From: n9020351@henson.cc.wwu.edu (James Douglas Del-Vecchio)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan,alt.individualism,talk.politics.misc.talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: pagan self-defense
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:07:55 GMT
Organization: Western Washington University

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>root cause of the trouble.  Kindly do not lump me in as a fuzzy-headed
>moralist who wants to just love everybody -- thereby casting yourself in
>the part of worldy realist out to inject a little reality into the lives
>of those of us poor souls afflicted with rose-colored-glasses-itis.

	Ha ha ha.  I was doing that wasn't I?   I'm glad you're not after
day-care-world then.  ;-)   

>Wathc it, you're snide condescension is showing.  (Mine, of course, is
>too, but I openly admit it.)  I'm not after a fucking day-care center,
>and I resent your putting words to that effect in my mouth.  I am saying
>that a culture that has so many lunatics to deal with should wonder why
>there ARE so many lunatics to deal with.  Get a grip.   

	Wondering is fine, I'm not against wondering.  However, reality
is still real, and while the wonderers wonder, the criminals still need 
to be identified and kept away all the same.   To misquote somebody dead:
"Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to identify dangerous criminals 
and incarcerate them".

	People do wonder now, and try to get to the root of criminal
behaviour.  These investigators all come to their own conclusions, and
these conclusions are many and contradictory.  Some, of the "society
causes everything" camp, conclude what you would expect them to.  Others,
of the "personal responsibility" camp, conclude what you would expect
them to.  Crime will always be studied and re-studied to re-answer these 
questions, and always has been.


	RE drugs:

	In "crime" I was thinking of "real crime" not drugs, but I'm sure
the same "the universe owes me and I'm gonna take it" personality types who 
are attracted to robbery, rape, burglary, murder, fraud, or what-have-you, 
are also attracted to drugs.  It's a realm where they can make money, engage
in their side occupations of violence or theft if they so desire, money
is good, and competition is limited largely to others like themselves 
who are willing to inflict pain when the situation calls.

	I don't think any personality types are specifly attracted to
the drug trade, but that certain personality types are attracted to
certain working enviornments.  Illegal drug trade, as any contraband,
is a dangerous working enviornment where criminals and immoral people
have an edge.

>There are more black men who are crooks and criminals than in college.
>Are you seriously saying that that's just because black people are
>immoral and dig on preying in the rest of us?  There isn't the slightest

	Now you're doing what you said you didn't like me doing.

>hint of a societal pressure toward turning out more black crooks than
>Ph. D.'s?  Maybe black people are just genetically inclined toward being
>dishonest and dangerous, then.  If you are not willing to admit that
>there is even the slightest hint of a societal problem here, that is the
>ONLY explanation remaining for why there are so many more black crooks
>than doctors.  `S probably the gene that gives them such good rhythm.  

	Sure there are family factors and societal factors.   How one
grows up will influence what path one takes, but that is all long term.
Some crooks, not all, not even most, I think, who grew up with no fathers
might have been different in a whole family (they would have been con-men
rather than muggers;-).  Government intervention to break up these families
years ago contribited to some of the crime we see now.  Were this 
intervention to stop, perhaps in 30 years we would see less crime.  It 
matters little, however, because as long as we have drug prohibition, we
will have lots of crime.  If we had a generation pass with no gangster-
subsidy, a generation where young men _did not_ grow up knowing that 
crime (selling cocaine) would get them more money than a job will, _then_
we will have less crime.

>>	The best mankind can do is identify these individuals when 
>>possible and keep them seperated from us normal people, whom they will
>>always prey on when given the opportunity.

>You're then saying that people who are crooks are that way for NO REASON
>OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT THEY WANT TO BE.  Must be genetic, then.  I'd
>like to see you defend this point of view.  

	The majority of crime is commited by a small minority of criminals.  
These individuals behave the way they do because they view other people
as resources for them to take from.   This is they way they are, whether
genetic (which I never said), societal, family, or personal factors forged
these personalitys is moot, imo, because the important part is that these
people are who they are.  They will not change, any more than a preditory
animal can change.  

>Your Us vs. Them mentality is a crock of shit. 

	When I am convicted of rape, or of robbery, or of swindling (a
more respectable crime, one for more mature criminals ;-) or of murder, 
then you will be right, my beliefs were a crock of shit.

	Until then, I will remain one of the us, and (assuming you are
not a violent criminal preditor), also will you.

>Janis C.

>P.S.: If my attitude is pissy, it's not surprising.  You are probably a
>perfectly nice person who would rake your leaves before they blew into
>my yard and pay up at poker, but I really dislike this "They're just
>that way because they are bad people" attitude.  Sure, there are people
>who are just assholes in this world; I've confronted more than enough of
>them to recognize this.  But totally turning aside ANY societal
>pressure, especially when our one country is so afflicted with this crap
>is sloppy thinking.  If it were wholly genetic and human, then black
>people would be crooks everywhere, and our own high murder rate would be
>echoed in every country around the globe, which it isn't.  Thinking
>otherwise is bad science and inconsistent logic.  I'm not trying to
>*B*L*A*M*E* you for the ills of society, I'm just saying that there is
>more at work here than you are prepared or willing to admit.  

	Perhaps you are misunderstanding me also.  I do not deny that
there are societal pressures, nor that there are family pressures 
which have acted on the formation of each adult personality.  I am saying,
it doesn't matter what forces acted on you.  If your parents beat you and
made you want to eat people, too bad, I guess then you have no choice but
to eat people and society has no choice but to respond by incarcerating
you.  Once you are an adult, forget everthing your parents did to you or 
society did, because wrt your own actions there can be only one center of 
responsibility -the self.

	When I worked in my father's restaurant as a teen-ager I met a
variety of people.  One young man's father was murdered by his mother
because of infidelity.   This young man was a drug dealer as well as 
a cook.  I had no problem with that, because that was his business, not 
mine.  His brother had also been a drug dealer, killed a man, and was 
wanted by the police for murder.  Is there a link between his brother's 
choice to commit murder and the way he grew up?  I would be a fool to deny 
it, but all the same, he is the only one who can be held accountable for 
his deed, not his parents, "society" or any other outside force.
	Another man was a dishwasher and a gangmember.  He would talk about
his gang (the Vice Lords?), whom he loved, and the other gang (the Black
Gangster Diciples?) whom he hated.  He was going to "Kill their ass" he
had said.  He was fired when my father caught him stealing steaks.  He was 
murdered, presumably by someone who "hated his ass" either in a gang dispute 
or a dispute over a drug debt.  Once again, his family life influenced what
path he took, but as an adult, he was his own man.  I knew him and thought
he was a crook.  Tough, not a lot of brains, dishonest.  He thought the
world owed him something, that his place was simply to take it and get away
with it.  He was coffin-bait.  It was no suprise when he was killed.

	Another young man I worked with took the cake.  He was the worst 
asshole I can remember.  Years later it was a big deal in the paper when 
he tried his hare-brained scheme to kidnapp a local doctor's baby at gunpoint
and demand $100,000.*  The police and the FBI were involved.  All he got was 
26 years in the slam.  The paper said his neighbors were suprised, such a 
quiet boy.
	I wasn't suprised.  He was always talking about crime, saying he 
would come up with some giant score that would set him up.  He also talked 
about stealing from and killing people.  I just thought they were the stupid 
fantasies of a serious asshole.  He thought the world owed him more than a 
cook earns, and he went out to take it by force.  No special needs, no drugs
or financial problems, no societal problems for this one.  Just a bad guy.  

*Marc LaLibertare (sp?), Rockford Il, ca. 1990.

	I am not saying everyone in prison is a bad to the core person.
What I am saying is what you have yourself said.  _There are_ bad people.
There are bad to the core people, hard-core assholes, in this world.  
...And ...suprise, these same people are the ones who end up commiting
the majority of the crimes of violence and theft.  There is also a large
group of marginal criminals, and many of these end up in prison also.

Jim Del Vecchio