I thought this article/analysis was quite interesting!
Serial Killers and
Politicians Share Traits
Psychopathy is a personality disorder manifested in people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, intimidation, and occasionally violence to
control others, in order to satisfy their own selfish needs. Although the concept of psychopathy has been known for centuries, the FBI leads the world
in the research effort to develop a series of assessment tools, to evaluate the personality traits and behaviors attributable to psychopaths.
Interpersonal traits include glibness, superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, and
the manipulation of others. The affective traits include a lack of remorse and/or guilt, shallow affect, a lack of empathy,
and failure to accept responsibility. The lifestyle behaviors include stimulation-seeking behavior, impulsivity, irresponsibility, parasitic
orientation, and a lack of realistic life goals.
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What doesn't go unnoticed is the fact that some of the character traits exhibited by serial killers or criminals may be observed in many within
the political arena. While not exhibiting physical violence, many political leaders display varying degrees of anger, feigned outrage and
other behaviors. They also lack what most consider a "shame" mechanism. Quite simply, most serial killers and many professional politicians must
mimic what they believe, are appropriate responses to situations they face such as sadness, empathy, sympathy, and other human responses to outside
stimuli.
And here's a little tid-bit from Wikipedia , ...
Psychopathy - Wikipedia
Description
Lack of a conscience in conjunction with a weak ability to defer gratification and/or control aggressive desires, often leads to antisocial behaviors.
Psychopathy does not necessarily lead itself to criminal and violent behavior. Instead, psychopaths high in social cognition may be able to redirect
their antisocial desires in a different, non-criminal manner.
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All psychopaths differ in their impulse control abilities, and overall desires. Psychopaths high in the pathological narcissism scale are more
equipped to succeed, but pathological narcissism does not in any way guarantee success.
Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)
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Hare's items
The following findings are for research purposes only, and are not used in clinical diagnosis. These items cover the affective, interpersonal, and
behavioral features. Each item is rated on a score from zero to two. The sum total determines the extent of a person's psychopathy.[6]
Factor1: Aggressive narcissism
1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning/manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Emotionally shallow
7. Callous/lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Holy crap!
We've got a bunch of psychopaths, that we
ACTUALLY elected, in Washington D.C.!
They got us to elect them by (1)being charming, and (3)lying to us, they (4)manipulated us into thinking (2)they would be great as our representative
in DC!
Then, once they got elected, they (3)lied to us some more, told us that (2)what they were doing in DC was in
OUR best interest, even though
what they were actually doing was hurting the people who voted them in, but (5,6,7)they could care less, (8)it wasn't
THEIR fault after all! A
whole lot of other people voted for it too!
[edit on 6/16/2009 by Keyhole]
