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The Psychopathy of the Left: Know thy Enemy
American Thinker ^ | 18 Jun, 2024 | Frederick Hink

Posted on 06/18/2024 3:39:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Evil is the absence of conscience; psychopathy is the lack of empathy and conscience; thus, many left-wing agitators are evil incarnate.

Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer, identified three groupings of people involved with mass movements: men of words, practical men of action, and fanatics. These can be further summarized as the benefactors -- politicians and community leaders who gain power through aggressive protests; the agitators who play the role of true believers by manipulating causes and people to gain recognition and power; and the cannon fodder, those who are easily manipulated and see social justice as a means to gain social acceptance and self-worth. Hoffer did not have access to psychological studies of individuals within mass movements; had he, his contemplations may have focused upon the personality traits of individual participants within mass totalitarian movements -- especially among the agitators and cannon fodder -- and concluded true belief was not the only driver toward violence.

From man-on-the-street interviews of Hamas sympathizers, two of these groupings are on full display: the agitators deny the barbarity of the Hamas atrocities on October 7th, dismissing it as “Zionist” propaganda; the cannon fodder is exposed as a legion of brainless twits -- many did not know what river or what sea they were demanding for their Palestinian brethren. “Queers for Palestine” activists do not know of the warm welcome they would receive from Hamas if they visited the Gaza Strip. Hint: it involves stones and rooftops.

But what motivates people to deny the truth -- or ignorance altogether -- in order to spread mayhem and destruction?

There have been numerous studies that have suggested that right-wing authoritarianism (RWA)...

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: demonicleft; erichoffer; left; marxism; psychopathy; thetruebeliever
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1 posted on 06/18/2024 3:39:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

There is plenty of history to show what leftists can do when they gain control of a country.


2 posted on 06/18/2024 3:40:05 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

Mentally ill individuals and the tyranny of the evil collective.


3 posted on 06/18/2024 3:46:22 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: MtnClimber

And it is way past time that we begin referring to Nazis as a radical Left Wing movement. It was then, it is now.

It is just that the Left, in their typical projection, have always called it “right wing” because that suited their narrative.


4 posted on 06/18/2024 3:52:59 AM PDT by Liberty Ship ("Lord, make me fast and accurate.")
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To: Liberty Ship

I completely agree, Nazis and communists are both leftists.


5 posted on 06/18/2024 4:03:43 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

simplest summation of the difference between the conservative mind and the liberal mind is this...”conservatives seek agreement while liberals demand compliance” L.Star


6 posted on 06/18/2024 4:03:59 AM PDT by Qwapisking ("IF the Second goes first the First goes second" L.Star )
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To: MtnClimber

bkmk


7 posted on 06/18/2024 4:50:44 AM PDT by sauropod ("This is a time when people reveal themselves for who they are." James O'Keefe Ne supra crepidam)
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To: MtnClimber
Here's an interesting English usage factoid related to "thy" vs "thine" (though unrelated to the subject of the article).
“Thy” and “thine” are both possessive pronouns that mean “your” and “yours” respectively. However, “thy” is only used before words beginning with a consonant sound, while “thine” is used before words beginning with a vowel sound.

8 posted on 06/18/2024 4:52:36 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a closed mind will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: MtnClimber
Leftists often manifest a pathological combination of wackiness, nastiness, and dishonesty. Dig a little deeper, and a great many of them are essentially narcissists who think of themselves as victims, with a deep sense of grievance against specific people in authority and against authority in general.

For such psychologically motivated Leftists, the division of society by cultural Marxists into the oppressors and the oppressed is not just a theory but is the revelation of a deep truth that they feel personally. For many, the fury of BLM mobs and Jew haters on the march in elite universities is motivated by narcissistic rage by pampered children against parents and others whom they believe have wronged or disappointed them.

9 posted on 06/18/2024 4:56:20 AM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Liberty Ship
Irrelevant.

Worrying about whether the Wokesters are actually left or right is like worrying about whether people like Ted Bundy, Jeffry Dahmer, and Hannibal Lecter are Republicans or Democrats.

10 posted on 06/18/2024 5:01:02 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a closed mind will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: MtnClimber
As Prager has noted for decades:

"The Left destroys everything it touches.
There are no exceptions."

11 posted on 06/18/2024 5:02:13 AM PDT by glennaro (2024: The Year of The Reckoning, lest our Republic succumb to the "progressive" disease of the Left)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...
The whole pack of Demagogic Party liars needs to swing.

12 posted on 06/18/2024 5:17:55 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents...Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without a belief in a devil."
- Eric Hoffer

13 posted on 06/18/2024 5:22:00 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: MtnClimber
Yes, you are absolutely right, there IS plenty of evidence.

The way I read it, the author was alluding to, and not putting a fine point on it, that it ISN'T that there is NOT LWA (Left Wing Authoritarianism) The the proof that is those hundreds of millions of people people murdered by their own Communist governments in the 20th Century.

It is that the academics who "study" this simply don't think people with their mindset and ideological leanings are capable of what history shows they are capable of. Their cloistered mindset is that Left Wing Authoritarianism isn't considered to be appropriate material to study or get a grant for because it simply doesn't exist.

Everyone knows the only kind of "authoritarianism" that is real is Right Wing Authoritarianism. (again, their mindset)

Great article, thanks for posting.

I admit, however, it had a lot more psychobabble in it than I like (I use the term "psychobabble" not to simply deride all words and terms bearing on these subjects, but to speak generally to both valid and invalid observations and categories of behavior. Kind of a catch-all phrase)

But there is validity, there, and well-stated, too.

In particular, I appreciate and understand completely the dynamic of this statement below, which has long been accepted as a mechanism to explain why Leftists like to go after the young voters (the younger, the better) and why they are at the forefront to decrease the voting age as well as the age of consent:

"... Many of the college kids, or cannon fodder, are run-of-the-mill narcissists who, with maturity and wisdom, will see their participation in these protests as regretful childish acts..."

It is normal for all humans to act narcissistic, and even more normal for young people to be both narcissistic and immature. But as people grow up, accept responsibilities, have to pay taxes and buy items like toilet paper, when they are in a position to raise a family, the natural and normal tendency is to be more realistic and sensible. More conservative.

When, one day they open up their paycheck to look at it in detail, they are astonished to see how much is being taken in taxes by the government. For many young people, they are fixed on the day-to-day processes of finding their way in the world. They are more fixated on how they are going to do their job and make a living. Raise their families and not run that ship onto rocks. And have a good time when they can.

The portion of money they pay in taxes each year almost always goes up, and does so in such a gradual way, most people going through that stage of life (adolescence to mid-late Twenties) don't learn the true value of money and property until things begin to get financially tight.

And they realize belatedly (due to the slow, steady, drip-drip-drip of increased taxes) that a huge portion of their pay is and has been sent to a government to do with it as they will, and they begin to think things like "I am working ONE WEEK each month to send that money, every cent of it, to the government!" And as they dwell on it, they realize that they are working the first three and a half months of the year to send to the government.

So, you go from a 16 year old kid who hears a politician like Kamala Harris state they want to give everyone a minimum guaranteed income and thinks that is a great idea...to someone who realizes that they are spending all sweat-drenched day on a July-baked black tar-paper roof nailing shingles only to have a third of their money taken from them and given to someone who sits on his ass all day watching television and eating Cheetos.

You grow up and you learn that all debts must be paid, and you make the connection that if that person lazing around all day is reneging on the social and moral contract to earn your daily bread as best you can, then that contract is a debt, and if all debts are paid, then you are the one who is paying someone else's debt with your hard-earned pay.

And then you make another connection: You realize you are on your way to becoming a slave because of that. As the number of people taking government money grows in a steady drip-drip drip each year, the percentage of those earning it to be given to them gets smaller by that same drip-drip-drip. And your payment on that other person's debt climbs higher each year.

And then, those fifteen year-old kids, if they are not Leftists, become 30 year-old nascent Conservatives. But as this author points out...not always. Some people never progress to a level of maturity more developed than that of that fifteen year old kid.

They remain stuck their for years until they die, or go through a transformational upheaval in life that rips them out of that Leftist mindset, much as it did for the famous Conservative David Horowitz. He was a hard-core Leftist working with the Black Panthers into his thirties, until who and what they really were could no longer be hidden from himself by his own rationalizing intellect.

So it can happen.

14 posted on 06/18/2024 5:23:31 AM PDT by rlmorel (In Today's Democrat America, The $5 Dollar Bill is the New $1 Dollar Bill.)
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To: RoosterRedux

So the use of “Thy” in the title should have been “Thyne”?


15 posted on 06/18/2024 5:25:51 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

“Thyne” if you’re Gaelic...”thine” if you’re not.;-)


16 posted on 06/18/2024 5:29:35 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a closed mind will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: RoosterRedux

I learn something new every year.


17 posted on 06/18/2024 5:34:57 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber
I used to make this error all the time (saying "Know thy enemy").

It was a knowledgeable Freeper who taught me the correct usage ("Know thine enemy"). I can't remember the name of that Freeper, but I sure remember what he/she taught me.

18 posted on 06/18/2024 5:40:14 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a closed mind will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: MtnClimber

“psychopathy is the lack of empathy and conscience”

Which is why lefties are continually hitching themselves to a cause, not just to convince others that they care but to find something within themselves that resembles caring and emotions. The problem is, most are also sociopaths and therefore their causes are always against societal norms.


19 posted on 06/18/2024 5:50:45 AM PDT by Toespi ( )
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To: SunkenCiv

btt


20 posted on 06/18/2024 6:04:57 AM PDT by GailA (Land Grabs, Poisoned Food, KILL the COWS, Bidenomics=BIDEN DEPRESSION. STAGNATION)
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