I was on vacation, so missed all sorts of great discussion here. 's okay, I had a great time.
On the 'Can You Believe Marty is an Even Bigger Ass,' thread #1, Anonomog said:
<snip>The evil for me, is when someone is so self motivated that any behaviour goes, anyone can be hurt without thought and any benefit to others is simply an incidental by product. Would Marty have helped anyone if there wasn't something in the long or short game, for him?
It feels wrong to excuse any of it however much our humanity wants to, to try and find a noble or acceptable reason. Sometimes there isn't any except an unbelievable darkness of spirit. <snip>
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...ts-squawking&p=1144994&viewfull=1#post1144994

Spot on!
Years ago, I used to be fascinated with labels and designations and figuring out people like that, but that was because I had this false idea of everyone being, "basically good," whatever the hell that means. I can't count all the close calls I've had in my life from holding onto that ridiculous assumption before I gave it up.
Most people have some good in them somewhere, but that's a far cry from, "basically good." And there's this huge chunk of people who go around in life lying their asses off to people whenever it pleases them and don't think twice about it, either. Not only is not everyone "basically good," they are not "basically honest," either.
There are the people who listen to voices and chronically lie, the ones that never matured beyond selfish personal desires (who also lie all the time, rather than suffer repercussions), the delusional liars, and those with no concept of empathy who also love to lie because hurting others isn't a concept that exists for them. And that's not even considering politicians, news reporters who thrive on creating drama and emotional upset, greedy people, or a whole bunch of others whose careers are centered around lying and deception.
Did someone really just give Marty thousands of dollars when he told Karen this and pushed her to give him more money? Nope. And so many other deceptions and lies. Marty told the truth when it suited him, and lied when it suited him. He's one of those.
I went to Aida's exscn picnic in LA, had a great time. There had to be at least 80 people who came and went there. I knew maybe 1/4 of them at most, but those I knew were great friends with all the others. I often left my purse near a table when I was eating or chatting. I had credit cards and cash in it but never worried, because all my friends were there with their friends and everyone knew everyone and one of the things we had in common was honesty. Not one dollar was stolen, either.
An ex can get a skewed view of the world that way, though, when you're part of a group that habitually doesn't lie, steal or deceive others. You may even think all exes are that way. But there's the catch. Some people live their entire lives with some relative concept of truth being only as useful as it serves them. Those people get into scn, too, and it doesn't change them. Nothing does, they either change themselves on their own or they don't, and they mostly don't. They are predators who prey on the other people: the honest, compassionate ones.
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