Last night I was watching Criminal Minds with my wife. We were watching an episode that we had DVRed from Jan 1^st 2010. It was a rerun as we just discovered this program as we don’t get to watch much television. Regardless I do enjoy the show because it is a crime drama that specializes in catching Serial Killers. There is no better example of a corrupt person then a Serial Killer, it is the ‘extreme’ as some would suggest but the only real difference between a Sociopathic Killer and a Sociopathic person who doesn’t kill is the act of murder. Both see people as objects, things, not people.

At the end of this episode, in which was about two brothers who kidnapped people and then hunted them with bows, one of the characters says, “the victim asked me how they can do it? I told her that they don’t think like us, but that is a lie, we do think like them”.

At this point I shouted “NO YOU DO NOT!”

We have to understand this. You, a sane, rational human being are incapable of thinking like a Sociopath. You can train yourself to ‘mimic’ their thought processes in order to better understand these corrupted people, but you can no more understand a Sociopath’s thought process then you can understand a spider’s though process.

Thank you

Rich Ahlgrim

Why have we, the people of the United States, become lenient on corruption? Why do we allow sex offenders, the real sex offenders, back into our communities? For that matter why do we paint our criminals with such a broad brush? How in any sane man’s mind do we equate an 18 year old who sleeps with his 16 year old girl friend with a 30 something who rapes a 5 year old?

We have been sold us a rotten lie that we as a society will be judged on how we treat our criminals and that we want to be judged as a kind, gentle society. The lie is that this is solely how we will be judged. That we must ‘turn’ the other cheek to the truly corrupt and that the meek shall inherit the earth.

This is another lie, sold to us by the corrupt to deflect our anger, our righteous, truthful, anger away from those who would prey on us like the monsters they are, and back onto ourselves.

The ends do not justify the means, ever. If something, a bill before our congress, and idea on how to make life better, etc, is just then that something will carry on its own merit.

We have a right to be angry and outraged at corruption. It is a natural response to corrupt people. It only serves the corrupt people to lump criminals together and then to claim we are all criminals. It only serves the corrupt people to have us believe that truly corrupt people can be reformed and that they should be categorized with those criminals who can be reformed.

To be clear, there are only two types of criminals. People who felt they had no choice and those who feel that laws do not apply to them. People who felt they had no choice can we rehabilitated and should be treated completely differently than those who feel the laws do not apply to them. The first is just someone who is desperate the second is a corrupt person.

The corrupt in our society have constantly, through themselves or the people they have fooled, pointed to the no choice people as examples of how a criminal can be rehabilitated. They have used these people as their example as to how it is our fault all criminals exist.

The reality is that we can and should do something about those who felt they had no choice. Make them pay their debt to society and help them rehabilitate. The others? Simple, remove them from society as quickly as possible. First we need to acknowledge, as a society that this division exists then, we need to develop a system to separate our criminals into these two classes.

We, those who are not corrupt, know what is right and wrong. We need to stop having our moral and ethical compasses redirected by the corrupt individuals, with no morals or ethics, in our societies. For example, Liberals use corrupt businessmen as the example and the excuse of why we need bigger government, Right wingers use corrupt liberals as a example and an excuse of why we all liberals are evil. The real problem with our country is not left or right it is corruption. We need to police and excise the corruption in our country.

We do not need tougher laws, we need laws that recognize the difference between the’ had to’ criminals and the’ want to’ criminals. The’ had to’ can be rehabilitated, the 'want to' cannot. That is the difference and the determiner. Laws do nothing but define a crime and make people criminals. There is no law in the history of man which has prevented a crime, ever.

Well lets start this off blog off right, with the biggest lie, we as a society, as a species have bought; “Power corrupts”. I contend that power does not corrupt, but that corrupt people seek power.

First who are corrupt people? Many of my conservative friends and comrades will say liberals. Well that is wrong. Are corrupt people sociopaths? I contend yes, but I will discuss sociopaths on another day. For the case of this argument let us say that anyone who needs power to justify their existence is a corrupt person. Anyone who lacks a clear definition of right and wrong, whose moral compass is out of alignment, which lack honor or integrity, are corrupt people.

When questioning a statement, if any part of the statement is false, and can be proven so, then the whole of the statement is false. To say that power corrupts is to say that everyone, no matter how noble or honorable, when given power will become corrupted. One only needs to look at the founding fathers of the United States of America to see that this statement is false.

These gentlemen for the most part were men of honor and integrity. Yes they had their faults and their failures yet they still held true to themselves and more importantly to the people who trusted them with power, when they wrote the constitution of the United States of America. These were men who could have set themselves up as kings. Who could have grabbed power for themselves, yet they did not? Why? A simple explaination is that they were not corrupt men.

I know I have simplified the argument, and the merits and faults of our founding fathers could be discussed at great length, but that is not the point of this argument. The point is that these men disprove that statement that power corrupts. The truth is that corrupt people seek power.

We have bought this lie because on the surface it seems true. Look to any position of power and you will see corruption. This is because corrupt people seek power. A corrupt person will do anything and everything to obtain power. They will cheat, lie, murder, steal, and are not above any means as long as their ends, power, are met. Thus the ends justify the means in their minds. Great men, good men (and by men I of course also mean women) do not believe that the ends justify the means.

We have been sold this lie, because it makes those who are not corrupt believe that there is no hope. No way that we can expect anyone who has power to stay un-corrupted. When you believe this lie, you give away the moral and real responsibility of holding people responsible for their corrupt behavior while in power.

In truth if this great country of ours is to survive, we need to hold people in power responsible for their own corruption. We need to hold them to a higher standard. We need to stop making excuses for them because ‘power corrupts’.

Rich Ahlgrim