Antifa: on sociopaths and riots
On the white guilt thread yesterday, I wrote about various ways in which people can react to feelings of guilt and then want to join movements such as BLM or especially Antifa. Then I added:
in addition, I believe that quite a few of the rioters and especially the most aggressive ones are sociopaths, people who “just want to watch the world burn.” These people don’t feel guilt at all. They don’t even get the concept.
In the comments, I also wrote, of the presence of sociopaths in violent and tyrannical groups:
It is standard operating procedure. Nazis and Communists, for example, made use of the sociopaths among them.
Last night I found this video by two lawyers whose work I usually like. The one speaking here is named Robert Barnes. The whole video is worth watching, but here’s the part that’s especially relevant to this discussion:
Which brings us full circle today, to this earlier post on Biden and how the Democrats have incited violence while pretending that Trump’s the one who’s been doing it.
Viva Frei makes some snappy videos on legal issues. His podcast with Barnes is good but really really long.
Neo, I didn’t realize you were already familiar with Viva Frei when I recommended him yesterday. I’m glad his audience is growing because he’s one of the better explainers out there.
I think sociopathy and the “political permission slip” explain a lot of the current troubles. Burning used car lots and other businesses and assaulting people in Kenosha have little to nothing to do with outrage over a police shooting.
Sociopaths receiving “political permission slips”. Wow- That’s it. Very simple and I’ve never heard it explained better.
I mentioned Barnes comments on sociopaths and his KKK studies in the thread your referring to… and his point that it depends on lack of punishment by some authority or rather the granting of license…
I’ve wondered about these people who seem to repeat their violent behavior. I can see where one option is that they “received” permission for their behavior. Another option is that they just enjoy destroying things and they really don’t care about the “cause”.
I like the response of the Sheriff’s departments re the Oregon Gov’s request for support in Portland. I agree with them – if the justice department continues to release the arrested and fail to prosecute them, then why beat your head against the wall.
I sail/race, so I always have a knife with me in case there is an issue with the sheets. It happens. However, I am now carrying the knife with me at all times.
If the situation gets iffy in my city, then I guess I’ll start carrying. The only time I carried (illegally at that time, but with the police’s ok) was when a staff was attacked and had a continuing “situation”. It was strange for a detective to ask if I had a gun and then tell me to carry and where to aim.
Many years ago, quite a few months after the L.A. riots I read an article in the L.A. Times. It reported on the findings of the arson investigators after analyzing the position and the timing of the fires. They came to the conclusion that all the fires were set by gang members in a total of 2 or 3 vehicles. They would get on and off the 405 and the 10 FWYs, get on the main drag and set fire to business after business and then move on down the freeway. In Long Beach it was the businesses along PCH that were burned down. No businesses on the side streets were touched. The fires were not randomly set by angry youths. They were set by gang members taking advantage of the general atmosphere that day. The big demonstration by angry people that day and night was at Parker Center – L.A. police hq. Even though it was a large crowd it didn’t get violent until late evening when they overturned a guard booth. There may have also been some windows broken. Once the buildings were burned down then there was general looting.
So those events give more proof to the observation that sociopaths take their opportunity when they see it.
This is a very interesting take. As I’ve watched some of the videos, I’ve wondered who these people are that are so vicious and so lacking in humanity that they could just walk up to an elderly person and cold cock him, or kick a person in the head, or walk up to somebody and shoot him in cold blood. The recent videos of people getting harassed leaving the RNC feature some really unhinged types.
Some interesting video from Kenosha here. A local says, they were well organized, not from Kenosha and armed to the teeth. https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2020/08/30/kenosha-riot/
Sociopaths given a political permission slip. Yep, that is it.
I didn’t read those exact words, but, I remember reading a similar explanation years ago to describe how the Khmer Rouge used their power to keep the ordinary people down.
Also, a friend of mine grew up in China during the cultural revolution and told me something along those same lines. She said those who would have normally been considered typical trouble makers in school (such as school yard bullies) were in power over everyone else.
Chris B on September 1, 2020 at 6:56 pm said:
Sociopaths receiving “political permission slips”. Wow- That’s it. Very simple and I’ve never heard it explained better.
* * *
I have long thought the same thing, but Barnes articulates the idea persuasively and with solid research.
The people who commit violence like we have seen in the riots, all Communist countries, Nazi Germany, probably the Japanese & Vietnamese POW camps, and so many more examples are always with us, like fungi underground, but sane societies DON’T give them permission to come out into the open.
IMO, the unambiguous handing out of permission slips is the sure marker of whether a government or executive (president or whatever) is truly deserving of the Nazi label.
Trump is not, despite Democrat attempts to tar him with the accusation.
McEnany’s press conference on that question was great.
(“The Biden camp’s strategy” post)
She is an excellent sparring partner for DeMedia.
Unambiguous, indeed.
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/09/01/kamala-harris-and-biden-staffers-donated-to-bail-out-folks-arrested-during-riots-heres-what-one-of-them-then-did/
If the Democrats didn’t have double-standards….
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/09/if-riots-are-trumps-fault-whose-fault-were-daniel-greenfield/
This story could go on several threads, as can so many that are interconnected these days, but there is something sociopathic about the defacing of public memorials, and white-guilt-ish about defacing those of black people, and “granting permission slips” about defacing those of cops.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/01/mural-to-slain-black-police-sergeant-defaced-in-philadelphia/
There is no shortage of stories illustrating the sociopathic nature of the rioters unleashed with their political permission slips.
https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2020/09/02/baltimore-viral-video-man-brick-assault-eric-costello/
https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2020/09/01/trump-not-denouncing-rittenhouse-is-exactly-the-right-move/
(ignore the weird URL, the story is about protesters laying siege to Wheeler’s condo)
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/09/01/police-arrest-antifa-guy-with-flamethrower-who-cried-in-fetal-position-when-caught/
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/09/01/910657/
The “jackboots on the ground” may be largely sociopaths, but what is the correct psychological term for the people handing out the permission slips and the money?
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/09/01/dhs-chad-wolf-targeting-antifa-money-network/
Not all sociopaths are wielding guns and flame-throwers.
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2020/09/01/john-mcwhorter-academics-live-fear-new-campus-maoism/
https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-prager/2020/09/01/the-lockdown-has-gone-from-a-mistake-to-a-crime-n871865
From the guy in the video who studied the KKK: “Racism was the excuse, not the reason”
Reminds me something experienced by Patrick Fermor while traveling in Germany in early 1933: he met a friendly guy, “an amusing, clownish character,” who invited Paddy to stay over at in spare bed at his place. It turned out that there was Nazi regalia everywhere, and an SA uniform hanging neatly ironed. When Paddy “It said that it must be rather claustrophobic with all that stuff on the walls,” the man “laughed and sat down on his bed and said: “Mensch! You should have seen it last year! You would have laughed! Then it was all red flags, stars, hammers and sickles, pictures or Lenin and Stalin and Workers of the World, Unite!”
He went on to say that he and his friends “We used to beat hell out of the Nazis, and they beat the hell out of us…Then suddenly, when Hitler came into power, I understood it was all nonsense and lies. I realized Adolf was the man for me!” His old friends had all changed sides as well; the only problem he saw was that there were hardly and socialists or communists left to beat up. His parents did not share his enthusiasm, he said; they were “old-fashioned,” with his father still talking about the greatness of Bismarck and the Kaiser and Hindenburg and his mother focused only on the church.
There seems to have been a lot of this switching-sides among Communist and Nazi street activists; the key was having an enemy to attack more than it was the excuse for attacking him.
Read Eric Hoffer’s book, “The True Believer” which explains why people join these movements.
https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial/dp/0060505915
‘Sociopaths receiving “political permission slips”. Wow- That’s it. Very simple and I’ve never heard it explained better.
Absolutely nailed it.
I’ve just ordered Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer.”
I’ve been wanting to post this quote from Joseph Conrad’s “Under Western Eyes,” for some time; the “rogues” in the street are a small but vital part of it.
“In a real revolution, the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards come the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs and leaders. You will notice that I have left out he mere rogues. The scrupulous and the just, the noble and humane and devoted natures, the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement, but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution: They are its victims: the victims of disgust, disenchantment…often of remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured–that’s the definition of revolutionary success.”
Robert Barnes’ point make perfect sense to me. Behind islamic terrorists there is definitely a socio-pathic motivation, probably caused by a general feeling of not receiving what they think they deserve (or a feeling of losing influence and power).
I can imagine that this is also one of the driving moments behind the nightly riots in US cities. And it is definitely behind Kyle Rittenhouse (and other so-called boogaloo boys), shooting innocent people in Kenosha with an assault rifle.
There are people who still manage to hide that they are sociopath, but they are easily unmasked when they talk about their fantasies like this one : “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,”
nd it is definitely behind Kyle Rittenhouse (and other so-called boogaloo boys), shooting innocent people in Kenosha with an assault rifle.
He hasn’t shot any innocent people. A % of those who lie brazenly in comboxes are sociopaths without a doubt.
micha:
Any evidence that Kyle was/is a boogaloo boy? Was it the wearing of the Hawaii shirt? Has his social media history shown any boogalooism? Do you know what an assault rifle is (full auto capability not semi-auto)?
Are you trying for satire or just being something else?
Montage, Manju, and Micha, we need better shills for anarchy.
micha:
Dissenting voices are welcome here. But they must stick to facts and not propaganda. You write: “I can imagine that this is also one of the driving moments behind the nightly riots in US cities. And it is definitely behind Kyle Rittenhouse (and other so-called boogaloo boys), shooting innocent people in Kenosha with an assault rifle.”
If you’re going to say something like that about Rittenhouse that runs 100% counter to the videos and to the law – counter to every piece of information we have, actually – you better back it up in some way. Otherwise you are merely a propaganda-spouting troll.
On the other hand, if you actually are interested in learning about the evidence regarding Rittenhouse and self-defense, as well as the non-innocence of the people he shot, you can go to any number of sites or podcasts. For example, if you were to actually watch the video in this post, above – not just the part I cued up about sociopaths, but most of video, from the start – you would discover a lot about why Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense is valid. You can also find plenty of information at this link as well as this one if you want a especially in-depth analysis.
You have said in a previous comment that you are from Germany. I would imagine that Germany has different laws concerning self-defense than the US does. However, whatever they may be, they do not apply here. However, I would hope for the sake of modern-day Germans that they are allowed to defend themselves against attacks such as Rittenhouse faced. From what I can see from a very quick perusal, it appears that they are.
Micha says,
Dear Micha,
1. I have seen the rap sheets on the now dead pederast who was chasing and assaulting Rittenhouse and who, as a reward, won himself a bullet shattered pelvis.
2. The police print-out on Huber, the 26 year old “semi-professional” skate boarder who assaulted Rittenhouse with the chop of his skateboard to Rittenhouse’s neck, and who may well have shot himself by pulling on the muzzle or strap of a rifle Rittenhouse was gripping with his trigger finger in the guard, is on-line too.
3. And one can see that Ganzkreutz who also has a rap sheet, and was armed, was just about to shoot (and proclaimed the fact) Rittenhouse after pulling a surrender ploy, when instead Rittenhouse managed to squeeze his shot off first … This, coming after Rittenhouse had just spared Ganzkreutz moments before when Ganzkreutz feigned hand’s up.
So, who among these are the “innocents”?
Micha says on his blog, that,
Do you mean that literally, Micha? That, every word said by Trump contains at least 10 lies, and he is the most blatant liar in the present political world? Because if you do ….
Micha, then ostensibly offering support for his claim that every word Trump says contains at least 10 lies, says that as regards Kamala Harris, Trump judges that:
And you call this personal evaluation a “lie”, Micha? You are calling it a literal lie? In fact, you are calling it at least 10 lies? Because if you are …
It would be interesting to find a “progressive” who would take note of facts, but I now tend to think that they evaluate the place of facts and their meanings and implications from a different perspective than do conservatives and libertarians; which, may account for why they assess their relevance in a different way in cultural contexts.
What I am talking about here is that well-known and at a glance somewhat trivial and possibly dubious seeming distinction between how conservatives and liberals are said to organize the priority of the subject social-object relation, and the pole upon which interpretative primacy, and by implication, the evaluation of the place of facts, rests.
The modern liberal it asserts, seems to start with the psychological primacy of the “collective” out there, and to organize its perception of its self and place, and the realm of “facts”, in relationship to it: Outside in versus inside out.
There’s a shorthand phrase which I never paid enough attention to, and which has been recorded here several times, which gets the gist of it; but which I never bothered to commit to memory – not realizing its potential implications.
It may help to illuminate how liberals in the STEM fields can still embrace airy-fairy we are the world crap, and the sweet-awesomeness-of-our-disenchanted-reality bullshit as they do.
Think of Wormmouth polemicist Carl Sagan droning on and on about billions and billions of billions …
But that is just an idea prompted by others, which I have not fully considered or thought through at this point.
By the way, Micha should think about writing in his native German and then using Google translate as a second draft: approving it with his own English. It would help him avoid homonym errors and the like which as we can see, otherwise creep into his blog. It would still be his writing, first, and last.
Neo:
I wish to point out that Germans were evicted from their apartments by the state in order to house some of Merkel’s million-plus male Muslim migrants, who are now happily unemployed, living off the state, and left free to rape Jungfrauen. Gun rights do not exist in Germany. Merkel’s party is the so-called Christian Democratic Party, and there is nothing Christian about it or her.
Has Germany paid its NATO dues?
Is Germany an ally in anything other than name, to serve itself? Will it, can it defend itself as US troops are withdrawn? No; it wants US troops for the money they spend in Germany.
It’s becoming near-totally dependent on Putin for its energy, mostly natural gas since Merkel has sentenced all nuclear power plants to death within a decade.
There is a bit of a struggle, with AfD (trans.: Alliance for Germany) trying to right the imbalance; but that party is naturally condemned by German and American media as being “right-wing”, a la Nazis.
It is a source of good cars! That’s about it.
Germany long ago turned its back on membership in Western Civ., as far as I’m concerned.
Micha reflects those ills.
“It would be interesting to find a “progressive” who would take note of facts, but I now tend to think that they evaluate the place of facts and their meanings and implications from a different perspective than do conservatives and libertarians; which, may account for why they assess their relevance in a different way in cultural contexts.” – DNW
Shorter version: they have their own “truths” and have no need of facts.
“Montage, Manju, and Micha, we need better shills for anarchy.” – om
This is as good as it gets, since there is no credible justification for anarchy.
The Three Mythketeers do give us a good look at the POV of the Left; I have no doubt that the Leftist & Progressive & Democrat “news” sources are telling them exactly what Micha declared.
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-internet-trolling-3485891
Cicero:
That’s my impression as well. But when I searched I did find fairly robust self-defense laws on the books. I would guess they probably are only on the books, however.
I have not been to Germany and know few Germans except in the context of business. I am generally impressed by their standard of technical competence even in areas such as sales engineering, where day to day engineering skills may not be called for. What impressed me less was a certain blinkered perspective, and insistent behavior, which to be fair, was probably the more or less understandable fall out from a justifiable pride in this competence.
Recently, I met a couple over here on a research project. Well, she is, he is accompanying her. She is a pleasant, slim, blond woman who laughs easily and engages readily with others. He, is an affable, slightly built, prematurely balded male who, if given half a chance opens up and speaks reasonably and knowledgeably about a number of subjects; including his youth in the GDR. It seems he has become enthused at the prospect of hunting, which is a positive mark for him in my book.
They seem like perfectly normal people. And I think that they are. But they lived in a country with limitations they just came to accept.
On the Fourth, we were all having a cook-out in the yard. My sister and brother-in law had brought out cheesy fireworks suitable for young kids, and flags, and sparklers and that stuff. I gave them various Nerf guns, and giant water syringes.
The little mop headed German boy – who looks just as you would imagine he does – was excitedly following my nephew around, jumping up and down, and waving American flags; one in each hand. His mother laughed, and said, “You see, in Germany we would have none of this, and no one would wave the flag, or think to celebrate our country in such a way.”
What was left unstated, and I let alone, was the probable reason for it. But still, it seems such a depressing thing to be skeptical of the very value and goodness of your political existence. How completely oppressive, and unrewarding.
To see the unreflective happiness on that little German boy’s face to just be celebrating something good about life without being made to feel guilty, or bear the neuroses of others on his back, made me realize what we still had left, and how little reason there was to even pretend to accommodate those legions of mentally and morally ill progressives who would drag us all down into the sump of their resentment.
A beautiful story, DNW.
DNW,
That is a great story and set of observations. Mostly sad but hopeful for the little German boy at least. Maybe he will enjoy his taste of freedom enough to leave the rest behind.
I’m married to a German and I see what you describe in my wife’s extended family. My wife and her father are very “American” in outlook, her mother less so. But her cousins sound very much like the couple you describe. They’re pleasant people. They enjoy sending letters and gifts, even in this day and write meticulously.
Even the younger members (25-30) act the way you describe when they come over to visit. And almost none of them are having children. One second cousin had a little boy last year. That’s it. My wife’s family was already very small. Only two families in the US with her maiden name and only six in Germany. The name is going extinct.
“I did find fairly robust self-defense laws on the books. I would guess they probably are only on the books, however.” – Neo
Reading through the comments at your link, that appears to be true in German.
Judging from recent charges against some people here, the same is probably true in America as well.
Cicero,
Their dogs are even better than their cars!
Having created the monster, do those on the Left believe that they can call it back, that those who have tasted excitement and blood will just slink back into obscurity and silent, impotent rage?
Snow on Pine:
I don’t think they’re looking that far ahead. They are just seeing how they can exploit the chaos now by blaming it on Trump, and think (or at least, initially thought) that this will cause him and other Republicans to lose the election. After that, they’ll see. They’ll be in control, and if they want to crack down really hard to save their cities, I think they may be willing to do that. But not now.
Whether they would be successful in cracking down I don’t know. I don’t think they realize that literally they are playing with fire. They have allayed themselves with a dangerous group of people who would turn on their benefactors (the left) in a heartbeat.
First off, just a small point that the German political party abbreviated AfD stands for, in English, ‘Alternative for Germany,’ not ‘Alliance’ – I see this inadvertent substitution a lot when people write about that party in English media. I mention it in case anybody wants to look them up.
As for gun rights in Germany, I never had interest in firearms at the time I was living there, granted, but I suspect that in practice, it’s much like here in the sense that there is probably very tight gun control in the cities (at least for law-abiding natives, though I’m sure the local Turks, Chechens, etc. have fewer supply problems when it comes to weaponry), while out in the country, one can still find some folks who keep things up with firearm use, though of course not routinely to the extent or in the variety that we do here. Given that knives are a common weapon involved in urban crime in Germany these days, it strikes me that urban citizens there, be they ever so upstanding, have about as slim a chance of being legitimately armed as in the urban UK.
Just at random, I looked for any old shooting club and found one at http://sg-oberasbach.de/ , which has a range not too far outside of Nuremberg. It looks like they have activities and competitions mostly with air guns rather than our more ‘dramatic’ kind of firearms. So people do still do shooting sports.
On the subject of German patriotism, I have a couple of points to make about the big protest in Berlin last week, but have to stop in at work for a while first.
Neo:
“So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.” — Orwell