The Pathology of the Left

In 2003 the American Psychological Association printed a study by a few academicians from Cal-Berkeley and the University of (the People's Republic of) Maryland. The study, entitled "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," purported to have identified some determinants that are common to those holding a "conservative" worldview.

As one reads the report, it becomes readily apparent that their "norm" -- that is, their control group -- was somewhere to the left of SanFranNan Pelosi and her Ya Ya sisters, Babs Boxer and Di Feinstein -- but then, what are we to expect from Cal-Berkeley and UM, or just about any of our nation's "leading" academic institutions?

The authors received more than 1.2 million of your hard-earned tax dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation in order to, by their own account, "consider evidence for and against the hypotheses that political conservatism is significantly associated with (1) mental rigidity and closed-mindedness; (2) lowered self-esteem; (3) fear, anger, and aggression; (4) pessimism, disgust, and contempt; (5) loss prevention; (6) fear of death; (7) threat arising from social and economic deprivation; and (8) threat to the stability of the social system."

In other words, if you (1) have an opinion; and are (2) humble; (3) assertive; (4) a realist; (5) a conservationist; (6) not suicidal; (7) from modest means; and (8) a constitutional constructionist, or worse, a Christian, then you're probably a wacky conservative.

Actually, what taxpayers got was a re-warmed 1950-vintage study of what the authors call "authoritarianism and the fascist potential in personality.'' They assert that "one is justified in referring to Hitler, Mussolini, Reagan, and Limbaugh as right-wing conservatives..." (Is it just us, or is that a rather tendentious juxtaposition of murderous tyrants and conservative icons?) All in all, this research stands as a sterling example of academic twaddle, providing "an integrative, meta-analytic review of research on epistemic, existential, and ideological bases of conservatism." The authors' ultimate finding -- for what it's worth -- is that conservatives tend to "arrive at premature conclusions and impose simplistic clichès and stereotypes," which, ironically, is precisely what the authors have done.

For two long years, The Patriot's editorial staff waited for conservative behaviorist academicians to respond to this farcical pseudo-scholarly diatribe with an article outlining the pathology of liberalism (contemporary, not classical). Alas, we can only conclude that the last conservative behaviorist left the academy a long time ago, but forgot to turn out the lights. That being the case, what follows is a rebuttal to this Leftist invective in the most general terms -- sans the $1.2 million in confiscated wages and a forest of pulp for reprinting in "scholarly journals."

Liberals are almost uniformly defined by their hypocrisy and dissociation from reality. For example, the wealthiest U.S. senators -- among them Kerry, Kennedy, Corzine, Kohl, Rockefeller, Feinstein, and Rhode Island RINO Lincoln Chaffee -- fancy themselves as fighters for the poor, but they have no idea of what it's like to live paycheck-to-paycheck. Liberals speak of unity, but they appeal to the worst in human nature by dividing Americans into dependent constituencies. Just who are these liberal constituencies? They support freedom of thought, unless your thoughts don't comport with theirs. They feign tolerance while practicing intolerance. They resist open discussion and debate of their views, yet seek to silence dissenters. They insist that they care more about protecting habitat than those who hunt and fish. They protest for nature conservation while advocating homosexuality. They denounce capital punishment for the most heinous of criminals, while ardently supporting the killing of the most innocent among us -- children prior to birth. They hate private-gun ownership, but they wink and nod when it comes to WMD in the hands of tyrants. They advocate for big government but want to restrain free enterprise.

Liberals constantly assert their First Amendment rights, except, of course, when it comes to religion. Here, they firmly adhere to the doctrines of secular atheism. They believe that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than marijuana smoke. They believe that one nut accused of bombing an Alabama abortion clinic deserves far more law-enforcement attention than Jihadi cells planning the 9/11 attacks. They call 9/11 victims "Hitlerian" while calling their murderers "oppressed." They hate SUVs, unless imported and driven by soccer moms. They believe trial lawyers save lives and doctors kill people. They believe the solution to racism is to treat people differently on the basis of their skin color. They deride moral clarity because they can't survive its scrutiny. They promote peace but foment division and hate -- ad infinitum.

Liberal pathology is well defined. Liberals tend to be mentally rigid and closed-minded because they are insecure, the result of low self-esteem associated, predominantly, with fatherless households or critically dysfunctional families. They exhibit fear, anger, and aggression -- the behavioral consequences of arrested emotional development associated with childhood trauma, primarily rejection by a significant family member of origin (as noted above) or some other childhood trauma. Liberals display pessimism, disgust, and contempt for much the same reason. They focus on loss prevention because they have suffered significant loss. They fear death because they have little or no meaningful connection with their Heavenly Father -- often the result of the disconnect with their earthly fathers. They often come from socially and/or economically deprived homes. Liberals reject individual responsibility and social stability because these were not modeled for them as children.

Sound familiar -- apparently the profs at Cal-Berkeley and Maryland attributed their own pathological traits to their opposition. It's called projection -- or hypocrisy.

Sure, there are many conservatives who were raised by a single parent or in critically dysfunctional homes. However, somewhere along the way, they were lifted out of their misery by the grace of God -- and often in conjunction with some significant mentor who modeled hope and responsibility for them. As a result, they have the courage to internalize their locus of responsibility, unlike liberals, who externalize responsibility for problems and solutions, holding others and society to blame for their ills, and making the state the arbiter of proper conduct -- even proper thought.

On a final note, it's no coincidence that conservative political bases tend to be suburban or rural, while liberal political bases tend to be urban (see http://FederalistPatriot.US/map.asp). The social, cultural and economic blight in many urban settings are the catalysts for producing generations of liberals. Many urbanites no longer have a connection with "the land" (self-sufficiency) and, thus, tend to be largely dependent on the state for all manner of their welfare, protection and sustenance -- "It Takes a Village" after all.

"The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses. ... There is no comparable academic industry devoted to studying the psychological underpinnings of liberalism. Liberals, you see, embrace liberalism for an obvious and uncomplicated reason -- liberalism is self-evidently true. But conservatives embrace conservatism for reasons that must be excavated from their inner turmoils, many of them pitiable or disreputable." --George Will

"consider evidence for and against the hypotheses that political conservatism is significantly associated with (1) mental rigidity and closed-mindedness; (2) lowered self-esteem; (3) fear, anger, and aggression; (4) pessimism, disgust, and contempt; (5) loss prevention; (6) fear of death; (7) threat arising from social and economic deprivation; and (8) threat to the stability of the social system."

People, PLEASE review the communist goals in my tagline.
Two fit in PERFECTLY with this current story:

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

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It left off how they are the "champions" of truth, talking about the "lies" of GWB, and how he should be impeached for being so dishonest, yet when you confront them with facts, the revert to the feelings-based arguments on which their entire idiology rests. They ignore, obfuscate, denigrate, chastise, reinvent, and otherwise deny fact and truth.

Yep, the good people at the Federalist consistently hit it out of the park. I would note, however, that I don't believe liberals make exceptions for SUV-driving soccer moms. I believe many, if not most, liberals have contempt for SUV's and especially for soccer moms (SUV-driving or not) because for the most part they tend to be happy, content, suburban, hetero, married, and are more likely to lean conservative.

I also do not necessarily agree that liberals "come from socially and/or economically deprived homes". I think just the opposite is often true. I believe liberalism is often motivated by a sense of guilt. Notice the list of wealthy dem senators mentioned in the article. And many a whiny lib college kid is doing just fine on mommy and daddy's dime.

But I'm nitpicking here - it's a fine piece in keeping with typical Federalist standards. If you don't subscribe to their newsletter, you should.

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Right. Any amount of honest self-examination or reflection, at least you would think, would cause a leftist to see the foundations of their views as hollow and critically flawed, that they tend to use what the things they constantly rail and sloganize against as tools to cure society's ills (as they see them).

This sentence pretty much sums it up:

"They believe the solution to racism is to treat people differently on the basis of their skin color. They deride moral clarity because they can't survive its scrutiny. They promote peace but foment division and hate -- ad infinitum."

Another big difference, I feel, is that I don't assign evil motives to most democrats. As wrong as I think they are, I think average the average democrat on the street (without a "Bush Lied!" protest sign anyway) is well intentioned. Completely wrong and misguided, of course, but well intentioned nonetheless. Conservatives motives, however, are rarely given this benefit of the doubt from the other side. It's not "democrats are right and republicans are wrong", it's that democrats are right and republicans are evil (or mentally ill).

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