Consequences, LeWaterGate and Shades of Grey

Wow, that was a pretty telling flopcast last night. Duane's appearance recalled the old days when Bob Hope would do a walk-on during Johnny Carson's show... ok, maybe not. But there are some pretty interesting things to think about as Casey continues to troll with his latest strategy of a week-by-week cliffhanger.

First, as I posted earlier, it was stunning to hear the monotone way young Casey would adopt when talking about his loving wife. "She's a good person, smart....beep." Compared to Mr. LeGate and other callers it was very striking the complete lack of passion the boy had towards his wife. Duane has posted his tale and during the call you could really believe the value this guy puts on his home and family life.

Second, there was an interesting exchange with one of the callers about Casey's sponsors, one being a payday loan outfit. During this brief exchange, Casey showed at least glimpses of emotion probably because it is his dear sponsor. Legally I suppose payday loans can exist (although it seems like their getting more scrutiny lately, but I really don't know that much about that), but I don't think most people view this type of service as particularly beneficially to society, it's a totally predatory industry. Personally, I think it's pretty pretty unethical and bad karma to operate something like this.

During that exchange the caller seemed to try to question how a sponsor like that fits into Casey's "dream" of helping people with foreclosure. Playing devil's advocate, you could imagine some responses like "sometimes people are backed into a corner and have nowhere else to turn to, family and friends can't help them out and if they're able to pay before the terms inflate it could bail some people out... blah blah blah"... Casey's response was something like "if someone wants a loan you don't think they should get a loan?" The child completely missed any moral implications to that, so much for being a good Christian.

This brings me back to something Duane said repeatedly especially during the exhange where Duane and Casey were talking about another chance Duane offered Casey. "Casey, I deal in black & white you deal in many shades of grey" or something like that. I totally disagree with Duane on this point, there is no black or white or many shades of grey for Casey. His life, morals and ethics (are they different?) is one big blah shade of grey. There are is no right or wrong in his life, things are just there.

I'm sure many people have made this point before so i'm not trying to pull a Nigel here, but what went off in my head listening to this is that Casey is really a Sociopath or even a Psychopath. From wikipedia once again:

Sociopaths:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental and behavioral disorders, defines antisocial personality disorder as a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain steady work or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

The manual lists the following additional necessary criteria:

• The individual is at least 18 years of age.
• There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.
• The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode.

or:

Diagnostic criteria (ICD-10)

Chapter V of the tenth revision of the International Classification of Diseases offers a set of criteria for diagnosing the related construct of dissocial personality disorder.

Dissocial Personality Disorder (F60.2), usually coming to attention because of a gross disparity between behavior and the prevailing social norms, and characterized by:

• callous unconcern for the feelings of others;
• gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations;
• incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them;
• very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence;
• incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment;
• marked proneness to blame others, or to offer plausible rationalizations, for the behavior that has brought the patient into conflict with society.

There may also be persistent irritability as an associated feature. Conduct disorder during childhood and adolescence, though not invariably present, may further support the diagnosis.

Psychopaths:

Cleckley defined psychopathy thus:^[23]

1. Superficial charm and above average intelligence. 2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking. 3. Absence of nervousness or neurotic manifestations. 4. Unreliability. 5. Untruthfulness and insincerity. 6. Lack of remorse or shame. 7. Antisocial behavior without apparent compunction. 8. Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience.

9. Pathological egocentricity and incapacity to love. 10. General poverty in major affective reactions. 11. Specific loss of insight. 12. Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations. 13. Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink, and sometimes without. 14. Suicide threats rarely carried out. 15. Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated. 16. Failure to follow any life plan.

It has been shown that punishment and behavior modification techniques do not improve the behavior of a psychopath. They have been regularly observed to respond to both by becoming more cunning and hiding their behavior better.

Now our boy hasn't threatened suicide as far as we know... oops, I suppose we've been threatened by the death of the Internet's Most Hated Blogger unless we do some leg work and figure out how to get Casey $1000 a week.

Duane was spot on with his rationale to "out' Casey. I think he's really trying a bit of "tough love" with the young fliptard. The problem is, if Casey is as disturbed as he might actually be, he won't feel anything.