The Violence of Self-Defense: Part II Analyzing Theory and Legal Studies
“Whenever and to whatever extent there is room for the use of arms or physical force or brute force, there and to the extent is there so much less possibility for soul force.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
To help understand the force of violence being imposed upon U.S. citizens through the use of gang stalking and electronic targeted assault, I would like to include some philosophical thoughts from Judith Butler. Butler tells us moral philosophers and theologians (two of my favorite topics of discourse) have asked:
“What grounds the claims that killing is wrong, and that the interdiction against killing justified? The usual way of handling this question is to ask whether that interdiction, commandment, or prohibition is absolute; whether it has a theological or other conventional status; whether it is a matter of law or one of morality. It is also accompanied by further questions, namely, whether there are bona fide exceptions to such an interdiction, when injuring or even killing is justified (Butler, 2020).”
Self-defense is one of the topics of debate that is usually arrived upon after asking the previously posed question. However, the term “self-defense” is a highly ambiguous term. After all, “self-defense” is usually part of militaristic modes of foreign policy that justify every attack as being part of “self-defense.” Even contemporary U.S. law makes concessions for preemptive killing. Every individual is part of a “broader sense of self.” The people who make up this “broader sense of self” are your loved ones; spouse, child, even animals, and other people considered close to you. You have those that are close to you and who belong to this “broader sense of self,” and you also have those further away from you, at a distance from yourself and your loved ones. In the name of protection, a person may commit violence, even murder in the protection of these loved ones. But the law also sets up the distinction for those at a distance from you whom you may not violate or commit murder against. Judith Butler poses the following questions:
“So, what and who is part of the self that you are, and what relations are included under the rubric of the “self” to be defended? Are we more ethically obligated to preserve the lives of those who are close to us than to stand for the lives of those who are considered far away, whether in a geographical, economic, or cultural sense (Butler, 2020)?”
A topic of debate that is usually arrived upon after asking these questions involves “difference.” Racial and ethnic differences, cultural differences (presented as lifestyle choices), religious differences, homosexuality, and transgender sexuality as difference. I imagine a new group will now emerge as the cannabis-loving group who will soon be stigmatized for their participation in legalized recreational marijuana use if it was not a previously known lifestyle choice. For it is perceived that “potheads” are not part of this egalitarian culture.
If I defend myself and those who are considered part of myself (or proximate enough so that I know and love them), then this “self” that I am, is relational. Yes? Of course, it is, but such relations, considered as belonging to the region of the self, are limited to those who are proximate and similar. One may be justified in using violence to defend those who belong to the region or regime of the self (Butler, 2020). However, the ideology arrived at here may be similar to a U.S. “militaristic mode of foreign policy that justifies violence” in “self-defense” but are also part of the violence belonging to gangs, the drug trade, and mafias which manifested itself as violence descended on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. That is to say, it belongs to part of an imaginary where delusions are bred. A group of men who hate women seek to protect their right to progeny which may be part of their actual biological lineage or part of metaphorical intelligence (e.g., the masculine intelligence that excludes women and other groups as intellectuals). The most frightening wars are the imaginary wars waged in the mind where no real threats to harm ever even existed (Dijkstra, 1986; Mitchell, 2000). It seems to me that gang stalking with electronic targeted assaults and organized crime syndicates like the Mob are part of a human phenomenon rooted in delusional beliefs. Delusional beliefs about one’s self and ‘Other’ which gave rise to phenomenon like the Salem Witch Trials. These groups expand claims of “self-defense,” violence they believe to be worthy protection from future violence: that is a violence done to others so that it is not done to one’s own (Butler, 2020). And what emerges out of this logic sometimes manifests as delusions held by extremist groups, groups whose perceived rights to entitlements and privileges, otherwise not given freely, are a violation to “the self.” This prohibition is now imposed on the other group perceived to be “privileged,” and these privileges will be preemptively taken away (ABC News, Examining Extremism in the Military, April 28, 2021). “Harming,” in this context, is to be perceived as the social behaviors that inflict adverse outcomes or adverse environmental conditions upon a social order that either considers itself to be predominantly egalitarian or is perceived as being egalitarian. The same perceived “harm” is presented in the form of social or cultural differences that target gay and ethnic communities.
But wait.
If smoking marijuana is a lifestyle or cultural choice, and if smoking marijuana is self-harming, why has it been legalized? If drinking alcohol is believed to be self-harming, why is alcohol consumption even allowed? And are these “self-harming” behaviors a component or by-product of the new phenomenon of electronic targeted assaults? Have new state legalizations surrounding cannabis use opened up an even broader avenue for which the state’s technological apparatus of control may be more broadly deployed through clandestinely electronic assaults? Maybe not, but how is one to find out if one does not fully even understand the phenomenon of gang stalking and electronic targeted assaults? Since clandestinely held secret operations are not only part of government operations, they are part of the mafia and mob hits and gangland-style murders. The use of this technology against U.S. citizens comes under alarming suspicion as it violates the very constitution on which this country was founded. It violates 4th amendment rights.
Another important distinction to recognize is the importance of language and dialogue in conflict resolution. When language and dialogue collapse, whether it be from an inconceivable violation (denial of “privileges”) in the distinction between what is “mine” and what is “yours,” or at some other failed to arrive at consensus, what inevitably will emerge are acts of violence against Other. “The prohibition now opens up into a situation of War, in which it is always right to defend oneself or one’s own violently and in the name of self-defense, but certainly not to defend a whole host of others who do not belong to “one’s broader sense of self (Butler, 2020). “ In the deployment of electronic targeted assaults against U.S. citizens, people’s bodies are being usurped, stolen, and taken away from them which in concept is very similar to deceptive sexual practices and sexual assault which is a category of crime that sometimes presents a concept in crisis in legal studies, and is similar to the concept in crisis surrounding the phenomenon of gang stalking with electronic targeted assaults (Conaghan, 2019; Gibson, 2020). That is, a failure to arrive at conclusion as to whether or not some form of behavior is “assaulting.” That is, a violence or a violation done to the victim so that it is not done to one’s own, as an exception to the prohibition to violence that now becomes a potential state of war, or at least such a state that is coextensive with its logic (Butler, 2020). Since the “stealing of one’s body” has been classified as deceptive sexual relations or sexual assault, and the dehumanization of people within organizational structures becomes part of how corporate business is conducted (Christoff, 2014; Halsam, 2006), and even how gangs and mafia organizations have operated, one must ask the question, “How these electronic targeted assaults fit into the corporate-political agenda? Or even if they fit at all?” Or question, “Is it part of something much more problematic; invisible crime and invisible empires?” That is to say, “Is it a part of RICO?”
How is it still being carried out without federal and state intervention classifying the behavior of electronic targeted assaults as a violation to the constitutional rights of individuals? The war in the Middle East will be ending soon in the Fall of 2021. Will these electronic targeted assaults end too if they are part of the government's “service surveillance security” operation of Homeland Security (law enforcement operations)?
It is important to convey the knowledge that electronic targeted assaults steal away from the individual their locus of control. When someone’s locus of control is removed, it inflicts a state of unhappiness and dysphoria because it takes away the individual’s sense of individual empowerment (Farnier, Shankland, Kotsou, Inigo, Rosset,& Leys 2021). Its long-term effect inflicts psychological damage and forces lifestyle changes that end up being detrimental to the victim (Sheridan, James, & Roth, 2020). Since cultural differences are a part of social differences, lifestyle choices become altered through this technology’s deployment. It is not hard to see how gang stalking with electronic targeted assaults tie into the drug culture and gang violence, even the phenomenon of dehumanization in organizational and corporate-political settings.
When I was in psyche, following a hit and run, drunk driving incident, where I was involuntarily detained for a week, a claim was made by other patients on the hospital ward. The claim was there were “body snatchers” coming in the middle of the night while the patients slept. These patients were removed from their beds by orderlies who put their bodies on gurneys and took them “away.” I was one of these patients. The patients were roofied but returned to their beds by morning. People wondered where were these patients going in the middle of the night, of which, no answer was ever given. Not even to me and I was one of the bodies that were stolen away in the night! Didn’t I have a right to know? This sounds like a scene right out of an Albert Hitchcock episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but it was really occurring. And now, several years later, I am experiencing “body snatching” electronic targeted assaults that mimic the very phenomenon that was occurring in the hospital ward during my stay there. Law enforcement was involved, of course, because I was in a car accident and struck another driver on the road. So, someone please tell me how this all fits together? Yes, I was guilty of a crime, and yes, I am mentally ill, but do I deserve to be tortured for it for the rest of my life? I am no less mentally ill than the philosophy “man sprung fully formed into his social and political environment, responsible and independent.” Or no more mentally ill than Robinson Crusoe, that solitary man who sprung fully developed into his social and political environment, stranded on an island all by himself never having known dependency. That first figure of primary “natural man,” completely self-sufficient even when he looked at himself in the mirror, blind to his mother’s upholding and support of him, totally and completely self-sufficient. Or no more mentally ill than Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, in which he ridiculed with great irony, that in the beginning “natural man” is like Robinson Crusoe. A man all alone on an island, providing for his own sustenance, living without dependency, without systems of labor, and without any common organization of political and economic life, without ever having known the dependency of a woman. Except, I was born a female, a woman fashioned in the gender role these very ideologies obliterate! The female all men need to evacuate from their psyches, a mother, a sexual partner, a wife. It’s an annihilation of Other in the service of a masculine self-defense mechanism. I am a dependent. I provide a domestic service as a non-wage earner. A service that has been directly tampered with through these targeted electronic assaults.
The problem with gang stalking with electronic targeted assaults is the element of shame and guilt. People feel shameful and embarrassed if and when they are exposed. As a result, they are afraid to tell their true story which might touch upon their mental illness or some illicit infraction. This directly contributes to the phenomenon’s obscurity because individuals hide the truth and are afraid of exposing the true nature of their experiences. Much like how the mafia controlled law enforcement with intimidation and fear, this technology’s apparatus of control is the same intimidation and fear of castration. For many years, Edgar J. Hoover was afraid to address the mob and enforce constitutional law because he was afraid of its lethal repercussions. He knew that good men, not might die, but that they were going to die in the war against justice. Here is the problem. Some forms of justice are phantoms, delusional apparitions held because of man’s fear of dependency and castration.
It’s very possible that these same mechanisms are working together on a corporate-political scale, and are the same forces responsible for the dehumanization of people within organizational settings, or at least these entities possess the same mentality that dehumanizes people in general. This mentality is adhered closely by sadists and people with the Dark Triad and the Dark Tetrad character traits (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2013; Johnson, Plouffe, & Saklofske, 2019; Krick, Tresp, Vatter, Ludwig, Wihlenda, & Rettenberger, 2016; Lyons, & Jonason, 2015).
Perhaps I’m missing another organizational structure in which these same mechanisms work and operate, the family, thereby making it a family-corporate-political conglomerate historically known as The Mob and organized crime.
If you haven’t read my previous post, please click on the following link and read Part I first.
Sources:
Bram Dijkstra. (1986). Idols of Perversity; Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York. Oxford University Press.
Buckels, E., Jones, D., & Paulhus, D. (2013). Behavioral Confirmation of Everyday Sadism. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2201–2209.
Butler, Judith. (2020) The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind. New York. Verso Publishing
Christoff, K. (2014). Dehumanization in organizational settings: some scientific and ethical considerations. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8,
Conaghan, J. (2019). The Essence of Rape. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 39(1),
Farnier, J., Shankland, R., Kotsou, I., Inigo, M., Rosset, E., & Leys, C. (2021). Empowering Well-Being: Validation of a Locus of Control Scale Specific to Well-Being. Journal of Happiness Studies, OnlineFirst, 1–30.
Gibson, M. (2020). Deceptive Sexual Relations: A Theory of Criminal Liability. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, AdvanceArticle,
Halsam, N. (2006). Dehumanization: an integrative review. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 10, 252–264. doi: 10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_4
Johnson, L., Plouffe, R., & Saklofske, D. (2019). Subclinical Sadism and the Dark Triad. Journal of Individual Differences, 40(3), 127–133.
Krick, A., Tresp, S., Vatter, M., Ludwig, A., Wihlenda, M., & Rettenberger, M. (2016). The Relationships Between the Dark Triad, the Moral Judgment Level, and the Students’ Disciplinary Choice. Journal of Individual Differences, 37(1), 24–30.
Lyons, M., & Jonason, P. (2015). Dark Triad, Tramps, and Thieves. Journal of Individual Differences, 36(4), 215–220.
Mitchell, J. (2000). Madmen and Medusas: Reclaiming hysteria. New York. Basic Books.
Sheridan, L., James, D., & Roth, J. (2020). The Phenomenology of Group Stalking (‘Gang-Stalking’): A Content Analysis of Subjective Experiences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7),
Examining extremism in the military. ABC News. April 28, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoKt8mYbJuU
