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Seems that everybody who attempted to challenge the Clintons either ended up relocating to an undisclosed, and usually foreign, location or they turned up dead. Those who didn't were ridiculed and smeared unmercifully and were attacked and effectively destroyed both personally and professionally. 107 posted on 04/27/2003 3:40 PM PDT by sweetliberty ("Having the right to do a thing is not at all the same thing as being right in doing it.")

Another reason why paradigmatically Clinton should be viewed as a cult leader. The people who continued to follow Clinton degraded and debased themselves. Keep in mind, Kathleen Willey started out as a Clinton supporter and follower.

If you watch shameless Clinton defenders very carefully (Susan Estrich is a good example), they get a goofy grin on their face as they defend the indefensible and morally grotesque. A rape suddenly becomes just a casual peccadillo or fraternity prank. They laugh and giggle as they shrug off the NUMEROUS accusers. Now, a normal person doesn't behave that way. But zombified, hypnotized cultists do.

Not infrequentlty, cult leaders promote the abandonment of conventional sexual morality. It's a very powerful manipulative tool. There are people who have deep issues involving authority figures and the suspension of normal rules (antinomianism) is a psychologically potent method for manipulating them. So why did liberals laugh and giggle when confronted with rape allegations against Clinton? This is not the functioning of a normal mind. But you do find it among people in cults. The Manson girls laughed and giggled when confronted with allegations about Manson. Very similar phenomenon. The Clinton followers, psychologically speaking, were cultists.

Having had some experience with and education in the cults, your analogy rings true. There is nothing authentic about the koolaid drinkers. They have ears but do not hear. Their replies to questions or points of debate are robotic and their words ring hollow. Their eyes are empty and do not see and even their smiles are grotesquely artificial, like a clown that has been in make-up too long. I don't recall ever seeing one show any genuine emotion....unless you include the poison-filled, hate-inspired anger that is hurled at us by Mfume, Barron, Jackson and others like them, as genuine emotion. You make some very valid points.

Well, sex is a tractor engine for many cults -- both ones that preach total chasity and others that are totally free love. Either way, a cult leader or cult tradition has to get control of his peeps sex drive.

Asimov didn't deal with that aspect at all -- his characters sex lifes, as I recollect, are not covered. Maybe that's why he liked robots. Easier to keep sex out of the story.

Sex is such a potent force. Ask any flower. I don't see many amoeba bouquets sent to friends. Amoeba: boring. Sexual plants: interesting. Exactly how does male relate to that completely strange yet similar entity -- his female mate? And vice versa of course. The whole dynamic of the universe seems wrapped up in it.

I can go on and on ... fermions are male, bosons are female -- the love dance of the atom!