lecturer in the philosophy of law at the university of Ghent, in Belgium, which gives a really good intro to the theory of Natural Law.

http://users.ugent.be/~frvandun/

It's worth trying some of his writings in Flemish too - as an English speaker with only a tiny exposure to Afrikaans, I can usually get the gist of written Flemish.

best regards
Keith

Anonymous said...

from donna in ND:

"It is interesting that customary laws right across the world, all share the same basics, whether the Law of the Israelites, Irish Brehon law, English common Law, Somali Xeer [the traditional Somali Law system] or legal systems of remote tribes on islands in the Pacific Ocean

All approximate to the underlying Natural Law."

Yes, "the Laws of Nature & of Nature's God" DO endow
'all humankind' with "unalienable Rights".

The fact that the bullies have consciously spent millennia invoking their god of force without totally eradicating the inherent love of freedom in the 'peasant' convinces me that this principle is eternal and divine.

They claim to believe in social Darwinism, but they will NOT allow the ordinary man to fulfill his natural destiny. They impose every form of covert and overt evil their god inspires in order to insure we are too crippled and blind to rebuke them.

The bully - unlike many of us - knows what he believes and has dedicated his life to acting upon that belief, even laying the groundwork for an outcome which may take several generations to fulfill.

Whether we believe it is God's LAW or Nature's LAW, we DO need to agree upon what we unitedly uphold, and be willing to have our voices heard in our cities, counties, & states.

William Grigg is putting everything on the line for Freedom. The LORD bless him.

Doc Ellis 124 said...

to Lemuel Gulliver, Keith and North Dakota Donna-

I shared your sheep comments in the comments of http://propagandapark.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs.html

Thank you for your cool comments

Will, if this is not appropriate please delete and I will find some other way to tell them.