Posted on 01/13/2007 8:54:26 PM PST by SmithL
Last week, I posted an item about a Psychology Today article titled "The Ideological Animal" (now fully available at the website). The article purports to explain what motivates those of us who made the post-9/11 shift from left to right and it uses my story, as well as the discussion group I started, the 9/11 Neocons, as an example.
As I indicated at the time, I have no serious complaints about the article's take on me, which I found to be generally fair. Mostly, I objected to the inaccurate use of the term "pro-war rallies" to describe my days as a counter-protester at leftist rallies. By doing so, the author, Jay Dixit, missed an opportunity to shed light on the sort of negative behavior exhibited by the left (anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism) that helped solidify my political transformation.
I also expressed some doubts as to the objectivity of the conclusions reached in the article that I now wish to elaborate on. In short, like most psychological studies and articles examining political persuasion, conservatives are made out to be the bad guys, while liberals come off as enlightened beings. This may be because, nine times out of ten, such "studies" are conducted by liberals and are biased from the start.
Indeed, the Psychology Today article makes use of one particular 1969 study, that of leftist U.C. Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block, which has been roundly debunked in the rightwing blogosphere. Michelle Malkin and The Volokh Conspiracy provide a sampling of the criticism and it isn't pretty.
My own anonymous tipster actually knew some of the people engaged in conducting the Berkeley study and describes them as "flaming Berkeley multi-culti liberal moonbat types who set out to prove from the get-go that conservatives were inferior."
(Excerpt) Read more at cinnamonstillwell.blogspot.com ...
Wellllllllllllllllllll . . .
Psyc Today has never been a hotbed of patriotism, sanity, solid family values, Christianity etc.
Look at the ads. Lots of satanistic junk.
Still, occasionally a useful article wanders through.
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