ESSENTIAL SOCIOPATHY OF THE LEFT ON DISPLAY

All around us today we are witness to the essential sociopathy of the "compassionate" and "loving" left. In the matter of Trayvon Martin, we have seen our own clueless President increase the hatred and fan the flames of racial divisiveness. Of course, he has not a word to say about his Justice Department's darling Black Panthers placing a monetary bounty on one of the characters in the ongoing national psychodrama. You would think that would be illegal (or, at the worse, uncivil; but you would be wrong--this is Obama's America we are now talking about; and in it, his political opponents are the ones who are always to blame.)

Let's move on to a more subtle expression of the sociopathic narcissism; i.e., the veiled threats that are being uttered directed toward the SCOTUS, who in the last several days have been annoyingly uncooperative in following the accepted narrative of the postmodern political left on the issue of Obamacare. How dare they question it!!

In a post, "Nice Court You Have There; It Would Be A Shame If Something Happened To It"; Wretchard writes:

By saying Obamacare is so self-evidently wonderful and legitimate that only someone crazy would disagree with it, Blumenthal makes you wonder why this matter is even before the Court in the first place. For the answer to that question, see “begging the question”.

What is less clear is whether Blumenthal, in reminding the court that the Executive Branch had the monopoly on physical power, was not engaged in a kind of subtle menace. After all, the Court’s power is not based on “credibility”. It is based on power vested in it by the Constitution. What would the administration say if someone argued that the president’s authority was based on “credibility” rather than his legal power as chief executive?

The left will seek to de-legitimize the Supreme Court, possibly the same way that the President did in his 2010 SOTU speech when they had the audacity to disagree with his position. How dare they rule contrary to his position? Remember, as Obama has reminded us with regard to Obamacare--He cares doncha know? Any who oppose his benevolent policies for the good of all are uncaring, racist, sexist, wealthy jerks.

And that's the essence of the argument. The left cares deeply about these things. We Republican and conservative and Libertarian troglodytes are throwbacks in human evolution, too stupid to appreciate the scientific workings of the minds of Progressives like of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--let alone Barack Obama! (the solution is to re-engineer humans to conform to the progressive dream!)

Isn't it interesting that the progressive postmodern left always seems to FEEL that their emotions are...scientific? That just because they FEEL something is good that it is "reality-based" and necesarily and undebatably true? Isn't it interesting that they always think they can re-engineer humans to adapt to their silly schemes--make them better somehow?

If that's not an affront to reality, then I don't know what would be. It is also the hallmark of people in a psychological fantasy bubble, sometimes called psychological denial.

I have written extensively on the pervasive psychological denial of the political left (see here, here , here, and here, for example).

It is important to point out that denial is an "equal opportunity" defense mechanism engaged in by all human beings--progressive or conservative; Democrat or Republican. It is an involuntary, built-in psychic response designed to protect an individual from precipitously having to face unwanted, unacceptable or threatening feelings, thoughts or behavior. The mind simply blocks out reality and truth--and sees what it wants to see; and feels what it wants to feel.

Psychological defenses can be a symptom of a much larger psychological problem; or they can be a temporary and even healthy adaptation to reality.

Feelings can be useful pieces of data with which to understand reality, but they are certainly not the best tool for that purpose; and a reliance on them to the exclusion of using reason and critical thought is a strategy that cannot succeed for long-term survival. When assessing how appropriate one's feelings are in a given situation, it is often necessary for the contents of the unconscious to be explored and brought to the conscious level and considered. Unconscious internal conflicts--such as the desire to always please or displease your parents; or the need to feel superior and more compassionate than others, for example-- 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.

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 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.

The inability to reflect on one's own behavior or the contents of one's mind and motivations is exactly why so many political debates boil down to acrimonious accusations.

YOU'RE PROJECTING! NO! YOU ARE. YOU'RE IN DENIAL. NO, YOU ARE!

How can you decide if someone is "projecting" versus accurately responding to and interpreting objective reality? How do you determine if someone is "in denial" or responding to 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 and indicative of an acceptance of truth or reality?

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 the short-term

• 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 perceived as irritating, repellant, and even evil).

Having laid out the tools, the reader can decide for him or herself if the current responses of the political left--either to the Trayvon Martin case; or to the "unexpected" questions of the Supreme Court Justices on Obama's Health Care Initiative--are symptomatic of a larger issue; or are a healthy adatation to reality.

Now, what happens when psychological denial ceases to be unconscious and becomes deliberate, willful, and consciously evil behavior-- in spite of all the accumulated evidence of its malignant impact on real people in the real world?

At that point we can safely assume that we are no longer dealing with a purely defensive structure in the psyche; we are dealing with aggressive, unadulterated sociopathy.

Let me go back to the beginnings of Obamacare.

Jay Nordlinger at National Review described a perfect example of this kind of deliberate, malevolent sociopathy:

Several readers have asked me to respond to Diane Watson. I do so wearily. She is the Democratic congresswoman from L.A. who said last week that President Obama’s health-care critics were racist — and who heaped praise upon a) Fidel Castro, b) Che Guevara, and c) Cuban health care. She said,

You need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. And you know the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy — Che Guevara did that. And after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found . . . an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro.

It was clear, from her tone, that she regards Castro as a kind of Christ figure. (To listen to the congresswoman, go here.)

I’m afraid I can’t say anything more about these subjects than I have already said. Let me offer a piece from 2000: “In Castro’s Corner: A story of black and red.” And a piece from 2007: “The Myth of Cuban Health Care: Michael Moore gives it a powerful boost.” And, in this FAQ column, you will find suggestions about what to read concerning Che Guevara.I’m afraid that mythologizing about Guevara, Castro, and the Communist dictatorship will never end. Indeed, it will get worse after the Castros and Cuban Communism pass. I used to think — I’ve had arguments with Armando Valladares about this (he is the heroic Cuban dissident who wrote Against All Hope) — I used to think that Castro-lovers in the United States were merely ignorant: They knew not what they said or did. How could all these “liberal Democrats” support a police state? A totalitarian dictatorship?

But, some years ago, I stopped thinking that: I had to swallow that these people — certainly some dismaying percentage of them — actually like it: actually like the dictatorship and all the murderous oppression that goes with it. You can’t remain entirely ignorant or naïve after 50 years of this dictatorship. And that is a very, very bitter pill to swallow.
One more point: Many of the leaders of the Cuban democracy movement are black — “Afro-Cuban.” President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to one of them (the political prisoner Oscar Biscet). Many of Castro’s most ardent supporters in the United States are black: Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Randall Robinson, and so on. What must the black Cuban democrats think of these Castro champions?

Very, very little, I can tell you. (Emphasis mine)

The traditional medical definition of sociopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of social responsibility and failure to adapt to ethical and social standards of the community.

If we think about that definition for a moment, we can perhaps begin to understand what is going on in our world today; and the reason that a huge number of people have embraced a fundamentally sociopathic--and "progressive" lifestyle, all the while convincing themselves that they are "compassionate", "post-racial" and just.

Under the pervasive influence of postmodern philosophy and rhetoric, the ethical and social standards of the community have, unfortunately, been slowly evolving and eroding.

In western culture, ethical and moral standards used to be anchored to the real world (i.e., to reality); but in the postmodern wilderness in which the political left and most of its most visible spokespeople--i.e., leaders in the Democratic Party-- wander aimlessly, ethics and morality are relative and "anchored" to feelings and whim; which inevitably unleashes the baser and more vile aspects of human nature.

The 20th century became the playground (and litter box) for the narcissist; and by the time the 21st century rolled around, malignant narcissism was not even considered deviant, it had gone mainstream. Since psychopathology continually evolves and worsens if it is not confronted and dealt with, what we have now in our culture, particularly the political system, is the endstage of psychological evolution under postmodernism: the sociopath who disguises his or her sociopathy by selflessness (now marketed as "hope and change").

These selfless sociopaths are people who basically could not care less about an individual human being.

They think in terms of movements and achieving some grand scheme of "social justice"--which is far from real justice and the search for truth.

Individual human beings are expendable; it is the collective or State that matters; and, as long as they stand in the way of the implementation of the sociopath's great ideas and compassionate execution of those ideas they can be ignored, marginalized and even killed. To this type of mind, individuals are merely the fodder used to build "great" societies from the all the utopian fantasies and collectivist wet-dreams.

It used to be that with the rise of civilization, political sociopaths--selfless and selfless-- were (thankfully) few and far between. Even so, when they appeared in history, they wreaked havoc and destroyed lives with great abandon for "the greater good". Needless to say, a central aspect of the 'greater good' was always the advancement of their own glorious self and their ideas.

We can thank primarily the postmodern political left and its useful idiots for the persistent, unyielding, and willful celebration of--and ultimately mainstreaming of--malignant narcissism. We have entered the age of postmodern sociopathy and nihilism.

What does it matter if the lives and freedoms of so many individuals are sacrificed to the murderous oppressors of the world; or, for that matter, even the compassionate oppressors of the Democratic Party--who, after all, want only the best for you of?

If you "kick out the wealthy" then you have the wonderful socialist paradise of Cuba or the currently evolving one of California; or the magnificent utopia of North Korea with all their misery, poverty, oppression and progressive enlightenment!

Under the uber-enlightened and progressive reality-based left, wealth will be redistributed and the human mind enslaved--but so what? As the eminent leftist and quintessential nihilist Joseph Stalin once remarked, "Death solves all problems - no man, no problem."

In the long run we are all dead anyway, right?

THE BROCCOLI MANDATE

When I was a kid, vegetables, but particularly broccoli and peas, were the symbol of parental oppression. I hated vegetables with a passion and used to surrepticiously transfer small pieces of them into my pockets during dinner. Sometimes my Grandfather helped me out, being someone who also hated the little green things that my mother always seemed to cook in large quantities.

So I could really relate to Justice Scalia's questioning at the Supreme Court the other day during the session on the Obamacare individual mandate:

Can the federal government make you buy broccoli?

Justice Antonin Scalia asked the Obama administration's lawyer Donald Verrilli Tuesday to defend the controversial individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act and wondered why Washington bureacratics couldn't also make citizens buy vegetables.

"Could you define the market -- everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli," Scalia asked during the second day of oral arguments.

What a horrible thought! That the Federal Government could have the power to make you buy brocolli! Even though the Solicitor General assured the Justice that such an outrage could never come to pass, why should we believe him? For all we know, such an order might yet be discovered in the 2000+ page bill rammed through by Democrats.

Nancy "You have to pass it to find out what's in it" Pelosi is exactly the sort of person who would force me, even as an adult, to eat my broccoli.

Since those days of my youth many years ago, I have taken a more nuanced attitude toward broccoli and vegetables in general. I still don't like them much, but do attempt to make them part of my diet occasionally.

Nevertheless, let me say this: if do-gooder scumbags like Pelosi and Reid win the day and Obamacare passes Supreme Court muster, then I will put aside my childish dislike of broccoli and fight as a fully grown, adult person who happens to value individual freedom passionately, and go on strike.

The days when I had little choice but to allow someone tell me what is good for me and then force me to do what they say are long past.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. --Martin Luther King, Jr.




[Political cartoons by Walt Handelsman]

MEANWHILE....

If we can get our national attention off the Flukes and Martins and focus for a moment back on the economic disaster this country (and the world) is approaching:

You can listen to CNBC, and the president, drone on about the recovery, about the wealth effect, about trickle-down economics, about why adding $150 billion in debt per month is perfectly acceptable, and about a brighter future for America and the world... or you can take a quick look at these two charts and immediately grasp the sad reality of where we stand, and even sadder, where we are headed.

[take a look at the graphs at the link]

According to Obama and his dedicated leftist base in the Democratic party (and, to be fair, not a few deluded Republicans), the whole financial mess proves once and for all that capitalism doesn't work.

I almost completely agree but with one caveat: CAPITLISM DOES NOT WORK WHEN IT IS CONTROLLED BY GOVERNMENT.

The left would like to blame the global economic meltdown on capitalism--at least when they briefly become conscious of a whisper of a possibility of a mere hint that they can't spend spend spend forever and ever money they don't have.

Unfortunately, though, that waxing and waning awareness takes the form of: "CAPITALISM IS BROKE SO WE HAVE TO SPEND EVEN MORE MONEY WE DON'T HAVE TO FIX IT!!!" Just go and read any article from the delusional, Nobel-Prize winning (is that redundant?) economist, Paul Krugman, for example.

What never seems to permeate their awareness is that THEIR BEHAVIOR AND UNDERLYING IDEOLOGY have something to do with the meltdown. Indeed, the vast Congressional-Industrial Complex that has been created (which is sometimes called "crony capitalism", but I prefer to call it "crony socialism") is the driving force behind the economic meltdown here and abroad.

The market cannot rebound from their interference because it isn't free to do so.

This political-industrial complex is composed of know-it-all, do-gooder elitist leaders in Congress (a toxic mixture of "selfless" and "selfish" narcissists) who conspire and collude with the money-grubbing, unethical and elitist leaders (selfish narcissists) in the business world to deviate from and otherwise ignore the fundamental laws of supply and demand; and substitute their own whims. They enrich themselves while sanctimoniously insisting their actions are for the benefit of the disadvantaged and poor; the helpless and the weak.

I wonder how the diadvantaged and poor; the helpless and the weak will fare when the economy finally collapses under the weight of the benevolent left?

Both sets of narcissists firmly believe they can manipulate the market indefinitely and personally enrich themselves while supposedly "doing good for others" without invoking any adverse consequences at all.

Frankly, while a free market has its glitches and bumps and individual failures and losses; it is simply not capable of screwing up the entire economy without the devoted and sanctimonious assistance from unrestrained and malignant politicians colluding with unethical and malignant businessmen, both of whom believe they are insulated (for a while, at least) from the rule of law and from reality. The very act of suppressing fluctuations and controlling those glitches and bumps so "nothing bad" ever happens is what renders systems like the market extremely prone to large-scale disruptions.

But, you cannot ignore or manipulate reality for very long before it comes back to smack you in the face--and I fear we are headed for an extremely large scale disruption unless something is done now.

ANYTHING BUT 'POST-RACIAL'

It looks like President Obama's investment in racial divisiveness is going the way of his Solyndra investment:

With a single punch, Trayvon Martin decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who eventually shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk several times, leaving him bloody and battered, authorities have revealed to the Orlando Sentinel.

That is the account Zimmerman gave police, and much of it has been corroborated by witnesses, authorities say…

Zimmerman told them he lost sight of Trayvon and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from the left rear, and they exchanged words.

Trayvon asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cell phone, he told police.

Trayvon then said, “Well, you do now” or something similar and punched Zimmerman in the nose.

Zimmerman fell to the ground and Trayvon got on top of him and began slamming his head into the sidewalk, he told police.

Zimmerman began yelling for help.

Several witnesses heard those cries, and there’s been a dispute about from whom they came: Zimmerman or Trayvon.

Lawyers for Trayvon’s family say it was Trayvon, but police say their evidence indicates it was Zimmerman.

One witnesses, who has since talked to local television news reporters, told police he saw Zimmerman on the ground with Trayvon on top, pounding him and was unequivocal that it was Zimmerman who was crying for help.

Zimmerman then shot Trayvon once in the chest from very close range, according to authorities.

When police arrived less than two minutes later, Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.

I will be interested to see if drugs are found in either Martin's or Zimmerman's system. Again, this is a case where the rush to judgment is a great disservice to both the families and the two men involved; as well as to the entire country.

We expect race-baiting from Al Sharpton; that's his gig. But the the "first post-racial" President has been anything but "post-racial".

If you put aside this case and let justice take it's course, you can begin to see how desperate the White House has become to deflect attention away from its policies which are bringing America to the brink of an economic cliff.

First there was the comedic case of Fluke; now the tragedy of Martin. Both have been manipulated by a President and a media who would prefer to frame the discussion as either (or both) a "war on women" or a "war on blacks".

Meanwhile, civil discussion reaches an all time low --what will poor Eric Holder do now???

WEASEL IN THE WHITE HOUSE

This is truly pathetic (not to mention insincere, condescending, and weasely): (h/t Belmont Club)



Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club ties the video to the song, "Only You"; but the truth is that for Obama, it's only--and always-- all about him.

Stunning.

Did you know he has a gift?

P.S. Isn't it interesting that our own brilliant media, who are the ones who actually cover these events never noticed and that we have to learn this from a reporter in Denmark?

THE RACE-BAITER IN THE OVAL OFFICE

Rick Moran at American Thinker:

Obama: 'If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon'

And if we had a president instead of a race baiter, he'd look nothing like Obama.

Who knew that we actually elected Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as our "post-racial" President?

What in heaven's name is Obama trying to do by injecting himself into these controversies? It's like spraying oil on the flames.

I suspect that most Americans are content to let justice play out and the facts be discovered in the aforementioned tragedy. But no, Obama just has to be the center of attention and stoke every flame of racism he can--and, of course, there is a very important political reason for this.

Obama's reprehensible behavior in this and the Sandra Fluke affair has nothing to do with heaven, let alone improving the race relations in America at all.

On the contrary. Inflaming racial divides; sexual divides; and in general ANY divides among the American people suits his political purposes perfectly.

The race-baiter in the oval office is trying desperately to deflect attention away from the policies that are strangling this country and dragging it into an economic death spiral. He is diverting attention away from dangerous and precarious position in which his Administration has placed the US with regard to national security.

In short, like any trickster and con artist, he must make his audience look away from his sleight of hand. He knows that helping to incite a race war (and stoking sexism and misogyny on the side) is exactly the kind of distraction needed to make a whole lot of Americans look the other way and divert their anger away from him and his Administration.

Scapegoats. The man requires scapegoats to blame and on which to focus the anger that needs to be focused on him and his Administration.

He's just another run of the mill opportunist disguised as some sort of caped crusader searching for his outrage of the day. Bleh.

WHEN HOPE IS YOUR ONLY ECONOMIC POLICY

The Democrats don't have a plan and aren't ideologically capable of developing a plan; therefore, all they can do is attack anyone who is making an effort to solve the problem. Indeed, the official White House position seems to be that is that there is no problem that hope cannot solve--especially if we delay until after November when hopeandchange and Obama's hot air will get the economic balloon off the ground.


[Political cartoons by Gary Varvel]

If you remember from the last post, this is an example of the logical fallacy that goes by the names "ad hominum" attack.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney didn't pull any punches in his attack on Paul Ryan's budget, as he declared that supporters of the budget -- and by extension, Ryan himself -- are "aggressively and deliberately ignorant" about the need for green energy and other programs slated for cuts.

"You have to be aggressively and deliberately ignorant of the world economy not to know and understand that clean energy technologies are going to play a huge role in the 21st century," Carney said after decrying the clean energy spending cuts in Ryan's plan. "You have to have severely diminished capacity to understand what drives economic growth in industrialized countries in this century if you do not understand that education is the key that unlocks the door to prosperity," he added.

Carney concluded that "the budget proposed by Chairman Ryan and supported overwhelmingly already by Republicans suggests that those problems" -- aggressive ignorance and diminished comprehension -- "exist in the minds of the supporters of that plan."

It's a toss-up whether Carney (who is sounding more and more like Bagdad Bob every day when it comes to issues of the economy) and his bosses at the White House are in full-fledged psychological denial, or if they fit the parameters of their own psychological projection. I don't quote Ann Coulter often, but she was dead on when she opined, "You can always tell what liberals are up to by what they accuse you of."

Either way, the Democrats and their leftist base appear not to be in the least bit interested in the FACT that the US debt is rising at record rates under their Messiah. They appear to be unfazed by the FACT that the Democratic Senate has not passed a budget in years. They appear to be remarkably and reflexly intolerant that one of their number, who happens to be a Republican has been trying to start a national dialog on reducing the deficit and fixing entitlements for several years now.

Gee, I wonder why?

As I have said before, at the center of all psychological denial is a hidden agenda. That agenda is usually not completely conscious--meaning that the denier has not thought through the issues surrounding his denial; and may not even be aware of what his motivation is in asserting something is true when it isn't; or false when it isn't. The entire act of denial about this economy was initiated to justify continuing to spend wildly the taxpayers' money and not have to do anything to slow down that spending because they "hoped" and "wished" that things would get better by doning nothing but spending even more.

Many of our lawmakers (on both sides of the aisle) made what they thought was a temporary psychological bargain to pretend that everything was OK. But that temporary bargain has evolved into a binding contract for some and no amount of evidence will make them alter the fantasy reality they have created.

Their denial is reflexive and completely willful at this point. They simply refuse to accept reality because the consequences are too excruciatingly painful to contemplate(both with regard to their image of themselves and to the country they were elected to preserve and protect).

Since they have no facts to back up their present stance, they must resort to rhetorical ploys and logical fallacies to make their opposition look like they "hate the poor"; or are "racist" etc. etc. blah blah blah.

If we, the taxpayers and voters of this country allow them to keep spending as if their is no tomorrow; there will be no tomorrow for the US economy. Personally, I have nothing against hope; but when hope is the only economic policy driving the engine of state....


[Political cartoons by Michael Ramirez]

STRAW WOMEN

Since I am at home sick currently, I happen to be spending a lot of time listening to a variety of talking heads on various news channels. Over and over again, I am hearing the same mantra emanating from women on the political left.

Here's Rosie O'Donnell, for example, talking to Angelica Huston:


It all boils down to this argument from the left: women's rights are under attack by Republicans.

Pray tell, WTF is so hard to understand about the difference between: "Women should have access to contraception"and raising the issue of WHO SHOULD PAY for a woman's birth control?

The former position is not being contested; the latter is up for debate. In a free society, women may choose to purchase birth control and use it whether anyone happens to disagree or not with their doing it. It is entirely different to argue that someone who happens to disagree with the use of birth control (in this case, the Catholic Church) should be forced by the government to pay for it. In a free society, they have a right to not spend their money on your birth control as a matter of religious freedom or freedom of conscience.

If you want the birth control, baby, then go for it. But don't expect me to pay for it.

The political left is using a classic logical fallacy to attack those who dare to bring up the discussion of who should pay for your right to birth control.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when you ignore a person's actual position and substitute a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

It follows this general pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute a reasonable argument against the position itself.

Republicans and conservatives argue that the issue is NOT contraception per se, but forcing someone to pay for YOUR contraception when it goes against their religious or personal beliefs. (POSITION X)

Democrats and the progressive postmodern left distorts this position to: "Republicans are attempting to restrict women's access to contraception"; or, as Rosie hysterically asserts, "What has happen in America that we women are having to fight for reproductive rights again!" Yes, agrees, Houston, it's obviously a "return to the Dark Ages!"

I have heard this fallacious Straw Man ploy at least a dozen times over the last 24 hours. One woman even tried to discredit the Republican's principled stand for freedom of conscience/religon by saying that the freedom of religion argument was just a "code word" that really stood for the oppression of women.

This latter argument is simple ad hominem (another logical fallacy). It the same, tired, "YOU ARE RACIST, SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC...(insert slur here)" response you get whenever you try to have a reasonable conversation with the postmodern left, who, as a matter of philosophical pride, don't happen to believe in logic--or objective truth in the first place.

Sorry ladies, but the argument is not rebutted by your lame rhetorical ploys and logical fallacies; nor is it rebutted by your hysteria and appeal to emotion.

The basic premise which underlies this Straw Woman position; and which is not ever explicitly stated is the following:

"IF YOU OBJECT TO BEING FORCED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO PAY FOR MY BIRTH CONTROL, THEN YOU ARE VIOLATING MY RIGHTS AND ARE ANTI-WOMAN, SEXIST, AND EVIL."

If you accept this premise, then you do not deserve to live in a free society; and, frankly, you won't be for much longer.

UN-SANITY CONTINUES APACE

Of course, it's not the UN alone; our wonderfully UN-progressive left is egging them on:

Hey, who would know more about the “growth of democracy” than the member states of the UNHRC? For instance, Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow women to vote at all. Cuba and China are one-party dictatorships. The UNHRC is a monument to the fatuity of moral relativism applied to global democracy; half of the member states should be in the dock of a human-rights tribunal rather than running it.
And this is the NAACP’s model of justice? Appealing to the democratic instincts of China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia? That’s the biggest joke.

It's hard to decide who's the bigger joke: the UN; or the race-baitng minions of the Democrats and their leftist base.



[Political cartoons by Michael Ramirez here]

***NOTE TO MY READERS: On-call at the hospital and some unexpected medical issues of my own will keep me from blogging for much of this week.

THE O-SPANGLED BANNER

[see here for details of above]

THE O-SPANGLED BANNER
[**With deepest apologies to Francis Scott Key for mutilating his fine poem and our National Anthem**]

O-BAMA is seen by the dawn's early light
Looking proud and aloof at our country's last gleaming
Those broad stripes; his bright face-- thru congressional fights,
O'er healthcare and 'rights' from utopians' dreaming
Though Republicans glare; the entire affair
Does not have a chance of a Constitutional prayer.
Oh, say does that O-spangled banner preside,
O'er the land of free stuff, and the home of free ride!

Oh! thus be it ever, when Enlightened shall bow
To kings and religions who our destruction have vowed.
With worship and awe , may this imperfect land
Praise the leader that hath made us one nation of many.
Then retreat, yes we must, since our cause is not just,
And this be our motto: "In Obama we trust."
'Tis the O-spangled banner! With His face firmly set,
O'er the land of free stuff, and soaring national debt!

RATIONAL ACTORS, YES---BUT IN THE CONTEXT OF PARANOIA

Recently, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, commented that Iran could not be dismissed as an "irrational actor".

CNN's Fareed Zakharia agreed, stating it in the positive form, i.e., that Iran is a "rational actor."

A number of you asked me whether I agree with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey who described Iran as a "rational actor" on my program a couple of weeks ago.

My answer is: I very much agree with General Dempsey. It's very important to understand, however, what it means to talk about a "rational actor." A rational actor is not a reasonable actor. It is not somebody who has the same goals or values as we have.

In international affairs or economics, the term rational actor is used to describe somebody who is concerned about their survival, prosperity or strength and is making calculations on the basis of these concerns. It describes someone who calculates costs and benefits.

And then, an ex-Mossad intelligence chief said basically the same thing:

The Iranian regime is “very rational” and is moving deliberately in its secretive nuclear program, the former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency says.

“Maybe it’s not exactly rational based on what I call ‘Western thinking,’ but no doubt that they are considering all the implications of their actions,” Meir Dagan said in an interview with CBS‘ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday.

Asked whether he believes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also rational, Mr. Dagan said yes. “Not exactly our rational, but I think that he is rational.”

Are they correct? Yes, I believe they are correct in a way.

BUT, they neglect to mention a very important detail (though Zakharia hints at it).

Paranoid individual are generally very rational, but only in the sense that their ideas flow logically from their premises.

IT IS THEIR PREMISES THAT ARE IRRATIONAL.

Everything can be explained by paranoid logic. In fact, paranoia is really nothing more than the use of reason and logic in the service of the irrational and bizarre.

-Are you poor? Someone must have robbed you of what you are entitled to!
-Are you angry and experiencing hatred, but like to think of yourself as a loving, compassionate sort of person? Then the object of your hatred magically becomes the one who hates...you!
-Is your genius not universally recognized? You must have powerful enemies that prevent you from achieving the success you know should be yours.
-Has you ideology or religion continually and repeatedly failed in the real world and resulted in death and misery for all who implement it? Take heart! It is not your fault or your ideology's! Either it wasn't implemented virutously enough; or there were evil (Jewish, neocon, Christian, Republican, Male, White] forces (choose one or more scapegoat) that have been plotting against it!

The above mental gymnastics allow the paranoid person to externalize blame and avoid responsibility for his situation in life, as well as avoid responsibility for his own feelings which may contradict his image of himself. It is always someone else's fault and not his. It is always someone else who is experiencing the objectionable feelings, and he is always the victim of it.

For Iran, it always comes down to the Jews and the Jewish state who are to blame for all their problems. If only there were a way to get rid of that cancer on the world! We would be doing Allah's will to remove it..."

In addition to externalizing blame for one's own pitiful situation in life or the inadequacies of one's religion or ideology, there is yet another advantage to paranoia and projection: often, a creative distortion of reality can reliably pump up one's own self-esteem. You are righteous, persecuting the true evil and thus proving you, yourself, are incapable of any evil thoughts or emotions.

Sometimes, it pumps it that self-esteem up at the expense of a great deal of fear; but nevertheless, it is comforting to know that someone appreciates your genius or the threat you represent. Clearly if the Jews, Israel aliens etc etc [fill in your favorite bogeyman here] are out to get you, you must be very special and unique.

In short, paranoia and its baby brother projection organize and distort reality in a way that makes it palatable; and, at the same time help the user to avoid recognizing some unpleasant truths about himself. When practiced on a societal or cultural level, it accomplishes the same thing. All you have to do is eliminate the external problem and everything will be all right with you and you'll never have to question your beliefs again.

So, you have to answer the quesion, is Iran a "rational actor" affirmatively. It acts rationally and logically. Yes it does. It acts logically from the distortions, delusions, and fantasies that form the basis of their religious and political premises.

What is it that makes them emotionally unable to accept a successful, democratic and non-Muslim state in the middle of all their Muslim dysfunction and failure? In psychological terms, the answer to that question is that they suffer from a malignant and destructive paranoid style. This is true of many of the Muslim states in the region, but particularly of Iran.

Instead of coming to terms with the reason their societies and cultures are so dysfunctional and toxic; instead of facing a series of unpleasant truths about their backwardness and lack of achievement; or qustioning the religion that keeps them that way; or the leadership that manipulates them and needs them to remain backward and willing to descend in barbarism on cue; they have allowed their society to regress to a concomitant primitve emotional level where a paranoid world view is all that stands between them and total psychological disintegration .

Under these poisonous circumstances, paranoia does not wax and wane. It must continually expand and try to incorporate and explain more and more data that documents their multiple failures as individuals; as a culture, as a religion. Rhetoric and behavior must always escalate to ward off the encroaching reality.

Thus, without ever having to question their own evil, they can psychologically project it onto the Jews, whose success in the face of Islam's failure is a shame too great to bear.

One of the hallmarks of the paranoid, and paranoia in general, is the ability to fixate (or obsess) on one particular point to the exclusion of all other reality and to select that point as the "evidence" of their predetermined delusion.

The paranoid is actually quite perceptive--rigidly so; and they focus their attention only on those details that give support and credence to their beliefs.

David Shapiro, in his book Neurotic Styles comments on the Paranoid style:

In the paranoid person, even more sharply and severely than the obsessive compulsive, every aspect and component of normal autonomous functioning appears in rigid, distorted, and, in general hypertrophied form....[The]paranoid person's attention is so purposefully and narrowly directed as to amount, not merely to rigidity, but to a fixed bias.

Normal people are able to see things in context; processing information appropriately and connecting dots that should be connected. Thus their conclusions and their judgement are more reliable and unbiased. The paranoid's pre-existing bias distorts his judgement and makes him unable to place facts or events in any kind of appropriate context.

Dots are connected, it is true, but the only connection that exists between them is the false premises that created them.

It is always stunning to me that logical processes are usually preserved even in the most extreme cases of paranoid psychosis. And when you understand the faulty premise on which the logic is based, it makes a certain kind of wierd, distorted sense. And, you begin to see how those distorted premises almost always feeds the ravenous grandiosity of the paranoid person or, in this case, nation.

They are always the focal point of the conspiracy. They are special; a very important person, specially selected by the FBI, aliens--or whoever--to victimize. This knowledge is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time to the paranoid. He is victimized and becomes the innocent object of the devious and despicable actions of the "other" because he is special in some way.

And, indeed he is, since the origin of the negative or hostile emotions/behaviors seemingly directed at him are deeply buried within his own mind.

Ahmadinejad and his puppet-masters, the Mullahs believe this of themselves. In fact, I would bet that they are willing to sacrifice their entire nation on the basis of this belief that all the evil in the world is due to the Jews and that it is necessary to eliminate them from the face of the earth.

A while back Mike Wallace interviewed the President of Iran, and for me, it was deja vu all over again as I listened to the paranoid rantings of Ahmadinejad. Here is one exchange (emphasis mine):

"Very clearly, I will tell you that I fully oppose the behavior of the British and the Americans," Ahmadinejad tells Wallace. "They are providing state-of-the-art military hardware to the Zionists. And they are throwing their full support behind Israel. We believe that this threatens the future of all peoples, including the American and European peoples. So we are asking why the American government is blindly supporting this murderous regime."

Wallace tried to ask him about Hezbollah's use of missiles, rockets furnished by Iran, but he wanted to talk about Israel's attacks with American bombs.

"The laser-guided bombs that have been given to the Zionists and they're targeting the shelter of defenseless children and women," the president said.

"Who supports Hezbollah?" Wallace asked. "Who has given Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars for years? Who has given Hezbollah Iranian-made missiles and rockets that is making — that are making all kinds …" he continued as he was interrupted.

"Are you the representative of the Zionist regime? Or a journalist?" Ahmadinejad asked Wallace.

"I'm a journalist. I am a journalist," Wallace replied.

"This is not journalism, sir. Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon, and they are defending their land," the president said. "They are defending their own houses. And, according to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.

Note several things:
- the implication that simply by asking the question, Wallace must be an agent of the "Zionest regime".
- the complete inattention to the fact that it was Hezbollah--not Israel-- that started the conflict and that it was Israel--not Hezbollah--who were defending their own house.

Later, in discussing the interview, Wallace said of Ahmadinejad:

"He's an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He's obviously smart as hell."

Wallace said he was surprised to find that the Iranian president was still a college professor who taught a graduate-level course.

"You'll find him an interesting man," he said. "I expected more of a firebrand. I don't think he has the slightest doubt about how he feels ... about the American administration and the Zionist state. He comes across as more rational than I had expected."

The complete interview can be found here.

Remember, the delusion and the complicated conspiracy serve a purpose. In order to find out the purpose, you must identify the basic premises of the paranoid.

Ahmadinejad has also concluded that "something" prevents him as an individual and as a leader of Islam from achieving his desires; "something" stands in the way of his religion being perceived as the great benefit to mankind it obviously is.

We all know what that "something" is, don't we? He wants to wipe it off the map if he can.

His brilliant mind has all the "facts" it needs to conclude that both his personal and his religion's problems will be solved when the Zionist regime is finally dealt with.

He will logically and rationally pursue this goal.

While not bizarre and psychotic, Ahmadinejad is nevertheless delusional and exhibits the classic hallmarks of the paranoid style. His basic premises are faulty; he looks outside of himself and his religion to identify the source of all problems; and this psychological tactic prevents him from ever having to take any responsibility for his actions or his abject failure as a human being.

Of course, he has lots of company in using this particular psychological strategy--particularly in the Middle East, where anti-semitism is the air that everyone breaths to make themselves feel less flawed and inadequate.

Projection and paranoia are two of the most primitive psychological defenses. Projection, or attributing one's own unacknowledged feelings to others; includes severe prejudice, severe jealousy, hypervigilance to external danger, and "injustice collecting". Most young children use projection as a defense mechanism, and it is considered normal for a child.

Projection is never a good long-term strategy--nor is it healthy--in an adult; and using such a defense mechanism represents a primitive attempt to shirk the responsibility for one's own feelings, thoughts, and actions. It causes and has caused much human misery, death, destruction and some of the most horrific acts that humans are capable of. When entire countries subscribe to a projected delusion (e.g., the "Jews" are to blame; the "Blacks" are the cause of all of our problems; "Republicans" are evil) it can lead to genocide and other behaviors that are paranoid and psychotically delusional. Full-blown paranoia occurs when one's mind severs the connection with reality entirely. Paranoia is a symptom of mental illness.

Ahmadinejad may seem to be a fascinating, intelligent, impressive and rational actor. But he is also the perfect examples of the paranoid style in action.

Deterrence and the threat of personal and national annihilation might work against such a style if the paranoia remained static and never escalated. It might work if the paranoid person did not already consider suicide/homicide as a legitimate and realistic means of bringing about a solution to the major dilemma in his world view. In short, sanctions and diplomacy might work--if only you were not dealing with someone who was in a position to strap a suicide belt around his entire country to ensure that his personal religiously psychotic vision would prevail in the real world; a person whose cold, paranoid grandiosity makes him see himself as the central driver that will bring about that vision.

OBAMA'S WAR ON WOMEN

"I can comment on the fact that all good folks can agree that the remarks that were made don’t have any place in the public discourse. And you know, the reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about my daughters, and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on. I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way… I do not want them attacked or called horrible names because they are being good citizens..." -President Barack Obama

But it's apparently OK to imply that Sarah Palin is a racist in his latest fund-raising ad. Of course, if you diagree with Obama on his policies and their impact on society, you are by leftist definition, a racist.

But, at least he didn't say she was a slut!

[You all know that the left is soooooo civil compared to the right, right? NOT ]

He leaves the slut, c***, and other sexist smears for all those loyal minions out there; minions, like the one who then donated $1 Million to his campaign for re-election. Civility!

Interesting that he seems to think he is running for President against Palin, Brietbart and Limbaugh....but all opposing views to his own must be ruthlessly stamped out, even if they are only, "engage[ing] in issues they care about, even ones [he] may not agree with them on."

Apparently his attempts to seduce women to his cause are backfiring rather badly.
So, if you are really for civility in public discourse, don't worry, be happy.

WISHIN' AND HOPIN' AND DREAMIN' AND PRAYIN'

...and otherwise foolin' themselves about reality, the Obama Administration energy policies begin to bear bitter fruit.



[Cartoons by Michael Ramirez]

It has become clear that the President cares little about any energy solutions other than promoting the goals of the left's environmental radicals; BUT, he does care about getting re-elected. So, expect to suddenly see some aggressive policies that will look like he is doing something.

Key word here is "look like", since his ideology will prevent him from actually doing anything substantive.

THE DEMOCRAT SHAME CULTURE

I am beginning a week of on-call and will be dealing with a lot of very sick individuals; so, blogging will be light.

In the meantime, here is an old post of mine which I think is relevant to the discussion about Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke/Bill Maher. In case you have been living on another planet in the last week, here is the crux of the Democrat hypocrisy when it comes to calls for civility and their outrage over Republicans' supposed "War on Women". You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy Democrat-style hypocisy in the galaxy; as manifested by the smug, spinning, and obfuscating Democrat machine, which swung into action after Limbaugh's uncivil remarks.

Democrats OWN psychological denial on this issue as well as on many others.

The original post is from March, 2009.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of my regular readers, OBloodyHell emailed me this yesterday:

Carl, over at No Oil For Pacifists has a piece up about pork: Pork Update which deals with Obama's name appearing on an earmark, despite his promises that wouldn't happen. In the final bill, his name will be removed. That makes it "all better".

I quipped something to him about one of his points, and he responded with
> That's because us inside-the-beltway types think anonymity preserves ethics.

Which produced an interesting connection in my head to your piece on Shame Cultures.

The Left's response to ethical challenges maps into that layout box on shame/honor remarkably well -- and maybe, if you think about it, to the underlying mental gymnastics going on when the MSM doesn't "report" ethically inappropriate actions by Dems, as we all know is far more common than it ought to be. It does seem to me that the Left seems to think that by not reporting on inappropriate actions, that Their Guys are exonerated somehow. Think about Dan Rather's continued denial of his incompetent fact checking in this context, too.

What OBloodyHell is referring to is this table, which lays out the fundamental psychological differences between a typical "shame" culture and a "guilt" culture:



Let me review the key differences between the two types of cultures:

In both cultures there is no problem if both parties believe that the individual is NOT GUILTY. If both parties believe that the individual is GUILTY, again there is agreement and in that case the guilt is punished.

The difference in the two societies lies in the other two boxes in the matrix (in red).

In a guilt culture, when an individual believes he is NOT GUILTY, he will defend his innocence aggressively despite the fact that others believe he is guilty. In this case, the individual self is strong and able to maintain an independent judgement even if every other person is convinced of his guilt. The self is able to stand alone and fight for truth, secure in the knowledge that the individual is innocent.

The guilt culture is typically and primarily concerned with truth, justice, and the preservation of individual rights. As we noted earlier, the emotion of guilt is what keeps a person from behavior that goes against his/her own code of conduct as well as the culture’s. Excessive guilt can, of course, also be pathological. I am solely referring to a psychologically healthy appreciation of guilt.

In contrast, a typical shame culture what other people believe has a far more powerful impact on behavior than even what the individual believes. The desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the culture. This desire has the side-effect of giving the individual carte blanche to engage in wrong-doing as long as no-one knows about it, or knows he is involved.

Additionally, it may be impossible for an individual to even admit to himself that he is guilty (even when he is) particularly when everyone else considers him to be guilty because of the shame involved. As long as others remain convinced he is innocent, the individuals does not experience either guilt or shame. A great deal of effort therefore goes into making sure that others are convinced of your innocence (even if you are guilty).

In general, it has been noted that the shame culture works best within a collectivist society, although it can exist in pockets even within a predominant guilt culture.

I think OBloodyHell is definitely onto something here.

Ask yourself how a typical Republican responds to scandal, for example. He is capable of feeling both shame and guilt about his behavior, whether it is in the public or personal domain and frequently this acknowledgment of his behavior leads him to resign. He has high moral standards that he expects not only of himself, but of others and is ashamed when he violates them; even more so when the knowledge of his violation is made public (which Democrats can always count on the press to do).

Remember, shame--especially in limited quantities--has facilitated civilized conduct and made both individuals and cultures behave more appropriately. Healthy shame keeps us in touch with reality, and reminds us of our limitations, faults, and humanity. When experiencing healthy shame an individual may not be very happy to have embarrassing weaknesses and defects made obvious, but this awareness is insightful and humbling. As long as an individual is capable of self-doubt and self-reflection about his behavior; he is able to remain open-minded and willing to search for a better understanding of himself and others.

Guilt is an emotion that rises after a transgression of one's own or cultural values. Guilt is about actions or behavior; while shame is about the self. There is an important psychological difference in saying to someone that their behavior is bad; as contrasted with saying that they are bad. The former leads to guilt; the latter to shame.

The purpose of guilt is to stop behavior that violates a self, family or societal standard. Guilt keeps score on excesses or deficits of behavior deemed undesirable and is expressed in regret and remorse.

But many Democrats and certainly most leftists are completely shameless in the sense that they will never ever, for as long as they can possibly get away with it, going to admit to bad behavior. And in those rare cases where they simply cannot wiggle and maneuver and lie and deceive; or self-righteously tell you how wonderful they really are and all the wonderful things they have done; they will simply pretend they are still virtuous and have been victimized in some way.

This is, of course, typical of most narcissists; and without a doubt, narcissists and liars and cheats exist on both sides of the political aisle. But a narcissist in a guilt culture behaves somewhat differently than a narcissist in a shame culture.

If you recall, the other day I commented, while talking about the neo-Marxist economic modus operandi: "Conservatives believe they have better ideas. Leftists believe they are better people."

This is extremely relevant to a discussion about the differences between the Democratic Party culture (which has become primarily, though not exclusively, influenced by the political left) and the Republican Party culture (which is predominantly influenced by conservative ideas and values).

Eventually for the shame-avoidant person, reality itself must be distorted in order to further protect the self from poor self-esteem. Blaming other individuals or groups for one's own behavior becomes second nature, and this transfer of blame to someone else is an indicator of internal shame.

Most psychological theorists (Erikson, Freud, Kohut) see shame as a more “primitive” emotion (since it impacts one’s basic sense of self) compared to guilt, which is developed later in the maturation of the self. Without the development of guilt there is no development of a real social conscience.

Hence, we see Republicans as a group are far more likely to resign positions when their unethical or immoral behavior is exposed.

Democrats don't tend to do this. In the first place, they will not even acknowledge a "scandal" unless it remains in the national media for an extended period of time (they hope it will go away, and if it does, then they can continue to go about their business as if it never happened). They can always count on the MSM to minimize the damage--even not to report it at all if they can.

Thus the first and foremost rule: if no one knows about their shame, then it doesn't count and they can continue to pretend they are innocent. Just think of the likes of Charles Rangell; Chris Dodd or Barney Frank. Could a Republican politician ever recover from being responsible for the death of a young woman while he saved himself and didn't even report the accident to the police? Yet, someone like Ted Kennedy is now a revered senior statesman on the Democratic side of the aisle. No one talks of his crime. Do you imagine Larry Craig--whose indiscretion hurt no one-- could ever make a comeback like that? Not on your life.

No, because Democrats, on the whole, firmly believe that they are "better people"--i.e., more loving, more compassionate, more intelligent etc. etc. ad nauseum; they go to great lengths to avoid shame; and hence, to avoid responsibility for their behavior. For every corrupt Ted Stevens, there are at least three John Murthas, Charlie Rangells, and William Jeffersons.

They lie, they deceive, they distort. They take kickbacks and are self-righteous about how innocent they are. They vow to eliminate pork, but think all they have to do is take their name off the bill they support and they are in the clear. They wonder what the meaning of "is" is. They insist they" did not have intercourse with that woman" because rhetorical maneuvers are a key postmodern method to avoid having to deal with shame and oral sex isn't really sex anyway. They deny deny deny, and they pretend that they are innocent victims of vast rightwing conspiracies or, as in the case with ex-Governor Blagojevich, they emphasize what "champions" of the little guy they are. They ignore facts and when that doesn't work, they are prepared to ignore the whole of reality itself. Because the cost to their fragile self-esteem if they are discovered is far too catastrophic.

Republicans tend to be amused when they watch Democratic scandals unfold--they, at least have few illusions about human frailty. Democrats, OTOH, immerse themselves in an orgy of self-gratifying excitement and jubilation when they hear of a Republican who fails to live up to the morality he espouses. "HYPOCRISY!" they scream in delight, cheered by the fact that they can once again feel superior.

Their own hypocrisy is another matter altogether and the mental gymnastics in which they engage in order to avoid coming to terms with their own imperfections is...well, it would be amusing if they didn't get away with it so often. But since most journalists are now immersed in leftist culture, they also think of themselves as "better people" and thus, can't allow one of their cultural brothers or sisters to make asses of themselves.

Why, that would be like criticizing Mohammed for sleeping with a 9-year old! It just isn't done in a shame culture, especially one based on the writings and behaviors of the aforementioned Mohammed. Instead, you make sleeping with a 9-year old one of the highest moral virtues of the culture.

In the Arab/Islamic culture one of the ways that those who fear shame protect their fragile self is to subjugate those who he perceives as weaker. By doing so, he can rationalize that he is superior to the subjugated individual. In fact, this is the only way he can maximize his honor.

The Democrat/leftist ummah has developed a rather clever way to do this in the western world: they constantly create victim groups that they can feel superior to and "champion". All that is required is for those groups to remain perpetual victims and constantly complain about their downtrodden state so that the elites of the left can show off what better people they are. They have even created a complicated victimhood heirarchy to deal with competing victimhood claims; and when push comes to shove--i.e., when Democrats or leftists do something wrong, immoral, unethical, or even evil--they can always claim to be victimized themselves. It's a nice little scam they've got going on the side to maintain their shame culture.

Another way understanding this "shame and guilt" culture distinction is that, those who will do anything to avoid shame, have bought into psychological denial big time; their emotions and the need to feel good about themselves have become more important than reason, truth or reality.

This is the same psychological maneuver that allows people to claim they are champions of free speech, as they diligently work to silence anyone with views that differ from their own. Inevitably, it leads to complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy. Where once they stood for freedom; they now enable dictatorships and apologize for tyrants. Where once they sought to bring justice to the world; they now defend horrific acts of mass murder and enslavement. Where once they rightly demanded equal opportunity, they have embraced all kinds of racial quotas and discriminatory practices and demand equality of outcome. Where once they sought to empower the weak; they are now instrumental in maintaining and expanding their victimhood.

After all, how can you be a “champion of the oppressed” unless you maintain and nurture an oppressed class that will always require your services to help them?

This psychological maneuvering is no different from that of certain male religious fanatics to believe that by subjuging women and making them invisible, they are virtuously protecting society from the evils of women's sexuality; when what the society really suffers from is the evils of their own perverted sexuality. They delude themselves--and sometimes the women--into believing such nonsense so that they can maintain the illusion of being honorable men.

Because they persist in believing that they are "better people", the Democratic Party has had little choice but to descend into the immature, anti-reason and anti-reality behavior of a typical shame culture.

UPDATE: If you want more examples of the shamelessness of today's left, check out who has been invited to speak at the Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner this year. Greta Van Susteren is on it. Also, notice that not only will the Obama campaign NOT give back the $1 Million from the woman-hating (specifically REPUBLICAN women) Maher, but David Axelrod is scheduled to appear on Maher's show.

If you are a postmodern progressive leftist, you never have to say you're sorry.

OBAMA'S DUPLICITOUS STANCE TOWARD ISRAEL: NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN REDUX

There has been much written this week about Obama and his statement at AIPAC that, "I have Israel's back"--a statement that is strangely at odds with his determination to pursue "diplomacy" with Iran despite that nation's complete lack of interest in changing their course over the last decade; and their cynically single-minded pursuit of nuclear weapons while "engaging" from time to time with the international community.

Netanyahu, for his part, has decided to take the President at his word and responded in his own speech at AIPAC this year with a passionate denunciation of those who would appease Iran and allow Israel's destruction. For Israel, Iran represents an existential threat; and they have been extremely patient waiting for the diplomacy of Obama and others to have some impact.

Frankly, waiting for Iran to see reason, is like waiting for the paranoid psychotic patient who refuses to take his medications to come to the realization that they are delusional and accept the help that is offered. IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.

Repeatedly, Iran has signaled that it intends to "wipe Israel off the map", not only figuratively, but literally. There is this, where Egypt Air uses a map of the Middle East that does not have the state of Israel on it; and then there is this, where the President of Iran calls for the actual destruction of Israel as far back as 2005. I have stated many times on this blog that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, there is only one use to which they will put it: the destruction of Israel. I strongly believe that they have the capability--or soon will--and are waiting for the perfect moment to act.

Remember Neville Chamberlain? The crocodiles ate him.

He thought you could achieve peace through appeasement and worked hard with the villains of his time to do exactly that. It didn't work out too well for him--or the world.



[from Punch, 1938]

In "Fight, Flight and the Persistence of Evil", I wrote:

In the movie Serenity, Captain Mal Reynolds has witnessed the horrific nightmare that came from the lovely utopian dreams of the 'do-gooders' of his universe--who only wanted to eliminate human aggression so as to create a perfect society; they meant well, you know--and he decides it is time to take a moral stand against such naked evil: "Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that."

While the pacifist ('turning the other cheek' is another variant of running away, or Flight) may be considered saintly and their principles admired and emulated, if such a reaction to dealing with existential threats were biologically programmed into a species, that species would not survive for very long. Even in those species where the preferred response to danger is to almost always run away(because of their size or other limitations), they are still able to fight--quite viciously--if necessary. Take, for example, a typical rat whose usual behavior is to run away from any threat. When cornered, even this small animal will fight to the death if their survival is at stake.

All this is not to say that Flight strategies can not be extremely useful in many dangerous situations. They are. But, consider this very modern reality: there is nowhere to run to avoid WMD. And an important corollary to that is that there is no appeasing someone who is dedicated to an ideology that requires them to kill you.

Under such circumstances, there is no land that can be given up for peace--they will demand more and more and still come after you. There is no appeasement that will prevent them from 'wiping' you off the map. In other words, there is no way to coexist with the kind of evil that exists today.

This essentially means that the 50% of our population whose instinct, when confronted with the repugnant and unbelievable evil of Islamic fundamentalism and its direct and unambiguous threat to Western Civilization, is to run away, appease or convert; are incorrect in thinking that their peaceful response will be effective in preserving their own and their loved one's lives for any significant amount of time. On the contrary, it is more likely that it guarantees their eventual extinction--either physically or psychologically. The only option for them in the end--whether they like it or not-- is to turn and fight (like the cornered rat) or die. Interestingly, and unlike the survival instinct of the rat; many modern humans when faced with the evil that confronts us in the 21st century, have found comfort in psychological denial and in magical thinking about the threat.

Bruce Thornton has written about the magical thinking that seems to dominate foreign policy:

Worse, however, is the magical thinking that lies behind the mantra of “diplomacy.” This faith in talk is predicated on assumptions about human nature and state behavior difficult to validate by the historical record. It reflects a Western Enlightenment idea that force is an outmoded relic of our primitive past, to be replaced by rational discussion in which give-and-take dickering, negotiation, respect for the other side’s position and demands, and a mutual, sincere desire to adjudicate grievance and avoid conflict can resolve disagreements. The key assumption is that in the end all people are rational and want peace and comfort more than any other good.

It is well to remember what Winston Churchill once famously observed:
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Just think of Neville Chamberlain and what his appeasement wrought. A new generation of crocodiles are circling in the sewers of the world today looking for the Chamberlain of the 21st century.

President Obama seems to fit the bill nicely.

Prior to WWII, Chamberlain himself flew to Germany to negotiate directly with Hitler in order to achieve "peace in our time". But, even he never managed all this:

I thought Barack Obama would be a poor and troublesome president. Did I think he would yuk it up with Hugo Chávez, smirk with Daniel Ortega about the Bay of Pigs, turn his wrath on a Central American democracy trying to follow its constitution, denounce President Bush abroad, bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, endorse a radical Middle Eastern view of how Israel came into being, knock Western countries that try to protect Muslim girls from unwanted shrouding, invite the Iranian regime to our Fourth of July parties, stay essentially mute in the face of counterrevolution in Iran, squeeze and panic Israel, cold-shoulder the Cuban democrats in order to warm to the Cuban dictatorship, scrap missile defense in Eastern Europe, and refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama — in addition to his attempts to have government eat great portions of American society? No, I did not. You?

Just call it the ever-evolving, appeasment template known as the Obama Doctrine.

YOUR TEARS SAY MORE THAN FACTS EVER COULD!

This little bit of leftist hysteria (amid the greater Flukish hysteria):

I can hardly type, can hardly put this into words! I have been writing and rewriting this because if I don’t break down in tears, I get so angry that I can’t think straight! I know that so much has already been written about this whole issue, but I am writing this diary from a very personal point of view; forgive me if I find no humor in any of this, excuse me if I take no part in celebrating the loss of sponsorship for that pig’s radio program. You see, my 16 year old daughter came home from school on Friday in tears and has been in a state of utter despair since. She was told, in no uncertain terms, that she is a slut, a prostitute, a horny piece of trash that is out to sleep with every guy in school! The horrid little monsters who started harassing my daughter had the audacity to tell her their mothers were the ones who labeled her with these despicable opinions- they were just “telling it like it is, you know, like that guy on the radio! The one who isn’t afraid to tell the truth!” Who does this?! How does Rush Limbaugh or anyone else have the right to do this, to say these things about anyone?

...reminds me of the Simpson's episode where Homer is accused of sexual harassment. The episode even has a wikipedia page, but sadly, I cannot find a link to the video. However, the scene that will forever stay in my mind is the following one which occurs after Homer's love of candy and his lust for it is twisted by the media into him being a sexually-crazed monster:

The next morning, Homer gets out of the shower to see helicopters
looking into his bathroom window. He panics and slips as cameras flash.
The picture appears on the news that night.

Newsman: Simpson scandal update: Homer sleeps nude in an oxygen tent
which he believes gives him sexual powers.
Homer: Hey -- that's a half-truth!
{[changes channels to Sally Jesse Raphael]}
Woman: {[weeping] I don't know Homer Simpson, I -- I never met Homer
Simpson or had any contact with him, but -- [cries
uncontrollably] -- I'm sorry, I can't go on.}
Sally: {That's OK: your tears say more than real evidence _ever_
could.}

Limbaugh gets the Homer Simpson treatment by the media, while the Flukes and hystrionic pyrotechnics (see ravings of at the beginning) get to be coddled on The View and all the super keen liberal talk shows.

Isn't that sweet?

Can we PLEASE change the subject to something a litte more important in the great scheme of things than Ms Fluke's sex life or Mr Limbaugh's rudeness?

Here's how you do that, people:

THE REAL AGENDA

Ahhh...here's the agenda of the "Occupy" movement, explicitly stated:

David Graeber: “It strikes me that if one is going to pursue this to its logical conclusion, the only way to have a genuinely democratic society would also be to abolish capitalism in this state.”

Marina Sitrin: “We can’t have democracy with capitalism… Democracy and capitalism don’t work together.”

Check out the video with Breitbart to start it off here.

Meanwhile, did you know that "People Aren't Smart Enough For Democracy to Flourish"--according to top scientists?

How convenient! This is clearly why we need the Lords and Masters of the Postmodern Political Left! Without people like Marina Sitrin et al to guide us and point us in the right direction, we might make THE WRONG CHOICES! Why, we would be a danger to ourselves and to others!

These Occupy fools and the powers behind them want one thing, and one thing only: POWER OVER OTHERS. Capitalism is an existential threat to them because without economic liberty, there can be no real personal liberty.

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” – Milton Friedman

“What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.” – F.A. Hayek (The Road to Serfdom)

For further discussion see here and here.

These Occupy people don't want FREEDOM; they want FREE STUFF at your and my expense.

ALGAEMAN FOR EX-PRESIDENT !

[Cartoons by Henry Payne]




[Cartoons by Ken Catalino]

MAYBE OBAMA'S PAST WITH AYERS WILL BE REVISITED AFTER ALL?

Back in the election of 2008, I wrote a post titled, "The Relationship Obama Doesn't Want You To Know About." The relationship was one of many questionable--and somewhat characterologically revealing-- relationships that should have made anyone question whether Obama should even be considered to occupy the highest position in the land. The Obama machine attempted furiously to squelch any and all attempts to shed light on these relationships; and the sheep-like media went along because they were blinded by worship. Consequently, Obama's connection with Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground was never throroughly vetted. In fact, Ayers even enjoyed a round of rather positive media coverage which attempted to show he wasn't such a bad guy after all. I mean, all he did was try to blow up and kill a few people (see here). But Ayers and Obama have always been dead serious about their committment to "social justice."

Here's what I said at the time about Obama's close relationship with that unrepentant terrorist:

"First there is the ad (Michelle Malkin has more) his thugs are trying to squelch:



Then there is this, from Ben Smith:

Barack Obama's campaign hasn't advertised this a great deal this week, but the campaign's "Action Wire" has been waging large-scale campaigns against critics. That includes tens of thousands of e-mails to television stations running Harold Simmons' Bill Ayers ad, and to their advertisers — including a list of major automobile and telecommunications companies.

And tonight, the campaign launched a more specific campaign: an effort to disrupt the appearance by a writer for National Review, Stanley Kurtz, on a Chicago radio program. Kurtz has been writing about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, and has suggested that papers housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago would reveal new details of that relationship.

The campaign e-mailed Chicago supporters who had signed up for the Obama Action Wire with detailed instructions including the station's telephone number and the show's extension, as well as a research file on Kurtz, which seems to prove that he's a conservative, which isn't in dispute. The file cites a couple of his more controversial pieces, notably his much-maligned claim that same-sex unions have undermined marriage in Scandinavia.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," says the email, which picks up a form of pressure on the press pioneered by conservative talk radio hosts and activists in the 1990s, and since adopted by Media Matters and other liberal groups.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies," it continues.

Kurtz, in case you are not aware, has been researching the connection between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, including looking into records from the Chicago Annenburg Challenge (see here, here, here, and here for more details).

I don't know about you, but I for one would like to know as much as possible about the personal and professional associations of a potential US President. Those associations matter because they give insight into character and judgment--or lack of same.

If you think John Edwards' "association" with Rielle Hunter; and his subsequent attempts to squelch the story make him unfit to remain in politics, then what about Obama's relationship with the likes of Bill Ayers? The Edwards-Hunter relationship is just another example of adolescent-style hormonal imbalance coupled with the narcissistic entitlement mindset so prevalent in our political culture these days. The Obama-Ayers relationship is far more dangerous in its implications--because Ayers is not exactly a beautiful woman attemptimg to capture a powerful politician with her sexual wiles, he is an unrepentent terrorist, murderer, and liar with an ideological agenda he wants imposed on American society. Ayers famously said in his Underground days:

Characterizing Weatherman as "an American Red Army," Ayers summed up the organization's ideology as follows: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents."

His successful seduction of people like Barack Obama means he doesn't plan on being "underground" anymore.



Above is Mr. Ayers stomping on an American flag in 2001
(and if that is not the symbolic equivalent of his words quoted above from 1970, then I haven't been practicing psychiatry for the last 25 years)."

As Peter Kirsonow noted in October, 2008:

Obama consorted with a terrorist who brags about planting bombs and whose organization planted hundreds of bombs. Some were meant to kill cops. Some were meant to kill soldiers. Some were meant to kill civilians.

Let's put this quite simply: This is an abomination. This alone disqualifies Obama from being president. Even if he can heal the planet. Even if the Dow tanks to 5000. Even if he puts a unicorn in every garage. A majority of Americans will not vote for a candidate who they know has had a working relationship with a terrorist — foreign or domestic. But they must know it.

Americans haven't suddenly become so tolerant of terrorism — and those who are tolerant of terrorists — that we'll vote for a smooth, glib, empty suit because we hope that somehow he'll work some form of alchemy on a scary economy.

This is not rocket science. The facts must be presented. Clearly, concisely, repeatedly. They haven't been.

Why do I bring this up now? Well, apparently, Andrew Breitbart's promise to release stunning new video of Obama from his days at Harvard will finally begin to dredge up a past that should have been thoroughly vetted the first time around. I hope we get information that goes all the way back to his "Barry Soetoro Obama" days at Occidental College, because it is a past that is littered with communists, fellow travellers, assorted alinskyites, and various unrepentant terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn.

We may be able to begin to connect the dots on Barack Obama and see how those dots led directly to people like Ayers and Dohrn.

Now, I am not much into conspiracy theories and there is no evidence to suggest that Breitbart's death was due to anything but natural causes, but it is interesting that Breitbart told CPAC that he intended to release the information on March 1, the same day he collapsed and died.

Fortunately, according to Steven Bannon, the tapes are going to be released by March 10.

Do the tapes have to do with Ayers or connect to him? I don't know obviously, but I am hoping that they may well might be the beginning of some real investigative journalism about all of this President's loose associations.

And, it is a good thing that there is a possibility these issues will be revisited prior to the Presidential election; particularly since the last 3 years have amply demonstrated to anyone with an ounce of sense that Obama's primary goal has been to force the transformation of America into becoming the country that William Ayers (as well as Jeremiah Wright AND the lovely Michelle Obama) can finally be proud of.

We simply can't afford four more years of a President with the Bill Ayers mentality in the White House.

Even in death, I'm hoping that Andrew Breitbart will have the last laugh .