Spartiala
03-08-2005, 07:56
I recently read the book “The sociopath next door” by psychologist Martha Stout. In it, Stout says that as many as one in twenty-five people (four percent of the population) are sociopathic, a mental condition characterized by a complete lack of conscience. These people never feel guilt, even when they know they are doing something wrong. I am not one of these people, but if I were I would pursue a career in politics using the following as my plan.
The population of a nation can easily be divided into demographic groups. The lines can be drawn according to race, age, ideology, region, religion or any other myriad characteristics. The first thing I would do is create ten easily identifiable demographic groups based on one or more of these characterizations. Then I would say to my constituents: “My fellow citizens, we have long lived under the brutal dominion of the (one of the groups, chosen at random). It is time that we throw off our chains and rise up against them. If elected, I, your humble public servant, will do everything I can to right the unjust special status that this group has had.” I will then make it clear that I will impose a special tax on the said group and will redistribute the wealth among the other nine groups. Clearly, it is in the interest of the other nine groups to support me, because they will stand to gain a lot of money from my plan. If all the groups are about equal in size, I could reasonably expect a landslide victory, with as much as ninety percent of the people voting for me.
There is one flaw in this plan: even though I, in this scenario, would not have a conscience, most of my constituents would. They would take one look at my plan and think, “This is an outrage! I will not support a candidate who discriminates against people based on race, age, ideology, region or religion.” I would lose the election and possibly face criminal charges for my bigoted campaign platform. But there is a way to fix this flaw: instead of dividing people based on race, age, ideology, region or religion, I would divide them into groups based on wealth. I would have the wealthiest ten percent of the population in one group, the next wealthiest in the second group and so on down to the poorest in group number ten. Can you guess which group I would choose to steal from in order to buy the votes of the others? The wealthiest one, of course! Everyone is jealous of them for their wealth and would love to see them taken down a peg, especially if I give the money I take from them to everyone else. There is absolutely no law against discriminating against the wealthy and no one would feel bad about taking money from them. Why, they practically deserve to have their money taken. It’s not like they need it! To cap it all off, taking money from the wealthy would work well because they have the most to money available for the taking. I could milk them for years before they ran out!
With that plan, I could get elected to any public office I desired. The only thing standing in my way is that every time I seriously consider riding to victory on the backs of my fellow citizens, I get sick to my stomach. If only I were part of that conscienceless four percent!
The population of a nation can easily be divided into demographic groups. The lines can be drawn according to race, age, ideology, region, religion or any other myriad characteristics. The first thing I would do is create ten easily identifiable demographic groups based on one or more of these characterizations. Then I would say to my constituents: “My fellow citizens, we have long lived under the brutal dominion of the (one of the groups, chosen at random). It is time that we throw off our chains and rise up against them. If elected, I, your humble public servant, will do everything I can to right the unjust special status that this group has had.” I will then make it clear that I will impose a special tax on the said group and will redistribute the wealth among the other nine groups. Clearly, it is in the interest of the other nine groups to support me, because they will stand to gain a lot of money from my plan. If all the groups are about equal in size, I could reasonably expect a landslide victory, with as much as ninety percent of the people voting for me.
There is one flaw in this plan: even though I, in this scenario, would not have a conscience, most of my constituents would. They would take one look at my plan and think, “This is an outrage! I will not support a candidate who discriminates against people based on race, age, ideology, region or religion.” I would lose the election and possibly face criminal charges for my bigoted campaign platform. But there is a way to fix this flaw: instead of dividing people based on race, age, ideology, region or religion, I would divide them into groups based on wealth. I would have the wealthiest ten percent of the population in one group, the next wealthiest in the second group and so on down to the poorest in group number ten. Can you guess which group I would choose to steal from in order to buy the votes of the others? The wealthiest one, of course! Everyone is jealous of them for their wealth and would love to see them taken down a peg, especially if I give the money I take from them to everyone else. There is absolutely no law against discriminating against the wealthy and no one would feel bad about taking money from them. Why, they practically deserve to have their money taken. It’s not like they need it! To cap it all off, taking money from the wealthy would work well because they have the most to money available for the taking. I could milk them for years before they ran out!
With that plan, I could get elected to any public office I desired. The only thing standing in my way is that every time I seriously consider riding to victory on the backs of my fellow citizens, I get sick to my stomach. If only I were part of that conscienceless four percent!