|
 |
 |
|
Home"Civil Gideon" for Cognitively DisabledLegal Battle for Right to Civil Counsel ("Civil Gideon")Neurobiological Basis of Abuse of PowerHow Psychopaths Destroy HumanityHow To Stop or Reverse ForeclosureIs This Judge the Psychopath?Disqualification of Judge in CAFree Legal Education and Community EventsDemocracy in CA is MoneycracyLegal System in CA Is ImmoralCurrent Legal System Leads CA to TyrannyLegal System in CA Turns Children into SlavesLegal System in CA Promotes Domestic Violence Against WomenNeed for a Paradigm Shift and a Legal Reform in CAThe Courthouse, The House of TortureCases with Self-Represented PartiesIn Re the Marriage Of Natalia Sidiakina and Siamak NavidResources for Self-Represented LitigantsSamples of Legal DocumentsAbout UsContact Us
|
Copyright© 2008-2012 by Natalia A. Sidiakina for Self-Represented Fool® All rights reserved. Natalia A. Sidiakina permits unrestricted not-for-profit use, distribution, and reproduction of this article or any part thereof in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. See original citations in the articles on this web site and examples of citations below in this web page. For more information and permission for for-profit use, distribution, and reproduction please contact info@selfrepresentedfool.org. Update of 8/19/10: Please WATCH ALL 6 videos below!!! Videos of the Milgram’s Obenience to Authority Experiments, BBC in 2009: Part 1/3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk Part 2/3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzTuz0mNlwU&feature=related Part 3/3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ahc7FYFGno&feature=related Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwSC5fS40w&feature=related Interview with Zimbardo on Democracy Now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jYx8nwjFQ&NR=1 Zimbardo’s presentation on TED in 2/2008: “Why ordinary people do evil …or do good”- Power Authorities in the System are Makers of Bad Barrels (evil environment) that produce Bad Apples (evil individuals): The SAME situation produces Evils and Heroes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg&feature=related
”Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot
conceal himself!” - Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC)
“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
“For every thing ask: “What is it in itself?”” - Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
“True wisdom comes
to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” - Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) “Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from
enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.” - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Why is power pleasurable and addictive like a drug? Because the exercise of power,
which is defined by researchers as "an individual's relative capacity to modify other's
states by providing or withholding resources or administering punishments", increases the levels of dopamine
in the brain. High power or high social status is associated with and leads to high dopamine levels. [1], [2]. The effect of the exercise of power is neurologically similar to the effect of taking cocaine,
which also increases the levels of dopamine in the brain. [1], [2], [3] References: [1] Higgins, E.S., George, M.S. (2007) The Neuroscience of Clinical Psychiatry: The Pathophysiology
of Behavior and Mental Illness, ISBN-10: 0-7817-6655-9, Chapter 9 "Pleasure", p. 11-12; [3] Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D.H., Anderson, C. (2003) Power, Approach and Inhibition, Psychological
Review, Vol. 110, No. 2, p. 265-284, at p. 265, 269, 271-273, on the web at: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/keltner.power.psychreview.2003.pdf [2] Sergo, P. (2008) New Weapons Against Cocaine Addiction , Scientific American Mind, April / May 2008, p.54-56; Banality
of Evil In attempts to find out why seemingly normal people start abusing and torturing other people, we found several research articles on tyranny and abuse of power. One is called “The Psychology of Tyranny” by Haslam, S.A. and Reicher, S.D. (2005) from Scientific American Mind (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-psychology-of-tyranny&print=true ), and another is a review of over 250 articles on different psychological and neurological aspects of exercise and abuse of power “Power, Approach, and Inhibition” by Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D.H., and Anderson, C. (2003) from Psychological Review (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/keltner.power.psychreview.2003.pdf )
In summary, research shows that people abuse and torture other people because they feel: a) pleasure from exercising of power (increased dopamine levels), b) relief from stress given impunity (inhibition of stress hormones norephineprine and cortisol), and c) effortless thinking: automatic cognition, stereotyping, and suppression of morals and conscience.
Elevated power given impunity promotes antisocial behavior and sociopathy. Dehumanization of a victim is the necessary prerequisite for abuse and torture.
Tyrants and abusers disregard conscience and morals, they don’t even think of their victim’s feelings and pain, they don’t care. As guards in Abu Ghraib never thought about the feelings of tortured prisoners, so the judges who psychologically abuse and torture self-represented litigants never think of their victims’ feelings and health consequences. Amazingly, without power, tyrants are unremarkable and disarmingly ordinary. In group experiments in the US, it took only 5-6 days of uncontrolled power to turn seemingly normal people into torturers. In Yale university study in 1960s, the researcher concluded: “Conception of the banality of evil comes closer to the truth than one might dare to imagine”.
Given power and impunity, all it takes is allowing oneself to disregard conscience and fairness toward other groups or individuals. So Holocaust was entirely predictable after Nazis declared that Jewish people were inferior and that the higher race was not required to apply conscience and fairness to Jews.
Jewish people in Israel do the same thing right now to Palestinians in the West Bank: they built the wall separating the West Bank into concentration camps and kill Palestinians with bulldozers, ruin their homes, block their roads, and starve them by depriving access to farms and markets (http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/israel-occupied-palestinian-territories , http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/feature-stories/unlawful-homes-israeli-settlers-demolitions-palestinians-20080331 ) All it took was to turn-off the collective conscience of the people of Israel. For more information, see the References below. * "Banality of Evil" causes history to repeat itself: as Jewish people were forced out of Judea about 2 thousand years ago and had to settle in different countries around the world, so over 1,000,000 Palestinians were forced out of Palestine by Jewish people and by the wars after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Palestine has disappeared from the maps replaced by Israel (former Palestine), the West Bank (former territory of Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (former territory of Egypt) (The Times Complete History of the World, edited by Richard Overy, Sixth Edition (2006), Barns & Noble Publishing, ISBN-10:0-7607-7840-X, p. 320). Research also shows that fairness and conscience are exhibited by people only, compared to Chimps or other monkeys (“Some Are More Equal” by Lucas Laursen (2008) in Scientific American Mind, February / March 2008, p.15.). Animals are not known to torture other animals, animals fight and kill to eat or protect territory. So torture is an entirely human invention. Thus, the conclusion is that groups of people in a given society can turn their collective conscience on and off (underlying neurophysical processes discussed separately), becoming more moral than animals or less moral than animals, which explains why democracies, when dysfunctional, are always followed by wars, dictatorships, and genocides. References: [1] Burning Conscience: Israeli Soldiers Speak Out (pay attention to the part between minutes 22:31-24:18 "The Big Brother was watching"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37MFa7ZKQWo [2] Video Israel Doesn’t Want You To See (killing a mother of the Palestinian family and destroying their home): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1-_JmXQt0&feature=related [3] Palestine Girl vs. Israeli Soldiers (who are killing Palestinian children): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQyIKyd2gqA&feature=related [4] If Americans Knew What Israel Is Doing (video after being censored, be patient and watch to the end): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynWjYHP91gA&feature=related [5] Israeli war ship attacks and kills mother and father of a Palestinian family having a picnic on the beach in Gaza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhVZ0664mck [6] Israelis kill baby girl and feed her to dogs. Zionists don't let parents retrieve baby’s body for 5 days, 2 brothers were shot when they tried to retrieve the body (Google news bans this site): http://www.uruknet.info/?p=50888 [7] Jewish settlers proud of their religion
and “killing Jesus”: [9] Interview with Rachel Corrie on 3/14/2003 (a couple of days before she was murdered by an Israeli): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3JI-axaRF4&NR=1 [10] Gideon Levy on Israelis’ crimes against humanity: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gideon-levy-most-hated-man-israel-or-just-most-heroicDo
the trial judges stereotype and dehumanize self-represented litigants?
Yes, the judges dehumanize over 90% of Californians, who cannot afford continuous legal
representation at exorbitant rates of $300 per hour as "self-represented litigants". See Dr. Sidiakina's letter
of July 12, 2008 at p.18-20: Dr. Sidiakina's letter to judges 071208 Can the trial judges torture litigants? Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Torture ), is "any act by which severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him information
or a confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing
him, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by …a public official
or other person acting in an official capacity”. Dr. Sidiakina's letter to judges 071208 What does the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) say about Self-Represented litigants? “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”: KAY v. EHRLER, 499 U.S. 432 (1991)http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=499&invol=432
“Even a skilled lawyer who represents himself is at a disadvantage in contested litigation. Ethical considerations may make it inappropriate for him to appear as a witness. He is deprived of the judgment of an independent third party in framing the theory of the case, evaluating alternative methods of presenting the evidence, cross-examining hostile witnesses, formulating legal arguments, and in making sure that reason, rather than emotion, dictates the proper tactical response to unforeseen developments in the courtroom. The [499 U.S. 432, 438] adage that "a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client" is the product of years of experience by seasoned litigators.” (at p. 437-438.)
What do judges say about injustice and bias against self-represented litigants? “Poor people have access to American
courts in the same sense that Christians thrown to lions had access to the Coliseum.” -
Justice Earl Johnson Jr., California Court of Appeal (ret.)
Below are the citations from the BRIEF AMICUS CURIAE OF RETIRED WASHINGTON JUDGES IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANT, filed on 3/21/07 in Case No. 57831-6-1, the Court of Appeals of the State of Washington, Division One, called In re the Marriage of: Michael Steven King, Respondent, v. Brenda Leone King, Appellant. The link below will open the PDF file on the Brief: http://www.brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/download_file_48463.pdf “A core principle of our judicial system is that it should provide
equal justice for all. The Washington Constitution gives meaning to this pledge through the guarantee of meaningful access
to the courts for all citizens. Yet it is self-evident to judges, practicing
attorneys, and thoughtful persons, that in most instances indigent persons without counsel are not receiving the same quality
of justice as those with counsel and are effectively deprived of meaningful access to the courts. Studies show that
indigent persons without counsel receive less favorable outcomes dramatically more often than those with counsel. The disparity
of outcomes is so great that the conclusion is inescapable – indigent pro se litigants are regularly losing cases that
they should be winning if they had counsel” (bold added) (see pp. 2-3 of the above-mentioned Brief). What
do lawyers say about injustices and bias against self-represented litigants?
Below are the citations from the BRIEF OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF APPELLEE SIV JONSSON, filed 11/19/08 in the pending before the Supreme Court of the State of Alaska case No. S-12999 called Office of Public Advocacy, Appellant, v. Alaska Court System, Randall Guy Gordanier, Jr., and Siv Betti Jonsson. The link below will open the PDF file of the Brief. http://www.abanet.org/amicus/briefs/office_of_public_advocacy_v_alaska_court_system.pdf “As a result of being consistently unable to secure counsel, “poor people largely cannot enforce what rights they have”, and the “laws that protect such basic needs as family integrity, shelter, medical care, food, and employment have become effectively meaningless for many people.” Paul Marvy & Debra Gardner, A Civil Right to Counsel for the Poor, 32 Human Rights 8, 8 (2005)” (bold added) (see pp. 20-21 of the above-mentioned Brief).
|