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Salon: Conservative brains wired for “mass hysteria” and “folk devils”
RedState.com ^ | 7/30/14 | Steve Berman

Posted on 07/30/2014 8:21:34 AM PDT by lifeofgrace

clockwork Salon claims, invoking “science”, that conservatives suffer “mass hysteria” and “permanent paranoia", because conservative brains are wired differently.  I’m not making this stuff up, folks.

Conservative fears of nonexistent or overblown boogeymen — Saddam’s WMD, Shariah law, voter fraud, Obama’s radical anti-colonial mind-set, Benghazi, etc. — make it hard not to see conservatism’s prudent risk avoidance as having morphed into a state of near permanent paranoia, especially fueled by recurrent “moral panics,” a sociological phenomenon in which a group of “social entrepreneurs” whips up hysterical fears over a group of relatively powerless “folk devils” who are supposedly threatening the whole social order. Given that conservatism seems to be part of human nature — just as liberalism is — we’re going to need all the help we can get in figuring out how to live with it, without being dominated, controlled and crippled by it. [emphasis mine]
The last sentence in that paragraph really makes my side split trying not to laugh…”figuring out how to live with it” like we need some support group.

“Hi, I’m Steve” (“Hello Steve!”) “…and I’m a conservative.  I see folk devils.” (“The first step is to admit it!”)

The post cites papers authored by John R. Hibbing.  This guy must write Nancy Pelosi’s speeches because he’s about as incomprehensible as she is.  This is the kicker:

Hibbing is a political scientist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, which has a political physiology lab “dedicated to exploring the relevance of individual-level biological variations to political orientations and behaviors,” which may well be the only one of its kind — so far.
Hibbing’s a political scientist—he isn’t even a sociologist, psychologist, or even a cosmetologist.  He knows less about the human head than my hair stylist.  And he’s talking about brain structure of conservatives, using such experiments as this:
The threatening images included “a very large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed individual with a bloody face, and an open wound with maggots in it.” The policy issues were “support for military spending, warrantless searches, the death penalty, the Patriot Act, obedience, patriotism, the Iraq War, school prayer, and Biblical truth; and opposition to pacifism, immigration, gun control, foreign aid, compromise, premarital sex, gay marriage, abortion rights, and pornography.”
Dear God, he’s reenacting A Clockwork Orange, with real people.  The Salon article blathers on…actually it’s 4,805 words, but I had to stop reading somewhere around the 1,200 word mark because the tears were staining my shirt.  I kept wondering if this was satire, but no, they take it seriously.  I think I’ve found my new definition for mad scientist, and he lives in Nebraska.

I did, however, skip to the end, to see how the author capped of this journey into nuttery:

The fireworks today may be at the border — or in Gaza, or Ukraine — but meanwhile our goose is slowly being cooked by global warming, and conservatives have convinced themselves it’s all a liberal hoax. If that kind of thinking isn’t wrong, then what is?
If that kind of thinking isn’t wrong, then what is?

How about this:  using crackpot “science” with inhumane experiments to lead you to the same conclusions you believed in the first place.  Liberals see themselves as the cool, collected, scientific, rational people in a world filled with frothing-at-the-mouth conservative paranoid haters.  And they think conservatives are delusional?

The Left is looking in a mirror that they think is a window.  They’re only seeing themselves.


TOPICS: Politics; Science; Society; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: crackpot; politicalphysiology
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To: MeshugeMikey

They are haters. Haters gotta hate.

Just remember that they are haters.


21 posted on 07/30/2014 8:48:06 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: lifeofgrace

Oh, bringing back phrenology to the science department!

At least I’ve finally found out what was wrong with me - I’ve gotta folk devil. Here I thought it was a dybbuk.


22 posted on 07/30/2014 8:49:33 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: Tax-chick

Don’t forget their other scientific truthiness: a fetus is not a living, breathing human being and a man who thinks he’s a woman...is a real woman.


23 posted on 07/30/2014 8:52:35 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: lifeofgrace

Folk devils? Is the lib author at salon putting down Indigenous Pipples, the group that will finally (after the defection of the brain-dead beef jerky chewing working classes) lead humanity to Utopia?


24 posted on 07/30/2014 8:54:03 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Throne and Altar! [In Jerusalem!!!])
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To: lifeofgrace

Leftists have been using the “you’re crazy is you’re not a leftist” trope for one hundred years. The ex-Soviet Union threw people in psychiatric hospitals if they objected to commie principles. Modern leftists are no different. Like the stooge prof. at the university.


25 posted on 07/30/2014 8:55:34 AM PDT by driftless2 (For long term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: lifeofgrace

Caesare Lombroso would be proud of these fools.

CC


26 posted on 07/30/2014 8:56:00 AM PDT by Celtic Conservative (tease not the dragon for thou art crunchy when roasted and taste good with ketchup)
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To: lifeofgrace

As Herman Cain’s grandfather might say, “I’ll show ya mass hysteria!”


27 posted on 07/30/2014 8:57:34 AM PDT by firebrand
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To: Chickensoup

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3186873/posts?page=19#19

a...Progressive...”.Folk Devil”


28 posted on 07/30/2014 9:00:57 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill ...)
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To: lifeofgrace

Liberal projection.

Leftists are so predictable.


29 posted on 07/30/2014 9:02:04 AM PDT by A message
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To: lurk
Do you believe man is basically good on the inside?

Nope. He's gooey and stinky, and full of blood and guts on the inside.

30 posted on 07/30/2014 9:10:52 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (Has anyone seen my tagline? It was here yesterday. I seem to have misplaced it.)
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To: lifeofgrace
This article reminded me of something I experienced once.

I was at the Fort Worth Convention Center being a participant of the State of Texas Republican Party convention. I saw a reporter from the Dallas Morning News and I approached him and introduced myself. I can't remember his name but he was a good reporter known for being very fair in his articles.

During our conversation I asked him if he had attended the Democratic convention at the same venue two weeks previous, he said yes. I asked him what that was like and he said:

"Do you see all of these people here? (referring to all the Republicans walking around) Well, these look like regular folks you see when you go to the bank, or the grocery store or anywhere. That bunch that showed up two weeks ago look nothing like these people. Every weirdo made it to that event."

So, as much as the progressive-left tries to paint us as the weird ones it is not true. And they know it.

31 posted on 07/30/2014 9:13:15 AM PDT by Slyfox (Satan's goal is to rub out the image of God he sees in the face of every human.)
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To: miss marmelstein

That last one really takes the cake, because it abandons the pretense that there is such a thing as objective reality, at all. In is out, up is down, before is next to ... whatever you say. (This is what happens when I speak Spanish ...)


32 posted on 07/30/2014 9:15:19 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
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To: MeshugeMikey

I never use the word Progressive.

That is their language.

I use the truth, leftist.


33 posted on 07/30/2014 9:16:12 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

That was a good one.


34 posted on 07/30/2014 9:16:21 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
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To: Chickensoup

I meant to place the word in quotes...but fouled er up

I usually place the word “liberal” in quotes as well as the word “progressive”


35 posted on 07/30/2014 9:22:48 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill ...)
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To: lifeofgrace
This is the kind of pseudo science that the Nazis used to justify their policies in 1930’s Germany.
36 posted on 07/30/2014 9:40:00 AM PDT by rdcbn
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To: rdcbn
"Folk Devils".

Windigo comes to mind, an American Indian legend from several tribes, in slightly different forms.

37 posted on 07/30/2014 9:51:20 AM PDT by Mogger (Independence, better fuel economy and performance with American made synthetic oil.)
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To: lifeofgrace

Salon: Making the Onion look like a serious newspaper.


38 posted on 07/30/2014 10:16:46 AM PDT by ExCTCitizen (I'm ExCTCitizen and I approve this reply. If it does offend Libs, I'm NOT sorry...)
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To: lifeofgrace

Sounds like Salon just had their Reefer Madness moment.


39 posted on 07/30/2014 10:33:57 AM PDT by Free Vulcan (Vote Republican! You can vote Democrat when you're dead...)
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To: lifeofgrace
Hibbing is a political scientist at the University of Nebraska

Political Science is like the short-bus of the Sciences.

40 posted on 07/30/2014 10:51:52 AM PDT by Flick Lives ("I can't believe it's not Fascism!")
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