"While we are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is we civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency.  In (sad) fact, if a full jumbo jet crashed into a mountain killing everyone on board, and if that happened every month, month in and month out, the number of people killed still wouldn't equal the number of women murdered by their husbands and boyfriends each year."
-p7 in The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker 

I read this morning about a doctor who went mad and shot people in a hospital. As a doctor myself, I know that docs have terrible stresses trying to deal with a corrupt medical-industrial system that impairs our ability to help people regain their health. Then I went to look at the NY times article, here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/nyregion/bronx-hospital-shooting.html. He's richly melanated, that is to say, he has lived a life of fear because of his skin color. I infer from his violence that he may have been guilty of the accusation--sexual misconduct. He was a man, and he was angry enough to shoot others and hopeless enough to set himself on fire and shoot himself. He did not see any way out. He knew he would not receive compassion.

What people forget when they demonize any group of humans is that they are human. Dark skinned people. Doctors. Men. Gun owners. Murderers. Whatever group. All humans share the same basic needs. When those needs are not met, we have the same basic emotions. Driven hard enough, any of us could become dangerous. Hitler had reasons. The Arabs that flew airplanes into buildings had reasons. No one is pure evil, we are simply human and if tortured we can lash out, or become cunning.

My hope that that everyone who reads this will take a deep breath or three and think about the kind of pain that drives a person to such horrors. My hope is that compassion will rise in spite of the poisonous atmosphere of shame and blame that dominates our political world. We all deserve an opportunity to be free from fear, long enough to find our centers and our hearts and reach out into the world from that place. It will take a lot of us finding compassion to heal these wounds.

The sociopath or psychopath who has that mysterious ailment of being without conscience has adopted as a survival strategy the negation of the goodself, which results in loss of empathy and care.  This adaptation is more likely the result of an emotionally inpoverished childhood than of conscious choice.  If intelligent, a psychopath matinas the guise of conventional morality and is never discovered.  Elevating self-centeredness (the badself) as the only reality, the sociopath's access to human connection becomes power and domination.  Although bright psychopaths are usually able to construct safe ways of getting their power needs met, some resort to violent outlets which can become compulsions, serial murder being an extreme example.  The most heinous crimes are often committed by those who are noteworthy for being unnoteworthy.  Serial killers, like Nazi leaders, are renowned for their outward ordinariness.

--Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad in The Guru Papers; Masks of Authoritarian Power, 1993, p229.

As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each.
--J. Michael Straczynski

The nearness of authority is especially relevant to the real-life obedience requirements of combat and war. As it turns out, individual conscience draws a surprisingly firm line at killing--surprising for those who think of human beings as natural war makers. This aspect of conscience is so resilient in normal people that military psychologists have needed to devise ways around it. For example, military experts now know that to make men kill with any kind of reliability, commands must be given by authorities who are present with the troops. Otherwise, the men in the field will tend to "cheat" on their orders to kill, will intentionally misaim or simply fail to fire, to keep from violating this mightiest proscription of conscience.
--Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door, p65

America produces remorseless killers in bulk. One hundred years ago, Jack the Ripper riveted the attention of the Western world by doing away with five people. This culture would barely notice such modest exploits--so many have surpassed the quaintly amateurish Ripper that we cannot remember their names, much less their crimes. Squadrons of soulless assassins do not germinate by chance. These avenging Phoenixes arise from the neural wreckage of what once could have been a healthy human being.
--Lewis, Amini and Lannon, A General Theory of Love, p281

This quote out of context may be a little confusing but let me just say that this book explains why we have so many youth who can and do torture and kill other living beings. Without compunction. It has to do with a lack of proper limbic bonding in infancy, and the ensuing lack of development of the communal and familial mammalian brain. Our current cultural climate has everything to do with a multiple generation emphasis on success in the workplace at the expense of family and community, and it has everything to do with horrific parenting practices such as the (supposedly character-building) neglect espoused by Dr Spok.

I recommend this book.
By Dorothy Bryant
For everyone.

Well, almost. Actually they intend to penalize a TV personality who predicted the future as part of his show.  They are going to kill him. The charge is 'sorcery'. Must have been a convincing show.