Bad Guys

According to a scant but annoyingly vocal few within Society, homelessness is necessarily synonymous with crime, violence and a variety of social deviancy, as if everyone who lacks a domestic situation conforms to such stereotypes. Similar misconception implies that such deviancy is mostly exclusive to the unhoused Community, and therefore less applicable to those who inhabit domiciles.

Simple omission of facts and data requires less effort than falsifying facts and data. It is not difficult to portray the most notoriously villainous or disreputable of the unhoused Community as representative of the entire unhoused Community. However, doing so is about as logical as associating everyone who inhabits domiciles with the most notoriously villainous or disreputable of those who inhabit domiciles.

These are some examples of unhoused people of historical significance who do not represent any more of the unhoused Community than any other component of Society:

Jesus Christ and His Twelve Disciples

Saint John the Baptist

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

Mahatma Gandhi

These are some examples of housed people of historical significance who do not represent any more of the housed Community than any other component of Society:

Adolph Hitler

Joseph Stalin

Saddam Hussein

Idi Amin

Incidentally but interestingly, the majority of the most inhumanely socially deviant and evil people of history systematically perpetuated unfounded malicious stereotypes regarding their victims. Many continue to do so. It is how they justify their mistreatment of their victims, whether Jews, Christians, Shia Muslims or any other distinguishable group. If it becomes socially unacceptable to perpetuate malicious stereotypes about a particular group, another likely innocent group is pursued instead. For the inhumanely socially deviant and evil of Society, the abuse of their victims, whomever such victims might be, is much more important than truth or logic. It is one of several symptoms of their mental disorder.

NPD

Narcissistic Personality Disorder – NPD – is a chronic behavioral pattern that involves exaggeration of self-importance, strong desire for admiration, and lack of empathy. Those afflicted with it obsess over the achievement of success and power, and are notoriously exploitative of others. This is of course a very brief description of a very complicated disorder. A bit more information can be found at Wikipedia.

This may not seem to be relevant to many of us, but it does seem to explain some of the more typical behavior that distinguishes haters and collective hate groups. The symptoms associated with NPD are eerily consistent with their standardized craziness that is so very irrational to us, but seems to be quite appropriate to them. These are the main symptoms:

– grandiosity of self-importance.

– indulgence in fantasy that is consistent with delusions of grandeur.

– craving for constant admiration

– sense of entitlement

– shameless exploitation of others

– frequent demeaning, bullying and intimidation of others.

Assigning a name to the disorder certainly does not make the behavior that it causes any more tolerable. In fact, it is saddening to consider it to be a disorder that is doubtlessly more difficult for those afflicted with it than their victims. Nonetheless, it is impossible to deny how accurately this brief list of symptoms describes some of the behavior that we encounter with haters and hate groups.

Furthermore, it is odd to notice that haters often accuse us of exhibiting some of these same behaviors. We are regularly accused of ‘entitlement’ and ‘bullying’, but without any explanation of how we exhibit such behavior. Some might describe this technique as ‘psychological projection’. We are more likely to perceive it as more hypocritical bullying. Sadly, it is easy to not recognize it as mental illness.

Hypocrisy – Mugshot

There is a reason why no illustration accompanies this post. The picture that I wanted to use is just too unflattering.

It is a mugshot of an old friend who had been arrested for trying to get into a car that he believed belonged to his nephew, and then getting combative with Santa Cruz Police Officers who tried to stop him from doing so. He had been missing for three days prior to that, after escaping from the post acute care facility where he lived near the end of his life as he succumbed to a variety of ailments, particularly lung cancer and dementia.

We do not know where he had been or what he had been doing during those days that he was missing. He could not explain any of it. He was very tired and very hungry, and looked ghastly by the time he was found. Fortunately, the Police Officers who arrested him were quick to determine who he was and that he was missing, and then return him to the post acute care facility from where he had escaped. It was an efficient process.

He would have been located much sooner if only the haters had helped. They found his mugshot immediately. Within hours, they had paraded it thoroughly over Facebook and perhaps other social networks, complete with the typical vitriolic accusations, blaming, judging, criticizing, threatening and name calling that they are so proficient and indulgent with. Is dementia really that serious of a crime?

Perhaps it does not matter. To get the process started, haters need only a mention of a crime that includes the names of the perpetrators to find their mugshots online. They often take useful information that is posted on the Facebook page of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, and embellish it for their own sadistic entertainment. The rest of us simply want to know about crime in our Community, and maybe, who to be wary of.

After noticing the potential beginning of another display of public ridicule following a post on the Facebook page of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office a few months ago, a former neighbor questioned one of the main participants in this routine derision, in regard to particular mugshots that she had neglected. This particular hater had always been the most proficient at procuring and exhibiting mugshots for public disparagement.

The hater immediately became hostile to the former neighbor who questioned her, and predictably initiated the typical vitriolic accusations, blaming, judging, criticizing, threatening and name calling that only haters employ to demonstrate their exemplary civility and concern for the Community. Despite her attempts to redirect and end discussion, the former neighbor limited his questions to the topic of the neglected mugshots, but to no avail.

Just as predictably, after failing to dissuade the former neighbor from continuing to ask why the neglected mugshots were not discussed, the hater blocked him from responding, without acknowledgment of the mugshots.

The mugshots in question are of a young lady who had been arrested for DUI (Driving Under the Influence of an inebriant), which really seems like it should be a more serious crime than dementia. I mean, those who drive while inebriated sometimes kill people! However, the young lady who was arrested for DUI is a daughter of another main participant in the routine derision and disparagement of ‘other’ people with mugshots.