In my previous post, commentator Foo Bar suggested that people can still tolerate Bill Ayers in the leftist community because, although he set bombs, he never chose to kill anyone.
Bad news, Foo Bar. Ayers didn’t choose not to kill. He tried to kill and screwed it up.
First, via Instapundit comes this story:
I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me.
In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.)
Second, the bomb that exploded in the Greenwich Village townhouse and killed three Weathermen was a giant nail-bomb, i.e., an anti-personnel fragmentation bomb. Ayers designed it. He intended to kill as many U.S. servicemen and their dates at a dance as possible.
Ayers is a sociopath. He lacks the ability to empathize with the pain and suffering of others. He has the classic profile. He thought only of his own pleasure, seeking stimulation in street fighting, sexual promiscuity and drugs. He became a communist terrorist because the communist concept of revolution and its emphasis on a powerful and ruthless core cadre fed his narcissism. Communists believed that a small number of individuals with the correct ideology could destabilize a large nation through terror, and then seize power during a period of chaos. He could get his thrills while fantasizing about being the next Lenin, Stalin or Mao.
The progression in violence exhibited by Ayers fits a classic pattern of thrill-killer escalation. He started out bombing statues, and when the novelty of that wore off he moved on to buildings, starting with vacant buildings and moving on to progressively more difficult targets. Eventually, he grew bored with inanimate targets and struck at John M. Murtagh’s family and then people at the army dance.
Morally, Ayers is a killer. He tried to kill. He desired to kill. He was simply too incompetent to fulfill his desire. His political pretensions merely served as cover.
Ayers is laughing at everyone. He escaped justice because the bourgeois justice system he despised threw out evidence against him. He used his father’s money and leftist sympathies to build a new life where he gets to play up the daring aspects of his glory days while lying about his viciousness. His role as a respected educational theorist lets him insinuate his beliefs into the American educational system, mocking mainstream Americans as he does so. From his narcissistic viewpoint, he’s won. He’s free, rich, respected in the leftist community and still able to flaunt his radical beliefs.
Something went badly wrong when his father and the Chicago Left let him return back into society.
Good summary.
The man is human garbage. And he is Obama’s buddy.
Shannon, you’re preaching to the choir insofar as someone like me is concerned. I would, however, suggest that sociopath though he was, Ayres belongs firmly in that larger family of “progressive” thought which believes themselves to be sole possessor of the “truth” about which is best for society. The philosopher Eric Voegelin, in tracing the history of the Gnostics and Gnostic belief in being the possessors of “the word” (or, to use Thomas Sowell’s term, “The Vision of the Anointed”) from the time of Christ unto the present day, came to the conclusion that, in his words: “The end result of ‘progressive’ politics is totalitarianism.”
As one (or several) commenting on the original thread observed, what angered Ayres and his cohorts as much as anything else was the simple fact that they were not totally in charge.
Addendum: An old saying used to be: “Scratch a Russian and you’ll find a Tartar,” My adaptation is: “Scratch a Progressive, and you’ll find a potential Robespierre.”
Of course, if Ayers by some mischance found himself living under a Lenin, Stalin or Mao, he would have been one of the first to be liquidated as being basically unreliable.
Ayers and his ilk always assume they will be in charge when they impose their utopia on we mere “plebs.” Unfortunately for them, reality in the form of a Lenin, Stalin, or Mao, sets in. Then it’s “to the wall and shoot them,” as Helen points out. They deserve the wall but, unfortunately, the rest of the “plebs” in their utopia suffer the fate of living under the totalitarian living death.
Virgil Xenophon,
I would, however, suggest that sociopath though he was, Ayres belongs firmly in that larger family of “progressive” thought which believes themselves to be sole possessor of the “truth” about which is best for society.
I think it important to understand that Ayers gravitated towards extreme leftist because he was a sociopath. The communist vision holds that the revolutionary cadre are in effect superhumans capable of carrying out acts that other humans, blinded by False consciousness, cannot accomplish. The communist vision appeals to sociopath’s exaggerated narcissism.
Most forms of political extremism have this concept of elitist buried in them and as such they appeal to sociopaths. I imagine if we could test people for sociopaths and compare to thier political beliefs we would find sociopaths clustered at the extremes.
Once again the case against Bill Ayers for President has been exhaustivelly established.
Obama’s people are apparenty afraid of this issue.
They know that their man has been part of a network of radicals for his entire political career.
Ayers is a terrorist who is proud of his violence and only regrets that he did not kill more people.
And Ayers is Obama’s friend and mentor.
If Obama was a Republican this would be front page news, period.
It disqualifies Obama for any elective office, let alone the presidency.
It disqualifies Obama for any elective office, let alone the presidency.
I don’t know if I would go that far. It does call into doubt his judgment and his ability to identify and confront evil.
Booton,
Once again the case against Bill Ayers for President has been exhaustivelly established.
Yes, but what about the case for him to be Secretary of Education?
“I don’t know if I would go that far.”
What if a GOP candidate turned out to be the friend and protege of say, Tim McVeigh, who in a different history got caught before he could blow up the Federal Building, was not prosecuted due to political clout, had become a right wing activist, and had gone on the record saying that he wishes his bomb attack had succeeded and that he “should have done more”. Imagine further that the GOP candidate has not thrown Tim under the bus, but has falsely denied being close to him in his rise up the political ladder.
The guy would be a pariah, unelectable, and rightly so.
Yes, but what about the case for him to be Secretary of Education?
I would say you’ve made an excellent case against him getting that job as well.
More seriously….is Ayers really a sociopath in your opinion or is that just rhetoric? I thought even among murders only a small portion of that population qualifies as a true sociopath?
Booton,
More seriously….is Ayers really a sociopath in your opinion or is that just rhetoric?
It’s my technical opinion based on reports of his past behavior and the criminal profiles of people who set bombs for political reasons.
I thought even among murders only a small portion of that population qualifies as a true sociopath?
A common misperception. Sociopaths comprise about 1% of the population. Best guess says that sociopathy is a genetic counter strategy to innate cooperation. The sociopath lacks the neurological mechanism of emotional mirror neurons that force ordinary humans to experience an echo of the emotions of others. Such mirroring limits the suffering we can inflict on others. Sociopaths are free from this restraint. They also do not experience fear to the same degree as other humans.
Sociopaths are not impelled to commit crimes. Most sociopaths are simply jerks or are perceived as cold and distant. It’s just that they lack the neurological safeguards of normal humans. If they decide they can and want to take an action that will hurt another person, they will not feel any of the suffering of the people they hurt. (Sociopaths used to make good surgeons back before anesthetics. They could work without care while people screamed.) Sociopaths governed by an external moral code, such as religion, or from enlightened self-interest cause no special problems.
Ayers fits the pattern very well as I described. The sociopaths low level of fear response often requires them to engage in extreme behavior to get the same thrill that others get from more prosaic activities. I think he gravitated towards extreme politics and pushed the groups he belonged to in that direction so that he could experience ever increasing levels of excitement.
His abandonment of the struggle after the anti-personnel bomb he constructed killed his friends and his return to his upper class life style when he escaped justice all fit the pattern as well. Ayers just does what is fun and good for Ayers.
He’s grown more sophisticated and less physical as he has aged but he’s still just as self-centered and indifferent. If he took into his head that it would benefit him to destroy Obama’s campaign he would do so without hesitation.
Interesting but how can you tell the difference between Ayers lacking empathy for anyone else versus him simply lacking empathy with people he perceives as members of ‘the enemy’ which seems to be authority figures or members of the military? From what I read of his bio, he was part of two successful bombings of a statute in a park and possibly one of a dance for military men. It seems like the statute bombings were designed not to kill people. Yet he could have just as well did a bunch of random bombings if his political goal was to stir up turmoil and choas like the anarchists of nearly two or three generations before.
I believe wikipedia said he and his wife took in the child of another set of friends who got nabbed for a brinks robbery. This would seem to indicate he has some empathy for those he considers either on his side or at least not part of ‘the system’.
His abandonment of the struggle after the anti-personnel bomb he constructed killed his friends and his return to his upper class life style when he escaped justice all fit the pattern as well. Ayers just does what is fun and good for Ayers.
Ahhh but it’s normal for someone to do what is ‘fun and good’ for themselves. The lack of empathy is shown when doing what is ‘fun and good’ is not in th e least inhibited by the fear you may harm others. Slipping back into the mainstream was good for him but it’s certainly not a case like harming others with bombs. How do you tell the difference between Ayers being a sociopath versus Ayers being a criminal in his youth who is too prideful (or in denial) to admit he was wrong?