What percentage of the population is amoral?

[wuushew]

Think about the following....the BFEE,Neocons and misc nutballs all are able to carry out their agenda because they have people in their employ who are able to carry outright illegal or immoral actions.

People in the CIA are able to assassinate without guilt, intelligence people are able to lie about threats and politicans are able to pass extremely onerous legistlation.

Now King Shrub may be too stupid to know the difference between right and wrong but thugs like Rummy,Cheney and Powell know that their actions are despised and questioned by many thousands/millions of people in the greater community. In many cases they themselves are violating the cultural norms to which they themselves belong. Bush sure didn't heed the call of his church to avoid war.


Could your neighbors or co-workers be the type of person who has no qualms what so ever about carrying the will of fascism. I would guess that the percentage is less than 1% but that such people are quickly located and recruited by various governmental and corporate interests.

[eridani]

1. Feeling good--then and now

The ethical basis of current American foreign policy is the following

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12761184&method=full&siteid=50143

Later, just seconds before he went on TV to tell the world war had started, he vigorously pumped his fist and declared: "I feel good." The extraordinary gesture was in stark contrast to the furrowed brow and look of concern he adopted for the subsequent broadcast.

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/03/21_groom.html

As reported in the Washington Post, the White House is quite peeved that video of Bush getting groomed and acting jolly was broadcast prior to his "we're bombing Iraq" announcement:

The White House is vowing a strong retaliatory response after the BBC aired live video of President Bush getting his hair coiffed in the Oval Office as he squirmed in his chair and practiced on the teleprompter minutes before Wednesday night's speech announcing the launch of military operations against Saddam Hussein.

"Among the Kwakiutl it did not matter whether a relative had died in bed of disease, or by the hand of an enemy; in either case death was an affront to be wiped out by the death of another person. A chief's sister and her daughter had gone up to Victoria and because their boat had capsized they never came back. Immediately the tribe set up the war pole to announce their intention of wiping out the injury, and gathered a war party. They set out and found seven men and two children asleep and killed them. Then they felt good when they arrived at Sebaa in the evening."

From "Anthropology and the Abnormal" by Ruth Benedict

too bad she's wrong about this attitude being abnormal. Seems tome to be pretty widespread.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi eridani!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. I saw in another thread

that at the time Nixon resigned, he still had over a 20% approval rating. That means one in five still approved of Nixon after he had been exposed as totally corrupt.

[leftofthedial]

3. 92%

the same as Shitforbrains' approval rating on 9/12

[wuushew]

4. that would probably be the percentage of immoral not amoral

the amoral ones are the ones that know they are evil and enjoy it.

[Resistance Is Futile]

5. Time for the dictionary definitions

amoral
1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral.
2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong.
3. Without moral standards or principles


immoral
1. Violating principles of right and wrong.
2. Not adhering to ethical or moral principles.
3. Morally unprincipled.
4. Deviating from what is considered right or proper or good.



People who know they are evil and enjoy it are known either as sadists or Republicans.

Source: adapted from dictionary.com

[wuushew]

6. You are correct

I wasn't sure however, latin and greek prefixes can have completely different effects on english words.

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aaetymologyprefixes.htm

[leftofthedial]

8. LOL!

People who know they are evil and enjoy it are known either as sadists or Republicans.

[teryang]

7. The religious pretenses of the junta

...are aimed at mining the propaganda potential of the superficial Manichean mindset of most Americans. Of course this propensity is not uncommon elsewhere and has been observed and criticized in analyses of totalitarianism.

While it is plain to see that the junta leaders and their flunkies, (including most in Congress)are amoral Machiavellians they are obscured behind projections and jingos about "axis of evil," "clash of civilizations" and "war on terror." The phrase from an old Aretha Franklin song comes to mind, "who's zooming who?" By labeling the armed resistance to American and Israeli conquest as "evil" one is denied the opportunity to explore their own actions, motives and wisdom. Applying stigma and epithets to those at home and abroad who question the Wizard of Oz enforces the old shoe goodness and familiarity of what is in reality larcenous bigoted aggression. The reality of our nature is replaced with a reassuring oversimplified template or projection which allows the consciousness to limit its application to more routine and personally rewarding endeavors.

If one acknowledged that its political leadership was comprised primarily of frauds, charlatans, theives and yes, mass murderers, life becomes a little more difficult to deal with and seems to impose an uncomfortable and risky obligation to do something about it. The bottom line is that the typical American is too blinded by cultural conditioning, bigotry and psychological need to perceive that he is by nature amoral and would strive against that nature, could he only perceive what that reality is. This is one observation of human nature that the neo cons and public relations professionals exploit every day with propaganda of a politico-religious nature.

The axis of evil triggers the "self defense" template of the subconscious which justifies homicide among other acts. The "clash of civilizations" imposes the medieval template that those of the judeo christrian tradition are justified in killing Moslems and taking their property with little more rationalization. Likewise, the "war on terror" ironically and irrationally, like other templates substituting for thought, justifies imprudent, inequitable and unjust actions of any kind while projecting immorality and guilt to the other.

[leftofthedial]

9. yeah, yeah

How about those Broncos, anyway?

[teryang]

10. An apt response

LOL!

:-)

[meow2u3]

12. If you want to gauge the percentage of amoral people

....just look at the percentage of die-hard conservative Republicans, and you'll get an accurate estimate of the population of sociopaths! :evilgrin: