(Zero Hedge)—Discussions on collapse often turn to signs and signals – The economy, politics and social tensions have become increasingly unstable for many years now, and much like adding more and more weight to a man standing on a frozen lake, eventually the ice is going to break. The question is, how do we know when that moment will be?
As cultural systems begins to dissolve due to political clashes and economic decline the real evil tends to slither out of the woodwork. It happens slowly at first, then all at once. A sure sign of accelerating collapse is the growing prevalence of psychopaths and psychopathic behavior in the open.
The US appears to have entered the middle stages of such a collapse with many sociopaths and psychopaths beginning to feel that they might be able to act out their worst impulses without consequences. They are beginning to test the waters to see what they can get away with.
In the past ten years there has been a dramatic uptick in mass violence and theft. With the advent of social media it is now easier than ever for spontaneously planned riots to form with little warning, and in most cases these mobs are random in who and what they attack. They might organize in the name of politics or activism, but they tend to lash out at whatever targets are closest or easiest rather than the people they blame for their travails.
In most cases these events result in simple property destruction in urban areas, but more and more there has been an underlying and aggressive impulse to hurt people. There will come a time very soon when the the goal is not just to steal or vandalize, but to use instability as a smokescreen; a distraction the provides opportunities to harm others.
Psychopaths like to exploit the chaos of political turmoil to indulge their violent tendencies, or to convince others to do the same. If no one acts to eliminate the first wave of criminal actions during a social breakdown, then thousands of other criminals will also move to take advantage. The first wave becomes an avalanche, all because the system no longer provides sufficient incentives to behave.
The root psychology is hard to explain, but look at it this way – Imagine a spoiled toddler is kept in check by his parents in the pristine halls of a delicate museum. The toddler might throw fits, screaming and shouting because he wants to touch the many fragile items around him, but at least his parents are there to hold him back. He has not yet learned the responsibility and maturity necessary to have access to these treasures. Now imagine removing the parents entirely and telling the toddler there are no rules anymore?
The rush of joy he experiences is exhilarating; it is the feeling of sudden and unearned power. No one is around to stop him, therefore, he is going to test his own limits. He sees the ordered environment around him and he becomes frustrated. How dare this place restrict him with boundaries and structure. His first inclination is to destroy anything that he can get his hands on.
Now understand that there is a portion of any given adult population that has these same tendencies. They never grew up. They want to take or destroy what they cannot have; they are only waiting for the opportunity to do so without repercussions.
At this phase of a breakdown when the dominoes begin to topple, law enforcement generally folds and retreats, leaving the public with no first line of defense. Gangs and looters organize quickly and take territory rather than just taking people’s possessions. Organized crime at the local level leads to large scale death and minimal opposition. People are so isolated and busy trying to scrape together a meager economic lifeline that they have no time or motivation to fight back.
The point of no return comes when regular people are afraid to leave their homes. Organization at the neighborhood level with an aggressive posture must be enacted or the most vicious attacks will be visited on the population.
Sometimes, though, the psychopaths we have to deal with during a collapse are within the very government that is supposed to protect our liberties. This is a situation in which the criminals are given license to use violence against the citizenry through the illusion of law. The populace is then confronted with the inevitable question – Are laws worth following when psychopaths write them?
When corrupt people run government, good becomes evil and evil becomes good. Consider the extreme double standards in place between the treatment of leftist activist mobs and conservative protesters. Look at the government and media response to the BLM riots versus their response to the Jan 6 event. In the case of the capitol “riots”, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into the otherwise peaceful crowd, then when the protesters reacted violently, they were accused of “insurrection.”
Is there any example of this kind of setup used against the political left? No. Instead, the media and public officials describe the destructive mobs as “fiery but mostly peaceful.”
The double standard is absurd, but then again, it’s meant to be. Why? Because the psychopaths among the political left were being rewarded and encouraged. Conservatives and moderates are supposed to feel defeated, making them unwilling to fight back any longer. These are the kinds of conditions that fuel unhinged and predatory people, unleashing them on the population.
When psychopaths feel protected, total upheaval quickly follows.
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