Beware the Happy Slapper Concept

By Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB
In the UK there is (supposedly) a practice called “happy slapping” in which people beat up a homeless or otherwise vulnerable person, apparently for the fun of it. In 2007 three “slappers” were jailed for killing Gary Turner, a homeless man, in east London.

It is my guess that the entire operation is directed by outsiders, and is not the spontaneous behavior of the happy slappers. Pardon my skepticism of all things media, but I even think it’s possible that the Gary Turner incident never took place. Maybe we are simply being conditioned to believe that humans are now so degraded that killing is an acceptable sport – and hence we should start engaging in that sport! I would name this the “Slap Like Me” phenomenon.

Don’t worry: I realize I could be wrong. I do recall, however, that there was an article in TIME in early 2001, before we needed to know anything about terrorists, that told us how important it would be to torture terrorists whom we might arrest. Sort of a “Get the Americans in the mood to accept torture” theme. And then, in 2002, water-boarding became official (yes, official) policy.
As for the “leaked” photos showing American staff in Abu Ghraib using sexual humiliation on prisoners (including smearing them with feces), isn’t it likely that they were “leaked” to condition us to the idea of sexual humiliation, indeed to teach us how to do it?

Back to the happy slapping issue. As reported in The Age in January, 2014, a 19-year-old stands accused of murdering “a homeless man, whose meagre life possessions were kept next to a pylon under a city railway bridge.” We are told that the accused graduated in 2012 from “Melbourne Grammar School, and that Headmaster Roy Kelley has said: “This tragic incident is now with the Victoria Police and therefore it is appropriate that Melbourne Grammar School will not be making any further comment.” Here is the slapdash way in which The Age presents both the fact of the homeless man’s death and the possible motives:

“[Some said] the fatal stabbing could have been over a stolen motorbike. However, the young man dressed in black – had also raved about werewolves and vampires. The teenager had been using cannabis and shown suicidal ideations…. In December he posted two pictures with drug or violent themes, including what appears to be a computer-generated image of a man smashing open another person’s head. The Salvation Army’s’ Major Nottle said the death of the popular homeless man had brought out the best and worst of Melburnians. He said he was disgusted to see people taking ”selfies” in front of the Enterprize Park site where Mr Perry was stabbed…. Major Nottle wants the death to result in more money spent on accommodation for homeless people in the city.”
I have just learned, from the website AgeOfAutism.com, that authorities allege that two American girls at Chopticon High School, Maryland, age 17 and 15, assaulted an autistic boy and made a video of it. According to radio station WJLA:

“Sheriff Tim Cameron says the allegations leveled against these girls are among the most disturbing he has dealt with in his career. He says that several times between December and February, the suspects preyed on the victim – assaulting him with a knife, kicking him in the groin, dragging him by the hair, coercing him to engage in a sex act too disturbing to broadcast, and even forcing him to walk on a partially frozen pond.”

Maybe what is needed is not extra effort to protect autistic adults, (which is so difficult to do on an individual level), but to get people to notice how we are being subtly instructed to twist our culture. I say there is nothing ordinary or natural about two girls taking that disabled man to the semi-frozen lake and harming him. Humans don’t really do that, do they? (And wouldn’t they have fallen into that lake themselves?)
Let’s not readily accept that “this is how it is now.” Let’s resist being conditioned by media as to what we are all abut. Teenagers, you are in the perfect place to help us, surrounded by young thinkers. It is your generation that can fight these tactics.
Help!
Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB, lives in Adelaide. Her latest book is Fraud Upon the Court: Reclaiming the Law, which is a free download at her website, ProsecutionForTreason.com.