Vote Your Melanin

I don’t have to get out of the boat to know that she has conveniently overlooked the fact that the vast majority of votes that scary brown people have ever cast in the US have been for brothers of the paler persuasion.

I need a phrase that says “racist moron” but in a more powerful manner…hmmm…Republican.

“Another commenter suggested a FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) Barbie”

That would be a cutting comment were it not for the fact that Barbie lacks genitals in the first place. And the reason she lacks genitals in the first place? Out of sensitivity for the squeamishness of these conservative wankers.

The first comment on the second one is someone talking about how Barbara Boxer told a black guy that the NAACP disagreed with his view that cap-and-trade would hurt black small businesses, which is somehow far more racist than anything any conservative has ever said. I wouldn’t even know that if I had trusted the damn Shorter(s). (and also TM also)

Alkon doesn’t really worry me, but her chum Eugene Volokh does. That shitbird, who, like Alkon, likes to denominate his Republican views as “libertarian,” could wind up on the federal bench.

“Another commenter suggested a FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) Barbie”

Ahem.

Kid –

Getting out of the boat is a toss-up. Sometimes you get the mango, sometimes you get the tiger. I don’t feeling like tiger wrestling right now.

From the interview:

I like to recreate the constraints of the hunter-gatherer-sized village by using the Internet to shrink the world and shame people. I call it blogslapping

Drive like a jerk and the 10 to 30 members of my band won’t share their virtual witchetty grubs with you!

I was a loser as a child and had no friends.

You don’t say.

I don’t think being unsettled at the notion of a child’s doll with a fully sculpted vagina is strictly limited to Conservatives.

The fact is, vaginas are gross, libs.

Who needs a special edition FGM Barbie when all the ones on the market now have been infibulated?

A woman in a cafe – a beautiful, relaxing cafe at 8 a.m., classical music playing – was shouting about her medical plan, picking up her glasses at 4 p.m., giving her phone number.

I posted that and she apparently got calls from around the world. I heard that from a reporter who called her. I assume she has learned her lesson.

Because the world needed a Malkin wannabe.

Did she really post the woman’s number? What a vile, carping magpie.

The fact is, vaginas are gross, libs.

Damn straight.

It is impossible to sculpt a vagina in any medium other than bacon and Play-Doh™.

Seriously, that line in the interview about how she was a loser and had no friends as a child made my eyes light up with glee. Plus ca change …

But at least she’s come to terms with the fact that everyone hates her. That bit with the phone number, though, is just asking for someone to do the same to her. Someone please let us know when that happens.

(I do have to give her reluctant props for her telemarketer strategy, though, assuming of course that it isn’t so much hot air, which it probably is, but anyway.)

That shitbird, who, like Alkon, likes to denominate his Republican views as “libertarian,”

I honestly believe the assault on the word “libertarian” was only the first step Republicans took on their war on meaning. Well, aside from the basic Orwell inversions. But as soon as they realized they could open up an entire flanking position by calling themselves libertarians while voicing not just Republican, but extreme far-right radicalist ideas, we got fucked.

Which is to say, that seems to basically be the purpose of declaring yourself libertarian in this country. To conceal what a fucked-up Republican you really are.

that seems to basically be the purpose of declaring yourself libertarian in this country. To conceal what a fucked-up Republican you really are.

I thought it was to have animalistic sex with hot young Paultards.

That’s a secondary purpose. I guess. Personally, I never found people clearly short a dozen cards in a deck that attractive.

You have crazed weasel sex with the Paultards you have, not the Paultards you wish you had.

Attraction has nothing to do with it.

As somebody said, a Libertarian is a Republican who wants to get laid.

I was a loser as a child and had no friends. Now I’m 45 and I’m not troubled being an outcast.

Exactly what I look for in an advice columnist.

As somebody said, a Libertarian is a Republican who wants to get laid.

And smoke “reefer”.

Whatever that is.
~

As somebody said, a Libertarian is a Republican who wants to get laid.

By means of joining a third party that may, in 50 years’ time, have built its infrastructure to the point where they can swing enough legislative votes to get prostitution legalized.

In the end, once the Republicans/Conservatives have wrecked the economy, wrecked the government, and let the infrastructure crumble, all that is left of their grand political theories is their own personal pettiness, an endlessly renewable resource.

“One company that wouldn’t pay I sued in small claims court. I beat them. I got $50.”

The filing fee was more. She lost money. They gave her $50 to shut her up. A bargain.

You almost want to pity someone this badly fucked up.

A sane society would be medicating this poor creature and giving her some kind of job training to fit in with the rest of civilization, not giving her a forum to spew or interviewing her like she’s someone normal people should admire…

You fucking liberal assholes can blow me! I’m successful, you are not. Especially if you are black, like SHUT UP! Get over slavery already, my ancestors were slaves for someone and you don’t hear me whining, I’m SICK OF YOUR CRAP! SHUT UP! Take my advice and SHUT UP!

I just want to say shit moat, shit moat, shit moat. That is all.

“my ancestors were slaves for someone and you don’t hear me whining”

But I do here you whining.

I don’t think being unsettled at the notion of a child’s doll with a fully sculpted vagina is strictly limited to Conservatives.

However, they cause particular concern if you associate them with the words “Show me where the defendant touched you”.

OK, that Alkon comment Poed me. I’m going to go with fake, but with only about 51% certainty.

From the shit moat queen’s website, this is wierd, a dating site for people who don’t like sex. What is the point? http://asexualitic.com/

“OK, that Alkon comment Poed me. I’m going to go with fake, but with only about 51% certainty.”

I have 49% certainty.

SHUT UP, LOONY LIBS!! SHUT UP!! THIS IS THE CRANKY COACH, HERE TO SERVE A SPREAD OF SHUT UP!!! THE OBUMMER? HE CAN SHUT UP TOO!!! SHUT UP!!!!!

Urban out.

gocart mozart: Well, asexuals date and fall in love and want romantic partners just like anyone else. It’s extremely difficult in a society comprised mostly of people who expect sex out of their relationships (although quite a few asexuals will still have sex and even possibly enjoy it, but not have any drive to have sex).

So an asexual dating site allows people to find other people looking for the same things they are — romance, companionship, etc. — without the extremely awkward aspect of telling sexual prospective partners that you aren’t interested in sex. That’s the point.

“my ancestors were slaves for someone and you don’t hear me whining”

I think she is referencing the Jews in ancient Egypt. Well, my ancestors lived in a cave and had to fight off saber tooth tigers. Top that.

O.K. Djur, fair enough. My thoughts went to “You want bitching and nagging without sex!” I love my wife, also.

My ancestors were those very saber tooth tigers your ancestors drove to extinction. Bastard.

Hi Coach Urban Alkon. Shouldn’t you be watching football? I call fake coach.

If tigrismus evolved from Smilodons then how come there are still —
— No, wait.

That was fake Amy Alkon at 20:25. The IP address is the same as one for one of the not-very-amusing fake Gary Rupperts.

“My ancestors were those very saber tooth tigers your ancestors drove to extinction. Bastard.”

I can trace my ancestry back to a couple of madly in love bacteria three billion years ago. Top that asshole.

Tintin says, “That was fake Amy Alkon at 20:25”

It IS hard to tell.

Did she really post the woman’s number? What a vile, carping magpie.

There’s more. She got another woman’s cell number and called up to harass her personally. She also admits to yelling at other people’s kids.

I learned two things from that interview – that Alkon is a terrible human being whose passing will be mourned by none, and that Alkon is fully aware of this and doesn’t care. Really, she’s the purest kind of misanthrope – she hates that people have the audacity to exist in her presence.

Bacteria three billion years ago DID NOT HAVE THE OPTION of dating without endocytosis.

Well, at least Alkon hasn’t played the Aspie card. Yet.

Ugh, Alkoholic has Asperger’s? Can I not anymore?

Endocytosis is the process by which cells absorb molecules (such as proteins) from outside the cell by engulfing it with their cell membrane. It is used by all cells of the body because most substances important to them are large polar molecules that cannot pass through the hydrophobic plasma membrane or cell membrane. The process opposite to endocytosis is exocytosis

OOOH Baby! This gets me hot. Excuse me for a few minutes.

I can trace my ancestry back to a couple of madly in love bacteria three billion years ago. Top that asshole.

Cold, naked fragments of RNA in a radiation bathed scum pond.

Really, she’s the purest kind of misanthrope – she hates that people have the audacity to exist in her presence.

And yet is apparently paid to write an advice column.

“Cold, naked fragments of RNA in a radiation bathed scum pond.”

Don’t talk dirty to me tigrismus.

I like to recreate the constraints of the hunter-gatherer-sized village by using the Internet to shrink the world and shame people. I call it blogslapping

Speaking like a true evo psych humbug. 10 000+ years of civilization means nothing to these people.

If there is anyone who lacks shame it’s ms Alkon. She used to be an “advice lady” and now all of a sudden she’s a godess?

PEPTIDE BOND FORMATION.

Hell, no, I’m not getting out of the boat. If you think I’m going to wade into that shitmoat without a full hazmat suit, you’re bonkers.

The partial double bond renders the amide group planar, occurring in either the cis or trans isomers. In the unfolded state of proteins, the peptide groups are free to isomerize and adopt both isomers; however, in the folded state, only a single isomer is adopted at each position (with rare exceptions). The trans form is preferred overwhelmingly in most peptide bonds (roughly 1000:1 ratio in trans:cis populations). However, X-Pro peptide groups tend to have a roughly 3:1 ratio, presumably because the symmetry between the C? and C? atoms of proline makes the cis and trans isomers nearly equal in energy (See figure, below).

Tigrismus, I said stop with the sex talk. This is your last warning. You don’t want me to get Brent Bozell on your ass do you?

NOIBODY WANTS BRENT BOZELL ON THEIR ASS, also.

Pep tied bonds? I was going to ask who Pep is, but upon reflection I don’t really need to know.

what’s a noibody?

Ugh, Alkoholic has Asperger’s? Can I not anymore?

No, I wasn’t saying she did– I was saying at least she hasn’t claimed to yet; reading sites like fandom_wank suggests that there’s a lot of people who love to claim that this or that mental disorder is why they’re insufferable twats online (and that they are unwilling or tragically unable to get the necessary meds/ECT/lobotomy).

I can trace my ancestry back to a couple of madly in love bacteria three billion years ago. Top that asshole.

What will you say when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule?

I would imagine that Djur’s family pride is something inconceivable

Ribosomal TF is triggering me.

What will you say when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule?

“Hey, baby, you beautiful…”

4p+2e- ->He+3 photons+2 neutrinos

@Brandi

Or, even better, that their Asperger’s/whatever is both the unavoidable reason that they’re insufferable pricks but NOT a disease or disorder but rather the next stage in human evolution, and suggesting otherwise is tantamount to homophobia, you dirty neurotypical bigot.

To clarify: I don’t think Asperger’s ineluctably leads to asshole behavior. I just think it’s one of many conditions and/or belief systems that people use to justify asshole behavior. Anarchism is an example of a philosophy I respect and also recognize to be one which people use to justify terminal assholism.

Ribosomal TF is triggering me.

You need a chaperone.

Addendum: Bipolar disorder is another diagnosis commonly used to excuse jackassery. I say this as someone with said diagnosis.

“I like to recreate the constraints of the hunter-gatherer-sized village by using the Internet to shrink the world and shame people. I call it blogslapping”

I sort of agree with her in principle. One of the ways that societies keep people in line is through social approval and disapproval. But there is a way to go about it and ways not to. Amy Alkon, wrang-wrang that she is, skillfully demonstrates the wrong way.

Just walking up to someone and asking “Could you please keep it down?” has never occurred to Amy in her entire life.

There, in the grey beginning of Earth, the formless mass that was Ubbo-Sathla reposed amid the slime and the vapors. Headless, without organs or members, it sloughed from its oozy sides, in a slow, ceaseless wave, the amoebic forms that were the archetypes of earthly life. Horrible it was, if there had been aught to apprehend the horror; and loathsome, if there had been any to feel loathing.

Anarchism is an example of a philosophy I respect and also recognize to be one which people use to justify terminal assholism.

I’d say I agree, but I don’t think I’ve ever met an anarchist or extreme libertarian who wasn’t an asshole. It usually seems to be from the same school of “I’m special, I’m better than you, I don’t need your rules.”

NOIBODY WANTS BRENT BOZELL ON THEIR ASS, also.

Sprouting there like a carbuncle or a pilonidal cyst……

Just walking up to someone and asking “Could you please keep it down?” has never occurred to Amy in her entire life.

Yep. ELIZA would give more empathetic and well thought-out advice. I still can’t get over that she posts someone’s phone number and yet thinks the other is one who should be ashamed. Talk about straining a gnat but swallowing a camel.

The Dash Board: With the evil poo threatening to make a return, Dashiell surrenders to the forces of sleep.

Headless, without organs or members…

Not-so-veiled PENIS reference?

“Anarchism is an example of a philosophy I respect and also recognize to be one which people use to justify terminal assholism.”

Stop cutting in on my turff!

The Dash Board

AWWWW! How’s it been returning to work?

Dashiell surrenders to the forces of sleep.

Invisible flute.

I just think it’s one of many conditions and/or belief systems that people use to justify asshole behavior.

Explanation != excuse

OT but a crazy man sais something.

BECK: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years and I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about 100 years ago, beginning in the progressive movement. And they thought, “you know what, if we just do this and this and this and this, over time if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia.” Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100-year plan for America. A 100-year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.

BTW, I love that hat Dash is wearing in “wooly Dash”.

sais=said

AWWWW! How’s it been returning to work?

A little on the rough side. He’s still trying to come to terms with the fact that Gav can’t nurse him, and he was also pretty sick for my first week back, so he and Gavin are both exhausted. I think (hope) it’s getting better. Except for the nursing thing, those two get along famously. I miss him tons while I’m at work, though. And the attendant issues with being away from him all day are hard to adjust to.

So, very glad it’s a short week coming up, and that Grandma and Auntie are coming to visit for Thanksgiving. Maybe we can get a little more rest for a few days.

BTW, I love that hat Dash is wearing in “wooly Dash”.

One of my friends from high school made that. I love it.

I’ve also been promised a squid hat from one of my other knitting friends. I’ll have pics up shortly after that arrives.

“We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.”

And then surround it with a shit moat.

100-year plan? Those goons can’t even design an effective 100-hour plan.

Becksy, trust me, if the founders saw you, they’d tried to get you arrested for treason, and maybe demonic possession.

That sounds really tough. It’s nice one of you can stay with him, though, but I’m sure as nice as that is it doesn’t much help the one who can’t. Is this the first Grandma and Auntie will have seen of D.? You’re sure to have a great time, esp. if certain issues don’t make a reappearance; fingers crossed!

A squid hat? Awesome! I welcome our Chthulu-Dash overlords.

To clarify: I don’t think Asperger’s ineluctably leads to asshole behavior. I just think it’s one of many conditions and/or belief systems that people use to justify asshole behavior.

And since I didn’t make it sparkling clear in my two short posts, this is also my stance.

Explanation != excuse

Funny, I was thinking about that on my way to pick up lunch. As someone whose father interpreted almost every attempt at explanation for behavior as an excuse, I’m sensitive to that distinction.

But there’s a difference in behavior there. I hate to keep using Asperger’s as an example, but it started the conversation. I’ve known different people with an ASD to take two different approaches to dealing with the social ramifications of the disorder. One is to explain one’s difficulty with interpreting social cues and ask for understanding and support. The other is to claim that those social cues are irrelevant, and anyone who is hurt or upset by one’s behavior is just weak or intolerant.

To give another example which doesn’t involve any biological conditions at all, men are often conditioned to ignore messes and women to notice them and clean them up. It’s a fairly common attitude among men that these chores are just too trivial for someone living a pure life of the mind (e.g. playing Modern Warfare 2 in your boxers). People tend to interpret their own expectations and sensitivities as significant and those of others as trivial.

The basic expectation of our society is that people treat other people with respect and kindness. Nobody succeeds in this all the time, but the proper response to failure to do so for any reason is to make amends and keep trying. There are some people who can’t do this due to serious mental impairment or disorder, but that’s in the range of diminished cognition or untreated psychosis. The only other people who are seemingly incapable of accepting this basic condition of human society are called psychopaths. Nobody else has an excuse.

OK, sorry about that, guys. I’ll shut up now so you can get on with the funny.

I’m wondering if Beck’s planning on bringing back slavery, or just forcibly re-locating 90% of the population to farms. And retracting the right of women to vote.

And abolishing the standing army, of course.

He’s still trying to come to terms with the fact that Gav can’t nurse him

Lolz @ shorter Dash: “Hey! WTF? Buddy, I hate to tell you, but you’re sorely lacking in the titty department.”

There are some people who can’t do this due to serious mental impairment or disorder, but that’s in the range of diminished cognition or untreated psychosis. The only other people who are seemingly incapable of accepting this basic condition of human society are called psychopaths.

So, I’m a bit confused. Which of those two camps do you put modern Republicans into?

I can trace my ancestry back to a couple of madly in love bacteria three billion years ago. Top that asshole.

Cold, naked fragments of RNA in a radiation bathed scum pond.

Ahem. I can trace my ancestry back to Adam and Eve, made by the Lord our God at the same time, er, one after the other, after all the animals were made, I mean, right before the animals were made except for Eve who was made right after them, I mean ARRRGGGHHH fucking Genesis 1/Genesis 2 issues! GODDAM IT GOD FIX YOUR INFALLIBLE BOOK I mean PLEASE GOD PLEASE kthx amen bai!

What Djur said. Regardless of the condition (Asperger, anarchist, male, whatever), some folks will explain and try to do what’s needed to make a connection, while other folks simply tell you that they’re better than you so you should shut up, that’s why.

FWIW, I consider myself to be at heart an anarchist, in that I show up in the lower left of the Political Compass, but (a) I’m awake enough to realise that we can’t get there from here without a magic wand, so the best thing to do is work with what we’ve got, and (b) I don’t harangue strangers in the street. Well, not about that anyway.

The basic expectation of our society is that people treat other people with respect and kindness. Nobody succeeds in this all the time, but the proper response to failure to do so for any reason is to make amends and keep trying. There are some people who can’t do this due to serious mental impairment or disorder, but that’s in the range of diminished cognition or untreated psychosis.

Not all psychosis is treatable. Psychopathy, for instance, is an untreatable form of psychosis. Some people can’t fit in even though they’re not consciously trying to be assholes.

Society hasn’t come up with a way to deal with these people. Letting them run around unsupervised voting for batshit insane Republicans isn’t an acceptable option any longer.

And LDMMM, I’ma gonna have to charge you with exceeding the cuteness limits. Dat boy’s so damn cute even asleep, and we can’t be havin’ none of that.

Psychopaths might tend to be Republican (it wouldn’t surprise me), but they’re only about 1% of the population. I know you’re joking, but most Republicans are not only capable of respectful behavior and kindness but actually practice it whenever possible. The issue is one of prejudice, not social pathology.

A squid hat? Awesome! I welcome our Chthulu-Dash overlords.

Perhaps something from here for Chthulusmas?

Cold, naked fragments of RNA in a radiation bathed scum pond.

I bet they wonder why we never visit.

Lady Doctor Missus Mommy Marita said,
November 22, 2009 at 22:00
So sweet.

Psychopathy isn’t a form of psychosis. Psychosis isn’t something you have, anyway. It’s a symptom. I don’t know of any studies on the outcome of voting while psychotic, but something tells me that if anyone suffering psychosis votes it’s electorally insignificant and trends in no particular direction.

I really don’t care for the tendency to imply Republicans are insane or mentally ill. “Liberalism is a mental disorder” is a right-wing mantra that we rightly scoff at. I hope we’re better than that. Republicans may be assholes, but most of them are not irretrievable assholes or fundamentally bad or socially ill people.

Before anyone brings up Altemeyer, right-wing authoritarianism isn’t a mental disorder.

OK, OK, done now. Sorry.

I honestly think one does actual mentally ill people far more of a disservice to go comparing them to Republicans. If you’re, for example, a paranoid schizophrenic, you can’t just decide to stop hearing voices. If, on the other hand, you’re some fuckheaded teabagger who thinks Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that all gay men want to fuck your seven-year-old son and that global warming was irrevocably debunked by the best scientists Exxon can buy, it would take you ten goddamn minutes to look up the actual facts if you decided to. To put it more concisely, there was a movement a little while ago to stop using “gay” and “retarded” as pejoratives and replace them with “Republican”, because people are born and gay and retarded but they sure as shit choose to be Republican.

^ yeah, this has troubled me too.

But Alan Kay said 30 years ago that “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points” and that’s the angle I go with now. It’s not that you are stoopid, it’s your ideology making you stoopid.

*”are born gay and retarded”. FYWP. You’re so Republican.

The issue is one of prejudice, not social pathology.

To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Does being kind to your neighbors excuse thinking that a significant portion of your country is subhuman and trying to make that distinction official and universal through law? Not to mention, of course, that furriners are generally only there to act as handy targets? Or that the general public does not deserve even the most rudimentary protections to health, physical, economic or otherwise, that it could enact through democratic governance because any law limiting abuse might be an imposition on somebody’s God given right to fuck them with a rake?

The basic expectation of our society is that people treat other people with respect and kindness.

The prejudice narrows the “our” and “other people” of that sentence down to a rather small subset, which kind of makes the exercise futile. If it only applies to folks “on your side” it doesn’t mean much. At that point, the prejudice looks very much like social pathology to me.

Everybody thinks they’re “good.” Well, almost everybody. The Aspies telling you your societal norms are irrelevant are, in their mind, coming to a proper conclusion based on their observations. It don’t make it so.

Lady Doctor Missus Mommy Marita said,

The Dash Board: With the evil poo threatening to make a return, Dashiell surrenders to the forces of sleep.

Never surrender to the Evil Poo™!

We will fight them on the beaches, and in the laundry, and such as!
~

Before anyone brings up Altemeyer, right-wing authoritarianism isn’t a mental disorder.

Not yet, anyway. But, IMO, anything that leads to a predisposition for people to be abnormally willing to harm others should be treated as a disorder.

Universal screening and treatment for RWA personality traits would make for a considerable improvement in the general welfare by making it much harder for psychopaths to recruit followers.

“Universal screening and treatment for RWA personality traits would make for a considerable improvement in the general welfare by making it much harder for psychopaths to recruit followers.”

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL.” And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

So, if I’ve got Beck’s rambling straight he’s saying that the 20th century was… 100 years of progress gone unthwarted, I take it. I mean, since we’ve obviously gotten Obama in the White House, our plan succeeded, right?

So, in order to get his “America” back, one that the founding fathers would “understand”, he’s going to think like the Chinese (I’m sorry, aren’t those dirty communists?), and work on another 100-year plan?

Does he not imagine we have plans for the next 100 years as well? And that we’re already *there* thinking like the Chinese, them being our folks and all. So while he’s working trying to take us backwards two centuries, we’re thinking of moving forward a century. And we’ve clearly got momentum, what with having just put a black man in office and destroying America as we have.

And well, going where the stream is going is always faster than going against it. So we’re moving forward a century, which will speed up with the current, he’s pushing back against the current and trying to reach two or more centuries backward, fighting and struggling just to make it halfway.

So by the time we’re at a century mark from now, he’ll have just gotten back to *now*, where he started making the plan.

So, in sum, Beck clearly hasn’t thought this 100-year plan past the first day yet.

I honestly think one does actual mentally ill people far more of a disservice to go comparing them to Republicans. If you’re, for example, a paranoid schizophrenic, you can’t just decide to stop hearing voices.

I’m not entirely convinced that the average rank-and-file Republican is any more capable of deciding to accept reality than a schizophrenic is capable of deciding to accept reality. Some Republican beliefs (e.g. birtherism) are so far out their that their adherents should be considered delusional.

This thread has degenerated into an actual exchange of ideas. The audacity.

Good show.

Personally, it seems to me that RWA may not be an actual mental disorder, but it surely is a sign of disordered thinking processes. It has very significant negative effects on society.

this thread: My God, it’s full of win!

The only thing Beck and the rest of the teabaggers have in common with the founding fathers is the color of their skin.

To be completely fair, it is worth noting that 90% of people who won’t shut up about being an aspie, are self diagnosed and have never sought any kind of help with it. There may be no medical treatment as such, but there are certainly many “talking therapies” which can help with minimizing the effects and participating fully in society.

It isn’t just aspergers syndrome. There are plenty of other popular conditions that are self-diagnosed by screaming attention whores on the internet. All of them are more interested in making excuses for being a cunt than getting help with what might be a serious problem.

Sociopaths are more common than you might think. Just about all of them have no idea they are a sociopath, they have just never considered other people to be human. If a sociopath becomes politically aware, they will usually identify as a republican, libertarian, or perhaps anarchist, since those political movements give them the most justification for their behavior.

Everyone has the capacity for sociopathy.. It isn’t so much a mental condition as a state of mind, which can be cultivated. It isn’t even always a bad thing to be able to put empathy aside for a moment. A doctor has to be in touch with their inner sociopath to give a vaccine jab to a crying child. But some people are like that ALL the time. Look at how an army works. They train soldiers to be sufficiently psycho to kill a fellow human being in cold blood. Sometimes, they do too good a job with that.

Right wingers don’t always act like psychos, but they THINK like that. They manage to get it into their head that empathy has no place in society or politics, and viola. They don’t think too deeply about ethics or philosophy. They can project their emotions into their political views as much as they want, but they will never notice this happening, because they think they are above such things.

People who are not very self aware can easily end up believing in ugly, ugly things, simply because they won’t examine themselves, or their belief. The foot soldiers of authoritarian movements are usually like this.

And make no mistake, randist libertarianism is an authoritarian movement. It just replaces government with corporation, and promises every mean minded and greedy little oik that THEY will be the Fuhrer.

Humans have all kinds of tendencies which are dangerous and harmful to society — possessiveness, jealousy, stereotyping, aggressiveness. “Disordered thinking processes” are human thinking processes. We are none of us rational.

The argument for elitist social structure is that the great masses of humanity will always be more savage than the ruling class at its best. The argument for egalitarian social structure is that the great masses of humanity will never be more savage than the ruling class at its worst. And the argument for pluralism is that the same arguments for treating right-wing authoritarianism as a disease can and will be used to argue that liberalism is a mental disorder.

Some Republican beliefs (e.g. birtherism) are so far out their that their adherents should be considered delusional.

And I know far too many self-identified liberals or leftists who believe that, say, taking Oscillo will treat their flu, or that vaccines cause autism, or that crystals have auras and healing powers, or that Jesus was really just a nice hippie and that all this hellfire stuff is a recent invention, or that JFK was obviously killed by the CIA, or that 9/11 was an inside job, or that Wicca is a historically coherent continuation of the pre-Christian religions of Europe. I’m not arguing that any of these are as bad as birtherism (except for antivaxers, who are worse), but I am arguing that irrationality and delusion are here with us to stay and that putting the delusional in treatment or taking their votes away would lead to everybody in hospitals and nobody with suffrage.

I’m not entirely convinced that the average rank-and-file Republican is any more capable of deciding to accept reality

This is anecdotal, but I and many people I’ve spoken to have noticed exactly the opposite. The vaguely conservative but mostly benign become inflamed and crazy by regular exposure to propaganda outlets like Fox News and right-wing talk radio, while it seems the opposite is also true — take away the constant barrage of lies and provocation and wingnuts eventually return to normal.

I’m certainly not advocating rounding people up or anything. I agree with what you’re saying, Djur. I guess I have some kind of misplace nostalgia for the idea that people basically want to get along, act like adults, and reason through problems. What’s so frustrating about the way things work these days is that it’s like that bumper sticker — “My kid beat up your honor student”. The in-the-face ignorance and aggression that just wants to end any kind of discussion with a smash to the mouth. What do you do about that? Is it just a constant that will never go away?

Also, I think that a person who suffers from a confirmation bias or “Morton’s Demon” http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb02.html which is so active it causes them social difficulties, and the inability to acknowledge basic facts, bloody well SHOULD be counted as mentally ill.

The only reason there isn’t a diagnosis for that is because it isn’t politically palatable to say what we all know is true. Some political views, conspiracy theories and religious beliefs are nothing more than mental illness, and need treating for the good of the patient.

Sockpuppet, callousness/lack of empathy is just one of the numerous symptoms of the extreme personality disorder referred to as sociopathy or psychopathy (the definition of the two terms and how or even whether they differ varies greatly between schools of thought and theorists). I think it’s dangerous to spread the term so loosely. Psychopaths are extremely dangerous people — although it’s fairly rare for them to achieve great power due to a tendency for impulsiveness and inferior goal-making — and are generally recognized as unable to adhere to any socially beneficial pattern of behavior.

Far more people lack empathy to a lesser and greater extent, and you’re correct in saying that the ability to suppress empathy is sometimes beneficial. But psychopaths also tend to be manipulative, narcissistic, impulsive, and immune to guilt — and that last is significant. It is possible to be callous and yet feel guilt.

I disagree with the suggestion that everyone is capable of psychopathy (or sociopathy). True psychopaths seem to be born, not made — and to the extent that nurture is involved in the creation of these personalities, the effect seems to sink in far before the psychopath would have the mental capacity to make a decision to take a different path.

“Amy A.” digs her shitmoat deeper.

The fact that Amy Alkon likes something I like (Ristretto Roasters) is upsetting to me. The fact that she is apparently friends with the owners makes me want to die.

Djur: Tribalism can produce an effect which is virtually indistinguishable from sociopathy, when the afflicted person is dealing with people outside the tribal group. Just how a right winger can show empathy towards friends and family, but treat blacks or gays as sub-human. You see this happen wherever warfare and genocide are going on. One group is human, the other is not. A true psychopath is one who reduces the size of their tribe to just themselves.

So yes, I am definitely saying that more or less anyone can be turned into a situational psychopath, given the right conditions. I wouldn’t venture to guess about “true” psychopaths, there are thankfully too few of them to make generalizations.

I think there is also a distinction to be drawn between thinking like a psycho, and acting like one. Sociopathy is easier when you can’t see your victim face to face. People with sociopathic political views never have to look at their victims.

The process of empathy relies a lot on face to face interaction, to evoke the right emotions. Where there is no contact, there is a cognitive link that needs to be made too. It can take a little effort to make that link, and it can be even more complicated with modern media bombarding us with enough bad news to keep us all weeping constantly if we couldn’t detach ourselves a little.

If a person doesn’t elevate empathy to an ethical value, they find it a lot easier to turn the empathy off when it is personally convenient, or when it suits their confirmation bias. Combine a bit of us vs. them tribalist bullshit, and there you go, another right wing talk radio host is born.

My local “alternative” paper that shall not be named — okay, the Weekly Volcano (Tacoma/Olympia) — carries psycho Alkon’s “column.” When I emailed to ask WTF, I was brushed off with “she’s edgy, smart and funny.” Yeah, about as “edgy, smart and funny” as the Weekly Volcano.

An underlying theme of Altemeyer (better articulated by Stenner, IMO) is that the core of authoritarianism is fear. Its continuum: the more afraid someone is, the more likely they are to be intolerant, orthodox, coercive, and punitive. The more scared someone is, the more likely they are to yearn for (and cling to)
a Strong Leader who promises to make the fears go away by acting out the aforementioned intolerance, orthodoxy, coercion, and punishment. Or, better, shorter: bigger the Wingnut the more they’re afraid.

So, while I’d stop short of trying to say that any political ideology is a mental disorder– and would fish-slap anyone who tried– I can’t help but wonder about the correlation between Wingnuts and those with untreated anxiety disorders.

Yeah, about as “edgy, smart and funny” as the Weekly Volcano.

Of diarrhea!
~

I can only hope that this soi-disant “Militant Miss Manners” gets schooled, publicly, by the real Miss Manners.

(By the way:
[Miss Manners, Judith Martin] But people forget the enormous progress that has been made in the last few decades. Not that long ago, people could say the most appalling, bigoted things with impunity. In the last ten or 20 years we’ve watched a lot of careers self-destruct by people who were making the same kind of little jokes and off-hand remarks they always made, but suddenly people realized how rude they were. And that’s tremendous progress.

Lane: Some would label that political correctness.

Martin: The people who label it political correctness are always talking about ridiculous exaggerations where somebody took insult where no insult was intended. And so when they attack political correctness they find themselves in the peculiar position of defending outright bigotry, which I do not care to defend.

Sockpuppet, I think not feeling a great deal of empathy for people you don’t know or have to deal with in any way is the human default. Psychopathy is a term describing one’s interactions with society. Human beings have been in favor of murdering and exploiting other human beings outside their society for their own benefit since the dawn of time.

So I guess we’re in agreement here. I just don’t consider the lack of humanitarianism, which is an extremely recent development, to be that surprising or significant. Even those people who are humanitarians tend to be pretty incomplete ones, and it’s quite difficult to live up to such an ideal. I mean, we all use modern telecommunication devices despite their containing tungsten, the mining of which has become a major humanitarian issue. The only completely pure action from a humanitarian and environmentalist perspective would be to go out, take a heavy rock, and smash your brains out. We all make compromises in the application of our ethics.

I don’t think it corresponds that strongly to right-wing political views, is what I’m saying. I think political views are more directly conditioned — people tend to share the values of their families and immediate social groups. If you don’t think there are a whole lot of ignorant, malicious liberal-identifying people, go check out the comments at Think Progress sometime.

I can’t help but wonder about the correlation between Wingnuts and those with untreated anxiety disorders.

What’s interesting about that is that it’s directly opposed to the idea that wingnuts are psychopathish, to coin a term — psychopathic tendencies are usually correlated with low anxiety.

Of course, a lot of lefties are first-class worrywarts, too. I think it goes both ways.

“Psychopaths are extremely dangerous people — although it’s fairly rare for them to achieve great power due to a tendency for impulsiveness and inferior goal-making — …”

Of course, there are always exceptions. Like Adolf Hitler. Or Josef Stalin. Or–on a significantly lesser level that makes me think our system basically works–Karl Rove.

Hmm–seems like the best way for a psychopath to make it is to attatch themselves to a fanatical political movement dominated by dysfunctional personalities and acquire a good reputation for furthering said movement. The adherants will then paper over the warning signs because they’re own personal delusions generally won’t let them admit that they’ve made a mistake.

Cold, naked fragments of RNA in a radiation bathed scum pond.

You had scum? Luxury!

Djur: The question is how tightly a person manages to define “society”. If a person manages to define some part of their society as being outside society, then they can justify all the sociopathic behavior they want towards that group.

Remember..Maggie Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society”. That theme is very common amongst right wingers and Glibertarians. Think about it. If there is no such thing as society, there can be no such thing as sociopathic behavior. It is all justified! Welsh coal miners can go to hell!

Once you start treating everyone as if they were outside your society, then yeah.. You have a person who is virtually indistinguishable to a psychopath. Yes, I do count that bitch maggie as a psycho.

Does being kind to your neighbors excuse thinking that a significant portion of your country is subhuman and trying to make that distinction official and universal through law? Not to mention, of course, that furriners are generally only there to act as handy targets? Or that the general public does not deserve even the most rudimentary protections to health, physical, economic or otherwise, that it could enact through democratic governance because any law limiting abuse might be an imposition on somebody’s God given right to fuck them with a rake?

No, it doesn’t. The problem as I see it is that some folks see the world through a tribal lens, and some folks see through a global lens. So the RWA see only my tribe, my religion, my colour, and everyone else is sub-human, while I tend to think that the world is full of humans (more or less), and everyone deserves a chance. And some respect and consideration and so forth. Rakes will not be mentioned.

I’d like to believe that such folks can be swayed by logic and reason and facts, but alas, that seems not to be the case. At least by all current experience and one or two sociological studies.

I haven’t seen any evidence that Hitler or Stalin were psychopaths. Certainly, neither of them acted alone, and unless the entire Nazi upper echelon was composed of psychopaths (which is statistically improbable), merely the fact that they committed horrific acts without apparent guilt isn’t sufficient to diagnose them.

The fact that Amy Alkon likes something I like (Ristretto Roasters) is upsetting to me. The fact that she is apparently friends with the owners makes me want to die.

Ugh. They do a great job with the Sumatra mandelhing but this information has me questioning whether I will go there again.

Sociopaths are more common than you might think. Just about all of them have no idea they are a sociopath, they have just never considered other people to be human. If a sociopath becomes politically aware, they will usually identify as a republican, libertarian, or perhaps anarchist, since those political movements give them the most justification for their behavior.

I kind of take issue with this, since to me, anarchism in practice requires a lot of tedious meetings and working things out among people. At least, that’s the way it’s worked in the places where it’s worked (before it’s been crushed by the authoritarians who can’t bear to see people not under a thumb).

The “anarchism == me doing whatever the hell I please” trope is a shallow interpretation that’s popular with 3-year-olds and other unevolved personalities, who never see the inevitable corollaries (ie that other people could do whatever the hell they please, and beat their sorry arse into a grease spot on the ground, for instance) (and that without things like food safety regulations, eating would become a game for thrillseekers).

To be fair, we only have Amy’s word that they’re friends, and she’s a loony shitbird. Loony shitbirds often claim they’re “friends” with people who mostly tolerate them or don’t know them well enough to know they’re loony, and shitbirds, also.

I’m not going to let the idea that the owners may be friends with a dicksack like Alkon keep me from drinking good coffee, really.

True psychopaths seem to be born, not made — and to the extent that nurture is involved in the creation of these personalities, the effect seems to sink in far before the psychopath would have the mental capacity to make a decision to take a different path.

Djur – would you elaborate on the source of that observation? Seriously, I’d like to know what you read about that one. What neurological structures, chemical pathways, etc. might be involved?

Worried that I might not have the inborn talent to succeed.

[A] a lot of lefties are first-class worrywarts, too. I think it goes both ways.

Yeah, but there’s a difference being being a “worrywart” about an observable phenomenon (say, a war or two, GOP operatives listening to & reading everything you say & type, & so on) & delusional FEAR of imminent negro socialist take-over, believing that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to be giving daily press conferences in NYC, or claiming these United Snakes are a Christian Nation, based on Biblical stuff, & therefore sales associates saying “Happy Holidays” is the beginning of the Muslim conquest.

Of course, we don’t know enough about brain chem. or The Mind to put these people into camps yet. No wonder they’re scared by science.

And, On Topic: Amy plays the ADD card.

Amy: “I wanted to write about this in The Los Angeles Times. I was diagnosed with ADD. I don’t accept it as a disorder. I just think differently than most people. From my study of evolutionary psychology, I think I have the perfect evolutionary brain. If I was some woman millions of years ago sitting in a forest, I could get the salad, point out the bison and keep the child from falling off the cliff. My brain is many places at once, which makes it hard to write. Getting that diagnosis helped me because I was able to recognize that I do that, and managed it better.”

Luke: “Did you go on medication for that?”

Amy: “I take Ritalin. I call it my concentration vitamin. I pitched this to the LA Times. If you have diabetes, you are not embarrassed about it. You go to the doctor and you get some insulin. I sit at the computer to write and to have a brain that’s bouncing all over the place like a Ping-Pong ball is not conducive to me performing my employment. Ritalin has few side effects. When I first started taking it, I felt so strongly about that, to anti-stigmatize that, that I told everyone that I took Ritalin. I went to a newspaper conference with my friend David Wallis (featurewell.com, known Amy for 17-years) and he said to me, ‘Will you please not tell the editors that you have ADD?'”

I absolutely refuse to make any crack about a prescribing therapist deciding to give her something, anything to make her shut up. No way.

Worried that I might not have the inborn talent to succeed.

If you have the drive it may get you a long way down that path.

AA reminds me of Buddy Hickerson’s “Mr Vengeance” character from the National Lampoon.

Barely noticed the “woman sitting in a forest” bit. Does she want to be a hunter-gatherer?

Beck wants to use a hundred yr. plan to take us back 200 yrs., Amy wants to go back to hominid days. Next stop: “Shaming Fellow Prions in a Radiation-Baked Scum Pond Environment.”

The argument for elitist social structure is that the great masses of humanity will always be more savage than the ruling class at its best. The argument for egalitarian social structure is that the great masses of humanity will never be more savage than the ruling class at its worst.

OK, so I’m an idiot, but I thought that was a pretty neat condensation.

And best of all, it doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker or refrigerator magnet!

Of course, a lot of lefties are first-class worrywarts, too.

Sure there are. Look at the 2008 election: generally, it was the same people who freaked out over every turn in the road that were also screaming that Obama should “get tough” by rhetorically punching Clinton/McCain-Palin in the face.

I didn’t say that someone’s level of fear predicts where they will land on the Left/Right continuum but it does predict how susceptible they are to authoritarianism. It winds up being functionally the same in the U.S. though, because, as Altemeyer’s decades of research data shows, left-wing authoritarianism is practically non-existent in North America.

There are lots of take-aways from Altemeyer and Stenner’s work (for example, I think it neatly explains why every right-wing political meme boils down to fear) but the aspect I choose to focus on is the inverse: that hope, optimism, empathy, and trust aren’t just pleasing messages or positive personal traits, they are Liberals’ political imperatives.

Well, for one, psychopathy seems to have persistent precursors in youth with poor treatment outcomes. That is, even if you catch it very early in youth it’s next to impossible to treat. It’s also kind of part of the definition — it seems that treatable antisocial personalities are usually not defined as psychopathic.

I’m not a neurobiologist (or a psychologist, or anything but an interested observer), but there seems to be a consensus that psychopathy has strong biological and early development factors. There’s also been at least one twin study, which I’d take with a grain of salt but seems reasonable.

I’m mostly interested in setting a clear distinction between three types of antisocial personality: pathological and untreatable, pathological and treatable, and nonpathological (regular ol’ run of the mill assholes). I think it’s nonproductive to assume that everyone who’s an asshole and says crazy shit is a lost cause or needs psychological treatment.

Alison:

Unfortunately, the people who believe the “anarchism = me doing whatever the hell I please” trope does include people who self identify as anarchists. None of them have ever attended a meeting, few have done the slightest bit of research, and have chosen that identification based on reading half of a web site and deciding it looks cool and gives them an excuse to look down on everyone else.

Human beings have been in favor of murdering and exploiting other human beings outside their society for their own benefit since the dawn of time.

Are you sure about that? Or could it be that humans have been led/ruled/propagandised by a few who want to murder and exploit? Thinking of most of the major atrocities throughout history, I’d guess most of them were a result of somebody ginning up hatred: it didn’t happen naturally. The Crusades, which were basically a quest for major swag, only happened because the Church hierarchy and a coupla wandering nutcases preached holy war, and the nobles got right alongside that idea and dragged their serfs off to the Middle East.

Shorter me: left alone, most people would be content to live their lives quietly and not hate strangers, but a few nutcases foment wars and violence for their own enrichment.

I can’t help but wonder about the correlation between Wingnuts and those with untreated anxiety disorders.

Didn’t someone do a study recently that showed that right wingers were significantly more afraid than lefties?

Of course, a lot of lefties are first-class worrywarts, too. I think it goes both ways.

Oooh, yes indeedy. I worry about everything, large scale and small. But on the other hand, part of that is because I generalise from myself to others: if I don’t want something to happen to me (unemployment, starvation, being considered Satan’s spawn, etc), I imagine that others may not want it either.

Can’t give you any citations, but have heard discussion of frontal lobe damage leading to just not giving a shit about anyone else.

I suppose that nurture, or at least socio-economic class (& maybe intelligence) determine whether someone who’s been dropped on his head becomes a serial killer, telemarketer, or Wall St. Wizard.

The more scared someone is, the more likely they are to yearn for (and cling to) a Strong Leader who promises to make the fears go away by acting out the aforementioned intolerance, orthodoxy, coercion, and punishment. Or, better, shorter: bigger the Wingnut the more they’re afraid.

Thus, we have the Wingnut policies that remove the social safety net, and the sense of security that it perpetuates.

Barely noticed the “woman sitting in a forest” bit. Does she want to be a hunter-gatherer?

She stole that one from Thom Hartmann:

http://www.athenwood.com/home-add.shtml

Sociopathy is easier when you can’t see your victim face to face.

This is what really bugs me about Alkon’s approach- it’s the equivalent of keying somebody’s car. If you want to confront someone, don’t be a chickenshit, put your ass on the line.

OT, the local radio station is playing the Clash’s Magnificent Seven!

OK, let me clarify that: people have always been willing to let a stranger die for a benefit that they wouldn’t be willing to let their neighbor die for. There’s a reason that the debate over Iraq has been centered over whether our goal there is worthy of the death of however many American soldiers, while the death of a far greater number of Iraqis is considered a niche concern.

On the other hand, even quite small band and tribe societies with no significant hierarchy with which to hoodwink the common man have been historically willing to raid and murder other bands and tribes for booty and land. The kind of peaceful, nonaggressive existence you describe is contingent on having enough land to support the people — and that land was usually taken from others by force. Look at the homesteaders in the United States — nobody had to trick them into killing Indians and taking their land.

…and a recurring theme, of course, is the convenient rationale that blacks and Indians were sub-human. No hoodwinking needed – just a mindset inherited from birth.

Which mindset is an elaboration of the ingroup/outgroup thing, ya?
Our little band consists of the real humans.

Ow. Got a brain cramp. Back to read some more.

Djur: I think you are fussing a bit too much over the diagnostic definition of Psychopathy, and the distinction between the diagnosed disorder, and the behavior. I see it as a continuum, rather than distinct categories. A person who regularly exhibits psychopathic behavior has some claim to the label, regardless of the diagnostic criteria.

If a biological factor can actually be isolated, then yes, we need two different diagnoses for antisocial disorders that involve the biological factor, and those which don’t. Until then, I’m happy leaving it ambiguous.

We do know that various things can push a person towards one end of the continuum, so some antisocial behavior is obviously treatable. This lends itself to the idea that even the worst psycopathy might be treatable, which I think is better than completely writing somebody off.

I DO think it is productive to think that assholes who say crazy things need treatment. A good therapist could turn their life around, to the benefit of the patient AND society. They don’t necessarily need diagnosing as having a behavioral disorder, but could benefit from treatment all the same. Without treatment, they could get worse, and actually become a danger to themselves or to society, whether or not they could eventually meet a diagnosis as a psychopath.

Think of it this way.. People happily seek therapy for even borderline personality disorders, as long as they acknowledge there is a problem that needs to be dealt with. Assholes would be seeking treatment too, if it wasn’t for the fact that their condition prevents them from realizing they have a problem.

My ancestors date back to when the first Anglo met the first Saxon and was like “Hey baby. Wanna come back to my room, listen to some Dylan, drink some wine?”

It seems to me that Republicans are alike in lacking empathy, or only having enough for their family and friends. Is lack of empathy is connected to fear? It could be, tho I have a Hard-Core Liberal Progressive sister who empathy ability is quite shallow.

Being an asshole isn’t cause for treatment in itself. The cure for being an asshole is usually social pushback — people saying you’re an asshole and telling you to fuck off. The problem is when being an asshole is socially acceptable — like, say, in a homophobic society. A homophobic asshole among homophobic assholes doesn’t need treatment — he needs exposure to people who will say “hey, dickbag, cut it out.”

Saying crazy/irrational isn’t cause for treatment, either. My brother’s ex-girlfriend believes in auras and astral projection and crystals and the Goddess and all that shit, and I don’t think she needs treatment. My mom believes that Jesus was the son of God and born of a virgin and assumed into heaven and that he listens to prayers, and I don’t think she needs help. My dad thinks that the beauty of the world is proof of some benevolent force guiding its development, and even though he says this in a world where children starve to death or die in endless wars I don’t think he needs therapy. And I’m really fucking nuts: I think that it’s possible for the world to become more peaceful and healthy and to keep ourselves from destroying our own planet, in the face of 28% of Americans thinking Sarah Palin should be President.

People can turn their lives around and stop being assholes and abandon irrational beliefs without medical intervention. I’m mentally ill — I need treatment. Karl Rove is just an asshole.

Human beings have been in favor of murdering and exploiting other human beings outside their society for their own benefit since the dawn of time.

I think this really only goes back to the agricultural revolution, when people started being able to store enough grain to carry them over a bad harvest. It was much easier, if you hadn’t, to go and grab somebody else’s storehouse, and then make them work in your fields (till they starved to death, anyway) so you’d have a bigger harvest next time.

Everything else I’m going to say, don’t ask for links because I’m pulling it out of my ass; and I warn you I’m going Godwin first thing. The idea that right-wing authoritarianism is based in fear is spot on. The Nazis never would have gotten anywhere without a large group of people who had clawed their way up into the petty bourgeoisie (selling notions in some storefront, counting money in a bank, stamping papers in some government office) and feared more than anything else falling back down into the working class.

The post-WWII boom in this country, with the only industrial power untouched by the war and in fact coming out of the war working full tilt having to rebuild the rest of the world, coupled with a maniacal defense buildup, allowed a lot of people to become middle- and even upper-middle class who would never have made it off the farm or out of the coal mine before. The fear of falling back into the ancestral condition is the dominating factor in all our politics ever since.

Unfortunately, that postwar bubble burst around 1958, and we’ve been living with the consequences since then. “There’s only enough room for me up here in this catbird seat history has accidentally catapulted me into, and anyone else trying to claw their way up even one notch is a direct threat to me and my perceived social status.” A lot of the opposition to the civil rights movement wasn’t racism per se especially not in the North, but a blind fear of a new wave of peasants diluting the status that an accident of history handed you (or your grandparents).

This fear can be fed by demagogues and tied to just about any political ideology. Unfortunately for us, the nativist, anti-intellectual, racist party of Confederate Treason was right there to take it up, and had another historical grievance of their own to feel victimized over. What’s the solution, other than a new Civil War, this time to force them out instead of keep them in? I don’t know. I do know that if economic insecurity could be taken out of the equation, they’d lose a lot of their base support.

The thing about being a sociopath, or even just an asshole, is it seems to have a lot of advantages, maybe even evolutionary ones. Bad boys get all the chicks, right? At least that’s what the reality shows tell me.

Oh, I’m not doubting that people CAN stop being an asshole without medical intervention. People can stop smoking without help too..

I’m just saying its a hell of lot more likely for them to make a permanent change with a bit of guidance from someone with training in the matter.

If a person’s behavior or beliefs are causing them distress or unhappiness, or causing a threat to other people, or limiting their ability to take part in society, then it becomes IMPORTANT that they seek treatment.

Therapy sessions should be mandatory for elected officials, since the risk to us all is so great if they go off the rails.

Of course, this DOES require a health care system that makes high quality mental health services affordable and easily available to all.

I think this really only goes back to the agricultural revolution, when people started being able to store enough grain to carry them over a bad harvest.

Hunter-gatherer and pastoral societies have territorial conflicts too, although they don’t take slaves like agricultural ones.

The kind of peaceful, nonaggressive existence you describe is contingent on having enough land to support the people — and that land was usually taken from others by force.

I was having a conversation that turned to the subject of the “natural state” and how, given the right circumstances, pretty much anyone will happily gut the folks from the next county over if it means the difference between feeding their family or not. The circle grows smaller as the resources grow thinner. At some point I came to the conclusion that yes, cornered like a rat, people will act like cornered rats. It is part of our wiring. The problem begins when you have people that simply want to act like cornered rats all the time, and play the victim to give them an excuse. Regardless of their comfort status they see the most vicious approach as inherently the most effective, and see no reason not to use it. Whether one cares to label these people sociopaths or something else is moot. Their behavior is the issue, not the name for it.

Certainly, there are plenty of squealing loons on the left. The difference is, the left tries to contain them. The right gives them the keys to the car and the liquor cabinet, and tells them to run everything as they see fit.

Bad boys get all the chicks, right? At least that’s what the reality shows tell me

Would you really want to be involved with one of those reality-show girls?

Unfortunately, that postwar bubble burst around 1958, and we’ve been living with the consequences since then. “There’s only enough room for me up here in this catbird seat history has accidentally catapulted me into, and anyone else trying to claw their way up even one notch is a direct threat to me and my perceived social status.”

The old zero-sum game. The conservative movement has doubled down on the dismantling of the middle class since the advent of St Ronbo, but the damn rubes who are the main victims just don’t seem to let this fact penetrate their thick skulls.

@ Djur:

Of course you’re right, and much nastier ones, at least in per capita casualty rates, than any of the most horrible wars we agonize about. It was the “economic exploitation” part that became predominant after the agricultural revolution, and people can’t pull a plow after you shrink their heads!

Also, and too, etc.

I’m not saying that even a majority of “the right” is actively of the ilk described, merely that they are tolerant of the behavior, and susceptible to being brainjacked by the hatestorms thrown up by the ones that are of said ilk.

I was a loser as a child and had no friends. Now I’m 45 and I’m not troubled being an outcast.

Whoa, what a Totally Hardcore-As-Fuck Badass thing to say! I bet she was sucking on a toothpick in one side of her mouth with a cigarette hanging out of the other side, & cleaning her nails with a switchblade when she said this!

So, speaking of outcasts … you think the Unabomber would’ve made a good advice columnist?

“Until you reject the fallen materialist delusions of our times & purify your life via a total dedication to solitude, living completely off the grid, willingness to die fighting the New World Order junta & the Bilderburger elites – & a vigorous regime of enemas – he’s just going to keep right on cheating on you, girl.”

Submitted without comment, because it leaves me speechless.

This thread has degenerated into an actual exchange of ideas. The audacity.

And me off drinking my ass off (Brooklyn Brewery Black OPs) and watching “Men Who Stare at Goats.” (B+). Damn.

It seems to me that Republicans are alike in lacking empathy, or only having enough for their family and friends. Is lack of empathy is connected to fear? It could be, tho I have a Hard-Core Liberal Progressive sister who empathy ability is quite shallow.

They have the Dunbar’s number of a lower primate.

I was a loser as a child and had no friends. Now I’m 45 and I’m not troubled being an outcast.

Right. Then why the fuck would anyone follow your advice?

Right. Then why the fuck would anyone follow your advice?

Especially in light of her anger-management problem, lack of impulse control, and utter failure to respond to things proportionally.

No love for Hickerson’s Mr Vengeance on teh toobz, but I remember one of the captions now, which would probably apply to AA in a similar set of circumstances:

While driving through an intersection, Mr Vengeance runs over a careless pedestrian. Sure enough, there’s a scratch on his hood, so Mr. Vengeance decides to get even.

I swear this is relevant.

A while ago, I got home from work and drove my car to the back of the apartment building, where everyone has an assigned space. There, parked in front of my space, and several others as well, was a big U-Haul truck. One guy was standing around, and I was tired and just wanted to park my car for the night and go take a shower and have a drink.

So I kind of glared at the guy and pointed to my space, and he glared back, and he was bigger than me, so I decided to be all sarcastic. I called out, “Never mind. I don’t need to park in my own parking space. I’ll just back up and turn around and go try to find a spot out on the street.”

The weird and revelatory thing was that as I said this, I saw the man’s whole face and body relax. The scowl dropped off his face, and he said, “Really? Thank you, wow, I appreciate it.”

So I got it that it wasn’t a big inconvenience, that this was something I could do for this stranger, and that he was tired and cranky, too, and that sometimes you can do the right thing in spite of yourself. My motives started out being snarky, but ended up being okay.

I am far from perfect, but I’m not Amy Alkon, Oh thank you Universe.

PS: Cold, naked fragments of RNA in a radiation bathed scum pond. I read this and I swear, I mutated. Right then and there.

What will you say when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule?

Poo-Bah, is that you?

No more dull psychologizing from me tonight. I’m into the Knob Creek.

No more dull psychologizing from me tonight. I’m into the Knob Creek.

I, for one, look forward to your wild, bourbon-fueled psychologizing.

Heh heh… knob…

Stuck at work- it’s like a friggin’ mini-apocalypse here- six people in the department, one with a blown knee (out indefinitely), one with H1N1 (different site, no contagion for me), one with a bad back (popping oxycontin, using heat to put himself back together by Tuesday).

The only contact I had with booze all day was pouring two bottles of Graves grain alcohol into a gallon jar filled with the zest of sixteen lemons. I envy you drinking types, and will have a shot of Glenmorangie when I get home in your honor, you glorious crumb-bums.

Submitted without comment, because it leaves me speechless.

from the comments,

I need to go see some hogs slaughtered to get this image out of my mind.

M Bouffant (at 0:40): I checked out your link, and although I’m not too familiar with these “social-networking” sites, it appeared that this one said that Ms Amy had “0 (that’s zero) friends”. No wonder she’s cranky.

Just a friendly reminder that we’re always her to satisfy your shit moat needs.

This week we’ve got a special on the Sumatran Tiger, elegantly presented in the Shinto Templar style.

For the truly discerning shit moat customer only.

So, in sum, Beck clearly hasn’t thought this 100-year plan past the first day yet.

Hey, Beck thinks he’s invented Psychohistory!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29

So – conservative white people are sociopaths…

While blacks murder white people at 18 times the rate of the reverse.

And you don’t even want to see the numbers for rape.

Man, you people are full of shit. Fuck you.

Hard.

OHHHH SHIT

zero.

1. What the post above me said.
2. Most murderers are not sociopaths.
3. Most rapists are not sociopaths.
4. What the fuck is wrong with you?
5. Your mother and I are very concerned. No son of mine is going to be an internet troll.

I was about to say that this is a great thread, but cancel that.

Back to drinking now. Weeklong vacation coming up for the SO and moi!

Blackity black black blackblackity black black bllllllllaaaaaaaaaack black black nigger.

Did I mention, black?

‘Cause, well, they’re sub-human apes who deserve no respect or kindness on account of their otherness, and general negritude. I don’t want to personify any less than flattering aspects of the discussion here, but, if the shoe fits…

Also, because of a made-up crime statistic that I heard on talk radio, anything any white person has ever done or ever will do is okay. Too.

Oh, and, BLACK!

No, to be fair, I think conservative black people are sociopaths too.

Okay – here’s another 2¢ worth.

When we talk about the hunter/gatherer society and the agricultural society, the traits that made it possible to survive in these respective social groups were exact opposites to one another. Traits such as impulsivity, distractability, flexibility, innovation and independence were necessary to survive as a hunter – as was the ability to overcome natural fear in order to eat. The normal survival inclination, which is to avoid possible danger, must be put aside if one is to hunt an animal to eat. To give in to that fear is to starve.

However, in an agricultural society, the traits that would ensure your survival as a hunter would doom you as a farmer. The important traits for a farmer are organization, focus, the ability to tolerate boredom and delay gratification through long-term rather than short-term goals – and obedience. In the hunter/farmer paradigm, I see two different relationships to authority, contingent upon the demands of each environment, and I see this also as relating to each one’s view of a ‘higher power’. In these early societal developments, one’s relationship with their surroundings – Nature – would translate into their view of ‘God’.

A hunter’s meal is a living creature somewhat akin to himself. His relationship with Nature depends very much on his own initiative and it is a two-way relationship: either the animal wins or he wins, and the outcome has a great deal to do with his own actions. A farmer’s relationship with Nature is almost completely one-sided; his choice is obey or starve. A farmer cannot challenge Nature. His best chance of success is to do what Nature dictates. The farmer who decides to plant in the fall instead of the spring is a farmer who does not pass his genes on. So a farmer’s God would be authoritarian, hierarchical and dictatorial in nature, whereas a hunter’s God might be less so, and more akin to himself.

Fear is the most basic survival tool we have. Denial is another one – we couldn’t get out of bed without a certain amount of ‘tunnel vision’ and ignoring things around us. The RWA characteristics of obedience to an authority rather than to their own ideas and aggression towards those to whom their authority objects are definitely survival mechanisms, and powerful society-building tools. The imperative to keep the status quo, and the imperative to avoid risk at any cost is conducive to farmer survival, but a hunter must be able to adapt to change, put aside fear and accept risk in order to eat.

The defining traits of the conservative personality are discomfort with change and acceptance of inequality. Studies have shown that, when faced with uncertainty, ‘conservatives’ are much more uncomfortable than ‘liberals’ (pardon the broad paintbrush) and are willing to go to greater lengths to avoid or dispel that feeling; their emotional need for the perception of ‘safety’ is very strong. Acceptance of inequality goes hand in hand with authoritarianism and hierarchy, which by definition means that some people are meant to be above others (as ordered by God or nature), so the idea of true equality is really anathema to authoritarians. Not all people who self-identify as conservative are authoritarians, but it is highly unlikely that someone with an authoritarian personality would describe himself or herself as anything but conservative.

When you add social dominators to the mix, they often identify as conservative because that is who their prey is. They do not have true conservative ideals themselves; they seek personal power and dominance, and are therefore a natural fit for RWAs who are looking for security in the form of a strong leader to be in charge of them and take the responsibility for giving them ‘moral’ direction and rules. Much of the time RWA behavior is constructive in the sense of building and maintaining a stable society, but the danger happens when they fall into the hands of a really bad authority, if their leader is incapable of empathy to the point of sociopathy. Their farmer traits of obedience, identification with authority and fear of risk make them unable, much less unwilling, to challenge that authority, no matter how bad their ‘leaders’ may be.

And, of course, all people have a mix of these traits, but there are enough with a preponderance of these RWA traits to cause serious damage to our society when you get the wrong mix of contributing factors coming together.

So, in sum, Beck clearly hasn’t thought this 100-year plan past the first day yet.

fixterd

In most h/g societies — at least, those that have survived long enough to be studied anthropologically — don’t the less aggressive members (read women) actually provide the bulk of the tribe’s caloric intake? That’s the gathering part.

Teh doods mainly sit around the fire — say, who collected that wood? — and plan the day’s hunt, whether destined to be successful or not.

PENIS

Foolish gobshite troll did at least serve to crystallise the topic of discussion — the distinction between unpleasant personality traits and overt psychological disorders.

“What did you do when you visited London, Daddy?”
“I went to the Petrie Museum on Malet Street and found examples of post-Cleopatran Egyptian Penis.”

The foolish little gobshite troll above does at least serve to dramatise the topic of discussion, i.e. the problem of distinguishing unpleasant personality traits from overt pyschological disease.

I think conservative black people are sociopaths too.

Most serial killers are white. Those white people, they’re really good at planning shit.

That is the received opinion. There is the theory, however, that this is just a selection bias, and that a serial killer is simply more likely to be caught if he or she specialises in killing white people. The amount of attention paid to a person’s disappearance or unexpected death varies with their skin colour (or so I am told), which is usually the same as the skin colour of the murderer. so there could be proportionally the same number of black serial killers, but they do not attract the same degree of interest from law-enforcement circles.

Shorter me: left alone, most people would be content to live their lives quietly and not hate strangers, but a few nutcases foment wars and violence for their own enrichment.

The only reason they would not hate strangers is if they didn’t know strangers existed. Hatred of others is natural and needs to educated or socialized out of us.

Have you ever read Jerzy Kozinski’s The Painted Bird?

The teabagger faction in America want a society where “like keeps to like” and they don’t need to be reminded that people of other skin tones are human beings, too.

Djur: Psychopaths might tend to be Republican (it wouldn’t surprise me), but they’re only about 1% of the population. I know you’re joking, but most Republicans are not only capable of respectful behavior and kindness but actually practice it whenever possible.

Evidently it’s just not possible when they go into a voting booth. Something about the sight of that ballot turns them into greedy racist lunatics Hell-bent on wrecking the entire country out of spite; they can’t control themselves. It’s like when a regular guy sees a girl in a mini-skirt and sets to hootin’ and hollerin’ and harassin’ – it’s only natural, he simply can’t control himself, and it’s wrong to blame an innocent fellow for what evolution has inflicted upon him.

Similarly, look at Ted Bundy. Oh sure, he murdered lots and lots of women. And I’m not saying that wasn’t wrong, even though it does seem a bit “politically correct” to do so, and I hate that. The fact remains that for every hour he spent murdering someone there were literally hundreds of hours when his behavior was absolutely felony-free.

Always. Trust. The. Shorter. ™

TinTin, Alkon is to advice what George W Bush is to running a country: don’t let them near the switch!

Evidently it’s just not possible when they go into a voting booth. Something about the sight of that ballot turns them into greedy racist lunatics Hell-bent on wrecking the entire country out of spite; they can’t control themselves.

It’s the same reason the most dangerous alcoholics never drink in public or the most psychotic mass killers seem like the nicest people in social gatherings.

On my earlier Hitler/Stalin comment–I tried to think of the best way to put this, and now I have it–I don’t think either of those two men were probably psychopaths because they presided over murderous governments–I think that they were probably psychopaths because they were both superficially charming, extremely egotistical, highly impulsive men with a notable lack of empathy and deep personal relationships, both of whose lives before becoming attached to their respective movements were essentially aimless.

I also don’t think that Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany had governments comprised completely of psychopaths. But I am willing to wager that a surprisingly high number of their officials were. These were aberrant governments, and they encouraged aberrant minds.

She may be crazy as a shitmoat rat, but I like how she deals with telemarketers.

I like how she deals with telemarketers.

By billing them for non-working work hours?

So basically she’s admitting she’s a welfare queen?

I don’t immediately get on my broom.

No, she has to pause to put the magic salve on it first.

By billing them for non-working work hours?

I consider dealing with unwanted callers, marketing or otherwise, to be work.

Y’all been back to the Amazon customer reviews for The First [sic] Assassin? The Friends of Miller are really giving us what for.

The Friends of Miller are really giving us what for

Precisely why we have to ignore them.

Precisely why we have to ignore them.

I’d forgotten about the whole thing over the weekend, then the Amazon link popped up in my navigation window thanks to Firefox being all intrusive and shit and remembering stuff. I went back over to the reviews and man, those guys have been busy voting.

Of course, Rusty, because Amazon probably said “Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooo, we can’t take them down, they are germane!”

The Friends of Miller are really giving us what for

Yes, but the tags are still looking good.

They’ve shown up, red-faced and sputtering, in the original thread.

Tig? Really? LOL!

I’m just jammin on some Creed and Nickleback right now, life is sweeeeet!

They’ve shown up, red-faced and sputtering, in the original thread.

And Big Hollywood Butthurt has taken up the cause, apparently. And the minions have been clicking like mad on the “helpful” review buttons. I am assuming the mods are on this latest development, no?

I am assuming the mods are on this latest development, no?

The tags abide.

And the minions have been clicking like mad on the “helpful” review buttons.

I wish I had minions of sheeple that would do my minor bidding. Maybe pick up my dry cleaning.

The tags are wonderful. Laugh out loud wonderful. I was wondering if a full-scale SN!/Big Butthurt playground showdown was in the offing.

In re the Shitmoat Queen’s “billing” telemarketers: I can see her spending far more time trying to find them, in order to send her bill, than it takes to answer the phone and say “piss off.” Other than that bit, she’s lying. No way does she actually get that info. And the time and effort to file in small claims court? Ridiculous. What’s more, she has no case – there are no damages. And sure, scumbag telemarketing “entrepreneurs” always and promptly pay a “bill” that comes in from some crazy bitch*.

No, she’s either delusional and/or just flat out lying about it all. No doubt many of her adventures occurred only in her feeble but febrile mind. I’d bet dollars to donuts there’s more Baron Munchausen than Don Quixote there.

Next threedle! Game ON!

I was wondering if a full-scale SN!/Big Butthurt playground showdown was in the offing.

Turns out, Miller writes for The Corner as well (see next thread) and THAT’S where all these morons are being shaken out of their stupor.

THAT’S where all these morons are being shaken out of their stupor.

To notice the drapes and tassles?

To notice the drapes and tassles?

Anything to ignore the large penis gun pointed at their heads.

May I say what a wonderful Photoshop Tintin did there?

Commit Togar!

Little tassels dangled from the chairs and shined in the light of the open door.

When you walk past the little tassels, they shine your shoes for you.

When you walk past the little tassels, they shine your shoes for you.

It’s the 19th Century version of the brushless car wash.

When you walk past the little tassels, they shine your shoes for you.

I imagine the tiny hands of the little Tassels and their short legs facilitate the shining of shoes on the fly. Important people can’t be expected to actually stop in order to make the duties of the servant class any easier.

“My technique of ending rudeness by being rude to rude people is not recommended for use on Negroes or Hispanics because they will probably shoot you.”

This sentiment appears to be yours, rather than this author’s, given that nothing in the article cited resembles this.

kilo: from the toronto star interview:

“First, I see if they look armed.”
“I’m a fast runner, so nobody has hit me. People swear at me. But unless someone speaks up, it’s not going to change. You have to suss people out. Someone wearing a gangland shower cap can put his cellphone on speaker phone and I won’t say a thing.”