Global Research

Do They Have a Conscience?

“A key difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is whether he has a conscience, the little voice inside that lets us know when we’re doing something wrong, says L. Michael Tompkins, EdD. He’s a psychologist at the Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center. 

A psychopath doesn’t have a conscience. If he lies to you so he can steal your money, he won’t feel any moral qualms, though he may pretend to. He may observe others and then act the way they do so he’s not “found out,” Tompkins says.

A sociopath typically has a conscience, but it’s weak. They may know that taking your money is wrong, and they might feel some guilt or remorse, but that won’t stop their behavior.

Both lack empathy, the ability to stand in someone else’s shoes and understand how they feel. But a psychopath has less regard for others, says Aaron Kipnis, PhD, author of The Midas Complex. Someone with this personality type sees others as objects he can use for his own benefit.

They’re Not Always Violent

In movies and TV shows, psychopaths and sociopaths are usually the villains who kill or torture innocent people. In real life, some people with antisocial personality disorder can be violent, but most are not. Instead they use manipulation and reckless behavior to get what they want.

“At worst, they’re cold, calculating killers,” Kipnis says. Others, he says, are skilled at climbing their way up the corporate ladder, even if they have to hurt someone to get there.”

Part I

Today at a Security Council stakeout, the German Ambassador, Chair of the 1718 Sanctions Committee against DPRK held a stakeout reiterating the grotesque and Orwellian double standards being inflicted by the UN Security Council against the DPRK.  This time the strangling sanctions are being tightened to further restrict oil supply to the DPRK as brutal winter approaches, a psychopathic action, stealthily genocidal in outcome.  The Ambassador questioned whether Russia and China are conforming to these murderous sanctions, and one can only hope that these two countries, at least,  are refusing to conform, and evading this barbarism.

Image on the right: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré 

The Security Council’s sanctions against the DPRK are in violation of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appeal of March 26, 2020, requiring “the waiving of sanctions that undermine countries’ capacity to respond to the coronavirus disease pandemic,” and in violation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on 23 March on “the need to ease or suspend sectoral sanctions in light of their debilitating impact on the health sector and human rights.  We also reaffirm the Group of 77 and China’s statement calling to adopt urgent and effective measures to eliminate the use of unilateral coercive economic measures against developing countries, as well as the Non-Aligned Movement’s declaration on condemning unilateral coercive measures and urging their elimination to ensure the effectiveness of national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The powerful struggle of the majority of world citizens against the psychopathic double standards used by the major capitalist powers in attempt to justify their global hegemonic agenda was recently dramatically presented at the UN Third Committee, which focuses upon Human Rights.  In a powerful speech, Pakistan presented a statement on Behalf of 54 Countries, Opposing Interfering in China’s Internal Affairs under the Pretext of Hong Kong.  The statement emphasized that “non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states is an important principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and a basic norm of international relations.  The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of China, and Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs that brook no interference by foreign forces.”

Consistent with the overwhelming opposition to capitalist domination and attempts to destabilize China with methods similar to those used to destabilize the Soviet Union, Cuba also made a  joint statement on Behalf of 45 Countries “in Firm Support of China’s Counter-Terrorism and Deradicalization Measures in Xinjiang.  The joint statement “firmly opposes politicization of human rights issues and double standards…commends that the Chinese government pursues the people-centered philosophy in advancing economic and social sustainable development, eradicating poverty, increasing employment, improving people’s living standard and promoting and protecting human rights.  We note with appreciation that China has undertaken a series of measures in response to threats of terrorism and extremism in accordance with the law to safeguard the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.  There was no single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the last three years.  People of all ethnic groups enjoy their lives in a peaceful and stable environment.  China maintains openness and transparency by, among other things, inviting more than 1,000 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists and religious personages to visit Xinjiang, who witnessed Xinjiang’s remarkable achievements.  We take note that the Chinese government has extended an invitation to the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang and the two sides are keeping contacts on the matter…it is imperative to respect the basic facts rather than making unfounded allegations against China and interference out of political motivation and bias.”

In this connection, Ambassador Bashir Ja’afari of Syria described the nefarious attempt to perpetuate the late Zbigniew Brzezinski’s use of Islamic extremism and methods of jihad to destabilize, first, the Soviet Union, and now used in efforts to similarly destabilize The People’s Republic of China.

Syria’s Ambassador described Saudi Arabia’s yearly hosting of 5,000 Chinese Moslems from the Xingjiang region at the pilgrimage in Mecca;  Saudi Arabia extends the invitation of the Chinese Moslems one month longer than all other “pilgrims,” and indoctrinates them in the most extreme forms of Islamic radicalism, trains them in violent methods of jihad, and then returns these now trained terrorists to China, fully intending them to actively destabilize China through terrorist and separatist activity, with the expectation that these violent manoeuvers will metastasize, and lead to the disintegration of China, provoking repressive actions by the Chinese government in efforts to defend their country, repressive measures which can then be used as examples of “undemocratic” measures by China’s Communist Party.

Part 2 

There is an astounding similarity between the UN Security Council sanctions against the DPRK and the Nazi encirclement and starvation of the people of Leningrad during World War II.  Indeed, it is only a nazi mentality that would inflict such vile methods of starving and freezing the citizens of the DPRK,  and then blaming the DPRK government for this genocide.  The DPRK is innocent of everything except their heroic choice of a Socialist economic system.  Capitalist power tolerates “freedom” only for those who support capitalism.  It is only extremist hypocrisy and arrogance, and, as earlier said, psychopathological hostility to human rights that makes possible the UN Security Council’s imposition of criminal sanctions against the DPRK.

North Korea was essentially obliterated in the 1950s by criminal capitalist powers, with the US leading the attack which had been planned for several prior years by General Douglas McArthur, John Foster Douglass and President Truman, eliciting UN collusion in this crime against humanity.  The US has refused to sign a peace treaty with North Korea, maintaining lethal armed forces at its border, and this hostile policy toward the DPRK is one of the reasons the people of North Korea are justified in  protecting themselves from another holocaust by the only effective means possible.

Indeed, President Clinton was on the verge of bombing the DPRK two decades ago, and was stopped only by the unconventional, unbureaucratic, unauthorized and heroic disobedience of former President Jimmy Carter, who, recognizing the imminence of war against the DPRK, personally traveled to Pyongyang, with his wife Roslyn, and a CNN crew, met with DPRK leader Kim Il Sung, arranged a peace settlement with Kim Il Sung which CNN immediately broadcast to the world, thereby bringing peace to the world, and depriving President Clinton of his bombing escapade, annihilating even more human beings in the DPRK.  Carter’s instantaneous action to avert the horrors of war should have earned him as well as Kim Il Sung the Nobel Peace Prize.

Conclusion

Image below: Ambassador Zhang Jun (Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China)

It is crucial to end here with the words of Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun at the Third Committee:

“The US, Germany and the UK, ignoring the call from all sides, insist on provoking antagonism.  They abuse the UN platform, politicize human rights issues, and provoke political confrontation.  They spread false information and political virus….I would like to say to the US that your despicable acts are completely at odds with the trend of history. ..You are standing on the wrong side of history and the opposing side of the international community.”

“It is the US that should stop war crime and give peace back to the world.  In its 244 years of existence, the US has not been at war for only 16 years.  It is the most belligerent country in the world.  It has dropped bombs and fired bullets at civilians of other countries, resulting in massive casualties, refugees and displacements.  Your hands are stained with the blood of innocent civilians.”

“It is the US that should earnestly implement international human rights obligations.  The US is practicing unilateralism and evading its own responsibilities.  It has withdrawn from the Human Rights Council, refused to ratify human rights treaties, sanctioned ICC prosecutor and imposed unilateral sanctions on other countries.  This has seriously disrupted international cooperation on human rights.  It is time for the US to heed the world’s call for justice.”

“I must also point out that Germany, the UK and a few other countries, in disregard of the facts, have violated justice and undermined cooperation.  Facing the poor human rights record of your own and of the US, you choose to engage in selective blindness and double standards, willingly follow the US and become its accomplices.  How hypocritical!  Let me say this to you:  put away your arrogance and prejudice, and pull back from the brink, now.”

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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York. 

Featured image: Trump and Kim meet Sunday before Trump became first US president to step on North Korean territory. (White House photo)