33 Comments

And this happened in an American state? What were the cohorts that had been fighting for people's rights doing? What happened to American Constitution and human rights? Shameful.

Anyway, sociopathy involves both anti-social tendencies and a lack of empathy, so it's very fitting in this case.

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Sep 29Liked by Athena Walker

Is the documentary on YouTube or online?

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Yes. I provided the links to both YouTube and Amazon at the bottom of the post.

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Sep 13Liked by Athena Walker

I just watched the guardians. The world is filled with conspiracies just like this and yet people focus on vaccines and the shape of the Earth. I guess local conspiracies just aren't grand enough.

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The things that are evil in this world are often so benign in their existence in the world, no one notices. If they are actually looked at, then there is a great deal there. However, most people do not look around their immediate to see what is happening. Perhaps because this is too close to home. If you believe the world is flat, you can scream about it to the high heavens, but no expectation can be had of you, other than pointing it out, and having been the one to do so, you bear no responsibilities. However, if your neighbor is taken from their home by a guardian, and you did nothing, because you know nothing about something that you could get involved in, and perhaps fix, that tends to be too real.

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Sep 13Liked by Athena Walker

The thing is, people act on their false beliefs all the time. For things like flat Earth it doesn’t require too much from the believers. For things like anti-vaxxers, people literally give their children expensive snake oil treatments out of the belief they have been vaccine injured.

If people choose their beliefs based on the perceived responsibility they would have to take on, then we wouldn’t have things like 2021 raid on the White House. Over a thousand people were arrested. To them, the rigging of the election was real, and they were willing to take on the risk.

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Sep 13Liked by Athena Walker

"Eldernapped"

I am surprized the number is 8000 in Clark County alone. Many who presumably are now dead?

Clearly a cottage industry within the court system.

Thank you for the info. The thing that struck me the most is how suddenly these "Aprils" appear. And how manipulative.

The lady was right:- Her husband should have risked jail/cops involved.

April worked on his fears knowing most people will not choose that. He was so fearfull, he didn't even say it out loud. He was so afraid he didn't even talk it through or explain his rationale to his own wife. Reality turned out worse than his fears.

The video isn't available outside the USA atm. Perhaps together we can alert if "guardianship" occurs in other states or countries?

Thanks again Athena. You certainly demonstrate the reality of human behavior.

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I agree about the husband, but I understand that he is elderly. There is a certain point in time that our youthful strength is often wrested from our grasp, and there is a need to depend on those in the community to defend us. This is the normative state of humanity, and the notion of tribalism. It is hardwired to care for the elderly, and for the young. The young are the future, and the old paved the way. Much of the world has shifted away from this idea, however. It's unfortunate, as it is the way that makes the most logical sense.

I wonder, as you do, if this happens outside of this country, and I assume that it does where it can. The opportunistic are always looking for an opportunity, and unfortunately, the opportunistic are a large part of the human population.

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Sep 13Liked by Athena Walker

Thanks for your thoughtful reply: Perhaps I am too harsh on the husband.

Not many decide " (a) getting arrested" is the right choice.

BTW: Perhaps a day comes when "he is an opportunistic prick" replaces the less accurate or useful "he is a sociopath".

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I agree about the term replacement.

However, I'd rather be arrested than be enslaved. If only he had known those were his choices.

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Sep 13Liked by Athena Walker

I ended up watching the documentary on the CBC website. It's free to make an account to watch it but if you use it for free then expect to see ads.

https://www.cbc.ca/documentarychannel/docs/the-guardians

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Sep 13·edited Sep 13Liked by Athena Walker

TY Ellie!! The other links didn't work outside usa for me.

BTW, since you watched, what did you think about the content?

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Excellent, thank you for the link. Hopefully the YouTube link for it works as well, but any and all links that will allow others to view it are appreciated.

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Sep 12Liked by Athena Walker

I was aware that many Western cultures had a less than ideal approach to caring for the elderly but christ, this takes the cake. It even took me a while to wrap my head around the concept of nursing homes as a common practice. Still, these issues exist everywhere, merely in different ways and affecting different groups of people. People can and do justify the darkest and cruelest of acts to themselves.

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Indeed

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Sep 12Liked by Athena Walker

Every time I read one of your articles, I make connections with other things that I know about and I notice patterns.

For this post it’s discrimination done “for their own good”. History is riddled with people justifying heinous acts of abuse as something good for the victim’s benefit. This is especially pronounced in people who are physically or mentally disabled, or those who are extremely old or extremely young.

I see similarities with the Judge Rotenberg Centre. This school primarily serves students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It is infamous for its use electroshocks as aversives for behavioural therapy. Though lesser known punishments like seclusion and withholding food have also been used.

I’m reminded of this school because often the students will be stripped of their rights and placed under state guardianship before being admitted to this school. Parents who send their kids there often don’t know about the abuse, or they have their parental rights terminated before their child is placed under guardianship.

This school is still running despite multiple attempts to shut it down. What it’s doing is still technically legal, despite the fact that people have literally died there.

Judge Rotenberg Centre home page:

https://judgerc.org/

Extensive archive of the centre’s abuses:

https://autistichoya.net/judge-rotenberg-center/

Article about the centre by Neuroclassic:

https://neuroclastic.com/900-aba-professionals-have-weighed-in-on-the-use-of-electroshock-at-judge-rotenberg-cennter/?fbclid=IwAR2fQHvHU2bycmwDWIwDAA7aK1bqPx-G5EMfHpKBl4ZcnT4LwUCvbjOgERc

I’ll have to check out the Guardians and make sure it’s not something that happens in my own location. I don’t think it is but it’s good to make sure.

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you know that is really true for me too: "I make connections with other things that I know about and I notice patterns."

Great post Ellie

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Thank you for the links. I will look into this school. It sounds atrocious

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Sep 11Liked by Athena Walker

This is normative human behavior, and it would do you and everyone you know well to know that this is one of many evil things that neurotypicals will do to one another because of greed, jealousy, and entitlement. - Hit like a truck this quote

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Sep 12Liked by Athena Walker

People like to label those things as "psycopathic", "sociopath", "monstruos"... when it reality it only make those things seems less as a threat for our human nature ("me? I am not a sociopath, therefore it would be impossible I would do something like The Guardians. I can rest assured nothing I'll ever do to others could be similar to their behaviour"

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That seems to be exactly the mental gymnastics involved

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Sep 14·edited Sep 14Liked by Athena Walker

It is also verbal disownment of the perpetrator, once the public was alerted and swayed against the perpetrator. Word "sociopath" (could as well be "witch", "traitor", or already mentioned "monster") is used to ostracize and say "we have nothing to do with this person and their actions, we do not stand for this, do not associate it with us, do not look at us, we had no part in the wrongdoing, we are correcting the wrongdoing by disowning the perpetrator, no additional fee on our part required".

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Indeed

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Awful. In the Canadian province of Québec , we kind of had a similar scandal with kids in the 50's that were called Duplessis's orphans. Duplessis was the prime minister of Québec at that time. Basically put, those orphans were put in mental wards, beaten, molested, tortured, etc.

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Sep 17·edited Sep 17Liked by Athena Walker

Indeed. Something similar happened especially often to the children of indigenous peoples. They would be forcefully taken away from their parents, put into "boarding schools", which were really an institution meant to kill their culture and turn them obedient.

In it the children would regularly be beaten, starved, neglected, or physically, verbally, or sexually abused. They would be taught English by teachers as opposed to learning their own language by parents and tribe elders, converted and made to follow Christianity as opposed to having the freedom of religion otherwise granted to regular Canadian citizens, taught to act "civil" by white standards with their whole culture being invalidated.

This was called "civilizing" them.

Most of those children never made it back home.

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Sep 17Liked by Athena Walker

I remember how shocked the world was when those graves were discovered in Kamloops. Canada had a positive reputation with the rest of the world. The thing is however, we’re taught about the residential schools in public schools. Canadians were not shocked because we know our history and how our indigenous peoples have been treated.

The finding of the graves did however prompt the government to declare National Day for Truth and Reconciliation a stat holiday. It takes place on September 30th. The purpose of the holiday is to provide education about the residential schools as well as a celebration of indigenous culture.

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Sep 18·edited Sep 19Liked by Athena Walker

Colonialism is such a vile practice. Something about the inherent othering and dehumanization that makes others entitled to someone else's blessings, and justifies/excuses any behavior to another group.

We can see that over and over again: whether it's the English with the Africans, Indians, Chinese, Native Americans - Indians (or any other of their colonies), Portuguese and Spanish with the indigenous south Americans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos etc., Belgians with the Congolese, Italians with the Libyans, Somalis, and Ethiopians, Dutch with the South African Blacks and Indonesians, French with the Southeast Asians, Haitians, Tahitians, and Africans, Germans with the Slavs and the Jews.

Americans with American Indians, South Americans, East and Southeast Asians, Muslims etc.

Israel with the Palestinians. Most of Europe with the Roma (albeit this is a very controversial and often antisocial ethnocultural group).

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War is human nature. We live in a particularly peaceful time in history. It is hardwired in humans to be territorial, but also, to conquer.

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We aren't. Rusia has started a military expansion towards Romania and the rest of the UE. We are on the verge of WW 3. What was history, is now more and more our present.

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Sep 19·edited Sep 19Liked by Athena Walker

Indeed. Peace and security is a luxury of the powerful. Give humans a chance of self-aggrandizement, a chance to get ahead of competition at very little cost to themselves, even if it's at the cost of others, and most of them will take it. The same is all the more true when scaled up to countries.

Ask people whether they'd be opposed to taking away territory of other (usually neighboring) countries, to the benefit of their own, and they will mostly not be opposed, the will of inhabitants there notwithstanding.

Evolutionally speaking, it makes sense.

In theory and practice, opportunism trumps pacifism, so I'm very skeptical whenever I see people calling for peace. In my experience, they're either weaker victims who can't defend themselves, so they appeal to morality, or they're that much stronger and have the privilege of not having to defend themselves or their own interests (that part being done by others in their society).

Sure enough, protracted war is expensive, and no country can perpetually remain at war. But if given the chance to benefit oneself at very little cost...

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Sep 17·edited Sep 17Author

That's just it. No bodies were found. They spent eight million dollars, and found nothing. They made a big deal about it. Screamed from the high heavens about this mass grave, when in fact, when they reported the "mass grave", literally nothing had been found. They got a bunch of money, and dug in to find... nothing.

Search "Kamloops mass grave" and you will find that they lied about the mass grave.

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Most children sent to those schools returned home. They were so different from the experience, however, it could be said that they never came back.

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That's terrible.

What people feel they are justified in doing vexes me.

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