Most people are fortunate enough in their lives to never encounter a
             person who is a real "monster"; however, the sad reality is that such
             people really and truly exist among us today - and it appears that they
             always have. According to John Steinbeck, the debate over nature versus
             nurture simply comes to a screeching halt when it is applied to some
             unlucky people who are born so vastly different by virtue of a genetic flaw
             of some sort that they are beyond any redemption from contact with human
             society. Steinbeck makes this point in East of Eden when he observes that
             because "a twisted gene or a malformed egg" can produce a physical monster,
             it also has the potential to produce a "malformed soul." Will Rogers may
             never have met a man he didn't like, but Will probably never came across
             Kim Jong-Il or Saddam Hussein either. The fact is, though, that some
             people are real monsters by any definition, and the fact that they are of
             the same species makes them all the more frightening.
             Certainly, it would be a comforting thought to believe that every
             human soul is imbued with a sufficient amount of compassion and fundamental
             morality to be "reachable" to some degree, and that the spark of divinity
             that is unique to the human condition would provide a path to redemption
             somehow. Unfortunately, history has shown time and again that some people
             are born sufficiently devoid of any socially redeeming values, judgment or
             moral compunction that they are able to go through life committing all
             sorts of vile acts, many of them criminal in nature. These human monsters,
             such as serial killers, continue these behaviors until they are finally
             stopped by the authorities. Many people just scratch their heads and
             wonder how one human could do such terrible things to other people, and
             then they change the channels and try to think of other things. This is
             because contemplating these types ...