AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden say it is "patriotic" to pay more taxes.

Clearly, they don't remember their American History:


Isn't it time for all of us to become again the "Sons (and Daughters!) of Liberty??

Real American patriotism is founded on economic liberty; and the Obama administration, with its economic policies, astronomical debt, and curtailment of indiviudal freedom is determined to make slaves of us all.

If I may channel the inimitible Biden: They're gonna put you all back in chains.

RHETORIC vs REALITY; INTEGRITY vs MORAL BANKRUPTCY

Here's a random thought--take Libya off the UN Human Rights Council! What a novel concept!:

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the opening of the 16th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Her objective: try to coordinate efforts with other nations to address the situation in Libya.

But at the Human Rights Council, Libya is more than a topic of discussion — it’s a member. Moammar Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime was elected to a council seat last May with the support of 155 of the 192 U.N. member states.

Libya’s membership on the council stands as sad tribute to the utter lack of seriousness that elections for membership on the U.N.’s premier human-rights body receive from the member states. Other members in good standing include noted human-rights abusers such as China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, now experiencing unrest of its own, is also a member. These nations have used their position to repeatedly undermine the council’s stated agenda.

Clinton and Obama's sad deference to these so-called "human rights" groups only encourage the continuing insanity and the underlying anti-freedom, anti-human rights agendas that such bodies have. Just ask yourself what sort of "human rights" a council will be advocating for with members from Libya, China, Cuba et al?

This is just another example of how dedicated the political left is to merely looking and sounding good, without actually having to have any real honesty, integrity or character. The term morally bankrupt is the short description for these pathetic groups and their enablers on the left. As I noted in that 2005 post (and it holds true even more today):

At this very moment, every issue supported by the Left, and almost all of the behavior exhibited by the Left is completely antithetical to classical liberal philosophies. There is no longer a commitment to personal liberty or to freedom. The Left is far too busy to promote freedom for the common man or woman, because their time is taken up advocating freedom for tyrants who oppress the common man; terrorists who kill the common man; and religious fanatics who subjugate the common woman.

The intellectuals who once promoted the IDEA of freedom, now are ensnared in an IDEOLOGY that depends for its very existence on the silencing of speech; the suppression of ideas; and the persecution of those who dare to refute its tenets.

Patriotism and love of one’s country is mocked by those who once fought to bring the American Dream to all American citizens; and who once championed those who were prevented from sharing in that Dream. Slowly and inexorably those idealists who once shouted, “we shall overcome,” morphed into a toxic culture promoting a never-ending victimhood that cannot possibly be overcome. Love of American ideals and values was transformed into the most perverse and vile anti-Americanism –where all things originating or “tainted” as American are uniquely bad; and where America became the source of all evil in the world.

The classical liberal tradition is now almost exclusively upheld by what are called “conservatives”. Once “liberal” was synonymous with the “left”. No longer.

What we have witnessed over the 30- 45 years since the Left ascended to dominate political thought in the mid 20th century, is its rapid and unprecedented decline into wholesale intellectual and moral bankruptcy. The noble values and ideals they once stood for have been abandoned; and almost as if a surreal cosmic joke was being played on them, they have—without even noticing!-- embraced the exact opposite of what they once stood for.

Now we have the shrill and ever-so-compassionate, postmodern "progressive" agenda, of which Obama and Clinton are prime examples. Neither is morally capable of dealing with the evil in today's world; they can barely bother to even mention it by name, let alone condemn it, except in the vaguest and mildest manner.


By way of contrast to this rather despicable approach to dealing with the world, here is Ambassador John Bolton's views on how to bring real freedom and democracy to the Middle East (Bolton IMHO really ought to be considered a presidential or vice-presidential candidate by the Republicans in 2012) (h/t The Corner):

Today's world is filled with failed efforts at democratisation. Russia has passed from totalitarianism, into democracy, and now seems to be passing right out again, regressing to authoritarianism or worse, although seemingly not of the communist variety. Lebanon's Cedar Revolution has been hijacked by Hizbollah, the Shi'ite terrorist group armed and financed by Iran. And in Gaza, Hamas, albeit Sunni, is similarly armed and financed by Iran. In short, the forms and processes of democracy can produce substantively decidedly illiberal results, as Mussolini's Fascisti and Hitler's Brown Shirts should have amply warned us in the last century.

Moreover, beyond the issue of Egypt's future government, broader US national security interests have legitimate — and enormous — claims. Americans may admire Woodrow Wilson's aspirations to make the world safe for democracy, but they actually follow Theodore Roosevelt's devastating response: "First and foremost, we are to make the world safe for ourselves." Attention to US strategic interests is not evidence of indifference to democracy, but a recognition that America's democracy itself requires its leaders to do what nation states exist to do, and as its Constitution specifically admonishes, to "provide for the common defence"
Moreover, beyond the issue of Egypt's future government, broader US national security interests have legitimate — and enormous — claims. Americans may admire Woodrow Wilson's aspirations to make the world safe for democracy, but they actually follow Theodore Roosevelt's devastating response: "First and foremost, we are to make the world safe for ourselves." Attention to US strategic interests is not evidence of indifference to democracy, but a recognition that America's democracy itself requires its leaders to do what nation states exist to do, and as its Constitution specifically admonishes, to "provide for the common defence".

Ironically, once Egyptian demonstrators verged on toppling Mubarak, the Obama Administration suddenly found virtue in demonstrations in Iran, with ringing statements by Vice-President Biden and others. By contrast, after Iran's fraudulent 2009 presidential election, the White House had been silent or even supportive of Ahmadinejad's election "victory", so desperate was it to engage Tehran in negotiations over its nuclear weapons program. Obama's sustained unwillingness to acknowledge, let alone endorse, the protesters in Iran against their totalitarian, theocratic military rulers provoked enormous criticism, which obviously stung the hyper-media-conscious White House. But while being rhetorically ahead of the media spin cycle is a mark of success at the Obama White House, as in so many other cases, rhetoric is all there is. Mistaking rhetoric for action is the Obama Administration's hallmark.

Read it all because it is very practical and extremely interesting. Andrew McCarthy sees it as a "real democracy project"; and adds a few points which I also like:

I think that would invite a hard-headed inquiry into the question whether promoting Western liberty (assuming for argument’s sake that it would eventually take hold in the Muslim world) would actually (a) make us safer from jihadist terror, and (b) undermine the broader, stealthier “civilizational jihad” being waged against us by the Muslim Brotherhood and its partner Islamist organizations. It would also call for consideration of a question of national concern that the nation never got to debate: Under what conditions, if any, should we deploy our military for the principal purpose of democracy promotion in Islamic countries? And it would invite the long overdue examination of the question whether you can promote authentic democratic culture in countries that insist on establishing Islam as the state religion and installing sharia as a principal source of law.

As I have noted previously, it is a case of rhetoric vs reality. The real question is, do we support liberty, democracy and human rights in reality? Or, do we just give lip-service to these ideas; even as all our actions in the real world encourage and enable dictators, tyrants, and the anti-freedom agendas of secular and religious thugs?

UPDATE: From Allahpundit at Hot Air:

You might think this would be the easiest of easy calls, but when you populate an ostensibly neutral international body with self-interested governments — many of them as ruthless and cretinous as Qaddafi’s — you’re bound to get perverse results. Why would China, say, take a stand for human rights in Libya when it’s cracking heads back home? In practice, these moronic UN agencies do more for fascist regimes by providing them with a little moral legitimacy by association than they do for dissidents trying to survive under those regimes.
Which is precisely why you should be root-root-rooting hard tomorrow for this loathsome body to give Qaddafi a complete and total pass. Believe it or not, there are still people in the world who take the UN’s “human rights” apparatus seriously. A great good many of them will have their minds changed if, after a week of headlines about Libyan protesters being killed with heavy weaponry, the HRC punts. If Qaddafi’s going down in Tripoli, here’s hoping he takes this ridiculous outfit with him.

Yes, let's hope for that, but I certainly wouldn't bet on it.

Plain and simple here: If the Council can’t pass a draft tomorrow that condemns Qaddafi’s regime specifically for the killing — not “we regret the killings in Libya” or whatever, but Mad Dog Must Stop — the U.S. should resign on the spot. There’s no earthly reason to remain. At best we’re tarnished by the continuing association, at worst we’re willfully enabling scum like the Castro brothers by legitimizing this stupid “human rights” credential they have. If the HRC can’t act here, it’s effectively defunct. Walk away.

Run away...but sadly, that would not be the hopeychangey priority. And that I would bet on.

FECKLESS BUFFOONERY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DENIAL

Two recent articles at American Thinker highlight a profound psychological paralysis that grips western civilization. The first examines a week in the life of Islamic terrorism:

Last Monday kicked off with a terror scare across all of Europe -- a super-duper mega-scare that we've already utterly forgotten. Once upon a time, a headline like, "Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace among terror targets" might have managed to make an impression that lasted longer than three days; now, we shrug and philosophically move on to exploding planes from Yemen.

As the week progressed (hmm..."progressed" doesn't seem quite the right word), Geert Wilders went on trial in Amsterdam for hate speech against Muslims, the Times Square bomber ranted jihadi threats in New York as he was sentenced to life, a British hostage was killed in Afghanistan during a NATO rescue attempt, and a Seattle cartoonist scurried underground in fear of her life. And the week was just getting warmed up.

Reading the headlines as a sort of surreal poem, I'm staggered by the global reach of Islamic aggression. All of Europe trembles in its grip; across America, Atlanta bus stations and Amtrak train lines shiver with vulnerability; in Africa, murdered Christians fall in bloody heaps to the ground; in Canada, Russia, Indonesia, and the Maldives, turmoil and trouble abound; and the entire Middle East reeks of carnage.

The Islamists' movement is tiny, almost undetectable -- a house in Iceland is purchased for a mosque -- and also unimaginably epic -- Iran readies its nuclear bomb.

Striking, too, is the feckless buffoonery of the Western response. Look at these headlines and savor the marvelous displays of cowardice, confusion, and outright collaboration which is mostly what we've managed to summon up so far.

The second article by Janet Levy is even more alarming and discusses the de facto sharia law in the U.S.:

Is the United States today a de facto shariah state? A close look at recent events points to some alarming conclusions about the tenets of shariah law taking hold in our once-proud constitutional republic and the unwitting, unequal application of existing U.S. laws. The result is that when it comes to religious expression, Muslims now enjoy more freedom of religion and speech under our Bill of Rights than non-Muslims. Equal protection under the laws of our country holds for Muslims far better than for non-Muslims. Several recent examples illustrate this point.

You will have to read the entire article to see all the examples of the unequal--and preferential-- treatment of Islam over other religions occurring regularly in this country, and I hope you will. What it all amounts to is a sort of "affirmative action" for Muslims; and a special acceptance of a religion whose fanatical adherents fully intend to destroy western civilization; even as the more moderate members (if there truly are any who dare to speak up against the radical strain that seems to dominate in ever mosque or school) remain silent--or even worse, sympathize with and secretly cheer on the fanatics.

From the schoolchildren in Massachusetts who,

...visited a local radical mosque and participated in a prayer session. Parents, who gave signed permission for students to visit the mosque, were not informed in advance that students would also be bowing to Allah and listening to lectures on Islam. Surprisingly, teachers did nothing to intervene as students participated and a mosque spokesperson denigrated Western civilization while glorifying and misrepresenting Islam, even falsely referring to the greater rights of women under Islam. Astonishingly, this occurred in a state that has prohibited the sale of Christmas items, including red and green tissue paper, at a school store and forced firefighters to remove a "Merry Christmas" sign from their station.

...to a POTUS who bowed to a Saudi potentate and who regularly praises the religion of his youth; we are witness to an astonishing swath of our society exhibiting a profound hysterical blindness about the hilariously-termed "religion of peace" and its intentions toward our way of life, even as it uses freedom and democracy to dismantle countries who are committed to free institutions and individual freedom.

Wretchard wrote an essay in 2009 about the deep denial that appears to exist on this topic, which I will quote in some detail:

Judith Klinghoffer noted the ironical similarity between the bombings in Pakistan to the attack of the Hebrew University by Hamas in Jerusalem in 2002. The attacks were accompanied, as these these are, by the usual statements of denial. Officials quickly claimed that the “attackers were not followers of Islam”. How could they be? and Klinghoffer reminded her readers not to forget that “Iranians claim that we should not worry about their nuclear development as Islam forbids the use of nuclear weapons.”

But assuming it were possible, why would Muslims be bombing Muslims? Because they are involved in a global struggle for power among themselves and in relation to the world. World Islam is trying to define itself in a vast civil war. Perhaps it is far more important for radical Islamists to bomb Muslims attending university than it has ever been for them to kill Jews. Killing Jews is a symbolic act. Killing other Muslims is the practical side of the war. Reuel Marc Gerecht argues in the Christian Science Monitor that the War on Terror is nearly synonymous and to a large extent, coextensive, with the civil war raging in the Islamic world. He describes the battle lines as internally being between Sunni and Shia radicals and their more secular bretheren, and across confessions between Sunni and Shia communities. Sunni Jihadism has been trying to take leadership its side, he says, but has lost the battle in the Arab world. It was defeated in Iraq, an event whose historic consequences have been unappreciated by all except al-Qaeda itself. Now their last hope is in South Asia, which may be lost in a fit of absentmindeness by Washington, which sees it as a distraction from the the pursuit of a domestic welfare agenda. But the real story of Afghanistan according to Gerecht is that it represents not only a chance for Sunni radicalism to recover, but a changing of the guard from Arabs to South Asian jihadi leaders.

Unless Al Qaeda is able to reignite Sunni-Shiite strife in Iraq – and the odds of this happening seem pretty small – Sunni jihadism has lost the Iraq war, and with it, cross your fingers, the Arabs.

Mesopotamia really was the central front in the war on terror because it was the only military theater Al Qaeda and its allies had in the Arab world. Drive out the Americans, unleash a Sunni-Shiite bloodbath that just might bring Sunni Arab states and Iran into a bloody cold – ideally hot – war, and Sunni Islamic militancy might just shake the region.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, both decent strategists, knew what they were saying when they described Iraq as the decisive battleground. Victory there would have given their cause real possibilities in the Muslim heartlands.

When al-Qaeda lost in Iraq their sole change of redemption was to win a rematch in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Yet even if they were to succeed, one thing has changed for the foreseeable future. The defeat in Iraq has momentarily eclipsed the dominance of Arabs in the leadership of the Sunni Jihad in favor of the better educated and more formidable South Asians. More to the point, it has moved the fulcrum of the Muslim civil war eastwards. While the Middle East remains important, it is no longer central after Iraq.

This important post ends with the following, which brings me back to my point today:

Maybe someday it will be different, Bronner says, but not right now. That doesn’t keep people from trying to use John Lennon’s Imagine as the manual for international “peace”. There are some who even now believe it is better to paint Israel into a corner by making concessions to the ayatollahs, the better to force the Jewish state to take out Iranian nuclear capability. Let them take the rap. And as to ruffling Ahmedinajad’s feathers, that is altogether too troublesome and unpleasant to those for who everything has always been a choice. Denial runs deep. It’s the logic of the man who enjoys his steak and playing on his ivory chess-set without wanting to worry about where it came from. [emphasis mine]

If Gerecht is right, then a battle for the soul of Islam is raging in South Asia. And the President may have elected to watch it from the sidelines, figuring the fires won’t jump. And if Krauthammer is right, then the West is facing a series of challenges which cannot be ignored. But maybe Obama is calculating he can ignore them; that it is better to keep talking than trying to act; because things just might take care of themselves. The world is about to find out who’s right. It should be an interesting next six months.

Denial always runs deep when ideology is more important than reality. In that situation, denial is so opaque, that to let in even the slightest sliver of the light of reality would be overwhelmingly traumatic for the denialist, and would turn their basic assumptions about the world and about themselves topsy-turvy.

The consequences of this sort of deep psychological denial can be seen every day in today's world. But like all defense mechanisms, it serves a very important purpose for the users. I have discussed this before, but it is always worth going over again; and, that is what a good therapist does in therapy--in fact, sometimes you have to point out the same thing over and over again before the patient has an "Aha!" moment....

This is true because even a primitive defense mechanism like denial can have some positive results for the individuals and groups who engage in it. Obviously any psychological defense mechanism that results in the immediate death or injury of the person using it would probably not endure as a viable psychological strategy in the real world; nor would it be particularly helpful for the species as a whole.

The truth is that denial does work--at least for a while--and that is why it is so often resorted to in extremus.

Some of the positive consequences of psychological denial include:

• In the short-term, psychological denial can help a person maintain their sanity--which would be threatened by awareness of a painful truth or reality
• In the short-term, denial can help a person function day to day
• In the short-term, denial can prevent a person from having to acknowledge painful thoughts, feelings or behavior and help them protect both their selfhood and worldview from unacceptable reality that is threatening to either or both

The operative word in all of the above is "in the short-term." In the short-term, even the unhealthiest of defenses--such as denial, projection, paranoia-- may be creative, healthy, comforting, and coping. And, while the behavior of those in denial may strike observers as downright peculiar at times, in the short-term, they may be transiently adaptative.

In fact, psychological denial is a way to integrate one's experience by providing a variety of filters for pain and mechanisms for self-deception. It creatively rearranges the sources of conflict the individual faces so that the conflict becomes manageable (hence the 'inversion of reality' mentioned above serves to: (1) protect themselves physically from the threat of violence and (2) protect their world view from the acceptance of facts or truth which effectively negate its premises and hence threatem them emotionally . All they have to do is to creatively rearrange the sources of conflic, and shazam! Both physical and emotional danger are neatly avoided!

But let us now consider some of the negative consequences of psychological denial:

• In the longer-term, denial requires continued compromises with reality to maintain the pretense that "everything is fine!" or "If only X would happen, everything would be fine!" (or, in the case above, "If only I reach out my hand then you will unclench your fist, and everything will be all right with the world and we will have universal brotherhood and peace."

Eventually, however, denial has to escalate. It breeds delusional thinking, along with paranoia and then the inevitable conspiracy theories begin to take the place of rational thought in those who deny reality for long periods of time. (See all the 9/11 conspiracy theorists for examples in our own country; or the increasingly shrill accusations that anyone who alludes to the threat of Islamic terrorism is a fearmonger and promoting a 'culture of fear' in order to fool the American public into thinking we are at war.

• The denier must then place the blame for the unacceptable reality on someone else ("I inherited all these problems from Bush and the mess--including all the things that are worsening under my watch, are all his fault!") and that leads to increased conflict between deniers and non-deniers. Efforts to maintain their denial consumes them and will lead them to escalate their anger and rage as their denial becomes untenable and ever more obvious. You've got to wonder if all the desperate attempts to control the media and demonize Fox News (the only outlet that routinely uncovers evidence that "the mess" in question has increasingly more to do with Obama and his associates.

• The denier will begin distort language and logic to rationalize and justify their behavior(examples of this are too numerous to mention-- but just listen to the Obamites when they come on and continually change the rationale behind their lack of decisionmaking on Afghanistan, for example). Eventually, cognitive strategies and rational argument will be abandoned altogether by the denier, because those strategies are not sustainable and are unable to convince others; at which point the person in denial will simply refer to his feelings or emotions as the sole justification and increasingly demonize those who oppose him or her.

• The denier will feel justified in acting out against those who threaten the peacefulness of their fantasy; they will use psychological displacement to attack those relatively less dangerous (i.e., the cartoonists and comedians are now "fact-checked"; ad hominem attacks against people like Rush Limbaugh and even less well-known opponents, etc.). The only kind of 'power' those in denial can ever 'speak truth to' are generally the kind that won't hurt them; they are scared shitless of anyone who might actually harm them in any way. These brave, brave Sir Robins bravely run away when there is a real bully or threat that needs to be faced down. Funny how that works.

• Problem solving and decision making will deteriorate as the entire focus of energy becomes the maintenance of the denial. In place of rational alternatives, excessive emotionality in general; and specifically anger and rage escalate toward those who are "blamed" for the reality that does not conform to the denier's world view.

• In the end, interactions with those in denial are characterized by the denier's frequent smugness; sense of superiority; arrogance; belittlement of alternative views; and undiluted hatred toward anyone or any idea that questions their world view or underlying ideology.

The current Administrations frivolous and idiotic views on terrorism in general; on Iraq; and most particularly on the war in Afghanistan (which they seem to be intent on losing at all costs); the emphasis on political correctness and multiculturalism--all this is primarily based on a web of deep denial.

Those in deep denial pretend their actions are motivated from'hope' and 'change' and 'love' and 'peace' and some sort of higher form of patriotism (which involves dissing your country so it will be better liked by lesser nations); but this is only how they rationalize it to themselves. Their self-deception is simply stunning in its sweeping grandiosity and self-righteousness betrayal of the good, as they cede, one by one, every important value of western civilization in general, and American values in particular to the enemy.

They then pat themselves on the back for their compassionate sensitivity and saintly antiwarpeaceandbrotherhood stance. And, if things go wrong--badly wrong--well, it was all Bush's fault anyway, and they were just "trying to mop up the mess."

Denial is the refuge of the terrified and frightened. The perversion of reality that deep denial leads to if not recognized and corrected is often becomes far more dangerous to the individual--and the society--than the reality that is being avoided.

In the end, denial unacknowledged only facilitates and enables the real threat to life and psychological health and the "feckless bufoonery" of the denialist becomes less and less funny, and more and more alarming.

2010 IS THE NEW 1984

Glenn Reynolds writes:

WAIT, I THOUGHT THE BIG THREAT WAS “CHRISTIANISTS:” Molly Norris, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoonist, is “going ghost.” “There’s a big Metafilter thread about it, which I’m reading after writing that. A surprising number of people are blaming Norris for bringing the death threats on herself.”

Blaming the victim is what people do, when they’re scared and don’t want to do anything about what’s scaring them.

Meanwhile, David French at The Corner discusses "The Beheaders' Veto"- the new constitutional 'right' recognized by a certain Supreme Court Justice:

In response to Justice Breyer’s comments that Koran-burning may be likened to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, I’d like to indulge in a bit of dime-store psychology

Typically, American hecklers will merely shout down speakers, throw pies at them, issue largely empty threats, and vandalize. True political violence is (thankfully) quite rare. Consequently, when courts condemn the “heckler’s veto,” they’re simply codifying constitutional common sense. How can your speech be free if petty disruptions can silence you? Why not use law enforcement to protect free speech?

The violence from Islamic radicals, on the other hand, shocks the conscience. Thousands rioting? Dozens dying? Beheadings? Torture? This level of violence is terrifying. It’s orders of magnitude beyond heckling. The manageable heckler’s veto becomes the unmanageable beheader’s veto, and judges have trouble formulating a response that protects speech and human life.

But here’s the sad reality: The violence exists no matter what we do (or don’t) say.

Indeed. And these two posts expose the kind of shoddy thinking indulged in by the postmodern political left. Let's take Michael Moron Moore, as a typical example of the shoddy thinking (as discussed by Jay Nordlinger Jay Nordlinger):

Michael Moore is all for the Ground Zero Mosque. More than that, he would like to see the mosque on Ground Zero, not just next to it. I mention this in Impromptus today. What I do not mention — and add here — is that Joe Klein of Time magazine takes the same position. Last month, he wrote, “I am, admittedly, a bit radical on this subject: I think Ground Zero itself — not a building two blocks away — would be a terrific site for a mosque, as a demonstration of American freedom, one of the truly superior qualities our nation offers the world.”

As I say in my column, why not a mosque on the Pennsylvania field? And maybe we could do something about the Pentagon?

This debate long ago got very weird. For one thing, support of the Ground Zero Mosque has become a test of patriotism and Americanism: If you object to the mosque, you must hate James Madison, the Liberty Bell, and Betsy Ross.

Klein wrote, “. . . you don’t have to agree with me. . . . You just have to like the Constitution. I love it.”

Yeah, yeah: Well, as a Constitution-hater, let me say that there’s a heavy dose of McCarthyism in the rhetoric of the Left, particularly as the Left speaks about the mosque....

The thread that runs through all these links is, as two of them directly mention, a certain deranged psychology that impairs the rational faculty. Interesting, isn't it, that those who are blaming Molly Norris, or the NJ Transit Worker who was fired for burning a Koran in his spare time; or who are accusing those opposed to the GZM of 'hating the Constitution' all seem to be completely ignoring the real problem?

Let's see if we can identify the real problem:

ITEM: Cartoonist goes 'ghost' because of threats from the peaceful followers of Islam

ITEM: Supreme Court Justice thinks constitution protects peaceful followers of Isam who might get violent because someone somewhere burns Koran

ITEM: Michael Moore thinks that we should erect a monument to the peaceful followers of Islam on the site where the peaceful followers of Islam killed thousands of American and destroyed two symbols of America; and that anyone who opposes such an idea must hates the US Constitution.

ITEM: The NJ Transit Authority fires a man because he burned the holy book of the peaceful followers of Islam.

Gee. What could be the common thread in all this?

In every case, the so-called 'peaceful followers of Islam' meme trumps the constitutional right to freedom of speech.

So, who are the ones making a mockery of the U.S. Constitution? Who are the ones who are and have been grotesquely violent? In every case, the postmodern political left has displaced a rational fear of the so-called 'peaceful followers of Islam' and instead have chosen to irrationally fear the actions of the "everyone draw Mohammed' cartoonist; they retaliate against someone who burns a book he doesn't like; and they insist that people who oppose the building of a mosque on sacred ground are haters of the Constitution.

All these actions indicate a combination of psychological displacement and psychological projection. These are two defense mechanisms that I have discussed many times before in this blog; and when used, they tend to distort rational thought and make reason and truth go through wierd contortions so as to allay the defender's intense anxiety.

In displacement, fear of something truly frightening is displaced onto a less frightening alternate: i.e., you blame a victim of violence (or threat of violence) instead of those who actually are violent or who threaten violence.

In projection, you take your own unacceptable or irrational feelings and project them onto someone else; i.e., you are busy shredding and trampling on the Constitution yourself by limiting others' freedom of speech, but you accuse them of it.

As Reynolds suggests, people do this sort of thing because they are afraid of something and they don't want to do anything about it. I would suggest that they do these sorts of things because their behavior is completely consistent with the bizarre and distorted view of reality promulgated by their ideology.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
- 1984, George Orwell

THE [PSYCHO] PATH OF DENIAL

From Instapundit:

DON SURBER: Lefty beats up cabbie; left blames the right. Yeah, for all the talk about the threat of Tea Party violence, the actual violence seems to come from the usual suspects on the left. It’s been that way for a while.

The self-righteous members of the political left often pretend their behavior is motivated from" love" or "peace" or even "patriotism"; but these are only words they use in order to rationalize their less than lovely --and remarkably unpeaceful (i.e. outrageously violent)--actions to themselves.

Isn't it interesting that their words and their actions are so frequently the opposite of each other?

This sort of self-deception, which is a combination of psychological projection and outright psychological denial is simply stunning in its sweeping grandiosity. And, the goal of such grandiosity is to distort or obscure reality itself.

But, reality and truth always matter; and they always will win out over self-delusion in the end.

Many paths can be taken to reach self-delusion. Each individual who embraces psychological denial--whether through projection, paranoia, displacement or any one of a number of varying strategies-- does so in order to avoid some unpleasant truth about themselves; or to preserve a world view in the face of an uncompromising and unforgiving reality.

That these motivations are extremely powerful can be seen, particularly when the delusion or distortion of reality creates a life-threatening situation for the individual. But the desire to see themselves or their ideas as so special; or so superior is so strong, even in life-threatening situations, the denier will cling to his denial like a man clings to a piece of driftwood to keep from drowning in the storm.

There is only one path that leads to insight and self-awareness and it travels directly through the comforting distortions and lies; straight to the heart of the individual's most cherished beliefs about himself and the world. If a person can look at those beliefs and face those motivations squarely and honestly; and then reconcile them to the painful reality and truth observed in the outside world; then the path will lead to personal growth and self-discovery.

But today's "reality-based" progressive left are exceedingly unwilling to look in the mirror or question their cherished beliefs. It just feels tooooo good and sooooo right that they should be considered intellectually and morally superior to the unwashed masses. In the face of such obvious superiority, why would it ever be necessary to question their own motivations or memes, or policies or behaviors?

It goes without saying that psychological denial is a universal phenomenon that knows no politics. We are all capable of denying and distorting reality when faced with unpleasant truths that confront us.

Some of us will grow and learn from the experience of having reality smack us around a bit. And some will pick themselves up, battered and bruised from the experience and go right back to denying the truth and promoting the same failed ideas and policies over and over again--each time a little bit more hysterically and pugnaciously; willing to use force if necessary to make others accept their delusions.

The [psycho]path of denial is a well-trodden and surprisingly comfortable road to walk--at least until it takes you over the cliff and into the abyss.

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.” 1984 (The definition of " Doublethink")

UPDATE: The last refuge of a liberal:

Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities -- often lopsided majorities -- oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument.

PSYCHOTIC LEFT vs NEUROTIC RIGHT ?

Anna Freud once wrote that the ego of a child in denial "refuses to become aware of some disagreeable reality.... It turns its back on it, and in imagination reverses the unwelcome facts."

The essence of psychologica denial is a refusal to look at, or acknowledge, reality.

Fortunately, reality exists outside of one's head and is objective and verifiable. It is not altered by whim, desire, lies or myth. This is not to say that people might not believe ideas that do not conform to reality--in fact, they do so all the time. Just like Anna's description of the child's ego, the ego of an otherwise normal adult may also resort to childish, immature and primitive mechanisms when it feels threatened or wants to avoid the truth.

You would think it would be a simple matter to be "in touch" with reality. But it isn't. It requires a great deal of cognitive effort--i.e., thinking--and often that effort must assert itself over powerful emotions that draw the person away from the real world, to a place more comfortable and unchallenging--i.e., to their inner reality.

So, how does a rational person determine what is true and what is delusion? How do you decide if something is a myth or is real? How do you decide if someone is paranoid, or simply "connecting the dots" and facing reality? How do you determine if someone is neurotic, where thoughts and behavior are conflicted and distressed, but not inappropriate or outside socially acceptable norms; versus psychotic, where thoughts and behavior become unanchored to reality? [Freud distinguished the two in this way: “in neurosis the ego suppresses part of the id out of allegiance to reality, whereas in psychosis it lets itself be carried away by the id and detached from a part of reality.”]

The left decries the "paranoid style" of the the right when any question arises about the seemliness and unbelievable haste with which President Obama has attempted to consolidate vast amounts of power in the Presidency (see here for a breakdown of the more than 30 czars who function outside the normal checks and balances of government and have been called Obama's "shadow government")--something they daily insisted Bush was doing on an unprecedented level.

Turns out Bush was a piker compared to The One when it comes to accumulating power unto one's self.

Psychological denial and the avoidance of an unpleasant reality are certainly not confined to one side of the political spectrum or the other. But what I find endlessly fascinating is how the political left has created and fully integrated into their mainstream thinking, specific ideological tools that facilitate ongoing psychological denial and often completely break with reality.

It reminds me of all the paranoid patients I have observed over the years, who effortlessly are able to dismiss or explain away those facts that don't fit in with their carefully constructed conspiracy theories. If you get too assertive in pointing out those uncomfortable facts, you find yourself in no time fully integrated into the theory. For the paranoid, the case is closed and the argument is finished.

The political left has been utilizing similar psychological strategies inherent in the paranoid style since the end of the cold war and the 20th century. The rise of politically correct speech and the dogma of multiculturalism; the insistence on cultural diversity while enforcing a profound homogeneity of ideas and lack of intellectual diversity in academia; as well as the distortions and rationalizations that are currently the hallmark of intellectual debate within our institutions of higher learning and politics-- have all combined to dissuade those on the political left from pursuing a course of intellectual honesty and/or emotional insight.

This is what makes it so frustrating to debate or argue with today's typical postmodern leftist. Some are willing to engage in discussion, but you can always count on their complete dismissal of any fact that does not conform to their ideological perspective. No matter how many times you debunk their position, the goalposts are then changed to ensure their denial remains untouched.

When it suits their purposes (i.e., when they are losing the argument), they will resort to the claim that reality and truth are merely subjective constructs anyway, and that any evidence you present is only someone's "opinion" and that their opinions are as good as anyone else's.

Such a position should logically disqualify their position to begin with, but of course, it doesn't.

On the contrary, this position is an example of the cognitive dissonance of classic postmodern rhetoric; in which achieving one's political agenda is what is important--and certainly not truth or reality, which can be manipulated accordingly (see here and here for how the Civil Rights movement has basically jumped the shark in the age of Obama, where all opposition to his plans for America are deemed racist -- or, potentially illegal). And, remember when Bush was President? Every piece of economic news was ALWAYS spun as evil springing forth from those dastardly rightwingers. Now that Obama is President, economic news is ALWAYS made to appear divine.

As I have written 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 hidden agenda or underlying motivation behind the denial is very frequently related to the potential adverse consequences that could ensue if the denial were eliminated and reality acknowledged. And this is where unnacceptable feelings, needs, and thoughts come in. The denier (or part of him) has made an unconscious decision that awareness of certain feelings, needs, or thoughts is more threatening to his sense of self than the act of denial.

Thus, any person genuinely trying to determine which side of an argument conforms to reality and truth, needs to assess the personal, i.e., the psychological, stakes or conflicts of interest (as those stakes are sometimes referred to) for both sides of the argument.

Of course, both sides in this argument have a conflicts of interest because this is politics and both sides want to win. So, it is entirely possible that both sides are deluding themselves and in denial. The question then become, to what degree?

A rational observer could either wash his hands of both sides (a plague on both their houses!); or, accept the reality that one side or the other is going to be in power and go with the side that is, at least, closet to reality.

Let's review some of the key points about whether a someone is "paranoid" or "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.

Think about those criteria for a while and decide for yourself which side is psychologicaly healthier; more functional, and in touch with reality.

As for my own view and clinical assessment: when it comes to deciding between Democrats or Republicans; the political left or conservatives; I'm going to have choose the only partially deluded Republicans and conservatives all the way. It's the difference in severity between psychosis (where contact with reality is lost or highly distorted) and a neurosis (where inner conflict brings about distress and unhappiness, but not delusions or hallucinations) --both are definitely dysfunctional, but the psychotic is a really, really sick puppy.

At least the neurotic right has not completely abandoned the real world for the bubble of self-delusion. They have not regularly retreated into moral relativism and the nihilism of postmodern rhetoric to justify their denial and delusion. They have not embraced national defeat and humiliation as a path to power and control over others. They do not constantly whine, scream, and behave like immature children when they don't get their way (at least not a a matter of course). They do not say one thing and then do another, at least not with the frequency and enthusiasm of the Democrats and the left.

The list of issues that the Democrats and the left are desperately trying to avoid are legion; but among the most serious are: (1) an imminently nuclear Iran (as they badmouth America and cuddle up to pretty much every despot and petty tyrant in today's world); the deterioration of the stuation in Afghanistan and Iraq under their watch; and (2) the imminent fiscal catastrophe they are foisting on America and future generations today and in the forseeable future, with their wild spending, redistribution of wealth, and intemperate haste to remake America into a leftist hell-hole utopia.

For more than eight years , America had to listen to the left's constant carping about the inadequacies of America; the evils of American power and the evils of capitalism etc. etc. etc.; we have had to withstand their contempt for America's fundamental values; and our military have had to bear the brunt of their incoherent rage and careless enabling of the enemy we fight (talk about "not caring" about people--does Code Pink or the other 'anti-war' zombies of the left take any responsibility for enabling and encouraging terrorists to kill Americans whenever they can?).

Now that the left is ascendant and have complete power and control over the White House and both Houses of Congress, the incessant carping has only accelerated and reached a fever pitch! They can't even function effectively when power is handed to them on a silver platter because reality is not part of their world view. They must constantly demonize and denegrate all opposition so that, in their own minds, they remain 'pure' and peacefully in denial about their own motivations and wishes.

We have listened to the endless repetition of the left's mantras and slogans--and their myths; the unrivaled self-righteousness of their superior intellects; their 'compassion' and dedication to a jihad for peace and 'non-violence'; even as we have seen firsthand the intensity of the hatred that motivates them.

Unfortunately, we are now beginning to see the consequences of their self-delusion in the real world. Our children will be able to see the consequences even more sharply and clearly.

Through it all, there have been very very few on the left side of the political spectrum who have been able to summon up an iota of insight; or a moment of self-reflection about the potentially devastating consequences of their own rhetoric or behavior--nationally or internationally.

Don't dare question their patriotism, they screamed when they were not in power. But if you looked at their behavior and the consequences of that behavior, that was exactly what you had to question. Of course, now that they are in power, questioning them is completely out of bounds. They could rant on and on about the "Bush Regime" for the eight years of George W. Bush, but their postmodern minds have blanked it out in order to be outraged at the use of the word in connection with The One.

Look at the people that Obama has surrounded himself with; his czars and appointments; and the ceaseless promotion of his cult of personality--even to children. Having snobbily abandoned belief in God, the secular left have managed to turn their ideology into a religion and exchanged one belief system for another.. They cling to their religion and their supercilious anti-war stance just as dearly as they claim most Americans cling to their faith and their Constitutional rights. Only, they think themeselves superior to everyone else.

One of the most important psychological challenges for every human is dealing with reality and the real world--particularly when the consequences of confronting truth are personally unpleasant and painful. That is exactly what psychological denial seeks to avoid.

Today we are witness to the left's vivid (and psychotic) imagination, feverishly working overtime to reverse all those unwelcome facts and painful truths so they can remain in an endless childhood.

DENIAL RUNS DEEP

When it was politically correct to do so, Democrats and the left would insist that President Bush had "taken his eyes off the ball" by fighting the war formerly known as the "War on Terror" in Iraq. It should be obvious, they insisted that the real war, the essential war, was the one in Afghanistan.

Well, talk about taking your eyes off the ball! The Obama Administration has basically closed its eyes and has no idea where the ball actually is at this point in time:

Judith Klinghoffer noted the ironical similarity between the bombings in Pakistan to the attack of the Hebrew University by Hamas in Jerusalem in 2002. The attacks were accompanied, as these these are, by the usual statements of denial. Officials quickly claimed that the “attackers were not followers of Islam”. How could they be? and Klinghoffer reminded her readers not to forget that “Iranians claim that we should not worry about their nuclear development as Islam forbids the use of nuclear weapons.”

But assuming it were possible, why would Muslims be bombing Muslims? Because they are involved in a global struggle for power among themselves and in relation to the world. World Islam is trying to define itself in a vast civil war. Perhaps it is far more important for radical Islamists to bomb Muslims attending university than it has ever been for them to kill Jews. Killing Jews is a symbolic act. Killing other Muslims is the practical side of the war. Reuel Marc Gerecht argues in the Christian Science Monitor that the War on Terror is nearly synonymous and to a large extent, coextensive, with the civil war raging in the Islamic world. He describes the battle lines as internally being between Sunni and Shia radicals and their more secular bretheren, and across confessions between Sunni and Shia communities. Sunni Jihadism has been trying to take leadership its side, he says, but has lost the battle in the Arab world. It was defeated in Iraq, an event whose historic consequences have been unappreciated by all except al-Qaeda itself. Now their last hope is in South Asia, which may be lost in a fit of absentmindeness by Washington, which sees it as a distraction from the the pursuit of a domestic welfare agenda. But the real story of Afghanistan according to Gerecht is that it represents not only a chance for Sunni radicalism to recover, but a changing of the guard from Arabs to South Asian jihadi leaders.

Unless Al Qaeda is able to reignite Sunni-Shiite strife in Iraq – and the odds of this happening seem pretty small – Sunni jihadism has lost the Iraq war, and with it, cross your fingers, the Arabs.

Mesopotamia really was the central front in the war on terror because it was the only military theater Al Qaeda and its allies had in the Arab world. Drive out the Americans, unleash a Sunni-Shiite bloodbath that just might bring Sunni Arab states and Iran into a bloody cold – ideally hot – war, and Sunni Islamic militancy might just shake the region.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, both decent strategists, knew what they were saying when they described Iraq as the decisive battleground. Victory there would have given their cause real possibilities in the Muslim heartlands.

When al-Qaeda lost in Iraq their sole change of redemption was to win a rematch in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Yet even if they were to succeed, one thing has changed for the foreseeable future. The defeat in Iraq has momentarily eclipsed the dominance of Arabs in the leadership of the Sunni Jihad in favor of the better educated and more formidable South Asians. More to the point, it has moved the fulcrum of the Muslim civil war eastwards. While the Middle East remains important, it is no longer central after Iraq.

Read it all, because it is an excellent analysis of the situation in the world today with regard to the War on Terror--or "overseas contingency operations" and as we can see with the dithering in regard to Afghanistan, such operations are not likely to happen at all under the Obama Administration.

Wretchard ends with this:

Maybe someday it will be different, Bronner says, but not right now. That doesn’t keep people from trying to use John Lennon’s Imagine as the manual for international “peace”. There are some who even now believe it is better to paint Israel into a corner by making concessions to the ayatollahs, the better to force the Jewish state to take out Iranian nuclear capability. Let them take the rap. And as to ruffling Ahmedinajad’s feathers, that is altogether too troublesome and unpleasant to those for who everything has always been a choice. Denial runs deep. It’s the logic of the man who enjoys his steak and playing on his ivory chess-set without wanting to worry about where it came from. [emphasis mine]

If Gerecht is right, then a battle for the soul of Islam is raging in South Asia. And the President may have elected to watch it from the sidelines, figuring the fires won’t jump. And if Krauthammer is right, then the West is facing a series of challenges which cannot be ignored. But maybe Obama is calculating he can ignore them; that it is better to keep talking than trying to act; because things just might take care of themselves. The world is about to find out who’s right. It should be an interesting next six months.

Denial always runs deep when ideology is more important than reality. In that situation, denial is so opaque, that to let in even the slightest sliver of the light of reality would be overwhelmingly traumatic for the denialist, and would turn their basic assumptions about the world and about themselves topsy-turvy.

The consequences of this sort of deep psychological denial can be seen every day in today's world. But like all defense mechanisms, it serves a very important purpose for the users. I have discussed this before, but it is always worth going over again.

As a psychiatrist, I would be the last person to maintain that even a primitive defense mechanism like denial doesnt have some positive results for the individuals and groups who use it. Obviously any defense mechanism that results in immediate death or injury of the person using it would probably not last long as a viable strategy in the real world; nor would it be particularly helpful for the species as a whole.

In fact, denial does work--at least for a while--and that is why it is so often resorted to in extremus.

Some of the positive consequences of psychological denial include:

• In the short-term, psychological denial can help a person maintain their sanity--which would be threatened by awareness of a painful truth or reality
• In the short-term, denial can help a person function day to day
• In the short-term, denial can prevent a person from having to acknowledge painful thoughts, feelings or behavior and help them protect both their selfhood and worldview from unacceptable reality that is threatening to either or both

The operative word in all of the above is "in the short-term." In the short-term, even the unhealthiest of defenses--such as denial, projection, paranoia-- may be creative, healthy, comforting, and coping. And, while the behavior of those in denial may strike observers as downright peculiar at times, in the short-term, they may be transiently adaptative.

In fact, psychological denial is a way to integrate one's experience by providing a variety of filters for pain and mechanisms for self-deception. It creatively rearranges the sources of conflict the individual faces so that the conflict becomes manageable (hence the 'inversion of reality' mentioned above serves to: (1) protect themselves physically from the threat of violence and (2) protect their world view from the acceptance of facts or truth which effectively negate its premises and hence threatem them emotionally . All they have to do is to creatively rearrange the sources of conflic, and shazam! Both physical and emotional danger are neatly avoided!

But let us now consider some of the negative consequences of psychological denial:

• In the longer-term, denial requires continued compromises with reality to maintain the pretense that "everything is fine!" or "If only X would happen, everything would be fine!" (or, in the case above, "If only I reach out my hand then you will unclench your fist, and everything will be all right with the world and we will have universal brotherhood and peace."

Eventually, however, denial has to escalate. It breeds delusional thinking, along with paranoia and then the inevitable conspiracy theories begin to take the place of rational thought in those who deny reality for long periods of time. (See all the 9/11 conspiracy theorists for examples in our own country; or the increasingly shrill accusations that anyone who alludes to the threat of Islamic terrorism is a fearmonger and promoting a 'culture of fear' in order to fool the American public into thinking we are at war.

• The denier must then place the blame for the unacceptable reality on someone else ("I inherited all these problems from Bush and the mess--including all the things that are worsening under my watch, are all his fault!") and that leads to increased conflict between deniers and non-deniers. Efforts to maintain their denial consumes them and will lead them to escalate their anger and rage as their denial becomes untenable and ever more obvious. You've got to wonder if all the desperate attempts to control the media and demonize Fox News (the only outlet that routinely uncovers evidence that "the mess" in question has increasingly more to do with Obama and his associates.

• The denier will begin distort language and logic to rationalize and justify their behavior(examples of this are too numerous to mention-- but just listen to the Obamites when they come on and continually change the rationale behind their lack of decisionmaking on Afghanistan, for example). Eventually, cognitive strategies and rational argument will be abandoned altogether by the denier, because those strategies are not sustainable and are unable to convince others; at which point the person in denial will simply refer to his feelings or emotions as the sole justification and increasingly demonize those who oppose him or her.

• The denier will feel justified in acting out against those who threaten the peacefulness of their fantasy; they will use psychological displacement to attack those relatively less dangerous (i.e., the cartoonists and comedians are now "fact-checked"; ad hominem attacks against people like Rush Limbaugh and even less well-known opponents, etc.). The only kind of 'power' those in denial can ever 'speak truth to' are generally the kind that won't hurt them; they are scared shitless of anyone who might actually harm them in any way. These brave, brave Sir Robins bravely run away when there is a real bully or threat that needs to be faced down. Funny how that works.

• Problem solving and decision making will deteriorate as the entire focus of energy becomes the maintenance of the denial. In place of rational alternatives, excessive emotionality in general; and specifically anger and rage escalate toward those who are "blamed" for the reality that does not conform to the denier's world view.

• In the end, interactions with those in denial are characterized by the denier's frequent smugness; sense of superiority; arrogance; belittlement of alternative views; and undiluted hatred toward anyone or any idea that questions their world view or underlying ideology.

The current Administrations frivolous and idiotic views on terrorism in general; on Iraq; and most particularly on the war in Afghanistan (which they seem to be intent on losing at all costs); the emphasis on political correctness and multiculturalism--all this is primarily based on a web of deep denial.

Those in deep denial pretend their actions are motivated from'hope' and 'change' and 'love' and 'peace' and some sort of higher form of patriotism (which involves dissing your country so it will be better liked by lesser nations); but this is only how they rationalize it to themselves. Their self-deception is simply stunning in its sweeping grandiosity and self-righteousness betrayal of the good, as they cede, one by one, every important value of western civilization in general, and American values in particular to the enemy.

They then pat themselves on the back for their compassionate sensitivity and saintly antiwarpeaceandbrotherhood stance. And, if things go wrong--badly wrong--well, it was all Bush's fault anyway, and they were just "trying to mop up the mess."

Denial is the refuge of the terrified and frightened. The perversion of reality that deep denial leads to if not recognized and corrected is often becomes far more dangerous to the individual--and the society--than the reality that is being avoided.

In the end, denial unacknowledged only facilitates and enables the real threat to life and psychological health.

THE LUNATIC MAINSTREAM

Mark Steyn yesterday on Obama's "center":

Three stories bubbled up in the last week, although if you read the New York Times and the administration’s other airbrushers you’ll be blissfully unaware of them; the resignation of Van Jones — former (?) Communist and current 9/11 “truther” — from his post as Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar”; the “re-assignment” of Yosi Sergant at the National Endowment for the Arts after he was found to be urging government-funded arts groups to produce “art” in support of Obama policy positions; and, finally, the extraordinary undercover tape from Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website in which officials from ACORN (the Obama chums who’ll be “helping” with the next census) offer advice on how pimps can get government housing loans for brothels employing underage girls from El Salvador.

What do all these Obama associates have in common? I mean, aside from the fact that Glenn Beck played a key role in exposing them. We are assured by the airbrushing media and “moderate” conservatives that Beck is crazy, a frothing spokesnut for the lunatic fringe. By contrast, Van Jones, Yosi Sergant, and ACORN are all members of the lunatic mainstream, embedded philosophically and actually in the heart of Obamaland.

What all these individuals share is a supersized view of the state, from a makework gig coordinating the invention of phony-baloney “green jobs” to Soviet-style government-licensed art in support of heroic government programs to government-funded “community organizers” organizing government funding for jailbait bordellos. Okay, government-funded child prostitution’s a bit of an outlier even for this crowd — for the moment. But you get the general idea.

Yes, some of us got the "general idea" of Barack Obama during the long campaign, despite herculean efforts by him and the media to keep us in the dark about what he really believed. The image that was foisted upon America was carefully cultivated and air-blown so as to remove all blemishes (Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers; all references to his radical past and communist/socialist associations) and to obscure the reality of Barack Obama and everything he actually believes--and hide it under a mask of inflappability and rhetorical ease. He promised to be the one who would lead America into a post-racial epoch; to finally put to rest one of the more glaring contradictions between the documents that laid the foundation for America and its "all men are created equal" rhetoric; and the realities of slavery and racial discrimination.

Instead, he has ruthlessly used race to silence his critics; and his Presidency marks the beginning of a new and glorious age of identity politics, with all the attendant obsession with racial quotas and all other sorts of egalatarian idiocies, that, rather than makes us less conscious of race, make us unable think except in racist terms.

Remember when dissent was "the highest form of patriotism"? It is now a form of racism.

Obama has always been a man of the radical left; a man who deliberately and consciously courted the lunatic fringe of that ideology. Indeed, what he had to offer in that relationship was a chance to make their extremist views more palatable...i.e., more mainstream.

Today, I think it is safe to say that Barack Obama is very much the same person he has always been. It is only America and all it has ever stood for which is changing--and not for the better.

We can thank the Obama's lunatic mainstream for that.

UPDATE: Of course, it's racist to accuse Obama of lying....

THE NEUROTIC RIGHT VS THE PSYCHOTIC LEFT

Anna Freud once wrote that the ego of a child in denial "refuses to become aware of some disagreeable reality.... It turns its back on it, and in imagination reverses the unwelcome facts."

The essence of psychologica denial is a refusal to look at, or acknowledge, reality.

Fortunately, reality exists outside of one's head and is objective and verifiable. It is not altered by whim, desire, lies or myth. This is not to say that people might not believe ideas that do not conform to reality--in fact, they do so all the time. Just like Anna's description of the child's ego, the ego of an otherwise normal adult may also resort to childish, immature and primitive mechanisms when it feels threatened.

You would think it would be a simple matter to be "in touch" with reality. But it isn't. It requires a great deal of cognitive effort--i.e., thinking--and often that effort must assert itself over powerful emotions that draw the person away from the real world to a place more comfortable and unchallenging to their inner reality.

So, how does a rational person determine what is true and what is delusion? How do you decide if something is a myth or is real? How do you decide if someone is paranoid, or simply "connecting the dots" and facing reality? How do you determine if someone is simply neurotic, where thoughts and behavior are conflicted and distressed, but not inappropriate or outside socially acceptable norms; versus psychotic, where thoughts and behavior become unanchored to reality? [Freud distinguished the two in this way: “in neurosis the ego suppresses part of the id out of allegiance to reality, whereas in psychosis it lets itself be carried away by the id and detached from a part of reality.”]

In "How Sad", Jonah Goldberg bemoans John McWhorter's interesting defense of Van Jones, Obama's ex-Green Jobs Czar:

I've been a big fan of John McWhorter, but his piece over at The New Republic is sad commentary both about him and the magazine in which it appears. He writes:

Jones was wrong, actually, in disavowing his support for 9/11 conspiracy theory. He signed the document, which can only mean that he supports the idea that 9/11 was planned, or that the Bushies knew something more than they have said, or at least that the charge is plausible enough to require investigation.

But support for that idea is hardly unknown among people of the left – and often gestural in its own way; look one of these types in the eye and ask “Do you really think George Bush and his cabinet engineered the murder of thousands and have kept the secret for eight years?” and watch the nervous pause and the look off into the distance. Speculations in this vein hardly meant that Jones was not sincerely committed to working within the government to do good.

Just a few years ago, Peter Beinart wrote a TNR cover story (which became a book) on how intellectually serious "fighting liberals" needed to confront their own anti-American left flank. Now TNR is running pieces insisting that just a little trutherism is okay in the liberal big tent. Good to know.

I hope this means we will hear fewer meditations about the right wing's coddling of the lunatic fringe and the "paranoid style" of the Right from The New Republic.

So, now we know that 9/11 "trutherism" has become completely mainstream on the political left. [Just as a reminder, here is the sort of paranoid fantasy we have had to put up with during the entire Bush Administration:

If you want to talk about extremism, how does the above psychotic delusion--which we can now assume is a position held by a rather large number of leftists--compare with even the most extreme neurotic obsessions about Obama's birth certificate? ]

The left decries the "paranoid style" of the the right when any question arises about the seemliness and unbelievable haste with which President Obama has attempted to consolidate vast amounts of power in the Presidency (see here for a breakdown of the more than 30 czars who function outside the normal checks and balances of government and have been called Obama's "shadow government")--something they daily insisted Bush was doing on an unprecedented level.

Turns out Bush was a piker compared to the Great Obama when it comes to accumulating power to one's self.

Psychological denial and the avoidance of an unpleasant reality are certainly not confined to one side of the political spectrum or the other. But what I find endlessly fascinating is how the political left has created and fully integrated into their mainstream thinking, specific ideological tools that facilitate ongoing psychological denial and completely break with reality.

It reminds me of all the paranoid patients I have observed over the years, who effortlessly are able to dismiss or explain away those facts that don't fit in with their carefully constructed conspiracy theories. If you get too assertive in pointing out those uncomfortable facts, you find yourself in no time fully integrated into the theory. For the paranoid, the case is closed and the argument is finished.

The political left has been utilizing the same psychological strategies inherent in the paranoid style since the end of the cold war and the 20th century. The rise of politically correct speech and the dogma of multiculturalism; the insistence on cultural diversity while enforcing a profound homogeneity of ideas and lack of intellectual diversity in academia; as well as the distortions and rationalizations that are currently the hallmark of intellectual debate within our institutions of higher learning and politics-- have all combined to dissuade those on the political left from pursuing a course of intellectual honesty and/or emotional insight.

This is what makes it so frustrating to debate or argue with today's typical postmodern leftist. Some are willing to engage in discussion, but you can always count on their complete dismissal of any fact that does not conform to their ideological perspective. No matter how many times you debunk their position (e.g., no matter how many times evidence of Saddam's WMD's are found and documented; that evidence has been either ignored or poo-pooed using a variety of rationalizations--and the goalposts are then changed to ensure the safety of the denial).

When it suits their purposes (i.e., when they are losing the argument), they will resort to the claim that reality and truth are merely subjective constructs anyway, and that any evidence you present is only someone's "opinion" and that their opinions are as good as anyone else's.

Such a position should logically disqualify their position to begin with, but of course, it doesn't.

Take Van Jones. He is now making the ludicrous claim that he was "smeared". Since when is it a "smear" to quote a person's own words? Nothing that was said about Jones was false; nor did it come anywhere near the definition of a "smear". Yet, to the postmodern political demagogues who are currently running our country--and I refer to the Democrat, Republican, socialist and communist variants--the meaning of words is elastic and can easily be manipulated or distorted to suit their current purposes or agenda.

As I have written 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 hidden agenda or underlying motivation behind the denial is very frequently related to the potential adverse consequences that could ensue if the denial were eliminated and reality acknowledged. And this is where unnacceptable feelings, needs, and thoughts come in. The denier (or part of him) has made an unconscious decision that awareness of certain feelings, needs, or thoughts is more threatening to his sense of self than the act of denial.

Thus, any person genuinely trying to determine which side of an argument conforms to reality and truth, needs to assess the personal, i.e., the psychological, stakes or conflicts of interest (as those stakes are sometimes referred to) for both sides of the argument.

Of course, both sides in this argument have a conflicts of interest because this is politics and both sides want to win. So, it is entirely possible that both sides are deluding themselves and in denial. The question then become, to what degree?

A rational observer could either wash his hands of both sides; or, accept the reality that one side or the other is going to be in power and go with the side that is at least closest to reality.

Let's review some of the key points about whether a someone is "paranoid" or "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.

Think about those criteria for a while and decide for yourself which side is psychologicaly healthier; more functional, and in touch with reality.

As for my own view and clinical assessment: when it comes to deciding between Democrats or Republicans; the political left or conservatives; I'm going to have choose the only partially deluded Republicans and conservatives all the way. It's the difference in severity between psychosis (where contact with reality is lost or highly distorted) and a neurosis (where inner conflict brings about distress and unhappiness, but not delusions or hallucinations) --both are definitely dysfunctional, but the psychotic is a really, really sick puppy.

At least the neurotic right has not completely abandoned the real world for the bubble of self-delusion. They have not regularly retreated into moral relativism and the nihilism of postmodern rhetoric to justify their denial and delusion. They have not embraced national defeat and humiliation as a path to power and control over others. They do not constantly whine, scream, and behave like immature children when they don't get their way (at least not a a matter of course). They do not say one thing and then do another, at least not with the frequency and enthusiasm of the Democrats and the left.

The list of issues that the Democrats and the left are desperately trying to avoid are legion; but among the most serious are: (1) an imminently nuclear Iran (as they badmouth America and apologize to pretty much every despot and petty tyrant in today's world) and the deterioration of the stuation in Afghanistan under their watch; and (2) the imminent fiscal catastrophe they are foisting on America today and the forseeable future, with their wild spending and intemperate haste to remake America into a leftist hell-hole utopia.

For more than 8 years , America has had to listen to the the left's constant carping abou the inadequacies of America; the evils of American power and the evils of capitalism etc. etc. etc.; we have had to withstand their contempt for America's fundamental values; and our military have had to bear the brunt of their incoherent rage and careless enabling of the enemy we fight (talk about "not caring" about people--does Code Pink or the other zombies of the left take any responsibility for enabling and encouraging terrorists to kill Americans whenever they can?).

Now that the left are ascendant and have complete power and control over the White House and both Houses of Congress, the incessant carping has only accelerated and reached a fever pitch! They can't even function effectively when power is handed to them on a silver platter because reality is not part of their world view.

We have listened to the endless repetition of the left's mantras and slogans--and their myths; the unrivaled self-righteousness of their superior intellects; and seen firsthand the intensity of the hatred that motivates them. We are now beginning to see the consequences of their self-delusion in the real world.

Through it all, there have been very very few on the left side of the political spectrum who have been able to summon up an iota of insight; or a moment of self-reflection about the potentially devastating consequences of their own rhetoric or behavior--nationally or internationally.

Don't dare question their patriotism, they screamed when they were not in power. But if you looked at their behavior and the consequences of that behavior, that was exactly what you had to question. Of course, now that they are in power, questioning them is completely out of bounds.

Look at the people that Obama is surrounding himself with; his czars and the ceaseless promotion of his cult of personality--even to children.

One of the most important psychological challenges for every human is dealing with reality and the real world--particularly when the consequences of confronting truth are personally unpleasant and painful. That is exactly what psychological denial seeks to avoid.

Today we are witness to the left's vivid (and psychotic) imagination, feverishly working overtime to reverse all those unwelcome facts and painful truths so they can remain in an endless childhood.

ALL HE IS NOT SAYING IS....

Andy McCarthy makes two excellent points about Obama and the Constitution:

After only 120 days, the Obama style is all too apparent: the more earnestness he exhibits in his rhetoric ("We are a nation at war," he's no socialist, the last thing he wants to be doing is taking over banks and running auto companies, etc.) the less likely it is that his actions will comport with that rhetoric.

As yesterday's editorial notes, in the speech, the president accused President Bush of adopting an "ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable — a framework that failed to trust in our institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.” Let's put aside that the first part of that assertion, as the editorial demonstrates, is absurd: the Bush policies were far from ad hoc, they have been spectacularly successful, and Obama himself (for all his disclaimers) is sustaining them. I want to focus on the second part.

When businesses fail, we have a framework, an institution, and a set of values that are triggered: The framework is called bankruptcy, the institution is the United States Bankruptcy Court, and the applicable values are found in the corpus known as federal bankruptcy law, which prescribe bedrock principles like: secured creditors take priority over unsecured creditors. Rather than trusting in those things and using settled law as a compass, Obama has adopted an ad hoc approach which has proved grossly ineffective and — given the moral hazard it infuses in the entire financial system — unsustainable.

Why isn't the GM debacle a violation of the "rule of law" that Pres. Obama and Attorney General Holder are so fond of lecturing us about?

Over and over again I hear how "wonderful" Obama's rhetoric is; how much everyone responds to it and how it makes them hopeful about the future etc. etc. etc.

Frankly, I can barely stand to listen to the man. I have to read transcripts of most of his speeches because my reaction to his style is so negative. I don't like the sensation of being manipulated; nor do I like being lectured to by someone who instinctively believes they are far more virtuous than I am-- and intends to show me the error of my ways.

Understand that I listen to people for a living. I hear various degrees of honesty, sincerity, and real emotional pain being expressed on a regular basis. I also hear some of the most self-serving, dishonest and completely irresponsible utterings that it is possible to imagine. Yet, in my professional career, I have to freely admit that I have heard nothing like the deceitful and self-aggrandizing utterings of Barack Obama, which seem to get more and more pathological with every speech he gives. His most recent scam, in the National Archives in front of a fake copy of the U.S. Constitution just about takes the cake. This is not irony, so much as it is the grandiosity of tyranny.

Bill Clinton--who I actually liked for the most part; even his amusing narcissism, which seems so childishly innocent in retrospect--was completely harmless compared to the sociopathic statist that is our current POTUS.

Mark Levine in his excellent book Libery and Tyranny summarizes it best:

The Statist in America is no less resolute than his European counterpart but, by necesity, he is more cunning--where the European lurches and leaps, the American's steps are measured but steady. In America, the Statist understands that his counterrevoultion must at least appear gradual and not revlutionary--sometimes even clothed in the flag and patriotism--lest his intentions become too obvious and thus alarming to his skeptics.

For the Statist, the international community and international organizations serve as useful sources for importing disaffection with the civil society. The Statist urges Americans to view themselves through the lenses of the those who resent and even hate them. He needs Americans to become less confident, to doubt their institutions, and to accept the status assigned to them by outsiders--as isolationists, invaders, occupiers, oppressors, and exploiters. The Statist wants Americans to see themselves as backward, foolishly holding to their quaint notions of individual liberty, private property, family, and faity, long diminished or jettisoned in other countries. They need to listen to the voices of condemnation from world capitals and self-appointed global watchdogs hostile to America's superior standard of living. America is said to be out of step and regressive, justifying the surrendering of its sovereignty though treaties and other arrangements that benefit the greater "humanity." And it would not hurt if America admitted its past transgressions, made reparations, and accepted its fate as just another aging nation--one among many.

Next time you listen to the Obamessiah's speeches, listen to what he doesn't say. Listen to the vagueness, the vacuity. Listen to the lack of specifics and the blatant emotional manipulation. Listen to the cognitive dissonance between what he is saying in his seductive, sedating style; and what he is doing with his deliberate, statist national policies and his foreign policy that not only demeans America by apologizing for her very existence; but severly handicaps her ability to act in the future. Watch how he badmouths the previous Administration, then surrepticiously implements the same policies that kept us safe over the last 8 years. The only problem with this last is that by simultaneously denouncing the security policies he is embracing, he is making schizophrenics of all the honorable people who are working hard to keep this country safe.

How long can this schizophrenogenic behavior go on before it essentially cripples those same patriots--because their service and their patriotism can be rendered criminal on the slightest whim of this unprincipled coxcomb?

How long can you pretend to stand for peace, when you enthusiastically embrace lying, murdering, genocidal terrorists?



Of course, the Democratic Party has given Obama great role-models in this regard:

THE CONSEQUENCES OF DENIAL; OR, THE PERILS OF SELF-DELUSION

In a recent article at American Thinker titled, "The Price of Denial is Death", Jed Gladstein writes:

In a recent article in Foreign Policy, Washington Post journalist David Ignatius bewailed his inability to function effectively as a "moderator" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Islamic officials once again took the opportunity to blame Israel and America for the Arab's failure to create peaceful and prosperous societies.

Ignatius describes himself as "... someone who has spent much of his career trying to operate in the middle of the Middle East conflict and working hard to avoid any appearance of bias..." [Emphasis added.] Without overtly acknowledging it, Ignatius makes it clear that he sympathizes with what he describes as the "rage that is felt across the Muslim world."

Six decades of horrendous violence and murder, a multi-generational effort to destroy the State of Israel, and forty years of worldwide terrorism are insufficient to persuade Ignatius that he has a personal stake in opposing the sociopathic behavior of the Arab Middle East:

"I know a little about talking with our enemies because I have been doing it for many years. Not my enemies, mind you (journalists aren't supposed to have any), but my country's. I talked with the PLO ...Muammar al-Qaddafi. ... Hassan Nasrallah ...(and) Bashar al-Assad ..." [Emphasis added.]

It does no good to dismiss people like Ignatius as "liberals full of blather," as some are wont to do. People like Ignatius must be brought to understand that they are in denial about the truth of what is going on in the world. It is one thing to cherish idealistic beliefs, possess a kindly disposition, and maintain an attitude of humanistic tolerance; it is quite another to project those thoughts and feelings onto people who glorify religious murder and suicide, and then delude yourself into believing that by doing so the impulse to commit such evil acts will disappear.

At the heart of the denial that afflicts people like Ignatius is fear. They are afraid to believe that there are people in the world who embrace evil over good and death over life. Like many people in denial, Ignatius finds it far more comforting to believe that everyone is just like him -- basically well intentioned and occasionally misguided. However, Ignatius is wrong -- just as wrong as wrong can be -- and the whole of human history stands as witness to his error.

Gladstein makes excellent psychological sense, and you should read the whole piece.

The consequences of psychological denial can be seen every day in today's world; and particularly in the minds of the political left and the Democrats. All you have to do is watch these intellectual and moral giants in action for even a brief moment and you likely will come away with the sense that something is terribly wrong with them. They are like posturing peacocks who strut around acting like they are little gods and goddesses, oblivious to the fact that others perceive them as fools and clowns (Pelosi and Reid come to mind). As for the peacock-in-chief, the broader public have not yet caught onto his tenuous relationship with truth and reality because they are besotted with his rhetoric and they want to believe in his godliness so very much in these troubled times.

Just yesterday, I had a brief discussion with a co-worker about the rising deficit and how Obama has taken it to stratospheric heights, unheard of in history. Their response? "Well, it wasn't his fault; he inherited it" quickly followed by, "But I know my President will fix it and everything will come out all right!" This was said with no hint of sarcasm, just simple adoration. This was a man who, in many ways, I tend to respect.

But that is one of the many incredibly wonderful aspects of psychological denial: it cuts off one's connection to reality, as well as from one's own congnitive and rational process.

In the recesses of their own minds, many who deny reality are able to convince themselves that they are actually "reality-based". One might justifiably ask them why they have an almost obsessive need to aggressively tout their connection to reality, like some sort of celebrity name-dropper expecting to increase his stature in the eyes of the world: "Oh, by the way, did you know that I'm reality-based?" It gives you your first clue that they are trying to compensate because they understand on some level that reality is actually in the rearview mirror of their "progressive" minds .

Sadly for them, just because one repeatedly claims a close connection to the Big R, does not prove anything one way or the other; nor does it absolve the boaster of providing the requisite evidence to back up their claim. Feelings won't do, I'm afraid; though it is often to those arguments of emotion that the denier will ultimately resort when impeded in his quest to avoid reality.

As a psychiatrist, I would be the last person to suggest that even a primitive and immature psychological defense mechanism like denial didn't have some positive results for the individuals who use it. Obviously, if it resulted in the outright death or extinction of the person using it, denial would probably not last long as a viable strategy in the real world; nor would it be particularly helpful for the species as a whole.

The truth is that frequently denial works--at least for a short while--and that is why it is so often resorted to in extremis.

Some positive consequences of psychological denial include:

• In the short-term, psychological denial can help a person maintain their sanity--which would be threatened by awareness of a painful truth or reality
• In the short-term, denial can help a person function day to day
• In the short-term, denial can prevent a person from having to acknowledge painful thoughts, feelings or behavior and help them maintain a world view threatened by an unacceptable reality or truth

The operative word in all of the above is "in the short-term." In the short-term, even the unhealthiest of defenses--such as denial, projection, paranoia-- may be creative, healthy, comforting, and coping. And, while their use may strike observers as downright peculiar at times, in the short-term, they may be transiently adaptive.

In fact, psychological denial is a way to integrate one's experience by providing a variety of filters for pain and mechanisms for self-deception. It creatively rearranges the sources of conflict the individual faces so that the conflict becomes manageable.

To some extent, all psychological defenses ultimately function to deny reality. Psychological displacement--the mechanism that underlies Bush Derangement Syndrome as one example--as a way of avoiding dealing with a really threatening and/or painful truth by focusing on a less threatening object. In fact, displacement is sort of a "higher functioning" type of projection. Scapegoating--which includes anti-semitism and various forms of racism and genocide--is a convenient way to displace one's anger (because you are afraid of retaliation from the real object of your anger) onto someone who doesn't frighten you. It was much easier to blame Bush--or America or the Jews--than it was to confront the amoral, death-loving, murdering Islamists who are willing to destroy all of civilization to achieve their ends. As Han Solo says, "Let the Wookie win", because they tend to pull your arms out of its socket when they lose.

Hence Gladstein is correct when he says that this sort of denial is done out of fear. For psychological displacement to work, a person has to project his or her own ideals into someone who clearly does not possess them; rendering them less threatening and "just like us!" (and therefore not to be feared.

One could argue that President Bush did a similar thing by suggesting that people of the world, particularly the Middle East, all want political freedom--but Bush's argument, I suggest, makes a hell of a lot more sense than the one that proposes that all the people of the world (including evey terrorist, dictator, murderer and thug of any variety) are really nice guys underneath; and are simply misunderstood and in need a little kindness and love. Bush's argument has concrete evidence to support it--that in almost all cases when individuals are given the choice, they choose freedom for themselves. OTOH, Gladstein correctly points out that the "Kumbayah Hypothesis" (as I refer to it) has all of human history against it.

Let's consider some of the negative consequences of psychological denial:

• In the longer-term, denial requires a continued compromises with reality to maintain the pretense that "Everything is fine!" or "If only X would happen, everything would be fine!" Eventually, delusional thinking, along with paranoia and its inevitable conspiracy theories begin to take the place of rational thought in those who deny reality for long periods of time. (see all the 9/11 conspiracy theorists for examples in our own country. See here and here for some examples in the Muslim world, which is rife with conspiracies and which could not exist as a cohesive society without them).

• The denier must then place the blame for the unacceptable reality on someone else and that leads to increased conflict between those who are in denial and those who aren't. Efforts to maintain their denial consumes them and will lead them to escalate their anger and rage as their denial becomes untenable and ever more obvious.

• The denier will begin distort language and logic to rationalize and justify their behavior(examples of this are too numerous to mention, but I have discussed it here , here and here) . Eventually, cognitive strategies and rational argument will be abandoned altogether by the denier, because those strategies are not sustainable and are unable to convince others; at which point the person in denial will simply refer to his feelings or emotions as the sole justification.

• The denier will feel justified in acting out against those who threaten the peacefulness of their fantasy (check out the "peacefulness" and "reasonable" slogans chanted at most antiwar rallies these days). Check out, for example, the attacks and attempts to silence authors like Mark Steyn because his book , America Alone, discusses the genocidal demographic trajectory of Europe as they refuse to acknowledge or deal with the reality of Islamic immigration.

[NOTE: Considering the fact that Europe has taken this track before in recent memory, Steyn is more of a Delphic oracle, rather than the genocidal maniac he is being portrayed as by those who would also deny reality. Nevertheless, his former Canadian Inquisitors--which were laughingly known as a "Human Rights Commission" were ready and willing to find him guilty--without benefit of trial --until public opinion intervened and stopped the madness. But here is something that was said at the time:

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

So in effect the Ontario "Human Rights" Commission, the world in labiaplasty jurisprudence, have decided that, even though they don't have the guts to hear the case, they might as well find us guilty. Ingenious! After all, if the federal Human Rights Commission hadn't been so foolish enough to drag Marc Lemire to trial, their bizarre habits of posting their own hate messages using telecommunications fraud and identity theft would never have come to light. If they'd simply skipped the trial and declared Mr Lemire guilty anyway, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in.

So, having concluded they couldn't withstand the heat of a trial, the OHRC cut to the chase and gave us a drive-thru conviction. Who says Canada's "human rights" racket is incapable of reform? As kangaroo courts go, the Ontario branch is showing a bit more bounce than the Ottawa lads.

For more on the etiology of this kind of PC, multicultural thinking from Canada and Europe, I recommend this excellent article which analyzes the origins of this sort of behavior in places like Europe: "Fear Masquerading as Intolerance").

• Problem solving and decision-making will deteriorate as the entire focus of energy becomes the maintenance of the denial. In place of rational alternatives, excessive emotionality in general; and specifically anger and rage escalate toward those who are "blamed" for the reality that does not conform to the denier's worldview. (consider the lack of any specific ideas in the Democratic party's agenda; or it's reflex negativity toward any substantive position or any compromise offered to them.

• In the end, interactions with those in denial are characterized by the denier's frequent smugness; sense of superiority; arrogance; belittlement of alternative views; and undiluted hatred toward anyone or any idea that questions their worldview.

• Finally, in the long-term, denial will always bring great harm to the individual using it and all who happen to be in his sphere of influence. It may lead to his death or many deaths when practiced by groups or larger societies. It will certainly leads to all sorts of dysfunction and destructiveness; even if--for a brief time--the denial gave the individual or group a sense of calm or control over their world because it blocked out the forces that threatened to upend that world.
The Democratic party's early consensus on the Iraq war varied from day to day. Initially they were "for it before they were against it (look at the record); Then it was ("Victory is not an option") and Harry Reid's famous "The Iraq war is lost"; next: the Surge can't possibly work; then, the Surge isn't working. When it became clear the Surge was working, their response was, so what? Now, of course, if confronted they will reluctantly admit that the Surge actually worked, but they are so set on "undoing" all that Bush accomplished in the War on Terror, that it is likely they will ultimately snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Never have so many been willing to deny so much reality!

Any success that was accomplished under a Republican is an unacceptable reality for them, thus they must distort it; and even make that success a crime, in order to maintain their own fragile sense of self.

Every person in denial has a hidden psychological agenda--which, in these examples, is nothing less than the continued humiliation of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the Republicans, and America so that they can continue to shore up their own self-esteem.

Note that even after they have won the White House, their dysfunction continues.

They pride themselves on "speaking Truth to Power", but at the White House correspondents' dinner the other night, who were they denigrating with their humor? President Obama? The Democrats in power? No, they were still harping on the past Administration which has become the convenient scapegoat for their own irresponsibility, incompetence, and aversion to reality.

Their rhetoric is always designed to obfuscate and deny objective reality --which interestingly is a concept they don't even believe in to begin with (or, they believe in it until it become threatening then they seek refuge behind postmodern political rhetoric). The motivation for their continual Bush/Republican bashing is simple: they have no real ideas of their own (except the same one my teen daughter and her friends have: spend lots and lots of money without concern about where it comes from or who pays the bills. I can understand the teens--they are children still and irresponsibility is their default. They will grow out of it with patience. But the Obama Adminsitration is supposedly composed of adults who should know better). Unfortunately, they are as irresponsible as it is possible to be as adults.

As the real world presses in on them, their voices of the left will become ever more shrill and hysterical; their rage at the past will escalate (because dysfunction always escalates). They will look for--and find--new, improved scapegoats. The previous Administration is just the beginning. They will have to scapegoat big business, small business, Wall Street, and capitalism itself, to maintain their economic delusions; and they will have to scapegoat Israel and the Jews along with the previous administration, to be able to continue to maintain their delusion that Islamic terrorists are simply misunderstood citizens of the world, who given the chance to idolize Barack Obama will enthusiastically embrace this Messiah who transcends faith and focuses his largesse upon them.

It's been a while since most of the minions of the left bothered to argue their points logically; nor do they want to debate at all. They simply loudly denounce any idea or person who threatens their ideology or their god in the White House; or deliberately and with the ruthless finesse of all tyrants and thugs, simply attempt to silence all dissenting opinions.

9/11 did not wake them up; rather it forced them to openly move toward what they have supported surreptitiously all along--the elimination of free speech in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism; a dictatorship where the pseudo-intellectual, politically correct priesthood rule; and complete control over the lives of others (for their own good, of course!). Why should they waste a crisis, when they can use it to implement their ideology with the least muss and fuss?

Since their long-range objectives happen to parallel those of the Islamic terrorists, they care not that their behavior enables and encourages the terrorist's agenda. They blithely denounce America and the principles of freedom and democracy out of one side of their mouth, while remaining convinced that their actions are patriotic and are representative of "true" American values.

Once they considered it patriotic to dissent (when Bush was in the White House); now, of course, any dissent must be labeled at once for the racism and sexism and hate that it represents.

Their outrage at Republicans or Israel conveniently obscures the reality that we are at war with an implacable enemy that wants to kill us all.

That's what denial is all about. It allows--nay, it encourages-- the most blatant contradictions in thinking; and the individual does not ever have to account for those contradictions or take responsibility for them because they don't even perceive them! Facts,shmacts.

The left pretends their behavior is motivated from" love" or "peace" or "patriotism"; but these are only words they use to rationalize their actions to themselves, which often exemplify exactly the opposite. Their self-deception and denial is simply stunning in its sweeping grandiosity and self-righteousness betrayal of the good.

When psychological denial distorts or obscures reality, people are far more likely to make the wrong choices and ignore the serious problems; they are more likely to avoid the difficult decisions then blame others when things don't come out perfectly.

Even in politics--perhaps especially in politics, reality and truth matter.

As Gladstein notes, "Six decades of horrendous violence and murder, a multi-generational effort to destroy the State of Israel, and forty years of worldwide terrorism are insufficient to persuade Ignatius that he has a personal stake in opposing the sociopathic behavior of the Arab Middle East...."

Unfortunately, Ignatius is only one of many on the political left who have taken refuge in denial. And the consequences of their denial are going to be devastating....

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“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.” 1984 (The definition of " Doublethink")