QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE !
Look upon me you foolish mortals and tremble!

Apparently through some warp in the space-time continuum, the TTLB ECOSYSTEM has me listed as #1 and a Higher Being!!!

I know and you know that this is fair and just and how things should be. However, I suspect that there is a glitch somewhere that caused this frabjous day to come to pass. Instapundit is number 35,000 or so (an Insignificant Microbe). Heh.

Let's see how long it will last! Congratulations to all the newly promoted Higher Beings:

Higher Beings

1.Dr. Sanity (4462) details
2.Dumb Ox Daily News (4219) details
3.Church and State (3893) details
4.The Right Nation (3788) details
5.Rightwing Guy (3744) details
6.Reject the U.N. (3700) details
7.The Daily Dish (3629) details
8.IRAQ THE MODEL (3415) details
9.Don Surber (3280) details
10.Sillie Lizzie's Rock (3207) details

UPDATE: (3:11pm) Drat and curses! Foiled in my dreams of planetary conquest yet again! The infinite improbability drive has been turned off and the ecosystem has emerged from the probability warp and returned to normal....well, I was Queen for a [part of a] day.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:06 AM |

 
THE POSTMODERN PSYCHOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE AND THE BATTLE BETWEEN GUILT AND SHAME
Victor Davis Hanson on Iran and its plans for the end of days:

Ahmadinejad faces two hurdles: He must get the bomb, and he must create the psychological landscape whereby the world will shrug at Israel’s demise.

Oddly, the first obstacle may not be the hardest....

But the second obstacle — preparing the world for the end of the Jewish state — is trickier.

True, the Middle East’s secular gospel is anti-Semitism. State-run media in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan broadcast endless ugly sermons about Jews as “pigs and apes.” Nor do Russia and China much care what happens to Israel, as long as its demise does not affect business. But the West is a different matter. There the history of anti-Semitism looms large, framed by the Holocaust that nearly destroyed European Jewry. Thus the Holocaust is now Ahmadinejad’s target just as much as downtown Tel Aviv.

Holocaust denial is a tired game, but Ahmadinejad’s approach is slightly new and different. He has studied the Western postmodern mind and has devised a strategy based on its unholy trinity of multiculturalism, moral equivalence and cultural relativism. As a third world populist, he expects that his own fascism will escape proper scrutiny if he can recite often enough the past sins of the West. He also understands the appeal of victimology in the West these days. So he knows that to destroy the Israelis, he, not they, must become the victim, and Westerners the aggressors who forced his hand. (emphasis mine)

This is a must-read by Hanson, who goes on to discuss at length various strategies to deal with Iran.

What is most interesting to me is context of Iran's "psychological landscape", i.e., the extreme religious fanatacism driven by a shame culture.

Let us consider for a moment how a shame culture--like Iran and all these Islamofascist terrorists for that matter--deal with success and failure.

For a typical shame culture the most important issue--indeed the issue that trumps truth or reality every time--is what people believe.

What others believe to be true has a far more powerful impact on behavior than what any particular individual believes; since the desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else, is one of the primary foundations of the culture/religion. This need to avoid shame motivates and exculpates the individuals in the culture to engage in wrong-doing as long as no-one knows about it, or if he piously disavows that he did it.

It also motivates them to do whatever is necessary to give the impression that honor has been preserved.

As long as others in the culture believe that honor has been preserved, then neither the individual or the group will experience either guilt or shame. It is not surprising therefore, that a great deal of effort and planning goes into making sure that others are convinced of your innocence (even if you are guilty); your victimization (even if you are the oppressor); and your victory (even if you are the loser).

Do you begin to see why Ahmadinejad's tactics play so well in the West--particularly to the intellectual and cultural elites whose intellects are drowning in a toxic brew cooked up in the postmodern kitchen?

Since shame cultures work best within a collectivist/totalitarian framework, it is often fairly easy to manipulate appearances in order to avoid shame and claim honor has been preserved. When you control the media and/or the social structure; have unlimited money and sophisticated tools for the development and dissemination of propaganda, then it is even easier.

It is an absolute cake-walk if you also happen to have a bunch of useful idiots managing the media of the enemy you hope to shame and give the appearance of defeating.

Remember, in this kind of culture, nothing is more important than making sure you do not experience feelings of humiliation and shame.

In a true shame culture, the goal is not necessarily to win a war, particularly since maintaining conflict with the traditional enemy--i.e., the "Jew"--is part of what is perceived as an "honorable" way of life, and should never really end. The primary goal of Iran and its proxies in Iraq and elsewhere is very simple: to impose shame on the West and Israel.

As long as they do that, then they have "won" by their standards. Faking photographs to demostrate the evil of their enemy; hiding among women and children to force the enemy to kill those same women and children; transforming every loss of personnel into a condemnation of Israel for attacking "innocents"--all these tactics serve the purpose of shaming the enemy and inducing guilt.

Thus, by these standards, the new barbarians of the Islamic world, know they cannot lose in any conflict with the west--no matter what the reality is.

By these standards, all that is required for them to proclaim victory is to avoid shame and make their enemy feel it instead.

By these standards, they will ALWAYS--always-- be psychologically empowered, encouraged; and reinforced in their delusions of grandeur--not to mention in their violent, aggressive and barbaric behavior-- by any compassionate or concerned humanitarianism on the part of their despised enemies; by any cessation of conflict before they are utterly and complete defeated; or by any attempts on the part of the west to negotiate a real and lasting peace.

Is it surprising that in the mullahs eyes, the Democrat's insane desire to ensure defeat and utterly surrender in Iraq is a source of honor and status?

And, in a shame culture, the granting of "honor and status" from the culture's perceived enemies will not induce them them to compromise or negotiate in good faith. Instead, it will breed the exaggerated arrogance; even more swaggering rhetoric and veiled threats; more taunting of the Jews, Israel, and the West; more oppression of its own people, and more flaunting of its nuclear ambitions in the face of the world.

This, by the way, is exactly the same dynamic that charges our relationship with North Korea, yet another shame culture run by a megalomaniac. In that instance, the forces of appeasement, surrender, and complete moral idiocy are working hard to bring honor to Kim Jung Il and shame to America.

What motivates regimes like Iran and North Korea is the avoidance of shame, and maximization of honor. For them it is is simple elementary psychological math. In such cultures maximizing their honor involves shaming you. Thus, the recent spectacle of Iran's aggression against Britain, the taking of hostages and flaunting them on the world stage; and the ultimate grandiosity--"graciously" granting them pardons after honor has been maximized.

Then all you have to do to stretch honor out a little further is sit back and watch your leftist allies in this peculiarly postmodern game engage in the usual displays of gratuitous self-flagellation and mea culpas. This is music for the thuggish souls of the Islamofascists (even if music and most other forms of pleasure are forbidden).

They can now offically consider you as weak and inferior to themselves. By their cultural standards, they have won and you have lost.

It is only a matter of time until they logically proceed toward your complete subjugation. Only by your total humiliation and defeat can their own honor continue to be maximized. Just ask the women in their culture (the ones that are not brainwashed by this cultural dynamic anyway).

By allowing these shame-avoidant and repellant regimes to preen and flout their sense of superiority at the expense of the West, the intellectuals of the postmodern political left regularly prove to the mullahs that there is no one strong enough to stop them now from obtaining (or using) nuclear weapons.

By ceding Iraq to the thugs of Iran; by treating Ahmadinejad and his mullahs as moral equals; by granting them the honor and status of --in short, by imagining that they think like you do; value and seek peace like you do; and in general believing that they are motivated by reason and truth and reality like the West--only makes them anticipate your eventual submission more strongly.

The well-meaning, but ultimately stupid projection of our own deeply ingrained cultural values onto this extremely pathological shame culture by our politicians and media; combined with the perverse and irrational leftist multicultural-politically-correct-victim pap that derives from an ideological agenda that shares common goals and rhetorical strategies with the terrorists; has further enabled and encouraged these fanatics to believe that they can easily wipe us off the map (just as Kruschev wanted to "bury" us) or force us to submit to their religion.

In their frenzy for power and regaining the White House, the Democrats have outsourced their rational cognitive processes to their unconscious feelings and fears; they have closed their eyes to the unpleasant reality about the inevitable psychological consequences of their defeatist and continually appeasing behavior. And they are in the grip of a profound and near-suicidal psychological denial and projection, where they can even (with a straight face) pronounce their actions political "realism".

Such are the everyday delusions that arise from the interaction of the postmodern mindset with psychopaths like Ahmadinejad and all the religious fanatics of the Middle Eastern shame cultures.

As Hanson clearly recognizes, this toxic interaction will not produce peace in our time; but, on the contrary will inevitably lead to more war and even more death and destruction than is now able to be imagined. Because, these Islamic fanatics--who do not let reason or life interfere with their jihad; who abide by no treaties, follow no rules, and scorn the very values upon which western civilization is founded will not be appeased and will use the postmodern lunacy very well to their advantage against us.

We could have lived with them if they did not insist that we must submit, become what they are, or die. But they have defined the groundrules (or the non-rules) of this conflict; and eventually, we will have to meet them at their level--or they will win. They have set the psychological landscape of this war, and the political left in our own country and around the world has done all it possibly can to ensure that those committed to our destruction have the advantage and that we must operate under a vicious, self-imposed handicap.

However, Hanson, an expert in history , cautions rightly:

But what the Iranian theocrats, like the al-Qaedists, never fully fathom is that if the American people conclude that their freedom and existence are at stake, they are capable of conjuring up things far more frightening than anything in the 7th-century brain of Mr. Ahmadinejad. The barbarity of the nightmares at Antietam, Verdun, Dresden and Hiroshima prove that well enough. In short, there are consequences to the rhetoric of Armageddon.

So far the Iranian leader has posed as someone 90 percent crazy and ten percent sane, hoping that in response we would fear his overt madness, grant concessions, and delicately appeal to his small reservoir of reason. But he should understand that if his Western enemies appear 90 percent of the time as children of the Enlightenment, they are still suffused with vestigial traces of the emotional and unpredictable. And military history shows that the irrational ten percent of the Western mind is a lot scarier in the end than anything Islamic fanaticism has to offer

The dire consequences of not understanding the motivations and behaviors of a shame culture are paralleled by the shame culture's inability to understand the motivations and behaviors of the democratic and freedom-loving Western mind.

When it comes right down to it, the cost of this war will be more than all the lives lost; it will also be for the humanity and civilization the West will temporarily abandon to win. In the real world, the good and virtuous whose cause is just do not always win; and bringing a knife (unsharpened at that) to a street fight where the other side has guns is suicidal.

The ultimate advantage a guilt culture like ours has over the shame culture is that, when we are finally cornered and must allow our own barbarism to surface to combat theirs head to head, then we will always be prepared to live with the consequences--including the agonizing guilt that will properly ensue--or else everything we hold dear, everything we aspire to become, will forever perish from the earth.

Just ask the Japanese.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:21 AM |

 
MATA HARRY AND THE DEMOCRATS OF DOOM
When Mata Harry and the Democrats of Doom talk about a troop DEADline, they mean it! They will continue to facilitate and encourage those who are killing our troops for as long as it takes...they're in it for the long haul... either till America's defeat or the Dems anticipated victory in 2008!




Oh, and don't forget, according to them, it's not the economy, stupid.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:59 PM |

 
CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES
Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

And, while you are in the Mood for Madness, go directly to the Weekly Whackjob Awards!

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. This is not your father's Vietnam ! The Dems may be listening to the wrong polls.... Pity.

2. The US Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but the European Human Rights Convention sure is.

3. Even a suicidal Bozo could figure this out if he bothered to think about it. From his lips to OBL's ears.

4. Speaking of bozos! Facing the beast takes so much courage! Except when it is yourself, I guess. Clearly, the real party at fault is the kid.

5. Cocks for Clinton? I think they meant "kooks". Off with their heads....errr breasts!

6. A tale of two scandals.

7. The Ambien defense..a wake-up call! Consumers are in the dark about light bulbs, too.

8. Another wake-up call. Kill the infidel...but not in Pittsburgh please!

9. Some uncensored, politically incorrect speech about Islam. Waaaaah! He's just another victim of American imperialism. And they're just poor victims of a yet another dastardly Jewish conspiracy plot.

10. "Negotiate" is palestinian-speak for "wipe off the map". Two shame cultures...but one of them is ashamed of murderous behavior and the other is proud of it.

11. Some f****** religious fanatic somewhere has undoubtedly issued a fatwa on this woman. Meanwhile this man has the same thing on his mind. The effect of losing your virginity on academic achievement--this is good to know!

12. If the NY Times ever won a lifetime achievement award, it would be in this area. Or their skill at playing the "Name that Party" or "Name that Citizenship" game! Page 1...to page 21.

13. The universities definitely deserve him. And to a lesser extent, her.

14. There is no area too trivial that these pettypotty dictators...but this war is definitely lost! Too bad she will never have to personally deal with the consequences of her own assinine ideas.

15. Don't worry, bee happy and Keep the chocolate coming and no one gets hurt.... Hyphy?

16. Fearmongering for me, but not for thee. Hey! We're scaring the children!

17. Variations on the tinfoil hat. Are you feeling stupid today, punk? ....Stupidity reaches new heights? Some people will do anything for a beer.

18. A genetic waste of time? I've had bosses like that.

19. Now this is definitely a career change! Why don't these CEO's ever become perma-lancers? This is how they manage the "work-life balance" !

20. American Idle...a guilty pleasure?

21. Blood on his hands socks. Just bloody awful.

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:11 AM |

 
THE SKY IS FALLING ! THE SKY IS FALLING !
Headline in today's Ann Arbor News: "FEARS OF A RECESSION STIR: U.S. Economy Grows at Most Sluggish Pace in 4 Years".




What was I saying just the other day?

As Assistant Village Idiot astutely pointed out in a comment to that post:

But I saw an actual poor person last week on the news, so it can't be a good economy and it must be Bush's fault. I mean, the Democrats wouldn't lie about that, would they?

I would have to agree. The Democrats wouldn't dream of putting the left's ideological agenda and their own narcissistic fantasies ahead of the nation's interst.

Would they?
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:50 PM |

 
THE POLL RESULTS THAT DON'T MAKE THE HEADLINES

Cliff May at The Corner has some recent poll results that are extremely interesting:

• According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).
• A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007).
• A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007).
• POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007).
• A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” And 59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007).
• A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).
• According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the “country remains unstable”
• Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that “insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq” starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007).
• An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “hurts” the troops, while only 27% believe it “helps” the troops (4/5-9, 2007).

He concludes:

I’m sure our friend Glenn Greenwald over at Salon will be reporting all this to his readers any minute now.

Any minute now these fascinating results will be reported by the MSM. Any minute now....
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:40 AM |

 
PALESTINIAN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY - An All-Consuming Hatred
If you haven't been following Sigmund, Carl & Alfred's latest series of posts on the Middle East, then you have missed a comprehensive and in-depth behavioral analysis of the Israel-Palestinian conflict; beginning with the birth of Israel after the devastation wrought in World War II, to the present-day global implications of the Arab inability to cope with Israel's incredible success, let alone its reality.

Birth of a nation, a garden blooms
Temptations And Choices
The Poison
The Promise
The Third Rail Of Palestinan Failure.

In the last piece, Siggy notes:

The Palestinians, as a group and as a society, have failed. Unlike other Arabs in the region, they live in close proximity to a vibrant and free society. They know and see the benefits of what living in a free society means. They also know to acknowledge Israel’s successes, they have to acknowledge their own failures. Culturally, that is too high a price to pay.

The cycle of violence is not simply destined to perpetuate itself- the cycle of violence is reinforced and ever escalating. Dysfunctional behaviors that were unknown or unheard before have become commonplace.The self destructive behavior of the Palestinians comes about as the result of the integration of exaggerated love and exaggerated hate into a fused single exaggerated emotion. What distinguishes the two becomes no more than a blurred idea. Thus, violence directed at each other is a appropriate as violence directed at the Israelis.

This kind diseased thinking is not just about violence. Even the wildest conspiracy theories, widely welcomed and accepted, become a reflection of a dysfunctional defense mechanism and absurdity. As Arab religious and political leaders whip crowds into a wild frenzy, warning of ‘Jewish plots’ to control the world, these same religious and political leaders have no trouble promising that ‘Muslims all over the world will work together to control the world’ and that the ‘flag of Islam will fly over the White House’ and the British Parliament. Those who resist will be destroyed.

These kinds of projections are used by religious and political leaders to control and feed the fantasy with the intoxication of absolute power....

There is a difference between backward societies and failed ones. Backward societies are unaware of the possibilities in front of them. Failed societies have squandered the opportunities that have been afforded them.

Two good companion pieces are ShrinkWrapped's Pity the Poor Anti-Semite and The Suicidal Core of the Anti-Semite. Shrink writes:

The Nations of the Muslim Middle East should be among the wealthiest in the world, yet they have done less with more than any people in history. Their massive failure is not coincidental but is inseparable from their anti-Semitism; unless there is a change in their soul-sickness, they will destroy any hope their people can ever have in becoming part of the successful, modern world of possibilities.

The two posts examine the self-imposed inferiority of the anti-Semite; and how the anti-Semite, in attacking the people they have built into demi-Gods, must necessarily lose their battle against them. With only hatred left to fuel his passions, the core of the anti-Semite has no room left to develop the positive emotions required to build a functioning society.

If you truly want to understand how destructive psychological denial, projection and paranoia are on a societal level, you can find no better example in the history of the world than present-day Palestinian society, which embodies all the worse aspects of human nature; and whose dysfunction has been embraced and championed by the entire Middle East , as well as many of the intellectual elites of the world.

In the escalating psychopathology of the Palestinians you can begin to see and understand the core premises and abnormal psychology that fuels the terrorist/jihadist vision, which is based on a hatred so consuming, it has not only destoyed the very soul of the Palestinian people, but it threatens to envelop the entire world with its madness.

Don't miss these must-read posts by SC&A and ShrinkWrapped.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:29 AM |

 
THE WHACKY'S ARE UP !

Go for the new logo, [shamelessly stolen from a painting by Clive Barker], but stay for the exquisite insanity.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:02 PM |

 
A CARTOON FOR THOSE WHO ARE REALITY-CHALLENGED

And who feel this is a good idea.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:50 AM |

 
THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD ***Updated***
...is the one about the US economy, per Larry Kudlow:

It was truly an historic day on Wall Street yesterday as the Dow Jones Index rocketed to a record-breaking, first-ever, 13,000 close with a dramatic 136-point surge....

Stocks surged across the board with a 15-point gain by the S&P 500 and a 23-point gain in the Nasdaq. Record closings galore for transports, utilities, and the Wilshire 5000. The S&P 500 is nipping at the bit, just 30 points away from achieving its all-time high....

If I may, permit me to once again call this what it is—the greatest story never told.

We are in the midst of the longest uninterrupted bull market run in memory. We have record low tax rates on capital, a benign inflation rate, and recent economic releases suggesting the Goldilocks soft landing scenario remains very much in place.

But in the end, it all boils down to two simple things—two stock market locomotives that have created enormous, still untapped, value in equities. Viewers have heard talk about them night after night:

High earnings, low interest rates.

Mark my words, it ain't over yet.

Will George W. Bush ever get any credit for this?

Don't be silly, Larry. Of course he won't, particularly since the Democrats are still pushing the meme that the economy is in ruins and that poverty and misery are all on the rise because of Bush.

Bizzyblog wonders why "the Formerly Mainstream Media always seem to be 'surprised' by good economic news?"

I am sure this is a rhetorical question, since he has explained repeatedly why that same media cannot possibly allow anything to be printed which might reflect positively on Bush.

Over a year and a half ago, when the economic reports showed the US growing at an amazing rate, reports of this were nowhere to be found on TV news, nor in the headlines of the day. It was carefully tucked away in the business section of the MSNBC website or on the back pages of the major dailies. I wrote then that the American public was hearing "command hallucinations":

The American public is hearing voices. And like auditory hallucinations experienced by psychiatric patients, these voices whisper continual doom and gloom. They tell the American consumer that prices are too high. That the economy is tanking; that poverty is on the rise; and that everything is bad bad bad.

These voices are persistant and continual. They are unrelenting. They are often frightening. And like the command hallucinations that torment many of my psychotic patients, they are completely and totally untrue. You are bad. Life isn't worth living. They are trying to hurt you. Don't try, it's not worth it.

It is very rare for such voices to say anything at all positive. They have a specific goal--and that goal is the distortion of reality.

So why do patients believe them? Especially the one's that are bizarre and so obviously out of touch with any known reality? You know, the ones that say aliens have implanted electrodes in your brain and are monitoring your thoughts and things like that.

It is a triumph of false perceptions over reality. It is testimony to how profoundly and fundamentally people trust their perceptual faculties and let their peceptions rule, even when those perception come in conflict with common sense, truth, or reality.

We, the American people have come to have a similar trust in the voices of the MSM. Over the years, they have almost become an additional perceptual faculty that we rely on--simply because life has become too complicated and overwhelming, that the use of our ordinary senses is insufficient in the modern world.

In other words, we rely on the media in the same way we rely on our own senses to provide us with the information necessary to make decisions and judgements in the real world.

The MSM has become those evil voices inside our head.

George Bush will never get any credit at all for the fact that, in spite of 9/11; in spite of war; in spite of Katrina; in spite of EVERYTHING, the US economy keeps cruising along.

But, you can count on one thing. If the Democrats can continue to scam the people into believing we are on the eve of destruction and complete economic meltdown; and if by doing so they can take back the White House in 2008; then within 6 months (possibly even less) they will be giving themselves credit for a "sudden economic turnaround" --Good times will be here again!

In essence, the dysfunctional and delusional Democrats along with their MSM henchmen treat the good news about the economy exactly like they treat any good news about the war. They don't want to hear about it because they've already decided what to think and any facts are irrelevant.

When you are unable to process reality, then all that's left are the voices in your head. And you can make them tell any kind of story you want.



UPDATE: How about this incredible story from yesterday:

U.S. tax receipts from individuals hit a record one-day high of $48.7 billion on April 24, a Treasury Department official said on Wednesday.

The previous record was $36.4 billion, set on April 25, 2006, said Jennifer Zuccarelli, a Treasury spokeswoman.

The record reflects taxes not withheld from individuals over the course of the year, but paid to the government before this year's April 17 income-tax deadline.

While some of those tax payments come from taxpayers who withheld less tax from their paychecks than they owed, much of it was owed on income from investments or profits.

"This reflects the fact that Americans in high-income brackets had a very good year in 2006," said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The one-day total is a small fraction of the estimated $2.5 trillion in overall tax receipts the government is likely to collect in fiscal 2007, Crandall said.

But strong tax revenues point to the likelihood of a shrinking budget deficit, he said.

Notice that the Dems are no longer demanding the elimination of the Bush tax cuts? But will they admit that the cuts have generated more personal income, more spending and therefore more revenue? Never!

Instead we get parsed headlines that look at the rate of growth, instead of growth itself to make people believe that things are going badly. Consider the title of the linked article, then read the last sentence of the article:

Consumers whose shopping is indispensable to a booming economy boosted their spending at a 3.8 percent pace in the first quarter. That was a solid showing although it was slightly weaker than the 4.2 percent growth rate logged in the fourth quarter.

A key reason why consumers have remained resilient, even in the face of the painful housing slump, is that the jobs markets has managed to stay in good shape. The nation's unemployment rate dropped in March to 4.4 percent, matching a five-year low

.

If you actually read the article you will discover that the headline focuses on the only negative aspect they could find in the latest economic news.

Economic reality simply drives today's Democrats crazy.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:08 AM |

 
DEAD WRONG - Hysteria, Denial and Paranoia Are Not the Answer !
Victor Davis Hanson this morning lists the reasons why the opportunistic Democrats(exemplified by losers like Harry Reid) are dead wrong to imagine that the war on terror would be over if only the US would get out of Iraq. He concludes:

This is a strange war. Our successes in avoiding attack convince some that the real danger has passed. And when we kill jihadists abroad, we are told it is peripheral to the war or only incites more terrorism.

But despite the current efforts at denial, the war against Islamic terrorism remains real and deadly. We can't wish it away until Middle Eastern dictatorships reform - or we end their oil stranglehold over the world economy.

These days, Republicans or conservatives are hysterically accused of "fearmongering" by the peace-loving leftists whenever said conservatives point out the simple truths that Hanson delineates.

The voices of determined denial, as Hanson outlines, grow more shrill daily. Of course, it is those same voices who insist that anyone who cannot see that we are destined to lose the war in Iraq are the ones in denial. (See this post for a discussion of dueling denial accusations and how a rational individual might be able to tease out who is correct and who is not).

At any rate, I don't happen to agree with those who want to pretend that everything would be hunky-dory as soon as we capitulate to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Certainly, no one can predict the future, and we may indeed lose the battle there; but the fact remains that the long-term consequences of proactively surrendering to a ruthless, psychotic enemy like Al Qaeda and their allies will only encourage and strengthen their desire to kill us--and make them think they can do so with impunity.

Newsflash. This is not "fearmongering." This is the nature of the enemy we are dealing with; and the reality of the kind of war we are fighting.

Yesterday, I listened to a Democratic "analyst" say that it was ridiculous to suggest that the US could be seriously harmed by any terrorists (let's ignore for the moment the contradictory discourse that the Dems have put out about how much harm they are supposedly doing to our troops in Iraq). The threat is greatly overblown, she continued confidently, smiling at the other talking head who was cautioning against giving Al Qaeda ammunition to continue killing our troops by passing a withdrawal plan in Congress. She went on to say that it was "absurd" to imagine that Al Qaeda or the terrorists were "tuned in" to anything that went on in the halls of American political power.

This is a Democratic analyst speaking. Supposedly this person is intelligent and capable of complex analyses of events (otherwise why is she considered an "analyst"?), and yet... she appears to be incapable of understanding even the most fundamental concepts about war (or any complex system). The idea that for every action on our part, there is a counteraction that the enemy will take is apparently too difficult a concept to grasp by this "analyst".

This kind of one-dimensional thinking exhibited by the above analyst--and most of the Democratic party these days-- is characteristic of people who are deep in the throes of psychological denial. For them it is always a simple black and white equation; not a matter of adaptation or complexity (and they accuse the right of not be able to be nuanced!). Their only concern about the future revolves around the obsessive desire to get back in the White House and/or to destroy the current administration while trying. Planning, or adapting a strategy to win a war, is beyond their psychological capabilities.

This is why they have been aggressively incapable of developing any kind of a plan to succeed in Iraq. Success in Iraq is irrelevant (or even counterproductive) in the pursuit of their only goal.

In order to win this war--or any war, for that matter, a nation must be able to cope with their fear of failure/defeat by using healthy psychological defense mechanisms. Psychologically losing the war requires only denial, distortion, displacement and self-deception; winning, or doing everything possible to attempt to win, requires the ability to anticipate and adapt to the real world, putting off short-term goals to focus on the long-term. Defeat is, of course, always a possibility; but a healthy person or group, will not surrender when the consequences of surrendering have such catastrophic long-term implications.

The psychological defense mechanism of anticipation, in the words of George Vaillant:

....involves realistic and affect-laden planning for future discomfort. [...] of all the mature defenses, anticipation rearranges outer and inner reality the least. Rather than use self-deception, anticipation spreads anxiety out over time. It involves the self-inoculation of taking one's affective pain in small, anticipatory doses....In the worlds of the psychoanalyst Heinz Hartmann, one of the pioneers of ego psychology, "The familiar function of anticipating the future, orienting our actions according to it and correctly relating means and ends to each other...is an ego function and, surely, an adaption process of the highest significance."
[...]
Most of us, like Scarlet O'Hara would prefer to "think about it tomorrow." Making a list of worries before embarking on a trip seems like a reasonable cognitive coping strategy. But nobody likes to worry; thus we "forget" to act on such advice. We would never miss planes or forget to floss our teeth if we had consciously pondered the unpleasant consequences in advance. Moreover, it is far easier to plan voluntarily for neutral events like plane trips and tooth decay than for affect-laden events like funerals and the real costs of war.

For some time now--9/11 to be precise-- the left has claimed that the Bush Administration has beens using fear to manipulate the population. Every time 9/11 is mentioned; every time someone suggests that the threat is not going to go away; or that enabling and encouraging the enenmy only makes us less safe--the cry of "fearmongering" is raised.

Let's discuss this from a psychiatric and psychological perspective.

Anticipation is a healthy and appropriate psychological defense against terrorism and the Islamofascists (who most certainly want to kill us and destroy our society). It, among all the defenses, is probably the most conscious one, able to be used when coping with fear. The idea that it is preferable to use a psychotic defense, e.g. denial; or paranoia (e.g., saying that it was Bush or the US government that was behind 9/11--not Islamofascists); or a neurotic one (e.g., that the only thing we have to fear is...President Bush; or the Christian fundamentalists. The latter is a defense mechanism called displacement that I have already discussed in an earlier posts) is quite untenable.

In fact, the "fearmongering" accusation has elements of all three immature defenses, as well as a noticeable touch of hysteria. Any reasonable person who is aware of all the pervasive and barbaric Islamofascist homicidal behavior around the world; or sees the millions of fanatics in the Middle East who regularly chant "death to America" or "death to Israel" or "death to those who insult islam"; would seem to be justified in experiencing fear in the face of such irrationality and hate.

The implication of the accusation of fearmongering is that that the only purpose in talking about such fears --which are judged to be inappropriate by those in psychological denial--must be to manipulate or consolidate power (a projection, perhaps?). And, their bizarre conclusion is that, while we are fighting this "illusory" enemy, the Bushitler has been amassing power and will soon set himself up as a dictator, initiate a Christian theocracy, and eliminate all our freedoms.

I will let you decide who we have to fear more--the President of the United States or the religious fanatics of Islam who want to obtain a nuclear weapon? Who do we have to fear more: those who are trying to prevent another 9/11 or those who would like nothing better than to do something even worse in our country?

Anticipation is the realistic planning for future discomfort or pain. This defense mechanism includes goal-directed and even overly careful planning or worrying--depending on the situation. Anticipating realistic events such as death or illness or separation and loss; and then consciously utilizing personal insight and self awareness to mitigate the worse effects, if possible is the height of maturity and healthy psychological functioning.

I don't know about you, but I am afraid of terrorism and what the Islamic jihadists want to do to the world. In fact, I think it is extremely reasonable to be afraid. We are not dealing with people with whom you can sit down and negotiate a reasonable settlement of disagreements.

The Islamic fanatics want to either forcibly convert us, enslave us , or kill us. They have repeated these objectives clearly many times. I happen to find none of their options particularly attractive. Nor do I find the "moderate" course in dealing with such fundamental irrationality particularly helpful as an overall strategy (although supporting moderate voices within Islam may be a useful tactic in appropriate circumstances). The moderates of the left and right mean well when they argue for moderation and tolerance; but in reality, they are enabling the first two of the Islamists' objective's (convert or enslave) as a compromise tactic because they would prefer not to have conflict.

EVERYONE reasonable prefers not to have conflict. No sane person wants to have war. But the enemy in this instance has made it perfectly clear to anyone who is listening that unless we convert to Islam or submit to Islam, they intend to kill us.

What, then, is the best way to cope with the reasonable fear that a reasonable person should be experiencing about this unreasonable strain of Islam that is sweeping the world?

It doesn't take a psychiatrist note that radical Islam is pushing any moderates into impotent bystanders on the sidelines--much in the same way I imagine the rise of National Socialism in Germany did to some of the more moderate Germans in the 30's.

One thing I know. DENIAL of the threat won't work, except to give our enemies time and space to do what they are intent on doing. DISPLACEMENT won't work, except to facilitate denial and tie the hands of those who are doing their best to deal with the threat. PARANOIA (and its little brother PROJECTION) only work against those who really are out to get you. It is not a helpful survival strategy if you give into your suspicions and turn your gun on the colleague standing next to you when the raging bull is bearing down on the two of you.

The psychologically healthiest way to cope with fear is ANTICIPATION, which allows you to realistically plan for an identified danger. SUBLIMATION, which allows you to transform otherwise negative emotions into positive actions; HUMOR, which allows you to identify the danger without being overwhelmed by it; SUPPRESSION, which allows you to put aside irrelevant (yet perhaps important down the road) activities or feelings that might interfere in dealing with the immediate danger; and ALTRUISM, that allows you to provide service to others in a way that is both positive and pleasurable.

What is it except hysteria and fear-mongering that motivates the left to believe that the President of the United States intends to eliminate our most precious civil liberties and establish a fascist state? What is it except hysteria that can only focus on the daily death counts from Iraq, and not on the context of what our soldiers are dying for? What is it except hysteria that concludes the death of 3000 innocent Americans at the hands of religious fanatics in ONE DAY is nothing to be concerned about; but the death of 3000 professional soldiers in FIVE YEARS is enough to cut and run?

Even emotionally healthy and extremely rational people can be appropriately afraid. Because if they are not afraid, they will die. If they do not take steps to protect themselves, they will die. If they ignore for too long the threats amassing to kill them, even the strong will die.

I am not arguing that there should be a carte blanche given to the executive branch of government. But even the Founding Fathers understood that during a war is no time to be arguing like children about who gets to do what. The Constitution allows the president to assume powers and responsibilities that he otherwise would not even want. It is truly hysteria and fear-mongering that motivates the likes of Olberman and many on the political left these days. Their hatred of Bush and conservatives/Republicans knows no bounds and it is impossible to convince them that we are not going to become a fascist state under George Bush--just as it was impossible to convince them that the fascist state run by Saddam represented a serious threat to the world.

I'm sure they all tremble in their beds at night, waiting for the Bush Gestapo to come and take them away. Underneath all the posturing about civil rights and such, truly paranoid people and people in denial are actually very fearful people, desperately trying to avoid dealing with their fear.

Those of us who prefer to be proactive and anticipate for future attacks are the ones who are dealing directly with our fears.


The various defense mechanisms mentioned here are mostly unconscioously used. As I said previously, anticipation is the only one that can be turned to deliberately or consciously. The others--denial, paranoia, projection, and displacement--will continue in the user until they develop insight and self-awareness; i.e., be able to stand outside themselves and identify when an immature and problematic defense is being used instead of a healthier mature one. Only then can someone in denial be able to observe his or her own behavior and appreciate what drives that behavior; and hence be willing to change it if necessary.

Let me make this clear. ALL defenses --healthy or not--are involuntary and unconscious attempts to deal with dangerous , overwhelming or unbearable situations. I am not making a moral judgement about the use of denial, paranoia, projection, displacement or other psychotic or neurotic defenses to cope.

I AM MAKING A MORAL JUDGEMENT ABOUT THE DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR THAT IS A CONSEQUENCE OF USING THOSE PROCESSES.

The ability to control behavior is absolutely necessary to living in any kind of a civilized society. When our unconscious motivations and fears determine that behavior, we lose control over it. Only by self-reflection and developing insight into why we do the things we do, and say the things we say is it possible to make the unconscious conscious; and thus exert some control over behavior.

It is not easy to look at one's own behavior and recognize it to be dysfunctional and counterproductive--or even morally reprehensible. Yet doing so is essential to optimally cope with reality and survive (and thrive under) life's challenges.

Immature defenses primarily exist to accommodate an immature/developing neurological system (that is why children are the heaviest users of these kind of defenses); and when adults resort to them it is because such defenses might be helpful to cope over the short-term; and may provide transient relief from overwhelming, dangerous and unbearable situations. But as long-term coping strategies, they will inevitably lead to unhappiness, mental illness, and even the death of the individual who uses them regularly and consistently.

When such immature coping strategies are used by political leaders like Reid and Pelosi for short-term political gain; and when they are used by cultural figures like O'Donnell and many others; then they should be roundly condemned and exposed for the dysfunctional behaviors they are. People using denial, projection, paranoia and displacement are dead wrong.

And, they place all of us at risk.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:28 PM |

 
YOU DECIDE !
Was NBC's decision to show the narcissistic ramblings of a homicidal suicide shooter a symptom of a dysfunctional media ; or a mature adaptation to the realities of journalism?




OK, I stacked the deck against NBC, but even my teenager could answer the question their producers faced, more maturely.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:04 PM |

 
SYMPTOM OR ADAPTATION ?
I have written quite a lot about psychological defense mechanisms on this blog, primarily because I think that a solid understanding of these critical psychological processes shed quite a bit of light on both individual and group behavior. To follow-up on the post from yesterday "In Defense of Psychological Defenses", I thought it would be useful to review how psychological defenses can either be "red flags" that alert a person (or an observer) about an underlying conflict; or they can be mature adaptations to life that bring pleasure and fulfillment, as well as enhance society.

There are three key books that I refer to repeatedly that have shaped my own understanding of defense mechanisms: Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense; and George Vaillant’s two books, Adaptation to Life and The Wisdom of the Ego. I can highly recommend all three books for anyone interested in these topics.

Before I tackle the question posed in the title of this post, I would like to provide some background and context on some of the research into psychological defense mechansisms.

Many people mistakenly confuse "pop" psychology--the kind of advice you read in supermarket tabloids and magazines-- with real clinical psychiatry; and the ideas of Freud, Kohut, Bion and other theorists, with those of modern, best-selling self-help gurus, who mostly oversimplify to the point of misrepresenting those psychological concepts and ideas. Between those people who worship the gurus and those who think anything from the psychological realm is a a load of BS, there is not a lot of understanding or appreciation of the importance of some of the basic concepts of psychology and their relationship to what we now understand of neurophysiology.

Freud wrote at one point in his life about his theories that,

...The deficiencies in our description would presumably vanish if we were already in a position to replace the psychological terms by physiolgoical and chemical ones.

Since the time Freud wrote that insightful comment, considerable neurophysiological evidence vindicating many of his theoretical concepts has emerged. Interdisciplinary groups studying neurology, physiology and psychoanalysis are discovering how useful Freudian ideas are for understanding the way the brain works and to interpret the physiology, while offering a template upon which further understanding can be built.

I recommend an article in the May, 2004 Scientific American titled "Freud Returns" for an overview of this issue (article is available online only by subscription or purchase). In the article, Eric Kandler, the 2000 Nobel laureate in physiology states that psychoanalysis is "still the most coherent and intellectually satisfying view of the mind."

George Vaillant is a brilliant researcher who has spent most of his professional career studying psychological defense mechanism and collecting data over their use during the lifetime of many individuals. I can summarize some of Vaillant's conclusions based on his extensive research thusly:
• Psychological defenses are real and used regularly by everyone
• These defenses can be reliably identified and analyzed
• The “maturity” of a person’s defenses is positively related to mental health
• This positive association between mature psychological defenses and mental health appears to be independent of gender, social class, culture, or educational level
• Maturity of defenses also predicts a person’s satisfaction with life
• Maturity of defenses predicts physical health up to about age 65. After that age, other factors (most likely genetic and biological) take over.
• People with significant cognitive impairment (e.g., with IQ's less than 80; or someone who is brain-damaged) have demonstrably less mature defensive styles.

Defenses are typically considered in a hierarchy extending from immature to mature. The least mature—or psychotic defenses include: denial, distortion, and delusional projection (paranoia); the immature defenses are: fantasy, projection, hypochondriasis, passive-aggression and acting out. Neurotic defenses are: intellectualization, repression, reaction formation, displacement, and dissociation. The mature defenses include: sublimation, suppression, anticipation, altruism, and humor. Other defenses exist, but these are the ones most commonly discussed.

The purpose of all psychological defenses, whether mature or not-- is to assist the individual in coping with sudden changes; or severe internal or external conflicts that threaten to overwhelm the sense of self. Such changes or conflicts may relate to the people in our lives; to factors or behavior which challenge our values or our emotional capabilities; or to changes in reality that shake the foundations of our view of the world.

All such defenses-- to a greater or lesser extent-- distort reality. The less mature distort reality greatly; while the most mature allow for the expression of the inner conflict in socially appropriate--i.e., civilized-- and psychologically healthy ways that at least conform to reality, even if they don't necessarily acknowledge it.

The key to understanding psychological defenses is to realize that all of them--no matter how infantile or immature--are attempts to adapt to a difficult situation. What matters is not that an immature defense is being used, but how long the individual uses it before it becomes maladaptive, dysfunctional, pathological and/or potentially dangerous and life-threatening to the individual and/or group using it.

To put it plainly: it is not at all healthy for either an individual or a group of individuals (i.e., a culture) to distort reality for very long. In the short-term the use of an immature or even a psychotic defense can give a person time to adapt to painful reality without their sense of self falling apart. It gives them time to change themselves and adapt; or, alternatively, it can preserve the psychological self at the expense of the physical self. Generally, a significant injury or death is a rather high price to pay simply because accommodating the real world is too difficult or abhorrent.

Thus we come to our fundamental question. How does one assess if someone is using a maladaptive defense that is a symptom of an underlying pathology? Even more importantly, how can you tell when YOU YOURSELF are using maladaptive defenses to disguise your own biases and unacceptable feeliings?

Vaillant makes the following pertinent observation:

“…whether a defense is normal or abnormal depends on the eyes of the beholder. We always regard our own vigilance toward our enemies as adaptive, but we view their mistrust of us as an unwarranted projection of their own shortcomings”

This is why accusations go back and forth in political debates that can best be summarized by the following exchange:

"You are projecting!" or "You are the one in denial!"
"No, you are!"
"Who's projecting now?"

And so on. This gets rather tiresome very quickly as you might imagine. Each person in the argument believes they are free from the “contamination” of using an immature or primitive psychological defense while the other person exemplifies its use. Logically, of course one or the other may be correct in their assertion, both, or neither.

While feelings about the matter maybe useful pieces of data with which to understand reality, but they are certainly not the best tool for that purpose; and an overreliance on them to the exclusion of reason and critical thought is a strategy that cannot be successful if long-term survival is the goal. Nevertheless, with that said, sometimes feelings are all one has to go on.

While each person's perception rests on their own subjective experience, one of the unique aspects of psychiatry is learning how to use one's own feelings and subjective reactions to glean information from reality. In a previous post on "Feelings, Countertransference and Reality", I wrote:

To make an assessment of the gut feeling's appropriateness, the contents of the unconscious must be explored and brought to the conscious level and considered. Those unconscious internal conflicts can easily mask the inappropriate aspects of the feelings, making them worthless as a means of understanding the external world.

Taking this kind of action as a method of checking and understanding one's own feelings is a process called "insight" or "self-awareness". Some people do this quite naturally and honestly. Some learn in therapy or when they are in crisis. But if insight is absent then one's feelings have the potential to do great harm --both to one's self and to others.

Some unconscious factors, or psychological defenses, that can make one's feelings untrustworthy are: 1) the person you are responding to has become symbolic of someone else in your life (displacement, fantasy, or perhaps distortion); 2) focusing on one particular aspect of a person, you ignore other, more objective data that are available to you about the person (denial); 3) you place your own unacceptable feelings onto the other person--e.g., I'm not an angry person, -- he's an angry person! (projection or full-blown paranoia).

The truth is that there are countless ways that unconscious processes within ourselves can distort our responses to others and to reality itself.

Growing up and attaining maturity requires that we take a moment to consider such factors playing a role in our emotions before we act on those emotions. If we come to know ourselves and understand our own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, limitations and secrets; then our emotional responses to people or to the world can be very valuable tools to help interpret the world. But they are only tools, and if not used wisely, they can do more harm than good. Feelings cannot be used in a court of law--for good reason. And they are not ultimate truth in the court of reality, either.

As I have gained experience in psychiatry, more often than not, when I trust such feelings and proceed to analyze what is bothering me about the situation, I discover a wealth of information that would have otherwise remained hidden. Sometimes that "wealth of information" is only about myself; but even in that case, I learn something new --frequently something insightful that I didn't want to know--about myself.

Even with all the training; and even with self-awareness and a keen insight into one's own motivations and interpersonal dynamics, when it comes to implicitly trusting one's feelings above and beyond all other data; one has to be very cautious. All too often, mistakes are made; feelings can simply be wishes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the reality. If we are lucky, we discover this before too much damage is done.

The key to gaining control over behavior that is motivated by maladaptive, unconscious defenses is to make them conscious. This requires that a person be able to reflect on his or her behavior or feelings and on the contents of one's mind; and with honesty and forthrightness develop some insight into why one feels, thinks, or acts a certain way. This is particularly important if the way one is thinking, feeling or acting is causing serious problems to one's self or to others.

Let us return to the acrimonious political debate mentioned earlier. How can you decide if someone is "projecting" or in "denial" versus accurately responding to and interpreting objective reality? In other words, how do you tell if the use of a defense is a symptom of some underlying psychological problem versus whether it is adaptive and healthy?

In order to be adaptive, a defense:

• should regulate, rather than remove affect – that is, instead of totally anesthetizing a person, the defense would just reduce the pain (and therefore make it easier to cope; rather than to avoid coping altogether)

• should channel feelings instead of blocking them (i.e., allow a healthy expression of those feelings in a way that can discharge them in socially acceptable ways rather than keep them hidden and motivating behavior)

• should be oriented to the long-term; and not simply short-term comfort or avoidance

• should be oriented toward present and future pain relief; and not focused past distress

• should be as specific as possible (i.e., be as a key is to a lock; not as a sledgehammer applied to a door)

• the use of the defense should attract people and not repel them (Vaillant points out that the use of the mature defenses --i.e., humor, altruism, sublimation etc.-- is perceived by others as attractive and even virtuous; while the immature defenses are generally perceived as irritating, repellant, and even evil). Watch this video, for example, and try to imagine how many of the political leaders in either party could be this comfortable making fun of themselves. It is a sign of psychological health when a person can take his or her foibles and appropriately mock them in a pleasurable manner.

A discussion of the factors that influence the development of mature defenses and healthy adaptation can be found here.

For the purposes of answering the title question (which may have become lost in this rather long and windy discussion): when is a psychological defense a symptom and when is it a healthy adaptation; I would like to consider two words used frequently these days; comparing and contrasting their use in political discourse.

The two words are "antisemitism" and "islamophobia".

A discussion of the difference between the two concepts--which are considered similar processes by many is instructive. First, I will turn to ShrinkWrapped , who posted an excellent and rather elegant discussion of anti-semitism a while back. Antisemitism is a particularly virulent psychological projection that seems to occur frequently in the world of politics.

Most of us in the West have long recognized the danger of anti-Semitism. Victor Davis Hanson recently pointed out that it is symptomatic of totalitarian societies which need to deflect the blame for their failures onto others:

Anti-Semitism, of course, is the mother's milk of fascism. It is always, they say, a small group of Jews — whether shadowy cabinet advisers and international bankers of the 1930s or the manipulative neoconservatives and Israeli leadership of the present — who alone stir up the trouble.

The beauty of anti-Semitism is that the Jews have a long tradition of being small in number yet relatively visible in the societies in which they lived. Thus, they serve as the perfect objects on which to project ambivalently held traits. For example, the leading anti-Semites of the world are now found in the Arab world. Their projection of all evil traits onto the Jews is a thing of beauty in its incoherent hatred.

SW correctly notes that a significant amount of the anti-semitism in the world today comes from Middle Eastern and Islamic countries (although is certainly not confined to it). The rampant viciousness toward Jews in this particular culture appears to be boundless and, in many cases, unwaveringly repellent.

Tales of Jews eating muslim babies; pictures of them dripping with the blood of innocents are standard fare within Islamic culture. It is also clear that most muslims are completely oblivious to their own inappropriate and bizarre hatred. Presidents of Islamic countries openly announce that Jews are to be "wiped off the map"; and that perhaps the greatest genocide in the history of humanity is a made-up fantasy to generate sympathy for Jews.

You know I am not making these items up. You also know (I hope) that Jews do not eat Palestinian babies in blood rituals, nor do they harvest the organs of muslims for secret research (although this kind of horror was actually done by the Nazis to Jewish victims of the holocaust).

In response to a few innocuous cartoons published in a Danish newspaper a while back, we have international riots and violence. Leaders of Islam announce fatwas and put bounties on the lives of hapless cartoonists. Iran announces an ingenious "contest" to encourage the publication of "holocaust" cartoons, which they imagine equals the outrage they feel has been perpetrated on them; and which they consider an expression of their "free speech" (which in some ways it certainly is, but I am more interested in the psychopathology that underlies such "speech").

Here is one response to their contest that demonstrates how to effectively cope with unrestrained hatred being projected your way. Humor is alway an effective strategy for coping with insanity. So, for that matter are the other mature defenses.

Now, I ask you to compare and contrast using the criteria I outlined above. Consider the affect/emotion and how it is presented--positively or negatively? Are unpleasant truths or shameful feelings are being confronted or avoided? Is the response a "key" or "sledgehammer"? Is the amount of affect generated appropriate to the circumstances?

Look again at the Mohammed cartoons that started all the fuss. Then look at these cartoons that are typical of what is regularly published on a daily basis in the Arab press about Jews.

Which cartoons are truly offensive and clearly demonstrate an intense hatred toward the subject depicted by all objective criteria?

Consider the violent and over the top reaction of muslims to the Mohammed cartoons. Consider the reactions of Jews to the holocaust cartoons (were we witness to the eruption of the "Jewish street" as it acted out in anger and rage at the shame and humiliation of being told that the holocaust never occurred?).

Consider the point that Ahmadinejad was trying to make by initiating his "contest" for the drawing of holocaust cartoons; and consider the response I linked to above from Jewish students worldwide. Consider, too, Ahmadinejad's "scientific" Holocaust Conference (and, note the "experts" that attended it) where it was discussed whether or not the Holocaust actually occurred, by people whose agenda is to eliminate Israel and Jews.

More recently, there has been much buzz about the insistence by muslim groups that Holocaust remembrances be more "inclusive" because they want their piece of the victimhood pie. This is yet another expression of the pervasive antisemitism in that culture. If they can't be recognized as victims as much as the Jews, and since the Holocaust never happened anyway, then they will shut down Holocaust remembrance services.

Now ask yourself, is the ubiquitous, almost casual, antisemitism of the Islamic world a healthy, adaptive response to some injustices perpetrated by Jews that muslims have to deal with in the real world; or is it a projection that is symptomatic of some serious psychopathology within the muslim culture?

Now, let us consider the charge of "islamophobia" that is angrily thrown out by CAIR or muslims whenever anyone dares to question the behavior of the adherents of Islam.

These adherents violently protest with signs that say "death to those who insult Islam" and other assorted threats like "Behead those who insult Islam"; "Europe you will pay, 3/11 is on the way"; and "Be prepared for the real holocaust".

Sadly, such signs and their vile slogans cannot merely be considered exaggerated rhetoric; nor can the burning of embassies and the mindless violence be considered the expression of restless youth. Remember Salman Rushdie; Theo van Gogh; and others who have the threat of death or who have died because they dared to "insult" this religion.

Consider 9/11, 3/11, 7/11; and the London, Bali and Beslan travesties. Consider the plight of women who would like to live life outside a Burqa; the prevalence and condoning of FGM, or consider the kidnappings, abuse, torture, humiliation and decapitations carried out by the practitioners of the religion of peace on a regular basis. Consider--in case you have forgotten--the words of Bin Laden when he declared war on the U.S. Consider the discussion in Islamic circles about how many women and children it is permissible to kill with nuclear weapons. Consider the thousands in Iran; in Lebanon; in Gaza and all over the Arab world, who chant "Death to America and/or Israel".

Now, after you have thought all about these events and behaviors; do really you think it is unreasonable to experience a degree of "fear" or anxiety about people who engage in such cognitive dissonance and irrational behavior and who are members of this religion? Would this be adaptive on your part? Realistic? Based on the actual behavior one witnesses almost every day by real people in the muslim world?

If you ignore this reality or pretend that it doesn't exist, then a case can be made that you are engaging in a very maladaptive psychological response, e.g., denial; or engaging in a slightly less maladaptive reaction --e.g., fantasy, or displacement (i.e., everything is all Bush's/America's/Israel's fault)

Certainly there are many decent and honorable muslims in the world; but they are trapped in a religious connundrum that is currently unsolvable ; and hence have little or no impact on the direction their religion has taken.

The word "islamophobia" is bandied around as if it were somehow a complementary concept for muslims, similar to what "antisemitism" is for Jews. This is objectively not the case.

There has been no wholesale exploitation or abuse of muslims anywhere in the world--except by other muslims (Saddam and the Taliban come to mind; as well as all the other oppressive regimes in the Middle East). There has been no genocide of muslims--except by other muslims (consider Darfur; consider what Al Qaeda is doing to Iraqi civilians; what Shia are doing to Sunni and vice versa). There have been no systematic outrages perpetrated on the people of Islam--except by other people of Islam.

And if you are someone who believes Israel has oppressed the Palestinians; consider just for a moment the fact that the poor Palestinians would much rather kill Jews and each other than work to better their own lot in life--even after they have been finally given their own territory (see here also)

Let me be clear that I am not saying that real islamophobic behavior cannot be the result of projection or paranoia on the part of some individuals or groups. For it is the case that ANY CONVENIENT GROUP MAY BE USED TO PROJECT ONE'S OWN UNACCEPTABLE FEELINGS ONTO. Historically, the Jews have been the recipients of such pathology fairly frequently; but they are hardly the only group that has had to deal with it.

The leaders of Islam, however, seem to be suffering from a case of "victim envy"; for all intents and purposes desirous of acquiring the label of victim even as they go around victimizing the rest of the world with their suicidal rage; and even as they plan the final solution for the demonized Jewish population.

Objectively, there is just no case at all to support the idea that other groups are systematically or institutionally "projecting" their own unacceptable feelings or acting out toward the muslim population at large; nor are the scant number of individual cases of prejudice very compelling either; despite the unbelievable rhetorical flourishes of the left and other Islamic radical apologists. On the contrary, there is much evidence to suggest that the world is trying its best (perhaps trying too hard) to be decent and give as much leeway to muslim anger as is possible; and is even bending over backwards to make sure muslims understand that they are being treated equally, or even more equally in some cases, with all other religions and groups.

When "islamophobia" is used as a bludgeon to accuse and attack anyone who makes the mildest criticism of Islam--no matter how well-meaning that criticism may be--the attack becomes yet another psychological projection by muslims that deflects their own sense of shame, humiliation and inferiority and helps them to believe that such feelings would go away if only they got some respect.

Unfortunately for them, their historical shame and humiliation; as well as their medieval cultural and religious backwardness must be confronted and their behavior must change before they can be an effective part of the modern world. If it were not for the fact that oil happens to be found in that part of the world, I seriously doubt that Islam or Arab culture would have any impact on the world today; and the rest of the world could comfortably watch as their culture continued on its rush toward primitivism.

In the end, both antisemitism and the accusations of islamophobia are parallel symptoms of a single disease that is running rampant in Islamic countries and among those raised in a religion that thrives on hatred and violence, but somehow manages to believe in its heart that it is loving and peaceful and following the will of God.

In the end, there is only one effective treatment for these psychological symptoms: take one heaping dose of reality and two teaspoons of painful consequences; and call the rest of the world in the morning.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:06 AM |

 
THE SANITY SQUAD - Dangerous Behavior
This week the Sanity Squad takes up a controversial topic: Can dangerous behavior really be reliably predicted?

And, if so, what should be done about people judged dangerous when they haven’t yet committed a crime? What is the role of mental health professionals and involuntary commitment in balancing the need to protect society with the need to champion the liberty of the individual?

Psychiatry and psychiatrists have been given this "social control" role by society, and yet they are expected to be able to appropriately balance that function with the best interests, liberty and privacy concerns of their patients.

These questions take on a critical importance in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders, as every talking head in America pontificates knowingly about what could have and should have been done to prevent it.

Hindsight is always perfect, of course.

The consequences of what might have been are unrecordable. No one considers that every day in every state, the psychiatric profession involuntarily hospitalizes people who are imminently a danger to themself or others and very likely saves many lives and prevents many tragedies from occurring.

But the thing about preventing a really terrible thing from happening is that...it prevents a really terrible thing--or things-- from happening. So, nobody reads articles about how effectively the system works or how many lives were saved--because there is no way of calculating that metric.

Only when someone slips through the safety net, does it come to public awareness.

If the VA Tech shooter had been better diagnosed and treated.

If he had been locked up until he responded to treatment.

If he hadn't been allowed to obtain a gun.

If...if....if.

Just as a point of interest, the people who argue these points and want MORE laws; MORE protection; MORE perfection from the psychiatric profession; and of course easier ways to lock up people who might commit violence; are the same ones who dismiss the idea that the actions that President Bush took after 9/11 have prevented another terrorist attack on our homeland. Bush, they insist had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Oh, and stop violating the civil rights of the terrorists in Guantanamo.

[Just as an aside: I am curious as a psychiatric professional--why do we appear to be more frightened of the mentally ill (who are not more violent than the general population but are 2.5 times more likely to be the victims of violence), but not of terrorists who were caught actively fighting and killing Americans and are now incarcerated at Guantanamo?]

Actually, this the conundrum associated with successful prevention: being successful operationally means never being able to prove--from a research data perspective-- that your preventive measures had anything to do with the success versus pure dumb luck.

My area of research when I worked at NASA was on the psychological aspects of space flight. I was involved in astronaut selection and in identifying the psychological stressors of space and developing countermeasures against them for operational use.

One of the issues connected to this research used to bother me a lot and it was this: preventing something from happening is a good thing (e.g., you obviously don't want astronauts manning a space station or on a 2+ year trip to Mars to become suicidally depressed and become a risk for the mission), but by the very act of preventing such a thing from occurring you can never then prove that it might have occurred in the first place. And from the opposite perspective, if something bad does happen (like the VA Tech shootings) how can you show that 95% of the time the procedures are working--it is the demand for perfection every single time that is unrealistic.
Assessing and predicting human behavior will never be perfect no matter how many laws are passed. The act of taking away someone's personal freedom for something they might do must always be balanced by the needs of and risk to society at large.

In other words, sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; and sometimes it is the reverse. All mental health professionals are right in the middle of this dialectic and must constantly search for a synthesis for each particular individual they treat.

Join Neo-neocon, Siggy, (Shrinkwrapped and me as we consider this dilemma--and of course, relate it to the politics and culture of the day.

All podcasts of The Sanity Squad can be found here; and you can also download them from iTunes. (search for Pajamas Media)

(The Sanity Squad cartoon is drawn by Eric Allie, whose collection of political cartoons can be found here and here).
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:26 AM |

 
IN DEFENSE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFENSES
I frequently use psychiatric and psychological concepts to describe behavior in this blog, and because of that, many people accuse me of labeling anyone who disagrees with me politically as having a mental illness.

This is not true; and it suggests that most of these critics know little about psychiatry, psychiatric diagnoses, or psychological defenses.

While I do believe that some of the people I describe might indeed have a mental illness; and that some are, in fact, perfectly healthy but simply malevolent or evil; it is simply not the case that by exposing certain psychological defense mechanisms that explain their behavior, I am giving the political opposition a medical/psychiatric diagnosis. Nevertheless, if a particular diagnosis fits, I am perfectly content to let them wear it.

In discussing psychological defense mechanisms, what I am trying to do is understand how and why people behave in the way that they do. Describing psychological defenses is not the same thing as "making a diagnosis" for one very simple reason. All humans utilize psychological defenses, all the time. Both Democrat and Republican; Left and Right. Good and Bad.

Psychological defenses are involuntary, regulatory coping processes.

By themselves, defenses are not evidence of "illness". When used, they may appear to be "sick," evil, or even irrational, but basically, they reflect a creative adaptation to the world.

George Vaillant, a brilliant researcher in this area, and a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard, uses the analogy that defenses mechanisms are deployed in a fashion similar to physical symptoms-- such as a fever, cough or elevated white blood cell count. All of the latter physical symptoms occur when an individual is coming down with an illness.

Vaillant points out that the body reacts to the environment with these physiological responses in order to prevent or ameliorate the attacking illness. Without these normal physiological responses, we would be at the mercy of many illness and die.

In similar fashion, the psychological defenses are employed by the ego to respond to a threatening reality. With varying levels of success, our defense mechanisms ameliorate, distort and/or transform reality in order to protect our psychological self. The healthier and more mature defenses are a remarkably creative synthesis of our conflicts, needs and external reality; a synthesis that enable us to both give and receive pleasure in life.

Some defenses may be considered "immature" or even completely out of touch with reality; while others are "mature". This is not necessarily a value judgement, since it only reflects the fact that throughout development from childhood to adulthood; certain psychological strategies are generally discarded in favor of healthier and more effective strategies. The difference between the two types--mature and immature--is that the psychotic and immature defenses may cause considerable human misery and are, in the long run, not particularly adaptive or healthy. In some cases, they can even distort or warp reality to such an extent, that the person using the defense puts his life (and possibly others lives) at stake.

This is a very high price to pay to avoid a reality that is unpleasant or unacceptable.

Thus, when I see the predominance of "immature" strategies (e.g. projection, fantasy, acting out)--and/or some of the more primitive and potentially psychotic strategies (denial, distortion, paranoia)--being used by supposedly grownup adults, I begin to look around for explanations of their conduct that are not being acknowledged.

When I observe such strategies being used by large groups or even nations, I cringe; because the liklihood of a large number of deaths and considerable human misery is an almost inevitable outcome.

The careful observation and analysis of behavior is what I do for a living. I am very good at it; and I enjoy my profession. By helping people become aware of what they are doing that wreaks so much havoc in their life, I help them to change their behavior and therefore their lives. By pointing out and helping them to understand some of the unconscious motivations and conflicts they have, I help them to understand the psychological defenses they have employed which may be getting in the way of their pursuit of happiness.

By making the unconscious conscious, they begin to understand why they are behaving irrationally and why they have problems in their life. The goal is to get them to abandon those defenses that are distorting reality and holding them back; and to develop a new synthesis so that even their conflicts are put to a positive and productive use in their life.

Of course, the old joke about "how many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb" is appropriate here: "just one....but the lightbulb really has to want to change." Many people are very pleased not to have to change and conform to reality. They will maintain their dysfunctional defenses no matter what the cost. Self reflection and insight are too dangerous for such people, and death is preferable to altering their beliefs or fantasies about the real world. Clearly, their distress about the possibility of changing themselves or their beliefs is far greater than any potential consequences they might experience by using an immature, unhealthy and dysfunctional psychological defense to avoid reality.

But the people who come to see me are generally in considerable distress from their symptoms and want to change (of course, that doesn't mean they will do so easily, unfortunately). When there is a physiological/biological component to this type of dysfunction, I may from time to time, prescribe medication so that their nervous system can optimally cope with the real world. This levels the playing field, so to speak; but even when medication is prescribed, only by looking at all the factors that come into play in an individual life--Biological, psychological, and social--am I able to help individuals change the course of their life. It is rarely only a "chemical imbalance" (although sometimes it is). The example I use with my medical students is the following:

A woman who comes to see me is profoundly depressed and suicidal because her husband beats her and her marriage is hell. She meets all the diagnostic criteria for a major depressive disorder, and it is clear that the prescription of an antidepressant might be very helpful. In fact, that is what the woman wants.

However, even if I prescribe the medication, I must gently point out to her that no amount of medication for her is going to change her husband's behavior. Only by changing her own behavior can she change things in her marriage-- e.g., she can leave him; she can demand that he get help; she can suggest conjoint counseling--whatever. Or, she can accept that he will continue to behave a certain way (beating her) and accept that. But the medicine will not magically make any of these things happen. All it will do is give her the physiological strength to cope better. She can accept this reality. Or, she might use denial and continue to believe that medication for her will change her husband's behavior. She might use fantasy to pretend that when her "illness" is cured, her husband will realize what a wonderful person she is and stop beating her up; she might use hypochondriasis, developing migraine headaches or other more serious symptoms that keep her away from her husband; she could be passive-aggressive, buying her spouse his favorite alcoholic drink that is the frequent disinhibitor that leads to him hitting her; she might use displacement and blame her husband's employer --who doesn't appreciate him--for her husband's aggressive behavior toward herself.

If she listens to what I am telling her, she might use anticipation and begin to plan to leave the situation at home an go someplace else. She might then find she has a knack for helping women who have abusive husbands and train to be a counselor (altruism); or find that she has acting ability and play the lead in a local production of "Cat on A Hot Tin Roof" (sublimation).

In fact she could use ANY of the many psychological defenses to help her cope with her problem.
Psychological defense mechanisms give people the psychological strength to cope with the vissictitudes of an ever-changing and often unpredictable reality. Some defenses are more useful than others for that purpose and one of the goals of mature adult functioning is to abandon the immature and problematic strategies that can only ultimately make things worse and which provide little pleasure in their life.

Probably the best description of defenses that I have ever read comes from George Vaillant, in his book The Wisdon of the Ego: (pg. 17 - 18)

1. Defenses reflect creative synthesis. The mind creates a perception that was not there before and that did not come just from external reality. In this regard, defensive behavior resembles art.
2. Defenses are relatively unconscious and their deployment is relatively involuntary.
3. Defenses distort inner and/or outer reality.
4. Defenses distort the relationship between affect and idea and between subject and object.
5. Defenses are more often healthy than pathological.
6. Defenses often appear odd or startling to everyone but the user.
7. Over time defenses often mature and allow the mentally "ill" to evolve into the mentally well.

Let me offer a concrete illustration of a defense--a photograph of a rainbow, if you will, obtained through my metaphorical telescope, the Study of Adult Development. I was interviewing an internist who had participated in the study for thirty years. He told me with vividness and enthusiasm, about his hobby: growing tissue cultures in his basement. He then told me with still more enthusiasm that the cells for one of these tissue cultures had been taken from a lesion on his mother's leg. He described his interest in tissue cultures as if it were the most ordinary pursuit in the world. But I have yet to describe his hobby to an audience without an uneasy ripple of laughter sweeping the room. Audiences have found the fact that this doctor was growing his mother's cells in his basement, as a child might raise flowers, extraordinary, even pathological. In short, the doctor saw his own behavior as normal; outsiders saw it as odd and, as we so often view other people's religion, politics, and dreams, possibly improper. Thus their laughter.

But anyone can have an unusual hobby. What mad this internist's avocation particularly noteworthy was that near the end of the interview he revealed to me--in the most matter of fact way--that his mother had died only three weeks earlier. Knowing that he had been very fond of her, I asked him how he had coped with her death. He said that, since he was a physician, he had spent his time comforting his father. On a conscious level, this man had rationalized --and he was good at rationalizing--that he had borne the grief o flosing his mother by caring for another person. Put differently, by his self-report he had used altruism as a coping strategy. Had I been interested only in conscious coping strategies, I too might have classified his means of mastering his mother's death as altruism. Instead, Ilocated his source of solace by makinig a connection of which he himself was probably unaware. I deduced that the knowledge that somehow his mother was still alive and living in his basement might be providing a secret source of comfort. Certainly he had described his scientific hobby to me with an enthusiasm and a warmth usually allotted to people and to art. Certainly, he had described the loss of his mother by death with the blandness usually allotted to leaves dropping off a tree in autumn--or to tissue cultures.

In short, defenses are creative, healthy, comforting, coping, and yet often strike observers as downright peculiar. But that is why defenses--like immune mechanisms--serve adaptation. That is why defenses integrate experience by providing a variety of filters for pain and mechanisms for self-deception. Defenses creatively rearrange
the sources of conflict so that they become manageable.

We may not be able to help which defenses our egos deploy in every situation. Sometimes, when reality is threatening enough or our conflicts are intense enough, even the most mature individual may find him or herself using the more immature defenses like denial and projection. What matters is that we make a practice of examining our own behavior and appreciating the underlying issues and motivations that drive it. Or to put it another way, we reflect on those subtle factors that may be controlling our behavior outside our completely conscious awareness (and therefore our control) and make them fully conscious. This is called developing insight and self-awareness. It is probably the equivalent of the "holy grail" in psychiatric practice, and we psychiatrists are forever encouraging our patients to go on such quests of self-discovery.

By making the unconscious conscious, we gain control over our lives and are able to make choices and attack problems based on a clear view of reality. Yes, we may make the wrong choice, or screw up in dealing with the problem even so; we may even discover some unpleasant truths about ourself. But when our psychological defenses are distorting or obscuring reality to begin with, we are far more likely to ignore a problem or pretend that it doesn't exist and then suffer even more serious consequences.

Maladaptive psychological defenses that bring ourselves and others a great deal of unhappiness and misery, can evolve into mature and adaptive responses to the world that both enhance and protect our lives. Human beings are remarkable creatures. Sometimes their capacity for self-deception and delusion seems unlimited; and sometimes their incredible creativity and ingenuity in coping with all the trials and travails that life throws at them is worthy of appreciation and even awe.

Other posts that are relevant:
Psychological Defense Mechanisms--A Review

Strategies for Dealing with Denial-I
Strategies for Dealing with Denial-II
Strategies for Dealing with Denial-III
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:56 AM |

 
THE CANCER THAT IS IRAN
According to Ian Bremmer, The mullahs are in no mood to compromise with the West:

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waved goodbye earlier this month to the 15 British sailors and marines his government held prisoner for almost two weeks, many around the world breathed a sigh of relief. Any easing of international tensions over Iran is welcome....

Tehran released the British troops because it had achieved its political goals, not as a concession to international pressure. Iran's main foreign-policy motivation in seizing the sailors was to express defiance in the face of the latest Security Council resolution over its uranium enrichment program. When Tehran was offered a face-saving opportunity to suggest the British were arrested following an honest misunderstanding, it refused. The Iranians further upped the ante by broadcasting coerced "confessions" from their captives that Britain had been entirely at fault.

Clearly, Tehran is in no mood for compromise. Until the international community agrees on sanctions on the country's energy exports -- which isn't going to happen -- Iran will run more diplomatic stop signs and continue its nuclear development at top speed.

Indeed, why should they compromise? They can achieve their political ends with nary a consequence; build up their "honor" in the Middle Eastern world and expose the West to shame and humiliation--all without anyone standing up to them in any meaningful way.

We are not dealing here with a culture that appreciates honesty; or give and take; or even compromise. We are dealing with a malignant culture , steeped in sociopathy and shame-avoidant to the point of paranoia.

One of the ways that those who fear shame to this extent protect their fragile self concept is to subjugate those who are perceived as weaker. By doing so, they can rationalize that they are superior to those who they force to submit. In fact, this is the only way that "honor"can be maximized. Giving into them in any way; appeasing or compromising; even negotiating in good faith is perceived as weakness and leads to escalating bullying and aggression, because the are convinced they are our superiors--not our equals.

In a brilliant post today in which the creation of Israel and its impact on Muslim society is discussed, SC&A note:

The notion of equality between Muslims and non Muslims, to this day, remains incomprehensible in the Arab world.

This is no small matter. Irrespective of a non Muslim’s achievement, status, education, political or even social standing, every Muslim was superior to the non Muslim. Every Muslim could abuse any non Muslim as he saw fit, and for the most part escaped serious consequence. Leaders of failed Muslim nations and failed, backward societies needed to have their populations feel superior to something or some group, anywhere. It was always in their best interests to cultivate the weeds they would refer to as a garden.

We are trying to deal with leaders who have deliberately led their countries down a suicidal path; encouraging unparalled displays of paranoia, rage, envy and brutality. These are leaders who appeal to the worse aspects of human nature; who prefer their populations to be mindless and follow "the will of Allah"--and they will happily spell out for them exactly what that will is.

Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos once said, "Try telling your immune system to be reasonable, to sit down and talk it out with the viruses that want to invade you. Tell your white blood cells to hold conferences to try to understand the root causes of bacterial motivations."

Or how about negotiating and trying to compromise with cancer as it spreads through your body destroying every organ? Do you think you can reason with it? Do you imagine that, if you appease it by promising not to excise it or irradiate it, it will cease its quest to make you submit to its nature? Clearly, it's motivation is beside the point.

The Arab language, BTW, has no word for "compromise" as we understand it in the West (the closest concept is "bargaining". I don't know about Farsi). In Arab and most Middle Eastern cultural exchanges, there must always be a winner and a loser. Losing is considered shameful, and compromise, which the West is so fond of, is considered a form of capitulation; a surrender of objectives, principles, or matter, in the process of negotiating an agreement. When it comes to a matter of honor (or simply to avoid shame) the Iranians will lie, misrepresent, double-deal and do anything necessary.

And, for them, everything is a matter of honor. They must always perceive themselves as dominant and superior to the infidel, or it would be an unparalleled catastrophe-- both individually and societally. The humiliation involved would require some fundamental changes in the culture; and since that cannot be permitted to happen, no extremity of self-delusion is too much to prevent reality from ever penetrating their consciousness. And in that sense, the people that we are dealing with are not very different from the unicellular bacteria or mutant cells that spread malignancy.

That is why it is silly to say that Tehran is in no mood to compromise...

Cancer never is.



(Cartoon by Eric Allie)
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 4:40 PM |

 
THE END OF THAT GAME / IS OPPRESSION AND SHAME
Christopher Hitchens has an absolutely riviting account of America's first war on terror--the one against the Barbary pirates. In "Jefferson versus the Muslim Pirates" from the most recent issue of City Journal we learn the following:

But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.)

Ambassador Abd Al-Rahman did not fail to mention the size of his own commission, if America chose to pay the protection money demanded as an alternative to piracy. So here was an early instance of the “heads I win, tails you lose” dilemma, in which the United States is faced with corrupt regimes, on the one hand, and Islamic militants, on the other—or indeed a collusion between them.

Hitchen's concludes that Jefferson probably made the decision to go to war at that moment, should he ever be President; and then shows how the debate about the piracy may have had considerable influence on the fledgling US democracy--particularly in the development of the US Constitution.

While some of the motivation behind the war with the Muslim pirates had to do with trade issues (they were attacking merchant ships); it is clear that something deep in the emerging American soul was repulsed by the Barbary pirates whose "cruelty, exorbitance, and intransigence" was something that no civilized nation could abide.

And, other issues besides trade were also paramount in those times:

Questions of nation-building, of regime change, of “mission creep,” of congressional versus presidential authority to make war, of negotiation versus confrontation, of “entangling alliances,” and of the “clash of civilizations”—all arose in the first overseas war that the United States ever fought. The “nation-building” that occurred, however, took place not overseas but in the 13 colonies, welded by warfare into something more like a republic

.

Sound familiar?

Hitchens notes, "It’s no exaggeration to describe the psychological fallout of this first war as formative of the still-inchoate American character."

When in 1815 the pirate base in Algiers was soundly defeated by the American Navy and sued for peace, then President James Madison said:

“It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.”

Hitchens concludes appropriately with Kipling's poem Dane-Geld:
It is wrong to put temptation in the pathof any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:—

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

Go read it all for a fascinating look at America's first encounter with Islam.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:41 AM |

 
RE-DEFINING VICTORY

Or, should that be Reid-ifining victory? And, Reid's remarks are definitely far and away more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott ever said--no matter what the gleeful band of idiots at Think Progress Defeat have to say about it.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:58 PM |

 
CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES
Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

And, while you are in the Mood for Madness, go directly to the Weekly Whackjob Awards!

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. ....and all he got was a lousy t-shirt!

2. The Democrats are undoubtedly drooling over this piece of insanity. See! Told ya. It's payback time, folks!

3. Dear God! Does the man have no decency whatsoever??? But I guess that even God flip-flops....he was for children before he was against them. But he's not the only comeback kid...does the phrase bad penny come to mind?

4. But the phrase bad hair day never does-- because they can relate to the 'little guy'? The "Perfect Democrat "-- at least from an alien perspective. The fisticuffs will continue unabated for at least two more years.

5. He's no "give 'em hell" Harry, but he has some very very devoted fans.... and, he's just showing his party's true colors. The ceremony commemorating this historic event will be soon, I'm sure.

6. Agitpropumentary? And we should listen to Mr. "fake but accurate" because....? What? The media did something incredibly stupid? I can hardly believe it.

7. And, speaking of "fake but accurate" journalism... pimping global warming AND terrifying the children.

8. Don't forget....Don Imus is the real problem. "Yo Fritz, deine Mutti ist doch eine skankische Ho!" Believe it or not, there are some Ho's we'll miss.

9. Waiting for the mapquest directions to utopia? Or how about for a sign of the Apocalypse?

10. I'm waiting for a college team to take them on as a mascot: The "Fighting Monks" has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

11. iRage. uRage; But they rage most insanely: first it was "abandoned meat", now it's "buses"; next it will be "abandoned buses" or some other psychotic nonsense.

12. You can't hide anything from anyone these days. And "keeping things confidential" makes it more public than you might think.

13. Cho's personal madness, generalized to an entire society. The true meaning of resistance...

14. There are the ordinary self-hating people of a certain ethnic group; people who hate their own country; and then again there are some who are even ashamed of their own species.

15. Another "surge"--wonder if Congress will try to stop that one, too.

16. A highly qualified individual, compelled to leave her job ...you'd think real feminists would be outraged at what happened to her....but don't count on it.

17. What the dickens is this all about? A tip that should be in everyone's anger management toolkit! Prospective grooms should seriously consider this advice.

18. Yet another American Senator wins a prestigious award!

19. Have you heard the one about the exploding toilet?

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:16 AM |

 
YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT - The Depravity Continues
As I discussed in a previous post this week, there are a variety of [psycho] paths that can be taken which lead to the same paranoid delusional destination. Once you have arrived at the final destination, then all that stands between you and evil and depravity is your character.

Apparently, the character of today's Islam is such that it encourages the creation and nourishment of monsters:

Pakistan - The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive's head to cries of "God is great!" and hoists it in triumph by the hair.

A video circulating in Pakistan records the grisly death of Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan.

An Associated Press reporter confirmed Nabi's identity by visiting his family in Kili Faqiran, their remote village in southwestern Pakistan.

The video, which was obtained by AP Television News in the border city of Peshawar on Tuesday, appears authentic and is unprecedented in jihadist propaganda because of the youth of the executioner.

Unprecedented, perhaps; but not unexpected.

If you have the stomach for it, go and read this "beautiful story" told on Egyptian TV about the wonder of child martyrdom. It begins:

"Let's listen to a very beautiful story to learn about the courage of a child, and how, when a child is brought up in a good home, and receives proper education in faith, he loves martyrdom, which becomes like an instinct for him. He can never give it up."

Another religious leader on the same program, tells a tale about Mohammed and a Jew, then asks what the children have learned from it.

A young child replies, "I learned that the Jews are the people of treachery and betrayal..."; and the Sheik, overjoyed that his message has come across so clearly, responds, "That is the most beautiful thing I have heard - that the Jews are the people of treachery, betrayal, and vileness."

These religious hatemongers brought to mind something that Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos wrote a while back. He was talking mostly about the left and child-rearing, but his words are certainly applicable to the discussion:

It has always surprised me that more historians and anthropologists don’t look at child-rearing practices to try to understand the basis of cultural health, pathology and change, and why some cultures are so much sicker than others. But hardly any do, mainly because of the dominance of the politically correct view that no culture is better or worse than any other--except for Western culture, which is the worst. And yet, how could it not be? If you have a culture that systematically abuses children in the most grotesque way--say, the Palestinians--why should anyone be surprised that they are arguably the most comprehensively depraved people on earth?
[...]
Harrison cites a couple of scholars who have attempted to quantify the link between child-rearing practices and cultural progress, in particular, progress toward democracy, economic prosperity, and social justice. As I noted in my own book, the further back in history you go, the more evidence there is of abominable child-rearing practices--what we would now call outright abuse. Perhaps this is why, as Harrison notes, “Early humans were neither democratic nor egalitarian during the first 80-90 millennia of human existence.” Instead, we see ceaseless war, violence, oppression of women and children, and frankly crazy cultural beliefs and practices. The romantic idea that humans were ever peaceful “noble savages” has been thoroughly debunked by anyone who cares to actually look at the evidence.

For anyone who cares to actually look at the evidence, the romantic idea that Islam has ever been a "religion of peace" has also been thoroughly debunked. The heirs of Mohammed have had ceaseless war, violence, oppression of women and children and frankly crazy cultural beliefs and practices since the religion's inception; and all of it has been culturally designed to keep practitioners from noticing their own religion and culture's inadequacies, irrationality, and barbarism.

But what do the medieval child-rearing practices of today's Islam--as evidenced by the stories above--show us about the culture?

What a good parent does is hard to remember; and what a bad parent does is hard to forget. When we are confronted with repeated behavior that shocks us, dsmays us and even repulses us, we can be sure that something has gone wrong somewhere.

Without ignoring the role of biology, it is clear that family obviously plays an extremely important role in the development of personality, especially in providing values and role-models. There is an entire dissertation or two in the dysfunctional family of Middle Eastern Muslims, where women are hidden and prevented from being able to be whole persons.
What impact does such a system--even in its mildest incarnation--have on the developement of BOTH girls and boys? Under the Taliban, which arguably was the most malignant iteration of Islam's dysfunction (unless we now count the evolving Somali incarnation), women were actively oppressed and beaten for any attempt to express themselves.

Even today in the halls of "modern" Islam, there are actual "debates" about whether women can drive cars or go out into public alone. The double standards of modesty and behavior encouraged by the current practice of Islam are destructive to the normal development of personality in both males and females.

Is there anyone who believes that such medieval attitudes towards women don't have a profoundly negative impact on the personalities of both the men and women who develop in such environments? Males are encouraged to be psychopaths; females to be their willing victims and enablers; as well as breeders for the jihad. When you see large groups of men willingly blowing themselves up to kill innocents, you know there is some sort of psychopathy at work. When the only way to express "gender liberation" is for a woman to imitate the homicidal / suicidal rages of the males--you know there is a problem.

Consider also, how a child could grow up in any sense normal-- knowing that their mother and father think of them only as fodder for jihad and that he has no worth to them otherwise.

Along with parenting issues, cultural factors in child-rearing play an extremely important role in personality formation and can, under certain circumstances, "stack the cards" against normal develoment even if all other factors, including biology, are benign. Michael Stone, the author of Abnormalities of Personality: Within and Beyond the Realm of Treatment comments:

Children born into authoritarian, tyrannical regimes are systematically programmed (by teachers or political authorities) to develop habits of thought and behavior at variance with parental and ommon human values. Such programming deforms the personility in any of a number of ways: one will become rigid, or mindlessly obedient, or cruel, or rebellious, or dour and bitter, etc.

We see in research studies of people from fringe or outcast social groups (such as gangs), that the members of such groups often behave respectfully and honestly toward others within their own group, but treat outsiders as if they were not human, without any sense of wrongdoing.

The ringleaders of such groups are often the the true psychopaths, and these leaders have a seemingly unlimited supply of morally weak or immature individuals (many of them very young)--who embrace antisocial behavior under group pressure.
We also know that in time of war, or social ferment, many formerly respectable, or at least "contained" non-aggressive persons (young men, especially) turn to thuggery--their morality extending only so far as expediency and conformity to the mob or gangster group of which they have become a part. Some will remain antisocial even after the crisis/riot/war passes; the majority revert to outward respectability.

Having already a predisposition because of parenting issues, the culture of Islam "stacks the deck" further by first encouraging the subjugation of women by men and giving it a religious blessing. This is nothing new in the history of the world, and it certainly occurred throughout the history of Christianity too. But the idea that women are inferior to men has been challenged for a thousand years, and as women have taken their equal place with men in the countries promoting women's rights, there has been an incredible improvement in those countries' economic and political standings.

The culturally sanctioned misogyny of Islam results in a dysfunctional family unit that has tremendous impact on both male and female personality development.

The Koran says (Sureh 4, Verse 35) that men have authority over women (not just the wife but sisters, daughters, and all females). If they disobey, "first admonish them, then refuse to sleep with them, and then beat them". In Islamic countries, women are second-class citizens. They are counted as one-half a witness in a legal proceeding; and they can inherit only one-half as much as a man. Their sexuality is considered so inflammatory, they must be hidden under clothing that prevents anyone from seeing them. In Saudi Arabia, sons may be sent to foreign universities but daughters are not even allowed to drive.

Why are women's rights issues--or rather, the lack of them-- of importance in developing antisocial psychopathology? In the case of Islam, the religion itself has set the stage for an ongoing potentially abusive situation in the family; in heterosexual relationships; and in the culture.

The subservient role of women in the religion and their status as lesser beings breeds sadism in the male, simply because it is so easy (and sanctioned) to take out your frustrations or impotence on the "inferior" half of the population. This practice is not dissimilar to why people will take out their anger and negative emotions on pets or children. Being allowed to do so teaches an important psychological lesson that all budding psychopaths learn: "I am more important and powerful because I can hurt or kill this weak person". It is often a matter of honor to have absolute control over the identified weak person; and a matter of shame if they disobey you (see here). A male's status as a man can only be maintained by having power over the women.

Through a process that Anna Freud documents called "Identification with the Aggressor" these dynamics also breed the same sadistic tendency in women, though they have many fewer options in acting it out (female suicide bombers; and mothers who cheer the deaths of their sons and daughters in Allah's cause etc.)

The second factor in Islamic culture that "stacks the deck", encouraging abnormal personality development is the perpetual war against the infidel inherent in externalization of the concept of " jihad".

Those who see "jihad" as an inner struggle will not generally evolve into psychopaths, because internalizing the process has a greater chance of fostering insight and self-awareness, rather than brutality. But even these "moderate" practitioners of Islam do not stand up and loudly contradict the psychopathic elements in their religion; rather, they invite these elements to come "teach" at their mosques and abdicate leadership roles to them.

Those who do not have the innate biological or parental resources to prevent it become the disposable fodder that can then act out the psychopaths' scripts for them. Such individuals become the stooges--the suicide/homicide bombers--who mindlessly carry out their leaders' orders without every once considering that if holiness and sainthood are guaranteed by becoming a human bomb for Allah , then why is it that their leaders are not jumping with joy to grab the opportunity for themselves?

Islam has become toxic, infusing the entire Middle East with a culture inimical to not just the 50% who are female; but equally to the half who are male and consider themselves "superior".

Children are raised in a misogynist family unit and within a cultural environment that encourages the young boys to extremes of hatred and violence. This has been going on for decades among the Palestinians in particular; but it is everywhere the jihad mindset has spread it cancerous message.

The child-rearing practices of a toxic Islam have achieved a pinnacle in the suicide bomber/murderer; and the religious indoctrination of children into the cult of jihad and hate. The young beheader is only the first of many to come, because the culture will celebrate and lionize these "heroes".

I predict that there will soon follow a video of a young girl beheading someone, since this is what passes for gender equality in this culture of death and depravity.

Those who willingly follow this cult of death meet many of the psychiatric criteria for an antisocial personality including: (1) A glib, superficial charm (especially the leaders--Nasrallah, Al-Sadr; Haniyeh; Zawahiri ...the list goes on and on) (2) A grandiose sense of self-worth; (3) Pathological lying; (4) Manipulative behavior; (5) Lack of remorse or guilt for their behavior; (6) Lack of the usual behavioral controls; (7) Deviant sexual behavior and attitudes (this has repeatedly been reported on in the Arab and Islamic culture and would not be surprising considering the distortion and denigration of females in the society); (8) Jealousy and envy; (9) A sense of entitlement; and (10) A failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions.

A combination of cultural and social factors in Islam encourages the development of the many of traits inherent in the psychopathic or antisocial personality. The predominance of this personality pattern fosters and feeds on phenomenon of terrorism and provides the cultural underpinnings that support its continuation.

Psychopathic behavior exists within all cultures. What is different about Islam is that the content of its creed has given personal and societal sanction to such behavior when it is directed toward "inferiors" within the culture and anyone outside the culture. Within this religious framework, murder, torture, intimidation and brutality can be used --not only with impunity--but with guarantees of holiness and rewards in the afterlife. Not only are the adherents safe from censure, they are actually lauded and celebrated as heroes of Islam. Just two days ago there was this news story out of Iran:

The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered "morally corrupt."
"The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system," Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview.

Three lower court rulings found all the men guilty of murder. Their cases had been appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the guilty verdicts. The latest decision, made public this week, reaffirms that earlier reversal.

"The objection by the relatives of the victims is dismissed and the ruling of this court is confirmed," the court said in a one-page verdict.

The ruling may still not be final, however, because a lower court in Kerman can appeal the decision to the full membership of the Supreme Court. More than 50 Supreme Court judges would then take part in the final decision.

According to the Supreme Court's earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran's Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.

The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers said were walking together in public.

Walking together in public!!! But it can even get more absurd under Islam. Wretchard today writes in "Deliver Us From Evil" that:

According to the AP. Iraqi insurgents are now fighting each other, as "moderate" Sunni terrorists tangle with "extremist" al-Qaeda whose brand of Islam is so radical that it prohibits placing cucumbers beside tomatoes because these vegetables have different genders. (read it all)

He goes on to talk about the gift of freedom, which is a wonderful thing-- unleashing all that is good within human beings;, but it can also unleash all that is evil and depraved, too. He adds:

A healthy culture instills in its members guideposts, as orderly societies put up highway signs, not in order to block the roads, but to guide us in our freedom.

Psychopaths cannot function openly or for long where there is freedom, equality, and the rule of law. The more we understand about Islamic law--Shar'ia--the more we come to understand that it is simply another aspect of a dysfunctional and depraved Islamic culture.

The guideposts that today's Islam sets up merely funnel human nature down that psycho path I talked about at the beginning of this post.

Terrorists, the most visible of the Islamic psychopaths, are quite desperate to prevent the establisment of democracies and quite naturally prefer Islamic law which encourages and supports their psychopathy. Individual thought and creativity; reason and justice; and the pursuit of happiness--all are completely incompatible with the psychopath's agenda.

As we see in the news stories coming out of the Middle East--from Iran to Pakistan; Gaza,Egypt and Saudi Arabia-- there is an ongoing abuse of children, both psychological and physical, of monstrous proportions. To become a ruthless, cold, semi-human serial murderer, you have to be carefully taught and nurtured.

Tiptoeing around this issue so as not to offend or make judgements about the sickness of Islamic culture is nothing more than enabling hate and true evil.

You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear.
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
and people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught
before it's too late
before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught.
--From the musical, South Pacific

RELATED POSTS:
Shame, The Arab Psyche and Islam

Where Have All The Mothers Gone?

UPDATE: A related cartoon from Cox and Forkum:


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:30 AM |

 
IT'S OK THEN !
The Iranians figure out how to get that much sought after Hollywood support for their activities...


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:43 PM |

 
THE PARALLEL PSYCHO PATH TO VIOLENCE AND TERROR
In a recent post on paranoia, I discussed the different paths a person could take, each of which would bring that person or group to a place where paranoia offered them the "best", i.e. most acceptable, explanation for their failures in life.

Let me just cut to the chase and admit that paranoia and delusional thinking are equal-opportunity, multiracial, multicultural and gender-indifferent psychological processes. And, they are so easy and convenient to use, that they are accessible even to the youngest of children or the most physiologically disabled adult mind...

I deal regularly with people who have various levels of physiological abnormality in their brain. Through an unfortunate series of events--their genetics; random biological mutations; or the deliberate use of mind-altering substances that activate the latent psychosis; etc. etc., these unfortunate souls start out with or unknowingly stimulate a defective physiology which causes a dysfunction in their cognitive faculties. Their defective brain works hard to integrate events and make sense of the world, but it is at a serious and overwhelming disadvantage because its neural pathways don't work properly. Hence, auditory or visual hallucination; bizarre delusions; complicated conspiracy theories; disorganized thinking; and an impaired critical thinking capacity in general--all of which lead to pervasive misperceptions of the world and the people around them.

We rightly call such people mentally ill. For the most part (except for the substance-induced psychotics) the only choice they have in the matter (and this, too is often dependent on whether or not the insight they have into their illness has been spared the physiological degneration that effects other parts of their brain) is whether to regularly take the medications that give them some hope of being able to accurately perceive reality.

The people I am concerned about in this post are as close to being mentally ill as it is possible to get. Oh, they have the same catastrophic physiological disruption in their brain that the paranoid schizophrenic has; it's just that they came to it via a different route. They probably weren't born with much of a physiological vulnerability for becoming detached from reality....no, they had to have repeatedly travelled down the psycho path to reach their final delusional destination. It is likely that at first they mentally got lost and accidentally took a wrong turn, leaving the main highway. It was always within their cognitive power to return to the main road (unlike those with mental illness who are biologically trapped on the false path) ; but at some point they chose to stay on their present course.

In the recent horrific events at Virginia Tech, we are able to see what can happen when a single physiologically diseased mind arrives at that paranoid destination. The amount of carnage that can be wrought--by just one such diseased brain-- is more than a sane mind can wrap itself around.

It is becoming clearer by the day that the perpetrator of these cold-blooded murders was likely a paranoid schizophrenic whose psychopathology was evident to others around him, but who likely resisted treatment and whose abherrent and abhorrent mental state only worsened over time. Dr. Helen notes:

It would be so easy if the complexities that went into the making of a killer could be boiled down to "where did this guy get a gun?" It takes responsibility away from trying to understand what went into the making of the killer, and why we, as a society did nothing to stop him.

Charles Krauthammer offers an explanation of why:

If we are going to look for a political issue here, the more relevant is not gun control but psychosis control. We decided a half a century ago that our more eccentric and, indeed, crazy fellow citizens would not be easily locked up in asylums. It was a very humane decision, but with the inevitable consequence that some who really need protection and quarantine are allowed to roam the streets freely....

In a previous age, such a troubled soul might have found himself at the state mental hospital rather than a state university. But in a trade-off that a decent and tolerant society makes with open eyes, we allow freedom from straitjackets to those on the psychic edge, knowing that such tolerance runs very rare but very terrible risk.

In other words, the society--our society--made a choice to optimize freedom; and one of the consequences of that choice is that there are Cho Seung Huis out there whose untreated disorders might result in future tragedies.

Fortunately, not very many schizophrenics--paranoid or other types--actually commit violence of this type. In fact, schizophrenic and the mentally ill in general do not commit violence more frequently than the general population. In point of fact, they are the victims of violence far more often than the general population.

Further

The MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study compared more than 1,000 people with mental disorders to 500 well people who lived in the same neighborhoods. Participants were enrolled in Kansas City, Mo.; Worcester, Mass.; and Pittsburgh.

In a May 1998 report published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers examined data gathered in Pittsburgh and found that violence rates were indistinguishable between mental patients and their well neighbors.

Other studies have estimated that about 3 percent of all the violence that occurs around the country can be attributed to mental illness, said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Massachusetts at Worcester who is also an investigator in the MacArthur project.

"Even then, it's not clear that it's the mental disorder that makes them violent, as opposed to environmental circumstances or personality traits of the individual," he added.(emphasis mine)

The abnormal physiology of the schizophrenic leads to cognitive dysfunction, which leads to a gross misperception and distortion of reality. When there is a pre-existing character structure that nourishes and feeds the misperception, using it to explain the individual's failures in life---then you have a potent combination of factors that can lead to the kind of violent events seen at Virginia Tech.

Cho lived in a society and culture that allowed him to be free and choose his fate. You can argue that when there is a disease process that interferes with truly being able to make a rational choice--a process that actively interferes with reality perception thus making the person a danger to himself and others--that society should unambiguously intervene and interrupt the process in an attempt to prevent tragedy.

But the truth is that there are many people out there who do not have a pre-existing physiological disruption of their neural pathways; and who make choices every day that lead them down the psycho path. These people act normally for the most part and do not evince most of the other symptoms of schizophrenia, but they have one thing in common with Cho and other paranoid schizophrenics--they are seeking to explain why they personally are failures in their life; or they are seeking to explain why their beliefs; or their group or their tribe are not universaly recognized as perfect. To explain those unpalatable realities about themselves or their beliefs, they are willing to embrace the most bizarre conspiracy theories about the world. They are willing to wallow in paranoia, delighting in the feeling of unmatchable power and specialness that the paranoia permits them to feel. Within their delusions they become the person they always wanted to be, and the explanation for their failure is identified as another person; another group; another race; another religion; another nation. It is all so comforting to finally understand.

At first, they can turn around and retreat down the path that brought them to this paranoid comfort zone at any time. But they don't want to. It just feels so good, even if they are persecuted for their beliefs (it actually gives further validation to them).... So they don't notice that their brains become configured like the Cho's of the world. And if their personality organization leans toward the cluster B personalities (i.e., histrionic, narcissistic, borderline, or antisocial) ; then they too can do considerable damage.

Now, imagine the latter type of individual--i.e., those who basically have a functional and normal brain physiology--living in a society or culture that (1) encourages and facilitates the development of dysfuntional personality structures; and (2) celebrates psychotic acting out; violence and terror; murder and death--all to give justification and rationalization for its failures as a culture.

Healthy societies and cultures develop structures and institutions that encourage individuals to transform the primitive instinctual energy of even the most destructive emotions into works of art or entertainment that give pleasure to others (sublimation and humor) ; or behavior that is socially beneficial (altruism, anticipation, suppression). In those cultures, people who achieve optimal psychological health are those who have come to satisfactory terms with their neurobiology. They are people who have learned to accept their anger, rage and other potentially deadly emotions and, instead of destructively acting out, repressing, denying or projecting; have creatively expressed those feelings in a way that improves life both for themselves and for others.

In most cultures, the Cho's and others who act on their violent impulses will always be considered an aberration, and not the norm. There will be debate on the most humane way to deal with those whose brain abnormality makes them psychotic and delusional--and dangerous to themselves and others.

But there are some cultures, as SC&A point out, that encourage--indeed, they require-- their members to take that parallel psycho path into the realms of paranoia and projection. These dysfunctional cultures can only maintain themselves through the paranoia and externalization of blame for the misery and oppression of their population. In those cultures, people who act like Cho are celebrated for their heroism and given the title of "martyr" (Cho used that very term in the material he sent to NBC to describe himself). SC&A further note:

In this topsy turvey world, the persecutor must be the persecuted. Somehow, the behavior and destructive narcissistic expressions must be explained and thereby justified. The opposing views are washed away. The persecutor can be the persecuted, exercising sacred retribution, divine or political.

Thus is created the suicide bomber, who is committed to his or her own individual death because it brings him the fame and status that so eluded him in life. Like Cho, they videotape their grievances, their fierce determination; their heroic struggle and their rationalizations for their sick, homicidal behavior. They glory in the realization that they will find in death the recognition and power they never were accorded in their pathetic lives. The dysfunctional culture will agree with him and extoll his act of violence as one of virtue.

At least in a healthy society, actions like Cho's are seen as the sick expressions of a diseased mind and happen relatively infrequently. In the unhealthy societies and culture of the Middle East, such behavior is the expression of a sick society and is celebrated with psychotic and delusional joy.

Whatever you might say about the some of the more perverted and degenerate aspects of American or Western culture--aspects that celebrate death, dysfunction and victimhood--we are not a culture of death yet, and we can still understand and condemn the evil that humans are capable of doing to each other.

But, make no mistake, these sicker parts of our culture will slowly but surely transform the whole into a culture that celebrates violence and terror. This can happen if we abandon our humaness; and if we fail to recognize the parallel psycho path that is taken consciously in order to avoid reality, reason and personal responsibility; and which takes a person or an entire society to the same delusional and paranoid final destination of the mentally ill.

UPDATE: Dry Bones has it exactly right (hat tip: Cynic):


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 10:47 AM |

 
A WORD WHOSE TIME HAS COME
Feminishness.

As much as a society needs a code of decorum, it also needs to get its yin and its yang into balance. Under PC, the balance is lost—too much yin.

PC is fem, and its consequences are femmer. Think of women in the military (ref. the recent Tehran-Brit-sailors farce). Did it lift up military women, or drag down military men? Much more the latter than the former, I think.

And of course, all the whining about non-PC speech being "hurtful" is pure femmishness.

Derbyshire is responding to a column by Mark Steyn, discussing today's "culture of passivity":

...Geraldo was all over Fox News saying we have to accept that, in this horrible world we live in, our “children” need to be “protected.”

Point one: They’re not “children.” The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men. They would be regarded as adults by any other society in the history of our planet. Granted, we live in a selectively infantilized culture where twentysomethings are “children” if they’re serving in the Third Infantry Division in Ramadi but grown-ups making rational choices if they drop to the broadloom in President Clinton’s Oval Office. Nonetheless, it’s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.

Read it all, of course.

I tend to agree with John Derbyshire about the origins of this passivity, which is a direct result of the overhyped, feminist agenda pervasive in today's culture. This agenda is the foundation of the insidious and disastrous "political correctness" that now threatens all of society and our most valued freedoms. Feminism has become a tool of those who wish to further the Marxist/Socialist agenda. Where once it promoted equal rights for women, it now exists solely to maintain and nourish women's victimhood status.

Let me be perfectly clear. I am not saying that there were not injustices that needed to be addressed with regard to equal opportunity for women in this country. There were, and to a minor extent there still are some issues that need to be addressed and corrected. But the war was won some years ago; and what remains today is a constant whine emanating from the intellectual quagmire of ongoing feminist victim-mongering. This new culture of female victimhood has been created for the sole purpose promoting and maintaining the illusion that women are simultaneously victims diabolical white male oppression, and yet somehow vastly superior to it.

Needless to say, this hateful insanity has taken its toll on the male of the species as well as the female.

In fact, the feminishness of it all is slowly but surely bringing America-- and all Western democracies-- to their knees under the burden of its utopian tyranny; and it is preparing them further for submission to the fanatical bullies of the world.

Additionally, it has deeply poisoned male/female relationships at almost every level; since the PC mentality thrives on identifying eveyone as either "the oppressors" or "the oppressed", based entirely on identity (i.e., gender or race); and not on actual behavior. Hurting someone's feelings has become the greatest sin anyone in society can commit; and the pursuit of moral superiority through victimhood the greatest virtue.

Meanwhile, our new feminist bullies/overlords make common cause with all the other "oppressed" bullies of the world to insure peace, sisterhood and submission.

Indeed, today's feminists have much to answer for in terms of the evil they have been enabling and appeasing; but they are generally too busy swooning and whining to be able to engage in any serious discussion of the irrationality of promoting eternal victimhood.

As Derbyshire suggests, we are a culture out of balance. Far too much yin and definitely not enough yang.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:10 AM |

 
NAME THAT WARMONGER !
Guess which neocon said the following:

"The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders. We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this Nation, and all that this Nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Al Qaeda and all terrorist groups in Iraq, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated Iran and Islamic fanatics.

We are going to win the war, and we are going to win the peace that follows. And in the dark hours of this day-and through dark days that may be yet to come-we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. For, in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well-our hope and their hope for liberty under God."

If you are done trying to guess, replace the words "Al Qaeda and the terrorists in Iraq" with "Japan"; and "Iran and the Islamic fanatics" with "Hitler and Mussolini" and go to Town Commons for the answer.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:35 AM |

 
A NATION OF BORDERLINES ?
"It's an awful risky thing to live." --Carl Rogers

One of my areas of expertise is in treating the "Borderline" personality disorder, one of several "Cluster B"- type personalities that also include Histrionic, Narcissistic, Borderline and Antisocial Personality organization.

One of the hallmarks of these personalities, particularly the Borderline, is that borderlines seem to have an innate biological tendency to react more intensely to lower levels of stress than others and to take longer to recover.

In other words, they have higher emotional reactions from less of a stimulus; and take a correspondingly longer time to come down. Often, they were raised in environments in which their beliefs about themselves and their environment were continually devalued and invalidated, leading in turn to severe deficits in their ability to appropriately internalize others, an essential psychological task.

One of the many consequences of this failure to internalize others is an inability to grieve appropriately, or deal with a loss.

Today Dennis Praeger has a very good analysis of something that has bothered me for quite a while about the ways we are supposed to respond to significant tragedies in our 24/7 news cycle; and the expectations that are made of us by the popular culture. Praeger wonders why,

Within hours of the massacre of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University, the president of the university issued his first statement on the evil that had just engulfed the college campus and concluded with this:

"We're making plans for a convocation tomorrow at noon in Cassell Coliseum for the university to come together to begin the healing process from this terrible tragedy."

Other university officials also spoke about beginning the healing process and about bringing in counselors to help students heal;

and then goes on to say:

I believe that this early healing talk is both foolish and immoral.

It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day (or week or perhaps even month) that one is traumatized -- especially by evil. One must be allowed time for anger and grief. To speak of healing and "closure" before one goes through those other emotions is to speak not of healing but of suppression.

Not to allow people time to experience their natural, and noble, instincts to feel rage and grief actually deprives them of the ability to heal in the long run. After all, if there is no rage and grief, what is there to heal from?

Indeed. There is this strange belief among the intellectual elites; even among many psychiatrists and mental health professionals that feeling anguish and grief are wrong and must be avoided at all cost. Or if you must feel them, then they must be instantly transformed into a focus on this thing called "healing". Bring out the healing! Open those clinics! Stop those oh-so-negative emotions--before they have an impact on your life! Move forward!

In some ways this attitude could be considered somewhat admirable by many, but sadly, the timing of such sentiments is way off base and very premature. These well-meant but ultimately invalidating pressures to "begin the healing process" actually hinder the natural expression of normal grief, which can only come about after painful reflection and the resolution of a variety of conflicting emotions, including anger, sadness, hopelessness, outrage and regret (to name just a few).

Appropriate mourning also requires coming to terms with the nature and manner of the loss; a quest for justice on behalf of the victim when appropriate; and even the painful re-living and re-experiencing of what happened; until it can be completely processed and internally metabolized.

It hurts and hurts and hurts. But that is how we grow.

George Vaillant once wrote in The Wisdom of the Ego: Sources of Resilience in Adult Life:

We, too, sometimes forget that, contrary to folklore and psychiatric myth, loss in itself does not cause psychopathology. We forget that healthy grief hurts but does not make us ill. Grief produces tears, not patienthood. It is never having anyone at all to love that cripples us. It is the inconstant people who stay in our lives who drive us mad, not the constant ones who die. It is failure to internalize those whom we have loved, not their loss, that impedes adult development.(emphasis mine)

The major ingredient of a normal grieving process is time. It cannot, nor should it be expected to, be resolved or "healed" in a day, or a few days, or even a month or two. For the families of those who died, it may take years and years.

The media spotlight will move on fairly soon--long before the mourning process is anywhere near completed. In that sense, the frantic call to heal!heal!heal! emote! emote! emote! and the overly solicitous understanding and short-term sympathy is often counterproductive and meets all the criteria for encouraging the very traits that are the essence of a borderline personality structure.

To be real; to grieve such a loss, internalizing the lost loved ones and processesing the trauma of their leaving, cannot be done in front of the cameras, or at pep rallies, or even at candlelight vigils the day after the tragedy. It will be done in the privacy of each individual soul that was affected by the loss; each at their own rate and according to their own personal timetable.

Don't misunderstand me. There is a role for the kinds of things we are seeing on TV right now. And I understand that our society in its present state does not exactly encourage more appropriate outlets; nor does it tend to give people the time they really need for this psychological process. But like Praeger, I feel it is simply wrong --though not necessarily immoral, just extremely narcissistic and rather borderline--to focus so steadfastly on personal "healing", which is actually the final stage of grief, and not the first.

If nothing else, we owe it to the memory of those we have lost not to "heal" too quickly, but to take the time to experience the pain and suffering of their loss; transforming it slowly into personal growth and wisdom.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:15 AM |

 
IRAN IS ONLY SEEKING PEACE
This is a few days old, but it is just so reassuring to know. From The Islamic Republic News Agency:

IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Wednesday, "Iran is seeking peace, and lasting security in light of monotheism and justice for entire human beings."
He made the remarks in response to a foreign reporter at his first press conference in Iranian New Year, 1386 in which the highlight was his announcement of the release of the 15 detained British marines on auspicious occasion of Prophet Muhammad's blessed birth anniversary.

[from Cox and Forkum]
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:25 PM |

 
THE BIG YAWN
As always Victor Davis Hanson gets right to the essence of the matter I alluded to in th previous post. He laboriously summarizes all the "big" scandals--Scooter Libby's NOT revealing the name of Plame; the Duke non-case; Alberto Gonzales firing 8 lawyers (when Clinton's AG fired dozens); and the recent lynch mob after Paul Wolfowitz' head:

Paul Wolfowitz, who sought to curb corruption that undermines support for World Bank aid to Africa, likewise is facing a lynch mob over perhaps a similar one-time lapse of judgment in regard to compensation of a companion — nothing, however, ranking with the various scandals surrounding Kofi Annan, whose son profited by United Nations exemptions given through his family ties. In today’s moral calculus, presiding over a $50-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food scandal that led to frequent death in Iraq and profit among global elites is a misdemeanor, recommending a pay package for an employee one dates is an unforgivable felony.

One could go on with the furor over the misdirected pellets from Dick Cheney’s shotgun, or the clamor for the Rumsfeld resignation. Yet contrast all this hysteria with the slight whimpers surrounding recent controversies over conflicts of interest or lapses in judgment surrounding Richard Armitage, Harry Reid, or Dianne Feinstein. The destruction of federal documents that might well alter history’s consensus by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was a snore for most journalists.

What, then, is the one common tie that explains all these furious efforts of the media and partisans to go after these present and former Bush-administration officials?

Payback for Iraq.

What we have here is the ad hominem attack writ large and infused with psychological displacement . Ad hominem is responding to an argument by attacking your opponent rather than addressing the argument itself; and I would describe ad hominem with displacement is attacking everybody who has a connection to the person you want to attack so as to discredit that person and whatever he has done that you don't want to attack directly. Because that's what it is; ongoing personal attacks on people connected to Bush for the express purpose of subverting and discrediting "his" Iraq war.

This behavior that Hanson discusses is not just payback for Iraq--it is payback for 2000. It is payback for 9/11; it is payback for all the shame and humiliation of the Clinton impeachment.

But make no mistake about it, it is payback. And to get even; to "undo" everything and everyone connected to this Administration is absolutely necessary to maintain a disintegrating political self-esteem and the loser ideology they subscribe to.

Do you wonder why there has been no serious discussion in this country about the Iraq war? The reason is that the side making up the bogus scandals to undermine the Bush Presidency doesn't really want to debate how to win the Iraq war--they want to lose it, so as to further discredit a Republican president that they despise. They don't want to argue on the merits; or discuss strategy-- because their fundamental position has no merit; and the only strategy they are capable of creating relates to regaining power. The trivialities and personal attack-scandals the Democrats and the left hype and choose to focus on simply pale in comparison to the unbelievable actions of their own---people like Sandy Berger and Kofi Annan to name just two. Both of these individuals have basically gotten off scott free for their amazing behavior--behavior the import of which cannot be underestimated.

But I want to focus once again on Berger in light of recent revelations.

Why should we care about Sandy Berger? No one--left or right-- in their right mind would blame either Bill Clinton or George Bush for 9/11. The sole responsibility and blame for the vicious attacks of that day rests squarely on the religious fanatics who planned and carried it out. Period.

But, don't you see? Berger's behavior suggests that there is something that Clinton's Administration wants desperately to hide. Enough of a something to make a public servant like Berger risk his entire career and a stint in prison (which he should have received) to try to keep it hidden. And, if that is the case, then there is likely something important we need to know that perhaps could have made us more vigilant sooner; but almost certainly is necessary to understand to help us prevent future attacks. And, wasn't that the entire purpose of the 9/11 Commission??? To discover why we were so vulnerable to these jihadists and come up with recommendations so that we could be better prepared in the future?

How can you plug a hole in the dyke if you don't know where it is?

I don't want to excoriate Sandy Berger because he was in the Clinton Administration. I want to bring him to task for his self-serving, criminal behavior; and for allowing himself to be more concerned with protecting his and Clinton's "legacy" than with helping this country prepare itself better for future terrorist attacks. He is putting his country at risk to satisfy his own narcissism.

What does it say about his character that he is willing to risk all to preserve his and Clinton's legacy? Nothing less could have motivated him to do what he did. I have considerable contempt for this sort of blatant narcissism that seems pervasive these days in our elected officials in general--let alone a former National Security Advisor for this country.

What bugs me is the beautiful indifference; the big yawn from the media and the left about Berger's criminal behavior, which impacts all of us who live in this country. Their lack of curiosity is stunning. They want to be free to blame Bush--and Bush alone-- for 9/11, even as they whine when the trail leads back to their own.

If nothing else, the Bush Administration has to account for looking the other way at Berger's activities; and one wonders what information they do not want the public to know about this matter. Even the judge in the case was outraged at the lenient sentence recommended by the prosecution.

How much denial is it possible for a group of people to engage in? How much narcissism does it take to ignore the important questions, and studiously and repeatedly focus on the trivial and the bogus? How much self-delusion and hysteria will we be subjected to before the Democrats, the left and their shills finally open their eyes and understand that we are at war with an implacable enemy who wants to destroy us? When will they realize that it is not about them?

I fear the only response we will ever get from these yahoos is a big yawn.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:59 AM |

 
SO IS THIS WHAT BERGER WAS HIDING ?

This news report makes everything clear, doesn't it? AJ Strata has more.

France's foreign intelligence service learned as early as January 2001 that al-Qaida was preparing a hijacking plot likely to involve a U.S. airplane, former intelligence officials said Monday, confirming a report that also said the CIA received the warning.

Le Monde newspaper said it had obtained 328 pages of classified documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network that were drawn up by the French spy service, the DGSE, between July 2000 and October 2001. The documents included a Jan. 5, 2001, intelligence report warning that al-Qaida was at work on a hijacking plot.

The importance of this information--just now released for public consumption-- will be overshadowed by the tragic events on the Virginia Tech campus today; but it is important nonetheless. I hope someone, somewhere is prepared to ask Clinton's National Security Chief about this in some detail and that copies of the memo detailing this still exist somewhere.

I will not hold my breath waiting for more information about this. Nor do I expect Berger to ever come clean about what he destroyed. Better to keep your mouth shut and avoid being called incompetent,imperious and self-serving than to open it and remove all doubt.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:35 PM |

 
PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP
Are Americans taking over the number one spot as the most paranoid and delusional people in the world? Are our conspiracy theories more insane than the psychotic conspiracy theories that are at the heart of Arab identity in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere? And just today there is this piece from Pravda, via Tim Blair highlighting certain Russian fantasies detached from reality.

Let me just cut to the chase and admit that paranoia and delusional thinking are equal-opportunity, multiracial, multicultural and gender-indifferent psychological processes. And, they are so easy and convenient to use, that they are accessible even to the youngest of children or the most physiologically disabled adult mind.

I linked to Bill Whittle's excellent piece about American paranoia and conspiracy at Eject!Eject!Eject! in yesterday's Carnival, but it is far too serious a piece not to discuss at some length.

In it, Whittle shreds the delusions of many Americans into confetti, and he makes some very keen psychological observations about those who willfully cling to the conspiracy theories derived from those delusions. One theory examined under the light of reason is the belief by many that the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing was a government hoax (I have had my share of people ask me about that one); another is the JFK assassination conspiracies; and more recently there is the troubling slippage from the surly bonds of reality into the nether regions of 9/11 "truthiness":

I see. So we have the technical expertise to build a 40-story rocket that can produce millions of pounds of thrust. We can build capsules and lunar landers that function in zero-G. We have the means and the will to put these massive objects into Earth orbit, keep them up there for two weeks, but the additional 3-4% of the total launch energy needed to send this package to the moon is so obviously beyond our technical skill that the whole thing must be a hoax?

I’m sorry, that’s the thinking of someone who is mentally ill. There is something deeper at work there.

That “something” is different than someone who “believes” in UFO’s or the Loch Ness Monster. Such people may be short on critical reasoning, but the emotional force that drives them is a desire for wonder and the magical. Many have remarked that this is, indeed, almost a religious impulse. I’ve wanted to see a real-live flying saucer my entire life. Likewise, if Nessie really existed, what an incredible sight that would be… to look upon the last surviving dinosaur in the flesh! But a videotape of a standing wave shot from five miles away does not outweigh the whole air-breather / no fish evidence. It does not come close to outweighing it. And so I reluctantly throw Nessie back into the superstition bin from whence she came.

But these denialists – the Moon Hoaxers and the 9/11 “Truthers” – these are a different breed. And they are cut from precisely the same cloth. That is to say, they suffer from the same disease: an unwillingness to face reality and its consequences.

And here he has hit on the most prevalent mental illness of our time: The Unwillingness To Face Reality And Its Consequences.

I deal regularly with people who have various levels of physiological abnormality in their brain. Through an unfortunate series of events--their genetics; random biological mutations; or the deliberate use of mind-altering substances that activate the latent psychosis; etc. etc., these unfortunate souls start out with or unknowingly stimulate a defective physiology which causes a dysfunction in their cognitive faculties. Their defective brain works hard to integrate events and make sense of the world, but it is at a serious and overwhelming disadvantage because its neural pathways don't work properly. Hence, auditory or visual hallucination; bizarre delusions; complicated conspiracy theories; disorganized thinking; and an impaired critical thinking capacity in general--all of which lead to pervasive misperceptions of the world and the people around them.

We rightly call such people mentally ill. For the most part (except for the substance-induced psychotics) the only choice they have in the matter (and this, too is often dependent on whether or not the insight they have into their illness has been spared the physiological degneration that effects other parts of their brain) is whether to regularly take the medications that give them some hope of being able to accurately perceive reality.

The people I am concerned about in this post are as close to being mentally ill as it is possible to get. Oh, they have the same catastrophic physiological disruption in their brain that the paranoid schizophrenic has; it's just that they came to it via a different route. They probably weren't born with much of a physiological vulnerability for becoming detached from reality....no, they had to have repeatedly travelled down the psycho path to reach their final delusional destination. It is likely that at first they mentally got lost and accidentally took a wrong turn, leaving the main highway. It was always within their cognitive power to return to the main road (unlike those with mental illness who are biologically trapped on the false path); but at some point they chose to stay on their present course.

The world of politics attracts paranoia, conspiracy theories and paranoids like flypaper attracts flies. And it is deeply disturbing to observe. Whittle notes:

I am more interested in the psychology of someone who believes in these conspiracy theories. I exempt people who have only heard one side of the story, as I did. Sadly, skepticism doesn’t sell as well as hysteria....

Intellectually honest people, people without a deep, vested emotional need to believe the worst, are usually relieved to hear the facts that demolish superstitions like the Bermuda Triangle and the Loch Ness Monster. While there may be disappointment at the loss of an unseen world, people who have chosen to live in reality find comfort in the fact that reality is, in fact, made up of the real and not the wished for.

No, what fascinates me is the emotional motive of people who, presented with overwhelming evidence that the events that transpired on November 22nd, 1963 or September 11th, 2001 really happened exactly the way it appeared, continue to spin ever more elaborate webs in order to get to a place they need to be emotionally. Who are you going to believe: them or your own lying eyes?

All of this conspiracy nonsense comes after the fact. What we saw on those days was clear and vital and unmistakably obvious. In the case of the Kennedy assassination we are asked to believe – against all physical evidence to the contrary – what a few professional witnesses recall for pay ten or twenty or thirty years after the fact. Some guy who claims to see a puff of smoke on the grassy knoll is now a world-wide celebrity and not just some dude with time on his hands on a November afternoon. (And don't be deterred by the fact that a musket firing black powder was the last firearm that emitted "a puff of smoke;" perhaps Kennedy was murdered by a re-animated Stonewall Jackson. Prove it didn't happen!)

I’ve met a number of these people. I know this is harsh, but I’m sick of watching the damage they are doing to this civilization: these people are, to a man, complete losers. Losers. They are desperate and sad people who need to believe in some dark secret to give meaning to their lives....

Recently, Rosie O’Donnell said on national television that she believes 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government.

Well, that’s why we went through the steps above. If you believe that the government lied about the moon landing, you can believe they lied about killing JFK. If they lied about JFK, then they can lie about chemtrails. And if they are willing to poison the entire population with aerial spraying, what are a few thousand people in four airliners and a couple of buildings?

Rosie O’ Donnell making such a claim on a major network is a national disgrace. The fact that much of the audience cheered and applauded is nothing less than a national catastrophe.

To her, and to her audience, it is taken as granted that the government is capable of such things. As if “the government” was operated by cyborgs grown in Haliburton vats, rather than by well-meaning and patriotic people that love this country.

...what kind of moral universe do you have to inhabit to be able to believe that your own people – airline personnel, demolition experts, police and security forces, faked witnesses and all the rest – are capable of such a thing? How much hate for your own society do you have to carry in order to live in such a desolate and ridiculous mental hell? What psychoses must a mind be riddled with in order to negate what was perfectly obvious and instead believe a theory of such monumental fantasy? How much pure constant hatred does that take?

What, in short, is the miserable black hole of self-loathing that drives a person like Rosie O’Donnell and millions like her?

The examples of paranoia exhibited by the political left and mouthpieces like Rosie in the last six years would be amusing, if they weren't so alarming and so mainstream. People who used to think like that were marginalized out of respect (or perhaps embarassment) over the physiological dysfunction that made them crazy. Nowadays, the theories of Rosie O'Donnells, Michael Moores, Cindy Sheehans and the like are best-selling books, movies and CDs. Their every word is plastered all over the news until the ordinary citizen begins to hear voices in his head, too.

When you consider the absurd complexity; the unparalleled detail and complete bizarreness of the various "Bushitlerhallisharpton" kinds of conspiracy theories that routinely come from the left these days, you've got to wonder why they find it so difficult and impossible to believe in a DOCUMENTED connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That there was ABSOLUTELY NO SUCH THING is their strident, urgent response; even as they develop layer upon layer of loose connections and illogical associations to bolster the conspiracy du jour that they are promoting against the Bush Adminsitration.

Ask yourself why the possibility--let alone the reality-- of such a connection is actually so fundamentally threatening to them and their worldview.

You can always find out what the latest delusion making the rounds is by following the deeply disturbed fantasies at the Democratic Underground (I won't link to them) and the Huffington Post--which is only a more upscale DU--the Nieman Marcus of conspiracy department stores.

There is a reason that human beings experience suspicion, distrust and hypervigilance. That reason is because there is REAL danger in the world. Our ancestors in the caves knew this to be true. They lived with continual danger just to survive every minute of every day. Those who did not have the psychological capacity to perceive the danger in the environment surely died out long ago.

But this important psychological trait which senses danger and strives to protect the ego; and which is accentuated in children and early in life, is appropriately balanced out by the development of the rational faculty--the intellect.

The tools of the paranoid are denial, distortion, and projection. These psychological tools are almost always pathological when used to cope with the real world. For the user these three primitive psychological defenses permit a [hopefully temporary] rearrangement of external reality so that an actual, often unpleasant or painful reality may be avoided; for the beholder, the users of these mechanisms frequently appear crazy or insane. These are known as the "psychotic" defenses, common in overt psychosis, in dreams, and throughout childhood.

Denial is a refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening. There are examples of denial being adaptive (for example, it might be adaptive for a person who has a terminal illness to use some degree of denial). But for the most part, denial is only useful as a short-term strategy, to permit a person to come to terms with reality. As a long-term strategy to protect self-identity, it is potentially lethal--since the person or group that uses it extensively is blinded to the real danger that might be out there.

Distortion is a gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs. Hinchey's bizarre accusations against the evil genius Rove are a perfect example. It is more acceptable to believe that some evil person has tricked you, than it is to believe that you behaved stupidly.

Delusional Projection occurs when an individual or group have delusions about external reality, usually of a persecutory nature.

It is easy to see how all these psychological manipulations work together to keep a person or a group insulated from reality. In truth, we witness such behavior all around us (and it is certainly not exclusive to one side of the political spectrum--though the political left has almost exclusive rights to it at this point in history).

Physiologically, anyone using these psychological strategies have some of short-circuit in their brain. That includes both those who are truly mentally ill with major psychiatric disorders; as well as those who, for psychological and psychosocial reasons, desire their brains to simulate mental illness in order to avoid reality. The only difference between the two is that the latter group have a potential to rediscover reality without any particular medication or treatment. A rediscovery may be painful; it may require a lot of soul-searching and an ability to face the unpleasant truth about themselves or their belief system, but insight and growth often are difficult processes.

How does reason balance suspicion? You say to yourself: is this feeling paranoid? Do I have facts to back up my suspicions, or do I only feel that it is so? Are these facts? Or, are they distortions, because I really really want to believe this is true?

How do you tell a fact from a distortion? 9/11 was a FACT. Millions of people experienced it directly; millions more watched it unravel indirectly. There are mounds of evidence and data that it was planned and funded by Al-Qaeda and carried out by Islamic terrorists. These are FACTS. The widespread belief among Muslims that the Jews are behind 9/11 and that they did it so that the blame would fall on Muslims is a DISTORTION, which comes from DENIAL of the facts; and represents a PSYCHOLOGICAL PROJECTION. It is a PSYCHOLOGICAL PROJECTION because many Muslims want desperately to believe that Islam is a peaceful religion and prohibits such acts, despite what is said in the Qu'ran, and what is practiced in the real world.

Likewise, the widespread belief on the political left that the Bush Administration and the US government is behind 9/11 and that they did it so that they did it because--- oh who the hell can possibly understand all the frivolous reasons they cite-- is also a DISTORTION, which comes from DENIAL of the facts; and represents a PSYCHOLOGICAL PROJECTION. It is a PSYCHOLOGICAL PROJECTION because many on the left want desperately to believe that their socialist ideology/religion stands for peace and that Republicans/Conservatives/Neocons are behind all the evil in the world, instead of their utopian fantasies, despite all the horrors their fantasies have produced in the real world.

Many people desperately need to cling to something--anthing, no matter how bizarre or psychotic-- that proves (at least in their own dysfunctional minds) that their beliefs about President Bush being a fascist dictator, another Hitler; about to implement a Christian theocracy are true. They believe this so deeply that it is impossible for facts to debunk such a religious fantasy. In their minds, if it is true, then they are not such losers for believing in an ideology that is responsible for the deaths and misery of millions around the world.

These people are so far gone, they have willingly abandoned the classical liberal values that once were part of the Democratic Party, and instead embraced a nihilistic culture of victimhood. In doing so, they now support all the losers, thugs and murderers of the world.

It is only a very short step from marching to support and cleverly rationalizing the homicidal and violent terrorist groups that make up the Palestinian cause to then swallowing whole the vile antisemitism that motivates the delusions they need to maintain their victimhood status.

As long as the Palestinians are the left's preferred and idealized victim group, neither have to face their own pathological inadequacies as people. As SC&A observe in a post on Arab conspiracies:

Israel and the success and contributions of Jews to western civilization as opposed to their own failures are in the mirror the Arab world has to look at daily. Those truths are almost intolerable to most Arabs. To be sure there are many progressive, intellectual Arabs that understand that Israel is a reality and that the successes of Jews in the west are a model that should be emulated, but for most, Israel and the success of the Jewish community integration into the American and western mosaic, remains a cruel violation of Allah's promise to them. The fact that Allah seems to have abandoned them to live in such squalor and hopelessness is of no concern- it is the non Muslims that remain the obsession. It is the non-Muslims that have upset the 'natural' Islamic order.
The Arab world is not humiliated by the lack of decent schools. The Arab world is not humiliated by their scientific backwardness and book burnings. In a smaller, interconnected world, they cannot be unaware of their own medievalism. The Arab world is not humiliated by collapsed economies. There are car manufacturers in China and Africa, yet there are only 'plans' for an auto industry in the Arab world.

To put it all in context- how is it possible that the humiliations of centuries of Arab failures are trumped by the political 'humiliations of today? What powerful agenda can pull a whole society away from reality?

This is the same powerful agenda that has pulled the left away from reason, truth and reality. Bill Whittle made a profound observation about those people who prefer to ignore Lee Harvey Oswald and subscribe to more complicated JFK assassination conspiracy theories: They are Oswald.

Likewise the left has become the Palestinians. They identify with the Arabs. That is the psychological basis of their unholy alliance with the Islamists and jihadists.

The paranoia, projection and denial all serve to make them feel better about themselves; make them feel less like the losers they are. By inventing themselves as the victims of the BushHitler--or the Jews, or the neocons or whatever-- they can, like a typical, arrogant paranoid psychotic, pat themselves on the back at their heroic, courageous, and "principled" stand against the forces of oppression. Their failures are NOT THEIR FAULT. Everything in their life would be better if THE EVIL OPPRESSORS would go away. Their need to externalize blame for their own failure will trump any facts and obscure any contradicting reality. Without the paranoia, they are nothing.

Emotions are an important part of life, but if you base all your behavior on what you FEEL, then you are vulnerable to all sorts of psychopathology. Paranoia is an extreme of what otherwise would be helpful and normal reactions to the perception of danger. Paranoia distorts reality in the service of protecting the self from having to deal with unacceptable thoughts or feelings. It is useful to protect the integrity of the sense of self--sometimes even at the expense of one's life.

Paranoia helps individuals and groups defend against their own hostility and their perceived insignificance. Often the emotions displayed by the paranoid are covering up the exact opposite emotion within. Paranoia is reason in the service of the irrational. The paranoid cannot afford to examine his or her premises and face reality because to do so would do two things:

(1) it would display to the world the deep, irrational hatred which he is defending himself against by making himself the "victim" of someone else's deep, irrational hatred; and

(2) it would cause him to admit his own insignificance, because if he is NOT the center of a plot and the focus of his "enemies" then he must be shamefully unimportant - a nobody.

You would think that a paranoid person would be reassured to discover that people or groups are NOT out to get him. That there is no conspiracy against the group. You would be wrong. This is the last thing that the Paranoid individual or group really want, because--if they are not being persecuted, or betrayed, or lied to, or oppressed--then the Paranoid must face the devastating reality of his own insignificance. This he cannot do and it is why the alternate reality was constructed in the first place.

The paranoid solution to unacceptable thoughts or feelings is to say, "If I am having these bad thoughts or feeling or behaviors, then someone else must be to blame and is making me do it." The Paranoid person does not take responsibility for his own thoughts or feelings or behaviors.

Conspiracy theories serve one of two purposes. They either serve as a rationale for the unacceptable successes of others; or as reasons for the failures of a particular group or individual. The Arab world fixation with Jews and the reasons for Jewish successes serve as the classic fodder for conspiracy theorists in the Middle East. In the US, the Rosie O'Donnell's and Michael Moore's are still trying desperately to account for the success of the Republicans in being elected to the White House and their own failure. Reality itself had to be distorted in order to protect them from feeling low self-esteem or shame. Bush Derangement and the various derivatives of the underlying hatred that infuses it has become second nature, and this transfer of blame to someone else is an indicator to the observer that such individuals are experiencing internal shame. It is but a short walk up that psycho path to paranoia and delusion.

A healthy individual's solution is to take responsibility for his or her thoughts, feelings, behaviors, successes and failures. Even if it is sometimes painful to acknowledge. But by owning his or her feelings, the healthy individual is able to exert control over inappropriate behavior that might spring from those feelings.

Another way of saying this is that you cannot choose the feelings that you experience- emotions are not generally under conscious control; but you can choose how to act on those feelings, because behavior is under conscious control.

Paranoia strikes deep. It will creep into your heart when you are afraid of your own feelings and try to disown them by blaming the "Jews", the "Blacks", or "Gays" or even President Bush. History has been littered with millions of dead bodies resulting from the denial, distortion and projection of paranoid leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, and Bin Laden. But those people had followers who believed just as they did, and did most of their dirty work.

You have to stop, look and see what's going down in your own heart and face some unpleasant and devastating facts about yourself--if you want to understand how such evil can exist.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:18 AM |

 
SIGGY SPILLS THE BEANS

Oh darn! Siggy spilled the beans on the Mental Health News Network(MHNN). This scientific work has not yet been published, but it has been submitted to a prestigous journal.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:01 AM |

 
CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES
Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

And, while you are in the Mood for Madness, go directly to the Weekly Whackjob Awards!

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. The Sharpton-Jackson Watch day one day two and day three....I think we will watch in vain. The opportunists circle for America's biggest blanket party....(btw, if you have ideas for a Sharpton-Jackson Watch logo, contact SC&A].

2. How about a t-shirt or some plush toys to go with the book and CD? It works for almost any event. But an infant bodysuit? Come on, guys.

3. The everyday insanity of life in Saudi Arabia. And, before you feel too superior, the everyday psychoses of Americans. Paranoia runs deep. The world is awash in it.

4. Australia is a very dangerous place; maybe that's why they understand what's at stake.

5. But please don't question their objectivity. I'm sure there's a good reason for their double standard. Or even for ignoring the truth. They answer to a higher moral authority.

6. The question is, who is being persecuted? And I don't think it is the imams in question. but that is just another example of the "objectivity" of today's press (scroll down to end of the post). And this might just be the proper response to those imams. Way to go, Howard.

7. Busted! Busted again: beneath that kafiyeh is a well-known face.

8. Global warming-induced fascism....or just a bunko scam? Reality won't dampen them either.

9. Can a Department of Wishful Thinking be far behind? Such a department could oversee and make research like this a top priority, which would make some feminists very happy.

10. If I ran for President, my campaign slogan would be "A chocolate bar in every mouth". (talk about wishful thinking!)

11. There are lots of brave 5 year olds adults who like to giggle and say "poopyhead".

12. Why would you ever think Senators couldn't get even more ridiculous than they already are?? How about Speakers of the House?

13. Everybody has stem cells, folks, but only embryos have embryonic stem cells. That's the difference. As far as I know, there's no "debate" about adult stem cells. But it's all Bush's fault anyway.

14. Is is now the GWW (Galactic Wide Web)?

15. Who says cats aren't as smart as dogs? And how to tell how old a fish is. Did you know that cell phones kill bees? Somehow I have the sense that this is yet another conspiracy theory (see #3).

16. Actually, I believe it is a Hermes. But context is everything.

17. A perfect example of selfless giving.

18. Keeping priorities straight.

19. Only in England.

20. Shoveling snow in mid-April often makes a person irritable.

21. The mujra is to south asian Islam what belly dancing is to Arab Islam... Then there are the Yul Brynner dancers of the Taliban.

***************************************
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- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:28 AM |

 
DENIAL BY ANY OTHER NAME
Jeff Goldstein brings up an excellent point in his post "When is "denial" not denial":

A: When it’s taking a courageous stand on behalf of sinister conspiracies and the greater truthiness. From feministing, “You will not shame me”

You must read it all, but I want to specially highlight his conclusion, which I think is fabulous:

You will not be shamed?

Too bad. Because until you are, you will never learn what it means to be the kind of American envisioned by the rich white males who put together the Constitution, a Constitution under whose protections you seek to dehumanize individuals in the service of a collectivist ideology.

And Ace sums it up by saying, "Feminsting Bloggerette: I Will Not Be Shamed Into Accepting Reality."

At any rate, Jeff got me thinking about the general answer to the question, when is "denial" not denial....?

Believe it or not, there are still some morons people who think this country is imminently going to be taken over by a Christian theocracy. These people are really big on conspiracy theories about Christians, even as their dimwitted Democratic representatives in Congress are cozying up to the Muslim Brotherhood (a really nice bunch of guys) .

Some of you will likely appreciate that this is not just denial and displacement, but unparalleled idiocy of the highest order.

They are fearful of Christianity. They are willing to support and encourage--even embrace Islam--particularly the radical, fascist, homicidal ones.

Or, How about when denial is so frankly paranoid and delusional that it expresses delight in the death of thousands--when they are Americans? People with this degree of paranoia are more often found on psychiatric wards--not running for public office; or, for that matter making millions of dollars in the entertainment industry.

Meanwhile the Democrats are obsessed with Karl Rove's emails, but remain spectacularly uninterested in the documents that were in Sandy Berger's pants. As Mort Kondracke noted last night on Brit Hume's News Hour, they are acting like this is basically "Watergate-- without any crime being committed." No burgulary, no arrest; not even any impropriety.

The Democrats are so desperate to make this administration perceived as at least as corrupt as the last one, they keep coming up with bogus scandal after bogus scandal to entertain the public.

Now, is this denial? Or simple Democratic despicableness? I won't sully psychiatric terminology--as bad as it is-- by referring to their behavior in this instance as "denial". True denial is unconscious and automatic. The Democrats and the left have made many conscious choices, allowing their denial and paranoia to go mainstream-- and they are actually proud of it.

I could go on, but you get the point. On almost every issue--from the important ones that are critical to the survival of our society; to the trivial ones, the left and the Democrats routinely come down squarely on the side of either unconscious denial, displacement, projection and paranoia; or on the side of stupidity, ignorance, malevolence and pettiness.

The latter are simply the conscious manifestations of a mentality that prefers to ignore reality.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:07 AM |

 
YES, WHAT'S HER EXCUSE ?

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:46 AM |

 
GENERAL PETREAUS' MARCH
Thanks to boinkie in the comment thread on this post for directing me to the original words for Colonel Bogey's March:

Here is my version, updated for the 21st century:

Bashar has only got one ball,
Mahmoud has two but very small,
Nasrallah's are somewhat smallah,
But poor Al Sadr has no balls at all.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:28 PM |

 
"SELFLESS" NARCISSISM, THE POLITICAL LEFT, AND THE BETRAYAL OF THE GOOD
In the classic movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness plays Colonel Nicholson, a British POW in a WWII Japanese camp. The British prisoners are given the task by the Japanese of building a crucial railway bridge that is essential for the Japanese in their war effort. Col Nicholson takes this task seriously and uses the opportunity to help his fellow prisoners regain some self-esteem in spite of their prisoner status by by not only building an incredible bridge, but by showing the Japanese how they can run the whole show. But, unknown to Nicholson and the prisoners, the allies have marked the strategic bridge for destruction.

The final scene in the movie shows Nicholson proudly walking up and down the bridge, making his last inspection when he discovers a wire connected to explosives that were set by an allied demolition team. He and the Japanese Commander follow the wire downstream, flushing out the allied soldier set to detonate the bridge. The soldier stabs the Japanese commander to death; but Nicholson--who is supposedly on the soldier's side-- begins to yell for help and then personally tries to stop the soldier from detonating the explosives in order to protect "his" bridge. Suddenly, Nicholson, in horror, comes to his senses and exclaims, "What have I done!?!"; falls from a mortal wound, and accidentally detonates the explosions that destroy the bridge. As an observer in the movie notes, it is madness.

I want to focus on Nicholson for a moment, because his behavior is a perfect example of a type of narcissism of the extreme 'selfless' variety". I thought I would go into this in a little detail since several readers asked questions about it when I linked to this post that discusses it.

Colonel Nicholson becomes so narcissistically invested in the Bridge and his role in creating the structure, that he loses all perspective of the larger picture and ends up betraying his country and the very values he believed he was supporting by working with his captors. The moment when he suddenly realizes that his commitment to an abstract ideal has led him and his fellow POWs down the path of betrayal is the climax of the movie.

Nicholson was not a bad man--on the contrary, there was much about him that was quite admirable. He simply gave into fantasies of his own self-aggrandizement and rationalized it as something heroic. This is his speech to the other POW's when the bridge is finished:

But one day, in a week, a month, a year...or that day when, God willing,we all return to our homes again...you're going to feel very proud of what you have achieved here in the face of great adversity.

What you have done should be...and I think will be...an example to all our countrymen...soldier and civilian alike. You have survived with honor. That and more. Here in the wilderness you have turned defeat into victory. I congratulate you.

It might have been more heroic to resist doing a good job for the enemy or to subtly sabotage their efforts. Yet, in a very narrow way of thinking about it, Nicholson is correct. He and the other prisoners survived and they turned their personal defeat into a victory of sorts--but at a huge cost to their country and those who were still fighting. They had facilitated--in a time of war--their enemy's abiity to wage that war against their comrades. Nicholson was immersed in this narcissism, he failed to recognize it for what it was: aiding and abetting the enemy. He was so caught up in maintaining his own and the other prisoners' self esteem, he became willing to sell out his country.

It is even more interesting to note that the "selfish" and cynical Commander Shears (portrayed by William Holden) who repeatedly states that he's in it for himself, ends up exemplifying the very values that Nicholson has betrayed.

This story may remind you of the pathetic behavioral display of the recent British hostages in Iran; but actually, they were simply frightened and poorly trained soldiers. Nicholoson's "selfless narcissism" is far more relevant to the behavior of certain high-ranking American politicians.

The Democrats and their glorious leaders, who have become so narcissistically invested in this country's defeat as a political strategy to accumulate power and "restore American honor", that they have--wittingly or unwittingly--decided to sell their countrymen out to the very enemy they are currently fighting. They mean well, of course. They do it for those wonderful 'selfless' reasons--like "peace" and "social justice" and all. They really support the troops .

Let's just ignore the fact that they bear considerable responsibility for the ongoing violence and death of our troops as they enable and encourage the priorities of the enemy. Why should the terrorists alter their homicidal behavior? It is working! People like Nancy Pelosi are living proof of the effectiveness of their strategy.

And, Pelosi, the Democrats and their even more narcissistic leftist base are not even POWs--except insofar as they have been traumatized like the rest of this country after the attacks on 9/11. You might expect that some psychological denial and even some neurotic displacement would be fairly normal for a brief time after such a trauma.

But now, it is clear that they are deliberately choosing to cooperative and negotiate with those who have repeatedly stated--clearly and concisely--their intent to kill us or make us submit to their will. And, like Nicholson, they are proud of their actions, even as those actions lead to more deaths.

Nicholson's "selfless" narcissism is a form of narcissistic sociopathy (or alternatively, antisocial behavior that is frequently referred to as "malignant narcissism") . This is the type of narcissism that dominates the mind of the utopian collectivist. The typical leftist collectivist almost always considers his or her actions as altruistic and selfless, yet interestingly, the end result of their selflessness often causes greater harm for other individuals and for society in general.

In that earlier post I linked to above, I wrote:

The unopposed Grandiose Self gives rise to tyrants big and small; to megalomaniacal dictators and dictator wannabees; to unbelievable corporate greed and plundering; and to the typical criminal sociopath in all his/her glory. The damage that such individuals do in individual relationships, in business, in politics and in all spheres of human behavior, is well documented and appreciated in the world. Most children are abjured repeatedly never, never to be "selfish". To always consider others. Laws are set up to protect people from victimization at the hands of these unrestrained grandiose monsters, unable to see other people as distinct individuals separate from their own self. These "others" exist only as the means to achieving their own desires.

But far more menacing to humanity is the unrestrained Idealizing side of the self that seeks only the utopian and the perfect; because that person has access to an unlimited potential to cause human misery and death. This destructiveness of this collectivist mindset dominated the 20th century. The countless dead bodies that are the direct result of the malignant narcissism of people who meant well and whose intentions are always so good and sincere are quickly forgotten because they died as some nations, religions, ideologies attempted to implement their IDEAL in the real world.

This second type of evil is more subtle, and it derives from the ethics of the IO side of the self. The IO also does not see other people as distinct individuals with needs and desires of their own, but only as fodder for the expression of an IDEAL; or as pawns for the wishes of a deified GS. People with this narcissistic defect completely reject the needs of the individual and enslave him or her to the service of their IDEAL. Eventually, the enslavement--whether religious or secular--snuffs out human ambition, confidence, energy, self-esteem, and life. These mindlessly malignant "do-gooders" -- like the Nobel Laureate mentioned at the start of this article-- do far more harm than good and their ideologies can lead to genocidal practices and unbelievable atrocities on a grand scale, all in the name of an IDEAL or GOD.

The Democrats and the political left are cheerfully whistling Colonel Bogey's March as they proceed down this "selfless" path to achieve peace and stop the war (and, they hope, to regain the White House for their political agenda). But, just as Neville Chamberlain stupidly betrayed his countrymen and his values in the lead-up to WWII, they are only paving the path and building the bridge that will lead to more slaughter and injustice.

There are two kinds of "selflessness". One derives from the humility and insight that comes when both the grandiose and idealistic sides of the self work together. This psychological synthesis leads to true benevolence and is psychologically healthy for both the individual and the society in which they live. And then there is the kind of narcissistic and self-serving "selflessness" we see regularly displayed by the thoughtless, irresponsible, and destructively pandering Democrats (and many Republicans for that matter--what ties them together is that they act only out selfish interest, but despicably disguise it as selfless); as well as most of the morally righteous, posturing members of the political left; whose self-aggrandizing antiwar antics only lead to prolonging war and increasing the number of deaths as their own fanatacism serves to inspire and encourage the fanatical jihadists. Those jihadists must be rolling on the floor laughing, as they prepare their next suicide attack against the troops.

Pelosi trots out Tom Lantos as her "moral authority" because he happens to be a Holocaust survivor. Indeed, the Holocaust is a good moral lesson to learn from, particularly since the very people that Pelosi et. al. want to negotiate and have tea with are actively planning the next big one. But, like Pelosi, Lantos' supposed 'selflessness' in this matter is self-serving and driven by his own hubris.

If you want to tap into some real moral authority regarding the Holocaust, then you should look to someone like Elie Wiesel who truly speaks for the dead of WWII's Holocaust. When he is asked, if he can personally forgive those who perpetrated the Holocaust:

"It depends. If it were an individual person, of course I could. One person coming up. But for the whole . . . Who am I to forgive?

Later, when talking about the jihadists, he notes:

Fanaticism in the name of God is a real problem now, with the jihadists . . .Those people who kill for God make God into their accomplice, an accomplice to murder."

Pelosi and the Democrats also seem willing to become accomplices to murder. Just as Colonel Nicholson was so narcissistically wrapped up in his own personal pride and failed to appreciate the big picture; so too are Pelosi and her ilk.. They refuse to look up from their personal political agendas long enough to apprehend the consequences of their behavior and can only assess it by how important or good it makes them feel.

Like Colonel Nicholson, they will one day come to their senses and exclaim, "What have I done!?!" when they realize what they have betrayed.


NOTE: The intrepid readers may want to read/re-read the following posts which lay the intellectual groundwork for this one:

Narcissism & Society Parts I-III
The Narcissistic Dialectic
The Narcissistic Synthesis
Malignant Narcissism- Sociopathic Selfishness and Sociopathic Selflessness

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:01 AM |

 
A BREAK FROM ALL THE INSANITY
It snowed here in Ann Arbor yesterday. The weather has been cold and gloomy for days; and, although I generally enjoy the singular beauty of winter, experiencing it in mid-April completely fails to meet my wonder threshold.

In other words, I am literally and figuratively feeling 'under the weather' and I'm going to take a day off from all the insanity and work on a few projects I've been putting off for months. Or, alternatively, I might just watch some favorite movies, or read a good book, or talk to friends; or just sleep until it gets warmer.

A person's got to keep a sense of perspective in this crazy world--especially if they don't want to get sucked up into the wierd and lose touch with the real.

Somewhere out there in all the freezing rain and dark cloudiness is a beautiful day waiting to be discovered; and I intend to chase a bit of blue sky until I find it.

Back blogging later!

UPDATE: If you absolutely MUST have some insanity today, then proceed immediately to the Weekly Whacky Awards, where the usual madness is collected for all to admire.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:25 AM |

 
THE SANITY SQUAD - Pelosi's Excellent Misadventure and More Democrat Denial
[photo on the left is probably Nancy Pelosi practicing showing the proper respect when she visits Iran in the near future--but I can't be sure]

The latest Sanity Squad Podcast is now posted at Pajamas Media Politics Central, and we have lots to say about Nancy Pelosi's recent misadventure into foreign policy. And lots to say about several other jaw-droppingly inappropriate endeavors by Democratic leaders and certain well-known "journalists".

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Democrats have no doubts about the immorality of negotiating with the real enemies of civilization (i.e., the White House) but they believe that its perfectly ok to sit down for a chat with a person whose "remarks [are] so repulsive that they are outside the circle of civilized human behavior."

Funny, isn't it? She's talking about the President of Iran, not the President of the U.S.--just in case you weren't sure.

And, since the Dems are loathe to use the term "Global War on Terror" (a term they feel is too "misunderstood") ; it is perhaps somewhat understandable that they haven't noticed that Iran is responsible for much of the current violence and death of our soldiers in Iraq (clearly, they prefer to believe it is Bush who is to blame).

Ah well, psychological denial runs deep in the Democrat soul; and that is why Siggy, Shrinkwrapped, Neo-neocon, and I thoroughly analyze the situation and come up with some recommendations for intensive reality therapy to treat this incredibly dysfunctional political psychopathology--except for Siggy, who thinks some form of electrical therapy might work better.

All podcasts of The Sanity Squad can be found here; and you can also download them from iTunes. (search for Pajamas Media)

(The Sanity Squad cartoon at the right is drawn by Eric Allie, whose collection of political cartoons can be found here and here).

[
[Photo above is of President Ahmadinejad having tea with an American negotiator a few years ago.]
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:12 PM |

 
THE MORAL PRINCIPLES OF THE DEMOCRATS
I am simply in awe of the Democrats, who manage to vividly demonstrate their moral principles on a daily basis for all to see.

Under no circumstances will they negotiate with evil or compromise with the very values that define them.

But they stand ready and willing to meet and negotiate with anyone whose interests coicide with America's.

Rand Simburg has more. And, Glenn Reynolds wonders if the Dems have finally found a "rogue regime they won't negotiate with?"

Clearly, they understand who the real enemies of this country are; and they are not afraid to stand up for the truth, no matter what the sacrifice!

UPDATE: Today:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that brought sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that the two may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip -- to open a dialogue with Iran.

The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were asked at a news conference in San Francisco on Tuesday whether on the heels of their recent trip to the Middle East they would be interested in extending their diplomacy in the troubled region with a visit to Iran.

"Speaking just for myself, I would be ready to get on a plane tomorrow morning, because however objectionable, unfair and inaccurate many of (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's) statements are, it is important that we have a dialogue with him,'' Lantos said. "Speaking for myself, I'm ready to go -- and knowing the speaker, I think that she might be.''

Pelosi did not dispute that statement, and noted that Lantos -- a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust -- brought "great experience, knowledge and judgment" to the recent bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in addition to Syria.

"I find the president of Iran's remarks to be so repulsive that they are outside the circle of civilized human behavior,'' Pelosi said, referring to Ahmadinejad's past comments that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map and his questioning of the existence of the Holocaust.

"But a person of Mr. Lantos' stature and personal experience is saying that -- even as a Holocaust survivor and even recognizing the outrageous statements of the president of Iran -- it's important to have dialogue. I think that speaks volumes.''

Yes, it does speak volumes, Nancy! I urge you to have tea with Mr. Ahmadinejad and come to a civilized agreement for all our sakes. And when you come back triumphantly with a signed letter from him, you can know that you proudly follow in the footsteps of that great British statesman, Neville Chamberlain. Indeed, through your efforts, we will once again have "peace for our time." We can call it the Tehran Agreement.

Please be sure to read the links. Though these days, with the ongoing deconstruction of history by the postmodern left, history is not thought to be very important anymore. Nevertheless, you may see some interesting parallels that entirely escape the morally superior Democrats.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:50 AM |

 
THE LEFT'S "INTELLECTUAL RACISM"
With all the ridiculous brouhaha and histrionic outrage generated by the oh-so-tolerant Christian left (of which Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are perfect examples) over Don Imus' outrageously unfunny remarks about the Rutgers Women's Basketball team, you might almost think that the left has some fundamental principles that they value and defend in this area.

Almost.

I wonder if Sharpton et al have listened to the misogynistic lyrics of some of the rap songs by mostly black groups who regularly refer to women in far more disgusting ways than Imus could even imagine.

It is possible that you may remember Reverend Sharpton as the guy who once taunted Jews by saying, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house"; and who has evolved into one of the formost race hustlers in America. This behavior has not made him a pariah--oh, no! Instead it made him Democratic presidential material!

The political left has managed to elevate race hustling into a moral imperative.

It is a fundamental rule that if you are black, you have absolute moral authority to utter as many racist, sexist, and anti-semitic comments as you like.

David Horowitz once ommented that: “Black studies celebrates blackness, Chicano studies celebrates Chicanos, women’s studies celebrates women, and white studies attacks white people as evil.”

It is just the new multiculti leftist political reality -- a sort of intellectual 'racism' that is perfectly acceptable when a member of the left directs it against anyone not on the left or anyone not a card-carrying member of one of their protected "victim" groups. They reserve the worse bile for "apostates"--believers who leave the leftist fold.

Examples abound. Joe Lieberman is someone who has left the dogmatic fold and he is the recipient of a considerable amount of hate from those who once nominated him as a VP candidate. If Imus had called Ann Coulter (who I don't particularly care for) a Ho', would anybody from that side of the political spectrum have gotten worked up about it? Or, how about if he referred to Condi Rice by that term, would Al Sharpton have heroically risen to her defense? Don't be ridiculous.

Or, in a parallel vein, consider Elizabeth Edwards (who is not black as far as I know) and who, in her latest interview, felt completely free to indulge in a particularly nasty bit of stereotyping and prejudice by attacking one of those 'rabid, rabid Republicans'.

For the political left, it is completely socially acceptable to describe and stereotype Republicans, conservatives, Christians, whites, etc. etc. in this manner. But they are very free with their charges of racism, sexism etc. etc. In fact, the intellectual elites of the left consider it their moral duty to call a 'spade a spade' and 'speak truth to power' whenever the opportunity arises. This we are told is their right to free speech.

Just don't get the impression that you are entitled to free speech--which, by the way, includes offensive and unfunny speech sometimes. There is something a bit contradictory about "free" speech that must rigidly conform to the politically correct and sensitive rules of the left. And there is a significant hypocrisy at play when they can be as insensitive toward you as they like because you don't count if you happen to be one of the "oppressor" groups (like white, male, Christian, Jew etc.).

I live in Ann Arbor-- one of the centers of leftist political thought in the U.S. (and one of the centers of the Marijuana culture--coincidence?). Never in my intellectual life have I felt so much like a minority; a stranger in a strange land, the recipient of angry confrontation because I have a Bush sticker on my car; which inevitably seems to bring out the not-so-latent, socially acceptable form of intellectual racism practiced in these parts.

I have had people who I thought were friends suddenly inform me that they could not associate with me because I was capable of writing a blog like Dr. Sanity; i.e., that I disagreed with them politically. Discussion of the ideas that I presented was not something they cared to do.

Around here, the lawns have had signs prominently displayed since 2001, that demand Bush's immediate impeachment and shout "PEACE!" at the top of their little lawn sign lungs, just to make sure you understand how morally righteous the homeowner is.

Have you ever seen articles written by those on the political left who happen to be living in red states/areas that describe their social ostracization because of their political views? Their marginalization in academia?

No, I haven't either.

Yes, the left whined constantly because they were not in the majority; and they still whine now that they are in the majority; because deep in their little leftist hearts they know that they must continue to claim they are inhumanely oppressed by having to live among such conservative savages in order to retain their claim to moral superiority. But, I would venture to guess that chances are, they are unable to relate a single instance of being excluded; or raged at by colleagues or neighbors; or systematically made to feel invisible because of their political or intellectual views.

Now that they are "the power" to speak truth to, do you imagine that they will gain a little insight into their own intellectual racism? Don't count on it.

Want to know what they think about people on the right? Garrison Keillor captured the essence of the new racism in his book, Homegrown Democrat: a Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America. Republicans and conservatives are:

...hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists,
see-through fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience,
freelance racists, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, lizardskin cigar monkeys,
jerktown romeos, ninja dittoheads, the shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax
cheats, cheese merchants, cat stranglers, taxi dancers, grab-ass executives, gun
fetishists, genteel pornographers, pill pushers, chronic nappers, nihilists in
golf pants, backed-up Baptists, Crips and Bloods of the boardroom...

How clever and tolerant! How diverse! How multicultural! How politically correct! How extraordinarily funny! Surely you are able to recognize the difference it makes when someone on the left versus someone on the right is overtly prejudiced, racist, sexist, and insensitive, can't you?

It makes all the difference in the world.

In a previous post, I wrote:

Today’s Left and its antiwar clone army are reduced to reliance on mere Marxist rhetoric and tired, worn-out slogans that are trotted out in every circumstance and situation. They dare not face the real and pressing injustices of the world. No one can reason with them or even agree to disagree. They and they alone know the truth, and if you argue with them you are immediately labeled as a “racist”, or a “sexist”; or identified as “hurting poor people”, “hating blacks”, or “against women”. Every argument is defined in these terms. If they are the champions of “X”, then anyone who disagrees with them must hate/discriminate against “X.”

You hear this bullshit constantly. It is impossible to suggest that there are different ways to approach various social problems or societal “injustices”. Or that there are possibly more effective and less damaging approaches that the same old Marxist formulations.

It is useless to point out, for example, that trillions of dollars have already been spent on helping the poor and the disadvantaged in this country. What has resulted in the long run from that effort? We have given people fish to eat, but we haven’t taught them how to go fishing. And, as proof of that, we have the spectacle and pathos of New Orleans during Katrina; with the predictable reflexive response from the Left that, “George Bush hates black people.”

Perhaps--just perhaps-- it is the Left's own policies that “hate” and discriminate against black people? Perhaps it is their victimization of blacks that “keeps them in their places” and not the horrible "racial prejudices" of those awful Republicans.

As a free country we have much less to fear from a legion of unfunny Don Imuses or Ann Coulters [or even, for that matter, the unfunny Al Frankens, the prototype of which is a leftist hero, running for congress in Minnesota!Just like Al Sharpton, his brand of insensitivity and "racism" is politically rewarded) than we do from the "intellectual racists" of the left who ban any speech they don't like, don't agree with, or that is "insensitive".

And, of course, since they answer to a higher moral authority, the left gets a free pass to demean, stereotype and be generally insensitive to any individual or any group they don't happen to like. What a great scam.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 1:00 PM |

 
KINDLY KONSIDER THE KHARACTER OF THE KITTEN IN KUESTION
I do not usually feel compelled to publish disgustingly cute pictures of little animals, but...after seeing Jules Crittendon's piece at Pajamas Media that included this photo to describe the British response to Iran's taking 15 British military personnel hostage:




I immediately began to search for a counterkitten example that exhibited a little less passive surrendering behavior on the kitten's part--and came up with this one:



Which seemed appropriate, particularly since we must remember the character of the indiscriminantly killer- jihadi/kitten we are up against in this GWOT (I used the banned term--so sue me):



...whose envy and rage are nurtured by vile, hate-spewing kitten Imams and Mullahs:



Clearly the West must use all the guile and cleverness it possesses to combat the threat against kitten civilization, so Siggy helpfully forwarded me a top-secret picture of a kitten from the Israeli Mossad (Moused?) working in disguise to gather intelligence against the enemy:



Have a nice day! More serious blogging later.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:33 AM |

 
IRAN IS BUOYANT & THE WEST IS CATATONIC
Yesterday, there was this tidbit in the news:

Buoyant Teheran warns of further kidnappings
By Gethin Chamberlain, Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman, Sunday Telegraph

Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.

The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.

The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: "The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don't change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will....

"Iran has got what it wants. They have secured free passage for smuggling weapons into Iraq without a fight," one US defence department official said.

It is also clear that the Iranian government believes that the outcome has strengthened its position over such contentious issues as its nuclear programme. Hardliners within the regime have been lining up to crow about Britain's humiliation, and indicated that the operation was planned.

Conservative parliamentarian Amir Hassankhani, a former member of the country's Revolutionary Guard and supporter of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the country's semi-official Fars news agency: "The arrest and release of the British sailors proved that if Iran's issues and demands are overlooked at the international level, the Islamic republic can create different challenges for the other side."

In "Showdown at the U.K. Corral" I wrote:

Consider, if the leaders of the free world cannot respond appropriately and decisively to the latest Iranian hostage crisis (and you think they would remember the consequences of the last one--particularly on the so-called "legacy" of Jimmy Carter), then the crisis will only escalate. What Carter did (and didn't do) 25 years ago paved the way for 9/11 and the many crises we are dealing with today; what future horrors will the selfish and malignant pacifism of today's left pave the way for in the next decade?

The Mullahs are watching and have a great big Cheshire cat grin on their face. They almost certainly have concluded from the useless British and international response that they can get away with practically anything now.

The key behavioral factor in extinguishing undesirable behavior is never to reinforce the behavior you are trying to extinguish. This fact is essential to understand, particularly when dealing with bullies who hail from a shame-phobic culture. The desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the culture, and it has the side-effect of giving the individual carte blanche to engage in wrong-doing when they believe they have the upper hand.

In fact, any and all attempts to placate or reason with them will only result in their behavior escalating. That is because they sense weakness; and your weakness presents them with the opportunity to maximize both their own honor (such as it is) and your shame.

Bullies and thugs will not suddenly develop respect for your profound desire for peace and your non-violent, even appeasing, intentions--no matter how sincerely you express them. On the contrary, they conclude that you are weak and that there will be no consequences if they continue to push you around.

I wonder if anyone remembers that Iran has a nuclear program that the West has vowed to stop? Certainly Iran now knows that they are dealing with a paper tiger.

Charles Krauthammer notes that multilateralism and turning to the "international community" to handle the bad guys in the world has been singularly ineffective:

The result is utterly predictable. Nothing has been done about the Iranian bomb. In fact, the only effective sanctions are those coming unilaterally out of the U.S. Treasury.

Remember the great return to multilateralism — the new emphasis on diplomacy and "working with the allies" — so widely heralded at the beginning of the second Bush administration? To general acclaim, the cowboys had been banished and the grown-ups brought back to town.

What exactly has the new multilateralism brought us? North Korea tested a nuclear device. Iran has accelerated its march to developing the bomb. The pro-Western government in Beirut hangs by a thread. The Darfur genocide continues unabated.

The capture and release of the 15 British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the "international community" and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the EU and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to "deplore" this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of "grave concern"). Then turn to the despised Americans. They'll deal some cards and bail you out.

Of course, we can count on the Democrats to try to prevent America from doing any such thing, because when it comes to being fatuous, the rest of the international community has nothing over them.

This pattern of positively reinforcing the negative behavior of our enemies as we simultaneously negatively reinforce every effort to confront and deal with that negative behavior indicates a psychological denial and delusion so profound that it is simply stunning in its pathology.

No matter how you look at it--either from a behavioral or a psychological perspective--it seems clear that things are only going to be going from bad to worse in the immediate future.

I really wonder what it will take before the West wakes up; and sometimes I worry that we're not simply asleep, we're catatonic.



- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:32 AM |

 
NO, SERIOUSLY...

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:53 PM |

 
CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES - Happy Easter !
Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

And, while you are in the Mood for Madness, go directly to the Weekly Whackjob Awards!

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.
SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Don't call it the GWOT...and don't you dare call them Democrats either! Some words are just too partisan.... Guess you never heard of PMS? (That's Partisan Meltdown Syndrome for the uninitiated)

2. Surrenderlust? Morons triumphant? Was it a swap? Or, just more of the usual multiculti politically correct idiocy? Completely the wrong message, indeed.

3. Frankly, I think Ahmadinejad is an insult to the Iranians Persian heritage...but we can agree to disagree. I'm not sure what to think of this either.

4. It's not what they put in, it's what they leave out. It's definitely a puzzlement...

5. The larynx speaks for loons. Dr. Seuss is alive in spirit! She has principles? Hard to believe. At least the Sisters of Perpetual Chastity and Wandplay do!

6. Aack, aack! Somewhere over the rainbow, indeed. How...respectful; and appeasing.

7. Bamboozled! In more ways than one. When is it ok, and when is it not to eat sh**? Good question.

8. In case you are pressed for time, a new type of yoga.

9. There is no detail too small that it can't be regulated; no promise too expensive it can't be made. As the editorial suggests, they are !#$!ing idiots.

10. Too whacky? Better ask Siggy--he's the expert! OTOH, why would the British bring celery to a soccer game? Perhaps they aren't at all objective about "whacky"....?

11. Gates does the calypso: Mohammed come down and me wanna go home...

12. Who knew there were so many reasons to drink on the job!

13. A great idea to delay the scourge of global warming by one quintillionth of a nanosecond

14. Just wait until it happens to a Democrat. Suddenly, the electoral college will be "in" again.

15. The Hebrew Palestinian Daily? Sort of like al-Reuters.

16. The Tax Day Blues (coming very soon)

17. Secular Messiah? Or, chocolate Jesus ? Yes, he's been anticipated for quite a while....still, it's hard to take seriously an artist whose greatest work is a hotel room filled with melted cheese. Chocolate Mohammed or 12th Imam anyone?

........... HAVE A GLORIOUS EASTER !..........



***************************************
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- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:13 AM |

 
DEFAULT MODE THERAPEUTIC PSYCHOBABBLE
I was impressed with this comment by Mark Steyn at The Corner, writing about the recently released British hostages:

...I agree that this incident was a pitiful humiliation for the Royal Navy and also for Britain. It also seems clear that this mission was poorly conceived from the start: If you can't outgun a couple of Iranian speed boats, you shouldn't be policing the shallows of the Shatt al-Arab in the first place.

However, the language you deplore - "Some of the Iranian sailors were becoming deliberately aggressive and unstable", "Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure" - seems less a reflection on these men than yet more evidence of how therapeutic psychobabble has become the default mode of our culture- even unto the military(emphasis mine)

He has more to say, but you can see the remark that caught my particular attention. It is strikingly accurate.

If you happen to think that the "therapeutic psychobabble" Steyn refers to is actually therapeutic, then as far as I'm concerned it is evidence that you aren't much of a therapist and/or you haven't got a clue about what therapy is all about. In fact, talk of the kind that Steyn refers to frequently becomes the major impediment for actual patients seeking help for emotional problems and trying to take control back over their lives. As for individuals who aren't patients (but soon will be, most likely) it reflects a passive world view, where a person is the helpless victim of forces outside their control.

Let's look at a just few aspects of this psychobabble that has permeated the culture to such an extent that it grossly interferes with real psychological health and functional coping mechanisms:

SELF-ESTEEM
One of the big pieces of the psychobabble industry is the promotion of "self esteem" at the expense of self control and personal responsibility. But, contrary to popular myth, self esteem is not the holy grail of psychological health. In fact, it is not necessarily even good for you, and most bullies, tyrants and other dysfunctional people fairly ooze self esteem.

Most people confuse "self-esteem" with a "sense of self". It is the latter--not the former, that is so often screwed up in the angry, violent, grandiose, and generally narcissistic people in the world. If you have a healthy "sense of self", you are likely to have a healthy self-esteem; and a healthy self-esteem is not the same at all as a high self-esteem.

The psychological defect that leads to so many problems for people in their lives is a defective or distorted sense of one's SELF. The excessive self-esteem you see in a bully comes from a distortion of reality that person develops with regard to their self. It used to be widely believed that low self-esteem was a cause of violence, but in reality, violent individuals, groups and nations happen to think very well of themselves. Do you really suppose that individuals like Ahmadinejad or the Iranian mullahs suffer from poor self-esteem? Do you think bullies like Saddam or thugs like Zawahiri had "fragile" egos as they made their way through life? And that they were simply misunderstood or had unhappy childhoods and that is what made them so bad? If only social conditions be improved and poverty eliminated then the world would not see the development of such people--or so goes the thinking, anyway.

I'm afraid not. The reality is that human nature is what it is whether you are rich or poor; or what color your skin happens to be; and without regard for the particular political structure you live in. Exaggerated self-esteem that is not based on personal achievement or responsibility is one of the hallmarks of a pathological narcissist or psychopath.

The pop-psychology that promulgated the widespread belief that if you nurture kid's self-esteem neglected to mention that if the sense of self was already damaged, all the social engineers would manage to do was to create a narcissistic monster. That is why our society is filled with the pursuit of unhealthy narcissistic gratification. In this new century, that narcissism seems to be morphing into an even more malignant sociopathy that pervades society and impacts almost all our social, political, and educational institutions.

Our cultural focus on enhancing "self-esteem" has resulted in the near-worship of emotions and feelings at the expense of reason and thought; on emphasizing "root causes" and victimhood, instead of demanding that behavior be civilized and that individuals exert self-discipline and self-control--no matter what they are "feeling".

FEELINGS, NOTHING MORE THAN FEELINGS
This brings me to the second bit of psychobabble: the emphasis on and near-worship of feelings and emotion, which felt to be "superior" to reason for enlightened living in the modern world.

Feelings and emotion can be extremely valuable tools for perceiving the world; particularly if an individual does not allow feelings alone dictate his or her behavior, but instead uses emotion, tempered by reason; or reason, tempered by emotion as the basis of action.

But somehow, our culture--once founded on and dedicated to reason and rational thought, which is what has led to the creation of all the wonders we enjoy in the modern world--has slowly evolved into a cult that worships emotion and whim at the expense of reason.

There are many psychological [unconscious and conscious] factors that can make one's feelings completely untrustworthy. These include the immature psychological defenses which, if unexamined in the cold light of insight and conscious thought can result in denial, paranoia, projection, displacement and many other dysfunctional behaviors.

The truth is that there are countless ways that unconscious processes within ourselves can distort our responses to others and to reality itself.

Growing up and attaining maturity requires that we take a moment to consider such factors playing a role in our emotions before we act on those emotions. If we come to know ourselves and understand our own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, limitations and secrets; then our emotional responses to people or to the world can be very valuable tools to help interpret the world. But they are only tools, and if not used wisely, they can do more harm than good. Feelings cannot be used in a court of law--for good reason. And they are not ultimate truth in the court of reality, either.

STRESS
These days we hear a lot about "coping with stress"; and about how "stress" is behind all sorts of medical and psychological problems. Of course, what is really meant by this is that there are many situations in life--some of the common and some not so--that we must respond to in order to live our lives. Stress can be understood as a frustrated "fight or flight" response.

Our bodies, which have not changed much since the days of the caveman, are hardwired to respond to danger in certain ways. Either we gird our loins and fight; or we take flight and run away. These two strategies covered pretty much everything for our ancient ancestors had to deal with to survive, and they lived or died depending on effectively these strategies were utilized.

In our modern world, it is no longer appropriate or even civilized--most of the time and in most situations--to do either. Imagine if you will, the office worker called on the carpet by the boss, who reacts to this threat to his livelihood by punching the boss; or by running screaming from the boss's office. Neither response would be considered very stable.

We hear on the news fairly frequently of such occurrences; e.g., the postal worker who comes in and shoots his superior, and--as long as he's at it--a few coworkers he holds grudges against.

The point is, that our body's hardware is designed to respond to perceived danger in this way, whether we like it or not. Of course, the boss yelling at us is not the same degree of danger our ancestors used to deal with, but our bodies aren't able to tell the difference. Hence, as we became civilized and our interactions with others and with our environment became more complex, the normal physiological responses of our bodies to danger remained the same, but the behavioral expectation --i.e., how we acted on the physiological imperative -- changed significantly.

And so, the concept of stress was born. We can't often fight; and we can't often run away; and when we do, significant problems can arise for us and for society. Our bodies still physiologically respond, but the usual behaviors that discharge the built-up toxins and return us to a physiological normality are gone. Psychologically and physiologically, this tends to take a toll on our bodies; either as physical or emotional problems.

Most people are aware when they are experiencing stress and the physical and emotional discomfort can be a powerful reason to change whatever behavior is causing the sensation. Stress can also be a source of extra energy (e.g., in sports) if the physical and emotional aspects of it can be converted to a less destructive form. This is where the concept of psychological defense mechanisms comes in.

Many people seem to think that ALL stress is bad for you and must be eliminated from your life. But this position fails to understand the importance and necessity of stress in our lives.

Where once our stress response existed merely to protect us from extreme danger (and still does); today it is a key biological element that can promote and and encourage psychological growth and development and help us to learn mastery over ourselves and our environment.

So this is the good thing about stress. Stress and our response to it can help us to mature and expand our capabilities. Without stress, there is little motivation to change or improve either ourselves or our environment. Too little stress and we stagnate. Too much, and we are at risk of falling apart. But just the right amount of irritation can encourage us to create a pearl!

CELEBRATION OF VICTIMHOOD AND ENDLESS ENTITLEMENT
If you have any doubts about the power and sanctity that can be yours if victimhood status can be officially confered upon you; or of the endless moral benefits of being "oppressed"; just consider that even a mean SOB like Saddam Hussein can be deemed a victim of American oppression--just ask Ramsey Clark how that is done! Or that, for the sake of the Palestinians--the most publicized and creative perpetual victims in all of history-- a group of "experts" were recently convened in Iran to prove that the entire world has been bamboozled by a clever Jewish conspiracy regarding the Holocaust. Those darn Jews!

Holocaust Deniers are particularly noteworthy in the annals of victimhood, and demonstrate a degree of unsurpassable cleverness because they have managed to take the actual victims of a horrific episode in world history and twist that history to turn those real victims into oppressors! Surely one of the most magnificent applications of the new victimhood rules.

In the quasi-religious cult of victimhood that is part of today's leftist, Marxist dogma, "victimhood" has been identified as critical; and promoting it and nurturning it has become a way of life.

This has come about in part, because many on the political left have an intense narcissistic need to see themselves as "champions of the oppressed"; hence the constant need to find and maintain an oppressed class of people to champion. But it also dovetails nicely into the the Marxist dialectic that underlies that ideology. The world is divided up into two groups, you see: the oppressors (i.e., white, male,heterosexual, Republican, Americans or Israelis) and the oppressed (everyone else).

The political left proudly stands in solidarity with the oppressed victims of the world; and it is worth noting that their stance is particularly ego-gratifying if those they champion are undeserving victims (i.e., similar to Alfred P. Doolittle's "undeserving poor"-- who have needs as great as the most deserving of victims; in fact, their needs are even greater).

"I GOTTA BE ME" OR THE CELEBRATION OF UNHEALTHY NARCISSISM
What all the modern psychobabble about self esteem, feelings, stress and victimhood lead to is a culture of pervasive and malignant narcissism.

Instead of healthy ambition, goals and ideals, the malignant narcissist pursues either the sociopathic selfish type of gratification; or the sociopathic selfless variey.

This is a complicated topic, but I discuss it at length in this series of posts . Suffice it to say that our current culture either emphasizes and encourages a bloated sociopathic grandiosity or it encourages the exact opposite- a selfless sociopathy. Both are extremely dysfunctional and malignant for the individual as well as the society at large; and psychological health requires a synthesis of these two extremes of narcissism. The celebrity culture and the quest for superstardom, constant ego-gratification and promotion of self-esteem (at the expense of self-control) has encouraged an unhealthy grandiosity; while at the same time overcompensating with an unhealthy pseudo-selflessness that manifests itself in politics and religion.

The holy trinity of therapeutic psychobabble, the glue that holds this passive, helpless, and ultimately nihilistic world view together is : the deification of victimhood; the supremacy of feelings over reason, and the glorification of self-esteem over self-control.

Those therapists who subscribe to the psychobabble religion and indoctrinate their patients into it, tend to be predisposed to think of themselves as heroically pursuing "social justice" for the poor, unhappy and oppressed masses. But, when you peel away the layers of pseudo-Freudian babble, you discover that the basic premises, the foundation--or "default mode" if you will of the babbler therapist, is the tacit acceptance of Marxist political theory, which neatly sets up the conditions for individual, cultural and societal suicide.

The Marxist dialectic insists that you can either be an "oppressor" or one of the poor "oppressed". From the Marxist moral perspective it is clearly much better to be a victim of oppression. Thus this world view neatly reinforces the passivity and helplessness of victimhood by proclaiming it to be a higher moral value; and, when the only way to get out of this oppressed victim state is to enter the morally inferior ranks of the "oppresors" most people will prefer to reap the rewards of their victimhood--which in our Marxist-drenched culture have proliferated beyond imagining.

Just ask those who finally escape from the oppressed victim mindset only to discover to their astonishment that they are now perceived as "the enemy" and a "traitor" to their gender, race, class, politics etc. etc.--I'm sure you've heard the rhetoric.

At best, a culture or society can either encourage the development of healthy, mature psychological defenses with which to cope with reality and channel human nature; or they can encourage the development and expression of the worse aspects of basic human nature--i.e., those which result in violence, racism, criminality and all the other pathologies. Either way, social, political and economic systems can only encourage certain human traits that result in civilized behavior; or, encourage those that are barbaric and antisocial. Human nature is the same, though, no matter what type of society or political system it finds itself in.

The therapeutic psychobabble that has become the default mode of our culture leads inevitably to the kind of societally dysfuntional and suicidal behavior we witnessed in the recent British confrontation with Iran; and which we witness almost daily now in our dealings with Islamofascism. Our default mode is suicidal. The enemy's is homicidal.

It is a perfect postmodern fit.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:06 AM |

 
GET YOUR INSANITY FIX NOW !
I realize that not everyone is hooked on insanity like I am...I spend my life identifying it, treating it, and fighting it when necessary. But, it is next to impossible to get through the week from one Sunday's Carnival of the Insanities to the next without another concentrated dose of insanity to stimulate the senses!

!That's why I urge you insanity freaks to head on over to Sigmund, Carl & Alfred's to see who won this week's Wednesday Whacky Awards! The fact that the Awards were actually posted on Thursday just adds to the charm!

I honestly don't know where Siggy finds some of these people, or what planet they hail from.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what planet Siggy hails from...but that is neither here nor there.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 9:27 AM |

 
IS THERE A PARDON IN STORE FOR THEM, TOO?
Charles Krauthammer this morning at RCP about the Iranian hostage drama:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and subsequent release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the utter futility of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the U.N. -- that pretend to maintain international order.

You would think maintaining international order means, at a minimum, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here. Instead, a quiet capitulation.

How magnanimous that Ahmadinejad has forgiven the hostages and released them! What a true statesman following in the steps of other great men of the people!

But, let's not forget all the other millions of Iranian hostages...Is Ahmadinejad intending to "pardon" them, too?



To understand the extent of the victory achieved by Iran in the GWOT (and I will wait eagerly for the Dhimmicrats in Congress to issue a warrant for my arrest for daring to using the banned term), you need to read this post.

SHAME AND HONOR (sung to the tune of "Sunrise, Sunset")

(Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs)
Are these the hostages we captured?
Are these the ones who just confessed?

I can remember in the old days
We were obsessed!

When did it get to be so easy?
Where did those Reagan cowboys go?

Now they give in without a struggle
Who would know?

(Mullahs)
Shame and Honor
Shame and Honor
No act of ours could be a sin;
We will humiliate the weak West
Through their dishonor we will win.

(Iranian Women)
Shame and Honor
Shame and Honor
We live just to serve
If we embarass our dear menfolk
Death is much more than we deserve.(

(Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs)
How can we twist this situation
To make us more powerful and strong?

We must induce the foolish infidels
To say they're wrong....

It is so natural to trick them--
submissive like good dhimmis all should be

(Iranian people--wistfully)
Is there a pardon that's in store for me?

(All)
Shame and Honor
Shame and Honor
No act of ours could be a sin;
We will humiliate the weak West
Through their dishonor we will win.

Shame and Honor
Shame and Honor
Islam means "submit"
Each time they give in, we will gain honor
This is a game we'll never quit....

Stay tuned for even more provocative and escalating behavior from Iran!

UPDATE: If you are interested in what some of the British people have to say about the humiliating capitulation and sorry behavior of the UK and its military forces, see here. Read all the comments. You might also notice a perceptible shift in the attitude expressed toward Iran...
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:51 AM |

 
INTERNET SERVICE DOWN OR INTERMITTANT
I apologize for the light blogging. I've been trying to edit several posts, but my internet service has not been working all day. I just recently switched from cable to DSL and so far I am not a happy camper and have been getting the runaround for the last week from AT&T.

At best service will be intermittant, so bear with me.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:16 PM |

 
DEMOCRATS = DENIAL
Democratic Congress: "We will not have intercourse with that global war on terror."

Admittedly, it was not an ideal term. But it helped to organize strategic thinking about global Islamofascism.

To eradicate the use of the term and simply refer to the different parts of this struggle against fascism individually is simply an attempt to pretend that this larger struggle--which has many individual elements around the world-- does not really exist.

They've been insisting this is the case all along.

And their recent shameful votes for their favorite pork and to ensure victory for the enemy, along with the spectacle of Nancy Pelosi, majority leader extraordinaire, cavorting around in the Middle East in her cute headscarf, drives home their enabling behavior with a vengeance; and provides a wealth of psychological support for the very people busy killing our troops and planning the next 9/11.

Let's watch and see shall we, just how far these pathetic losers are willing to go to sell out this country in order to gratify their malignantly narcissistic personal and ideological power agendas? Soon, we will be hearing how patriotic it is to do exactly that--because they will surely insist on redefining the word "patriotism" in the best postmodern tradition; and if they are prevented from doing that, they will simply ban its usage!

DEMOCRATS=DENIAL
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 6:45 AM |

 
THE SANITY SQUAD - Iranian Theater of the Absurd
With the news that Amadinejad has "pardoned" the British hostages and they have been released, the world will be watching closely to see what the Iranian regime will do next. And they will most certainly do something provocative in the second act of this theater of the absurd.

The latest Sanity Squad Podcast is now posted at Pajamas Media Politics Central, and in it, the Squad takes up where we left off last time : discussing the Iranian hostage drama, produced and directed by the mullahs of Iran.

In the opening act, Britain gave us all a lesson in how not to negotiate from strength. Seemingly the Iranians have now received all the positive press they can possibly get from this situation; made themselves heroes and perhaps have pushed it to the brink of violence then stopped short of . It will be interesting to see what these young sailors have to say about their forced stay in Iran now that they are not under any coercion.

The question remains, what is the role of diplomacy and when should the threat of force have entered into the script had the hostages not been released? And most importantly, what is the West actually willing to fight for these days?

Victor Davis Hanson has it exactly right when he writes:

What is disturbing about the Iranian piracy is that it establishes a warning of what we can come to expect when Iran is nuclear, and how organizations like the UN, the EU, and NATO will react. If a few Iranian terrorists in boats can paralyze an entire nation and the above agencies, think what a half-dozen Iranian nukes will do. This was the hour of Europe to step forward and show the world what it can do with sanctions, embargoes, and boycotts, and how such soft power is as effective as gunboats—and it is passing.

The incident also redefines "asset". A European naval vessel, under current rules of engagement, seems to me more a liability, a floating diplomatic embarrassment waiting to happen. In this Orwellian logic, the British decision to mothball some of the ships now on duty in the Gulf makes sense: fewer chances that one will be challenged, humiliated, or attacked by Islamists.

Join Shrinkwrapped, Neo-neocon, Siggy and me as we continue to analyze the import of the latest Iranian manufactured drama.

All podcasts of The Sanity Squad can be found here; and you can also download them from iTunes. (search for Pajamas Media)

(The Sanity Squad cartoon at the right is drawn by Eric Allie, whose collection of political cartoons can be found here and here).

BTW, guess who the guy on the right is in this picture from the late 1970's during an earlier hostage crisis manipulated by Iran.... It was successful then for him--will this latest manipulation also serve the interests of the Iranian regime?? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Siggy has a great post up, "Pardon Me? I don't think so":

In the film Schindler’s List, Amon Goth, (the notorious commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp played by Ralph Feinnes) was struck by a remark made by Oscar Schindler at a party. Schindler tells a drunken Goth that ‘anyone can kill. Real power comes from the ability to forgive and pardon.’

The following morning, in what is a chilling and mesmerizing scene in film, Amon Goth looks into a mirror and says, ‘I pardon you,’ over and over. He repeats the remarks over and over, with various gestures, seeking the right ‘look’ for his supposed largesse, in which he can appear grand, magnanimous and humble, all the same time.

There is very little that is different between Amon Goth and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and those who support them and share their ideas.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 11:47 AM |

 
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Displacement²
Here we are in the middle of a war with Islamic fundamentalism on multiple fronts; and on the home front, the political left and their shills in our children's educational system seem to think that the U.S. is at risk for a Christian theocracy! They are even having school drills to prepare for that fateful day:

So, a New Jersey school needs to run a terror prep drill. Okay, sounds good. Can you guess who the make-believe villains in the drill were?

BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP — The scenario has played out in real life across America: Gunfire echoes through a school and students are held hostage.

But police, faculty and staff lived out their own make-believe version yesterday of just such a tragedy at Burlington Township High School, complete with Kevlar-clad officers, armed suspects and students portraying the wounded and dead.

The purpose of the drill was to test the reactions of police, faculty and administration.

“You perform as you practice,” Superintendent Chris Manno said prior to the exercise. “We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they're as effective as possible.”

The mock terror attack involved two irate men armed with handguns who invaded the high school through the front door. They pretended to shoot several students in the hallway and then barricaded themselves in the media center with 10 student hostages.

Two Burlington Township police detectives portrayed the gunmen. Investigators described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the “New Crusaders” who don't believe in separation of church and state. The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.

During the 2004 Presidential campaign, one of my friends was so pre-occupied by the "inevitability" of a Christian theocracy being imposed in America, she literally could not understand why I would vote for Bush, since it was clear to her that he intended to usher in a fundamentalist religious state.

Yeah, right. I have noticed that all the women of my acquaintance are now wearing burkas; holy communion is being forced down the throats of unrepentant leftists; and there has been a dramatic decline in sexually explicit material everywhere in favor of chocolate and Obama Jesuses; which of course just demonstrate how disgustingly oppressive the Christian religion has become within our culture.

Why, last week I was forced to enter a church --and they lured unsuspecting innocent children inside too (they were having a bake sale).

You might be asking yourself, "What in heaven's name are these people thinking?" --at least if you have any sense whatsoever. How can anyone make sense of a belief that is so bizarre, ridiculous and completely out of touch with reality?

Even as Bush is well into the 6th of 8 years as President, this delusion is actively being maintained in all sorts of ways and those who share in it cannot be shaken from their fundamental belief. Clearly something very powerful is happening in the [unconscious] minds of these people; and that something is emotionally-driven and completely imnpervious to facts or reason. A little self-reflection might help, but the entire purpose of this particular delusion is to enable the person having it to maintain a certain degree of obliviousness and unrepentent ignorance.

President Bush has repeatedly reassured people about his personal faith and his practice of religion is not different in any respect from previous presidents. At a news conference back in 2005 he responded when asked about his faith:

...I think faith is a personal issue. And I take great strength from my faith. But I don't condemn somebody in the political process because they may not agree with me on religion.

The great thing about America is that you should be allowed to worship any way you want. And if you chose not to worship, you're equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship. And if you choose to worship, you're equally American if you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim.

And that's the wonderful thing about our country and that's the way it should be.

But straight speaking like this does not reassure those convinced that Christian sharia is about to be implemented. Bush is now in the 6th year of his Presidency. When is this supposed theocratic state going to be declared? When will the religious police be deployed to monitor the innocent citizens of America?

The hysteria about this topic is to my mind unbelievable. And, since I am a psychiatrist, when I observe an over-the-top emotional reaction to something that is all out of proportion to the reality, I begin to look for a psychological explanation.

Displacement --as I explained just recently in a post--is a psychological defense mechanism where there is a separation of emotion from its real object, and then redirection of that ofen intense emotion (i.e., fear, terror, anxiety) toward something less threatening.

When was the last time you heard of a Christian fundamentalist nation? When was the last time that Christianity killed non-believers and tortured those who ran afoul of the religious laws?

If you answered, "the middle ages"--you are correct.

Why not that long ago, there was a peaceful transition of power in the only christian theocracy in the world--the Vatican. Not a single person was killed or tortured. When some minor outrage is perpetrated on Christians, the Christian "street" does not go postal and demand death to the unbelievers.

All the hysterics on this issue come from the foaming mouths of the presumably educated intellectual elite of this country, who are expected to be in possession of critical thinking skills (otherwise why do we call them intellectuals?--but that is for another post).

Indeed, it is interesting to observe that while these intellectuals and academics and cultural leaders are the source of many-if not all--of the most absurd charges against Christianity, middle America is much more rational and tolerant toward religious expression in general and have their heads on a lot straighter than many professors and artistes who are not at all abashed when their members spew forth the most incredible foolishness (clinically referred to as paranoid-infested BS).

Yet....there is a religion-- now, today-- that does encourages its adherents to kill non-believers. A religion that relegates women to second class citizenship and makes their sexuality a sin punishable by death. There is a religion practiced today that qualifies as an oppressive totalitarian theocracy in a number of countries; and its religious leaders regularly give permission to its beleivers to kill Jews and Christians (and even leftists).

Devoted believers of this religion piloted airplanes into American buildings, killing thousands. They would do it again if they get the chance. Devoted believers in this religion behead people who disagree with them; and can easily be convinced to blow themselves up in order to kill people they don't like. There is a religion that today is DEMANDING special privileges continuously and expects that everyone bow down to their obvious superiority.

And there is a religion that openly and forthrightly has informed the world that they will submit to it -- or else. One of their number on this blog, who calls himself "American Muslim" regularly harangues commenters with, "Embrace Islam and live in peace in submission to the will of Almighty Allah (swt).Your grandchildren will be Muslim.Allahu akbar!" and other such inanities that demonstrate a complete lack of both intelligence and critical thinking capability.

Now, if you are as smart as a 5th grader (you don't have to be much smarter actually than a first grader) then which of the two religions described above should you conclude is the real threat to freedom in America ?

The one that is capable of separating church from state and advocates peaceful solutions to problems that has existed within our democratic system for the last 200 plus years? Or the one that demands special privileges and openly advocates jihad and death to America? Come on. You can figure this out if you work at it!

However comforting it may be to believe that Christianity is the religion that poses a threat to freedom and democracy, reality must intrude on such infantile fantasies. As these cleverly uninsightful people "bravely" confront the straw man/religion they have set up, the real danger will slip in unnoticed and without hindrance.

It's just that they won't have to face it because they have retreated to that place in the mind where they are safe and clueless.

When do you suppose the "secular humanists" and leftists will organize a conference to discuss the threat that Islam poses to their political freedoms? Don't hold your breath.

Suffice it to say that these incredibly neurotic people need to grow up, face reality, and deal with the anxiety, helplessness, fear and dread they are determined to avoid. Only then will they be able to focus on the real religious danger that threatens this country and civilization as a whole.

As psychological defense mechanisms go, displacement is a nice neurotic one that--for the user anyway--keeps all that distressing psychological conflict at bay. The rest of us, however, must continue to live and deal with the reality they are denying.

The image that comes to mind is that of a lifeguard attempting to rescue a drowning person,; but the person drowning is so frightened and irrational as they hysterically thrash about that they end up thwarting all attempts to save them; and, even worse, their hysteria threatens to drag their rescuer down to the depths with them.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:45 AM |

 
AND I GUESS THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE NEWS
(Hat tip to Neo for the idea and challenging me; and apologies to Elton John)

They wish it away
And pretend 9/11 never transpired;
Between you and me I can honestly say
Their denial is truly inspired

Then when we're attacked
They just say it was done by "insurgents"
Yeah they want to fight terror--just not in Iraq.
So they whitewash the truth with bleach and detergents.

And I guess that's why they call it the news
Reporters are neutral-- they just don't like the Jews;
They think Bush is stupid; And Cheney malignant
They hate to be fake; but find "real" repugnant...
And I guess that's why they call it the news

They haven't a clue;
Confuse facts and opinions;
Condemn the U.S. without hesitation--
They are just the left's minions

They scream and they push
Place patriotism up on the shelf;
They simply hate Bush
More than they love life itself
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 3:05 PM |

 
FANTASY vs REALITY

The Fantasy: (about how tough the West is)





The Reality (how tough the West really is)

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 5:40 AM |

 
SHOWDOWN AT THE U.K. CORRAL
The O.K. Corral in Western mythology has come to symbolize the struggle between the law (civilization & order) and the roving bands of outlaws and bandits who roamed the Old West robbing and rustling (barbarism and chaos). I grew up with mostly cowboy heroes--the ones who brough law and order, just to be clear--and one of them was Wyatt Earp. Of course, since then he's been historically "deconstructed" by the postmodernists along with his brothers and Doc Holliday; and the Clantons and their ilk have been romantically idealized and given victim status (so what else is new?).

I mention this because we are today in our own version of the O.K. Corral--and the consequences of the postmodern deconstruction are painfully evident. We are living in a global Tombstone where outlaw nations like Iran can steal and kill at will. The international community--the civilized community--seems to be paralyzed and in denial. They have denigrated the "cowboy" Bush; they have deconstructed all their heroes; and now, there is nothing that stands between them and the Iranian gunslingers who want to take over the town and kill as many of them as necessary. In true pathetic victimhood fashion, they wail and weep, hoping that the town will be taken over so that their lives can be spared.

Jeff Jacoby calls the smell in the air right now "irresolution"; I call it "fear" and its stench is almost overpowering. Never in my wildest dreams when The Sanity Squad recorded its last podcast about the Iranian showdown at the UK corral, did I imagine that there would be not only a tepid response, but a downright cowardly one. As the British cower and the US Congress prepares to surrender, the aggression against the West only increases in intensity and brutality.

....this is how totalitarian aggressors react to faintheartedness.
"In Middle Eastern warfare," writes retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters in the New York Post, "a classic tactic has been to retreat in the face of strength, but to attack when your enemy withdraws or shows signs of weakness." British troop pullouts and congressional cut-and-run votes prompt not fewer outrages and less mayhem, but more. The smell of irresolution doesn't satiate the totalitarians' appetite; it makes it keener.

The Men of West are too fearful to take a stand (what if it was unpopular with some people?) and instead they prefer to run away which allows them also to maintain their denial and delusion. The forces of civilization are willing to get out of Tombstone and let the outlaws and barbarians take over.

Consider, if the leaders of the free world cannot respond appropriately and decisively to the latest Iranian hostage crisis (and you think they would remember the consequences of the last one--particularly on the so-called "legacy" of Jimmy Carter), then the crisis will only escalate. What Carter did (and didn't do) 25 years ago paved the way for 9/11 and the many crises we are dealing with today; what future horrors will the selfish and malignant pacifism of today's left pave the way for in the next decade?

The Mullahs are watching and have a great big Cheshire cat grin on their face. They almost certainly have concluded from the useless British and international response that they can get away with practically anything now.

Where are the heroes today who can lead? Who can face the outlaws at the U.K. Corral? Who can unflinchingly face the armies of the dark lords of Islam and refuse to let them pass? We are saddled with psychotic and delusional Denethors in Europe; and a Congress of mesmerized Theodens; and there is no one with enough moral courage or strength of will to confront the evil that is the source of the poisonous paralysis. The air is drenched with fear and hopelessness and defeat.

And if you look at the contenders for the 2008 Presidential sweepstakes, none of them gives me any confidence at all that things are likely to improve.

Dialogue and Diplomacy; talk and more talk is only useful if Iran and its leaders are reasonable people who desire to change their ways and become a part of the international community.

Well, why the hell should they change their ways? They get everything they want by being the hostile, provacative bullies and thugs they are. They have shown very little interest in the international community unless it does things their way. But we keep talking, as Lowry notes:

If talking with the Iranians doesn't work, it is because we aren't talking to them enough, or the wrong people (i.e., not the U.S.) are talking to them, or when we're talking to them, we aren't saying the right things, or we haven't talked to them long enough, or maybe they don't realize just how very sincere we are in our talking. But, surely, sometime soon, if we just keep talking and offering to talk, all these "misunderstandings" will fade away.

In deterrence theory, this is called "mirroring," judging someone else's intentions by looking at your own. James Baker -- the head of the late, great Iraq Study Group -- concluded that Iran wants stability in Iraq and is amenable to negotiations, no doubt partially because he himself wants stability in Iraq and is amenable to negotiations. Indeed, there is no dispute that can't be worked out by haggling with James Baker, but he has never taken any hostages, denied the Holocaust or claimed to have had a halo -- all exploits of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The old saw about a liberal being someone who won't take his own side in a fight applies here. When the Bush administration presented evidence that the Iranians have provided material used to kill American troops in Iraq with roadside bombs, Democrats exploded in outrage -- at the Bush administration, for not being convincing enough, for having delayed the release of the intelligence, for being overly belligerent toward Iran, which just wants to talk to us.

NEWSFLASH: The Iranians don't want to talk to us. Or, rather they will talk with us as long as we keep up the pretense that they are reasonable; and while they are talking with us, they will continue to do whatever they want. Keep the hostages (since they will suffer no consequences at all); continue to make their nuclear bomb (because they will suffer no serious consequences); and flaunt international law (because no one seems to care and they are hardly likely to be called to account for not following the Geneva Convention); keep providing explosives and personnel to fuel the Iraq insurgency (Bush will get blamed instead of them). Life is good.

It doesn't take a shrink to figure out their agenda. Any kid dealing with a bully understands what the bully wants.

Remember the old joke? How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb really has to want to change. Has the Iranian leadership done anything to change its behavior lately? Or has their bad behavior actually escalated as they witness the lack of response in the West?

These enemies are not like us. They do not share our values; nor do they desire peace.

SC&A have noted:

One of the accepted hallmarks of civilized society is an accepted code of moral behavior. No matter one’s prejudices, biases or beliefs, we are all expected to behave in a certain way. We are all expected to treat others, regardless of their religion, culture or creed, in the same way we ourselves expect to be treated. If that accepted code of moral behavior is not present in a particular society, that society cannot be counted as civilized....

...free and civilized people demand free and civilized societies. They identify with and demand solidarity with similar free and civilized societies. Those in free and civilized society who demand otherwise are themselves living in a fantasy.

Arab apologists and ideologues see confrontation and subjugation, rather than negotiation, as the vehicle for addressing grievances. As the last few years have shown us, violence and the threat of violence can only reinforce those notions.

The Arab world today is recognized for it’s hate and belligerence and not the enlightenment, science, art and literature that contributed to the progress of humankind.

Whatever civilization these societies once may have had, they abandoned when they took up jihad and terror; and as Rich Lowry points out, they have long ago stopped being a part of the international community or the civilized world.

They are just backwaters of hate and violence; swamps of irrationality and deceit. And we are afraid of them (at least the people we elect to lead us seem to be) and they know it and can count on it.

I am saddened and humiliated by the West's response even as I attempt to understand why we have paralyzed ourselves. In a way, the West has been hostage to terror for long enough now to see that we are suffering from some sort of psychological trauma--at least that is how we have been behaving.

The appeasement and coddling (see this for the most recent suck-up) of these barbarians on the part of Western leaders is a type of projection. We are not projecting our bad feelings or qualities into the other, we are instead projecting the very best within us. Anna Freud called it "identification with the aggressor" and it highlights the passive victimhood mentality that has taken hold of the peoples of the West.

So far, the showdown at the U.K. Corral is unlikely to have a positive outcome for the forces of civilization. The Iranians will keep their hostages for as long as they can inflict shame on the West (see here for a discussion of shame cultures) and accumulate "honor" by our shame.

The last hostage crisis that Ahmadinejad particpated in lasted well over a year until a real cowboy was able to stand up to him and his band of thugs and get the hostages home.

I am hoping that somewhere out there in our global Tombstone is a Ronald Reagan /Wyatt Earp or some other cowboy type, who is willing to stand up to the forces of lawlessness and tyranny.

But I am probably only engaging in wishful thinking.
- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 7:35 AM |

 
CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITES - April Fool's Edition !
Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

And, while you are in the Mood for Madness and Fools for every month of the year, not just April, go directly to the Weekly Whackjob Awards!

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

It is ALWAYS APRIL FOOL'S DAY AROUND HERE....BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. April Fool! And it's for real--every April.

2. Antiwar protesters descend on Baghdad to protest Al Qaeda ! That will be the day, won't it?

3. Grassy knoll mystery solved! (Thanks, Rosie!)

4. Saudi sorcerers! Harry Potter would be proud. Ok, which one of them put this on Saturn?

5. Ix-nay on the Am-Islay when you’re talking about Errorism-Tay

6. It's just a misunderstanding! Foreign Office Hostage Negotiations Guidelines. A simple 2-step process. Of mice and men (or at least their dentures)... What's the big deal? There are already humans who are >15% sheep.

7. It's all our fault anyway (you knew that was coming). Meanwhile, Argentina takes advantage of the paralyzed Brits.... WWTD?

8. Well, of course Israel is to blame! Who else, for heaven's sake? Well, of course Israel is hindering the peace process! Who else would, for heaven's sake? Well, of course the Arab states think Palestinians should have the right of return, why would any Arabs state want to keep them?

9. Literally, a load of....well, you know.

10. They may support Palestine, but Palestine sure doesn't support them. So, does China have sexual discrimination?

11. Just when you thought it was safe to read books again....

12. How much is "world sympathy" actually worth? Depends doesn't it. See #8 above.

13. Financing the military for only peanuts a day! Then forcing people to be in the military. Then they can call them "oppressed"! That's the Democratic Party way!

14. Fact-checking at the NY Times. They don't need no stinkin' facts.

15. Could anyone recover from a Jesse Jackson endorsement? Just wondering.

16. From an alien perspective its refreshing for them to live up to their promises! OTOH, they're simply delusional. But, none dare call it pork!

17. She sounds better on paper than in real life, that's why. Some masks are more self-destructive than others.

18. Maybe I should start monitoring the gender of everyone who reads this blog! I really want to be in compliance....

19. Get ready to accuse him of licentiousness...particularly when he gets to Part XXV ... Now this was a serious sexual/cultural misunderstanding...I wonder what you say if you really do want Oyster sauce?

20. Warping the reality of money, one credit card at a time.

21. The check is in the male (or female). Be nice to your body, or else!

22. Remember them, please.

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 8:36 AM |