The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) - Domestic Violence, Domestic Terrorism

The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) was born of the struggles of one tenacious survivor of domestic violence and stalking. The NCIDP continues her work with the help of many. Read more about the NCIDP...

It is not the mission of international terrorists to kill a people, destroy their freedoms and liberties and everything that they stand for. It is the mission of international terrorists to scare a people into destroying themselves and everything that those people once stood for; enacted through the domestic terrorists who destroy personal liberty and freedom on behalf of, and for, those international terrorists. Most treacherous, dangerous and destructive of all of those domestic terrorists are those that bring terror into the home.

Domestic violence IS domestic terrorism – AND more.

Medical diagnostic coding for domestic violence is the ONLY coding that supersedes coding for terrorism. That is, in the presence of domestic violence, every other medical diagnostic code in existence takes a back seat, including terrorism.

THERE IS very good reason for that.

The good reasons begin with the fact that domestic violence/stalking and terrorist violence are the same type of violence. That is, the fundamental nature of the violence, the terroristic threatening and arbitrary, capricious powers the abusers/stalkers and terrorists establish for committing that violence, are of the same essential nature and psychological impact upon victims.

The perpetrators, as well, typically share in common with each other an Abusive Personality Disorder (APD), whether a domestic violence terrorist or stalker, or an international terrorist.

Incidents of terrorism affect individuals with extreme rarity, however, and individuals typically are directly subject to terrorist violence very briefly. Victims of domestic violence and stalking, however, are subject to intensive, prolonged terroristic threats and violence that, worse, typically comes from within the home, from within the victim's innermost circle of intimate private life, and generally from a perpetrator that the victim feels a deep love for.

The added layer of a sense of betrayal, intimate betrayal, and utter confusion that this raises for victims, greatly compound the terroristic nature of the domestic violence that victims experience.

However, the raw and unadulterated volume of terroristic violence that victims of domestic violence experience is astronomical. For example, the 9-11 destruction of three World Trade Center buildings in New York directly subjected victims to, at most, a few hours of terroristic violence, the crashing of planes and bombing of the buildings. Victims of domestic violence and stalking often experience such terroristic violence, terrorizing, for a few hours every day, and the life-or-death intensity of that domestic terrorism is rarely any less intense than those hours or moments of a terrorist attack.

In a year's time, then, a victim of domestic violence or stalking can easily experience 300 to 1000 times more terroristic violence, the arbitrary power of life-or-death held over the victim by the perpetrator, than the victims of 9-11 experienced. More still, 9-11 was an uncommon exception for terrorism, where most incidents of terrorism actively subject victims to terroristic violence with far greater brevity, often a matter of moments or seconds. [Other exceptions, cases of prolonged terrorism, can be found among the Case Studies, including the "Terrorists Own San Francisco" study.]

While the likelihood of being a victim of terrorism is far less than the likelihood of begin struck by lightning, the likelihood of being a victim of domestic violence in the U.S. is similar the likelihood of being in an automobile accident. Have you been, or know anyone who has been, in an auto accident? If so, then you likely know at least one victim of domestic violence for every auto accident that you know in that way.

Victims of domestic violence and stalking each year, nationwide, far outnumber the 9-11 terrorist attack victims, those in and around the World Trade Center during the attacks. Victims of domestic violence and stalking that die each year from that domestic violence outnumber the victims that died in the 9-11 terrorist attack.

Every one of those domestic violence and stalking victims, so painfully common as they are, have been far more gravely terrorized than those rare victims of incidents of "terrorism", such as 9-11.

These are the reasons that the medical professions grant priority recognition to the medical implications of domestic violence and its diagnosis.

The U.S. government, meanwhile, hunted Osama bin Laden for a decade since 9-11, sending a U.S. Navy Seal Team to dispatch Osama bin Laden when they finally located him.

Perpetrators of domestic violence, individuals with Abusive Personality Disorders (APD), who commit the ultimate in domestic terrorism, must be pursued with equal fervor and determination. Given the significantly greater terroristic violence enacted by each domestic perpetrator, and the much greater number of those perpetrators, applying the principle of 'proportional response' would seem to mean sending about ten billion or more Seal Teams out after those domestic terrorists perpetrating domestic violence every day.

Justice IS that important. It DOES matter that much that we bring those violent APD perpetrators to justice, give their victims justice, and break these ever-deepening cycles of domestic violence.

More realistically, it means, like with the practice of medicine, the practice of law enforcement must be to prioritize domestic violence terrorism crimes over other, relatively trivial crimes, like international terrorism. For example, if the FBI has surveillance on a mob boss, pursuing racketeering and conspiracy charges of some kind, and observes that mob boss abusing his intimate partner or spouse, the FBI would have to bust the mobster then and there. Instead of getting him for racketeering, they get him for the ultimate terrorism offense. If they don't in such cases, then, of course, the FBI becomes complicit in terrorism – and equally prosecutable.

The lesson of the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, and the U.S. rationale for "self-defense", is a superlative one for any victim of domestic violence or stalking, and the justice system itself, on the utter importance of bringing violent perpetrators to justice, and empowering victims to defend themselves, no matter what it takes. As the U.S. Supreme Court found it, "Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example." (Miranda v Arizona (S Ct., 1966), quoting and adopting Olmstead v. U.S. (S Ct., 1928) Brandeis dissenting). Indeed, in the absence of an effective system of government run justice, the traditional recourse for justice lies along those same lines, and remains the alternative means of justice at common law.

For some years now, the U.S. justice system has struggled to understand why victims of domestic violence and stalking fight back. That system has forgotten why it exists.

Trying to regain some understanding, the justice system went so far as to invent the victim-blaming idea of "battered woman syndrome" or "battered person syndrome". This "syndrome" concept wholly blames the victims for their need for safety, security and justice by framing those fundamental human needs as a psychological "syndrome", or psychological "problem" that the victim has. But the human need to be secure in one's own existence and autonomy is the most core need of any human psyche, is the basic foundation described in Maslow's Hierarchy, and is the most ancient premise of any justice system – it is humanity's most natural, most normal, most core need. It is the failure of systems of justice to provide that against domestic violence and stalking terrorists that is the problem, that is the deficiency, that is the sociopathology that must be confronted – and blamed.

That the U.S. justice system has struggled so much to understand this basic human need, and the very foundation of humanity, as well as the very foundation of the justice system itself, shows that the justice system has lost its way, has forgotten the reason for its own existence, has lost its own internal understanding of what justice is and means, and has, consequently, ceased to be effective in its core and principle duties to its society.

The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) does NOT advocate any system where victims must secure justice for themselves, although cases indicate that is already the case in the U.S. The NCIDP advocates for an effective justice system for survivors of violence at the hands of the terrorists that APD domestic violence and stalking perpetrators are.