THE CRIMINAL: VICTIMIZER OR VICTIM?

by La Cin Achim (Rodgers), S/N Otis Lee Rodgers

ASPC Douglas, Box 5003/Cila Unit, DC

SOCIETY LOATHES YOU - THE CRIMINAL - and wants to destroy you, acting as if you are an alien life-form from some distant planet. It doesn't understand that you have come from the bosom of society itself - a mirror reflection of those who hate and hunt you down. Society and the criminal are one and the same; to destroy the criminal, society must destroy itself. You could not have come into being without its collective will, its greed and corruption. In fact, society is a far greater criminal, thinking it has the moral high ground when, in reality, it represents moral hypocrisy. You are merely responding to society's ill treatment, abusing others because you have been abused and neglected. Society reacts by imprisoning you and allowing every imaginable atrocity to be committed against your humanity, all in the name of law and order and justice! Your true crime isn't that you're a criminal and have committed crimes; rather, it's that you're in competition with the acceptable criminal behavior of society - the larger and more powerful criminal.

Where lies the difference between the criminal and society when both are equally guilty? One does not become rich out of need, but strictly out of greed. The criminal does not steal what he needs; he steals what he wants. For surely it isn't a crime to steal what one truly needs. Similarly, society hasn't simply collected and stored what it needs, but rather every imaginable luxury and fulfillment of its desires.

There is a tale that centuries ago a burglar was brought before a magistrate on charges of burglarizing large sums of money and valuables from a very rich person's home. The criminal was sent to prison. Then the magistrate ordered the wealthy landowner to stand before him and sentenced him to prison for having amassed a fortune in excess of his needs. The magistrate's logic was that the criminal and the rich are one and the same, both having stolen - the rich more than is needed and the thief that which wasn't needed.

An affluent society doesn't become rich and opulent out of need, but out of greed. Likewise with the criminal. What is not understood is cause and effect and that all humankind are one fabric. When the dominant person or group in society takes disproportionately the wealth and resources of that society to the disadvantage of another group or individual, this is called a criminal act. More accurately, it is appropriating the misappropriated. Understand, there is no morally rich person; if you have more than you need to sustain your life and there is one individual who cannot meet his/her needs, then you too are a criminal, equally guilty of theft, of taking more than you need to sustain yourself.

Universally, we are one people, one humanity. When one of us are fallen and the stronger have not looked back to assist but go on accumulating more wealth beyond any real needs, then they are likewise guilty of a crime - the greatest crime of all, the crime of inhumanity, the crime of not responding in a human manner to another human being.

COMMENTARY 1:

"Achim, explain how it is that an individual who has no history of being abused and even comes from an affluent family will still engage in criminal activities."

You are asking for an explanation of human motivation, asking why anyone does anything he/she does. Rather than seek the unexplainable, examine the explainable - the reason the rich person wants to become richer, the reason a person with two homes wants a third, the reason a government makes war to steal another country's land, the reason, at any given time, many politicians are under criminal investigation or indictment. No one is immune from greed, corruption, or selfishness.

COMMENTARY 2:

"Achim, are you saying that it is wrong to accumulate wealth in excess of one's need to sustain one's life, family, etc.? Are you saying that is the primary cause of crime?"

Yes!! Imagine a dominant, aggressive group of squirrels who have gathered most of the available nuts and berries, leaving the remaining squirrels to forage with no alternative save to steal from the advantaged group. Indeed, the first criminal, the true criminal, is the one who has taken more than is needed! A criminal is also one who commits an act of aggression and transgression against another for money or any object of value. One who commits a senseless, heinous act without any purpose or design to gain money or anything of value is a mentally-ill person and not a criminal in the true sense of that word, albeit his or her act is definitely a crime! Why can't you understand that the have-nots desire to be haves, and the haves are a glaring example for the have-nots, a goal to be obtained? Imagine that there was a criminal organization which legislated that crime would only be permitted five days a week and on the weekends no criminal activity would be permitted under penalty of law. Society is that institutionalized criminal organization, and the criminal is the one who is committing crime on the weekends.

What society doesn't understand is that the wealth and resources of the world belong to all. Even an individual's knowledge is not solely that of its owner. Indeed, the world has a right of access to it, for in truth one could not have developed or accumulated knowledge without the assistance of others or through others' need of it. Surely a hermit would not aspire to have a Ph.D. degree without others to share, utilize, and/or exploit this knowledge. Wealth isn't imported from some distant planet. It is taken by exploitation of humanity (rightfully or wrongly) and this world's resources, the universal property of all. One who has simply come first, having paid nothing for all that was taken, can't thereafter charge others as criminals. What did the first person pay for all the wealth of the world that was available for the taking? In fact, all humankind are criminals if criminality is based upon not having paid anything for the gift of life. All the wealth and resources of earth were given to humankind. None of us have deserved or truly paid anything for them.

COMMENTARY 3:

"Achim, if a criminal steals that which another person needs, is that not an unacceptable criminal act?"

Yes, but no more unacceptable than that of a criminal society which has stolen the resources of all others. That is exactly what society does when it allows its disfavored to be jobless, homeless and uncared for. That social injustice - not an individual act - is the root cause of most criminality. While crime is the product of greed (crime and greed being synonymous), injustice is the cause of crime.

Prison is a window of opportunity. Prisoners are a captive audience, and yet the government in all of its years in the prison business has yet to develop a system/program whereby the prisoners and society benefit from the enormous expense and horrendous effects of incarcerating a human being. It is only through the consistent effects of humane treatment, and reeducation that prisons, as unnatural and anti-life as they are, will ever reap any benefits to anyone, save those in the prison business and in prison employment.

Indeed, we're all victims, for none of us asked for life and we're all required one day to surrender it. Logic dictates that we need to learn to share that which belongs to all of us.

COMMENTARY 4:

"Achim, you have described the situation but you have not offered a solution."

You obviously have an American mind, seeking an instant solution. If instant solutions in life were truly available, what would you do with it? Package and market it? Seeking a solution to the immaturity and greed of humanity is only a trick of the mind, allowing one to continue to look away from the problem, the immaturity of self. If greed and corruption are the problem, they are likewise the solution. A consciously awakened individual realizes that no matter how much is stolen, exploited, or hoarded from others, death will come and separate him from it. Have you not noticed that when a baby is born, the infant snatches and grabs at everything within reach? Most adults continue this behavior all the days of their life and until death overcomes them, and their hands are open, leaving all the wealth and greed of their behavior.

What you truly want to know is how can you continue to maintain our socially acceptable criminal norms yet prevent the socially unacceptable criminal behavior. You do not want to sacrifice your greed, yet you want the criminal to sacrifice pursuing the fruits of your greed. This will not occur. The tree is judged by its fruit and the fruit of society is obsession with obtaining wealth in abundance. The criminal is the by-product of a criminal society. The realistic choices of society are to stop its criminal greed or teach the so-called criminal how to adapt and adjust to its socially acceptable criminal norms.

The criminal doesn't think of him or herself as a criminal, no more than Americans think of themselves as criminals after committing atrocity after atrocity against their own people and other nations. Americans have killed, raped, and stolen the bulk of the wealth of this land and the world in the name of progress, law and order, and now choose to label all those who would follow in their footsteps in the American tradition of thievery, rape, and murder as criminals who likewise seek to appropriate, or rather, misappropriate, a piece of the American dream (illusion) of greed, deception and hypocrisy by any means necessary. In the immortal words of Friedrich Nietzsche, "If you can't be Rulers and Owners, then be Robbers and Ravishers." This is inwardly and outwardly the battle cry and motto of the alleged criminal in America today. Americans have sowed a rotten seed and now are reaping a rotten fruit and seek to ostracize the fruits of its collective tree as criminals, whereas criminality is as innate and inherent a way of life in America as wet is to water.