Demopaths and their Dupes

DEMOPATHS:
Demopaths are people who use democratic language and invoke human rights only when it serves their interests, and not when it calls for self-criticism or self-restraint. Demopaths demand stringent levels of human “rights” but do not apply these basic standards for the “other” to their own behavior. The most lethal demopaths use democratic rights to destroy democracy.

Demopaths differ from civil-society free-riders; the latter enjoy more rights than they grant to others simply out of selfishness or laziness. Demopaths are fundamentally hostile to granting others’ rights, and secretly despise the values of civil society (which demands that they tolerate and respect others). Instead of coming along for the ride, they want to sink the boat.

Demopaths use the jargon of civil society and human rights to convince their targets. Through this progressive discourse, demopaths exploit on people eager to believe that civic values can resolve the problem. Sometimes demopaths are completely hostile to the cultures in which they live, and manipulate human rights as a Trojan horse to enter the city and sack it.

Demopathy is a zero-sum to negative-sum game. It pursues the destruction of the system (demopaths win and reestablish plunder-or-be-plundered aristocracy); in the process, it destroys the system’s very capacity to produce what made it attractive to plunder in the first place. Demopaths do not view opponents as members of a positive-sum collective, but as enemies to be destroyed. In its most virulent stages, demopathy is violently paranoid.

CHARECTERISTICS:

- Radical imbalance between their insistence on asserting their own rights, and their lack of interest in defending the rights of others.
- Moral rhetoric expressing great indignation when appealing for personal rights.
- Tendency to tell demonizing tales of the enemies (of “human rights”)
- Tendency to think in conspiratorial terms (they are conspirators themselves), and to project ill will onto opponents/enemies.
- Do minimal (required) work protecting the rights of others, especially opponents/enemies.

A demopathic organization would protest the media portraying its ethnic/religious affiliates as “terrorists” (inadmissible negative stereotyping), but would not protest the terrorist acts perpetrated by members of their ethnic/religious group (permissible wanton murder of civilians).

As long as civil society is healthy, demopaths stay hidden. Ever since the bombings in London, the number of demopaths revealed by the investigative energy of its own reporters or the brazenness of the demopaths themselves has risen substantially. Since most cases of demopathy must be approached carefully without pre-judging the evidence, we prefer to use these examples and leave the larger questions to each individual.

Bad Joke?

According to one version, the definition of chutzpah is when someone kills their parents and pleads to the court for mercy because he’s an orphan. The joking definition of a demopath, then might be the foreigner who applies for a loan from the agricultural department in a democratic country in order to buy a crop duster with outsized tanks. Although his intention is to spray poison on the local population, when his loan is refused because he is a foreigner with no obvious need for a crop duster, he accuses the agency of racist xenophobia. Is this an urban legend?

DEMOPATHIC DISCOURSE

Demopaths believe that all interaction between people works according to the principle “rule or be ruled” – the dominating imperative. In order for me to prevent you from dominating me, I must dominate you first. This approach to others normally produces prime divider societies where the elite (aristocracy) use their power to dominate the masses. But civil society clips the wings of those who would use force to dominate others. In such conditions, people who refuse to give up the dominating imperative go underground and become demopaths, using all the freedom that civil societies offer to work for their destruction. Until recently, the attitude of civil societies has been to grandfather demopathic tendencies, assuming that the benefits of civic abundance will win over all but the most mean-spirited player.

Demopathic discourse mirrors that of human rights. Thus, it is often difficult to detect the difference. Because discerning demopaths means assessing motive, it requires personal judgment. Therefore, demopathy is best illustrated through examples. In the cases presented below, we invite you to comment on whether or not, in your opinion, the particular case reflects demopathy or sincere commitment to human rights.

EXAMPLE 1: HIZB-UT-TAHRIR (ISLAMIC LIBERATION PARTY)

The UK branch of Hizb ut Tahrir, an Islamic group outlawed in central Asia, constitutes a powerful example of a demopath group working within a Western civil society. The group and some of its members, after being banned from their home countries, found refuge in the UK where Hizb ut Tahrir has been operating as a legal organization for years. Its ideology vows to establish a worldwide caliphate where all religious practice would be regulated by Sharia Law. Websites connected to the group have been openly promoting Jihad, suicide bombers as martyrs, racism and anti-semitism.

MEMBERS:
SHEIKH BAKRI MOHAMMED the founder of the first UK branch of Hizb ut Tahrir, has regularly preached Jihad against the West and praised the 9/11 hijackers as "the magnificent 19". When the UK government decided to deport him in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings, the radical Muslim, who was on welfare, cried foul and said that it was an injustice because his four wives and families would suffer (see also here). Here is a prime example of a demopath who has worked for a long time to undermine the values and principles of civil society and, when his own self-interest is threatened, invokes the principles of civil society in order to make his case and protect himself. Bakri Mohammed deserves the demopathic chutzpah award.

DILPAZIER ASLAM is an English-born Pakistani Muslim hired as a journalist by the Manchester Guardian. In addition to his news articles, Aslam wrote an editorial using first person plural pronouns to speak about England and the English. He argues that, because ‘we’ (the English) have committed so many wrongs against ‘them’ (the Arabs, Muslims), ‘we’ cannot be surprised by ‘their’ understandable responses of rage and terrorism. See, "Today's muslims aren't prepared to ignore injustice". So while, he was claiming to be an understanding outsider representing the oppressed minority’s views to his co-citizens, he was actually one of “them”, using the protection of the press, the right to freedom of speech, the right to respect – and even to a job – in order to slip a justification for Jihad, and an opportunity to chastise the West for the hatred and regressive revolution that he foments. Initially, after the discovery of Aslam’s concealed activities, the Guardian refused to fire him, saying the matter was "under review". Eventually, when they did fire him, (not a consensual process though, one editor resigned) Aslam was outraged and invoked the principles of journalistic freedom, despite the fact that his Jihadi ideology rejects that value.