Comment on "Inside the conservative brain: What explains their wiring?" by AVI TUSCHMAN

("Tush" is Yiddish slang for the buttocks)

The butt man has written a very long article rehashing facts mostly well-known to social scientists about Left/Right differences.  The facts are presented from a decidedly Leftist perspective -- with amusing naivety sometimes.  The article is too long and too old-hat for me to reproduce it but it is in the current issue of "Salon", that notably objective periodical.

That Buttman is no more than a Leftist apparatchik can be seen from his use of questionnaire surveys.  He notes that Leftists answer such surveys by saying how compassionsate, caring, anti-authoritarian (etc.) they are.  He completely ignores the fact that Leftists turn "red in tooth and claw" as soon as they gain untrammelled power -- Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc.  Not to mention the French revolution.  They are nothing more than  savages hiding behind a compassionate mask.  Deeds speak louder  than words.

Buttman makes a considerable pretence of surveying the history of Left/right differences but is wilfully blind to major facts of political history.  He is a  sort of intellectual robot who has been programmed not to see  the full range of reality.  Of course Leftists "fake good"!  That is their stock in trade.  Admitting their dismal real  motivations (towards destruction) would get them nowhere.

Buttman also makes an amusing display of reinventing the wheel.  He "discovers" that conservatives are cautious and regard human  nature as selfish.  Conservatives don't assume that human motives will always be good and are alert for instances of dangerous behaviour.   Those facts were of course hiding in plain sight. But Buttman seems to think that he has discovered something incriminationg in noting them.  The day that caution is a fault will be the day.

The "selling point" of Buttman's article, however, appears to be his claims to survey psychological and neurological evidence about what goes on deep-down in conservative minds.  Yet everything he "discovers" by such research was perfectly predictable from the defining characteristics of conservatives mentioned above.  Because conservatives are less trusting and more alert to danger they react differently (usually more quickly) in situations that are contrived to look alarming.  Buttman clearly thinks that is a bad thing.  A man attached to an ideology that depends on duping people obviously would.

Finally, a couple of minor bloopers in Buttman's opus.  1). He is greatly impressed by insights gained from conservative responses to projective tests.  Mainstream psychologists have however long ago abandoned projective tests (such as the TAT and Rorschach) because of their deficient validity.  They have frequently been found not to predict the behaviour inferred from them.  2).  Buttman says that Altemeyer's RWA test predicts conservatism.  Yet even Altemeyer admits that it does not preduct vote.  Republicans and Democrats are roughly equally likely to get high scores on it.  A strange measure of conservatism!

Buttman has clearly had a lot of fun reinventing the wheel but he would have benefitted greatly from doing some basic background reading first.  If my comments above seem derisive, I think they are deservedly so  -- JR.

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For Hollywood Liberals, It's Identity Politics Uber Alles

by LLOYD MARCUS

Ed Asner's explanation for Hollywood's silence regarding Obama attacking Syria epitomizes the absurdity and danger of political correctness and identity politics. Ironically, Hollywood progressives find themselves slaves of their own emotion driven brain-dead loon-icy. Hollywood along with Democrats and the mainstream media have declared all opposition or criticism of Obama racist. ‘

"A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama," said Asner.

Excuse me - they don't want to "feel"? Dear Lord, while we adults are discussing national security, Hollywood progressives are still obsessed with their feelings and protecting the first liberal black president.

Hollywood and the mainstream media's supersensitivity to racism and sexism only applies when it involves supporting liberal Democrats. Thus, a Hillary Clinton presidency would, in essence, be the third Obama term; furthering his "fundamental transformation" of America.

Anyone opposing or criticizing the first "woman" president will be politically shackled and humiliated in the public square for sexism. Suckered again by allowing their political enemies to set the rules of engagement, wimpy weak-kneed Republicans will surrender and give Hillary everything she wants. They always do.

In glaring contradiction of their well-crafted image as defenders of blacks and women, Democrats have a history of take-no-prisoner assaults on black conservatives. Democrats seek not merely to stop them, but their total destruction, insuring that their uppity black derrieres never dare challenge the liberal's agenda again.

The term "high tech lynching" was birthed out of the over-the-top vitriolic media circus created by Democrat and liberal media efforts to block black conservative Clarence Thomas from becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

A liberal radio host called the first black Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice an Aunt Jemima, claiming that blacks only have subservient roles in the Bush Administration. Imagine a conservative radio host calling a black Democrat politician an Aunt Jemima. Their career would be over.

With class and dignity Dr Rice endured the attacks of the racist white liberal cartoonists. Pat Oliphant and Jeff Danziger featured Rice with exaggerated big lips speaking in a rural southern dialect.

In his Doonesbury comic strip, Garry Trudeau called Rice "Brown Sugar".

Ted Rall in his comic suggested that Rice was Bush's "house nigga" in need of "racial re-education."

Was there push back from the mainstream media over the blatantly racist cartoons? Heck no. As a matter of fact, Universal Press Syndicate and the New York Times distribute these racist cartoonists.

Republican Michael Steele was the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland. And yet, when the LT Governor ran for the U.S. Senate he was pelted with Oreo cookies at a campaign appearance. An Oreo is a black person who is black on the outside, but white inside. A white liberal blogger released a racist doctored photo of Steele as a black-faced minstrel. The caption read, "Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house."

Despite irrefutable evidence that decades of liberal Democrat policies have destroyed the black family, racist actress Janeane Garofalo concluded that black conservatives are getting paid or are mentally ill; suffering with Stockholm Syndrome.

Black actress Stacey Dash was unprepared for the tsunami of venomous hate she received from liberal Democrats for endorsing Romney for president. In solidarity with MLK's dream, Bash said, "I chose him not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character."

This is merely a glimpse into liberals' horrific record of racism. They are equally bigoted toward conservative women.

Million dollar contributor to Obama, liberal Democrat Bill Maher, called Sarah Palin a c**t. He called Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin MILFs. Imagine what would happen to a conservative displaying such disrespect for a liberal woman.

During a monologue, David Letterman took a cheap shot at Sarah Palin at the expense of her daughter. Letterman said Palin's daughter got "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez. Letterman also said Palin has the style of a "slutty flight attendant."

None of these outrageously mean-spirited sexist assaults on conservative women received significant pushback from Democrats or the liberal mainstream media.

In an unholy alliance, the mainstream media have duped low-information voters into believing the Democrats are superhero defenders of blacks and women, protecting them from villainous conservative Republicans. It's a crock of you know what.

Liberal Democrats are not paragons of virtue fighting for the rights of blacks and women. Quite the opposite. Blacks and women are useful to the Democratic party only insofar as they can be used to accrue power and discredit Republicans.

Democrats can not be trusted with national security, or restoring America's economic glory. Like zombies, Democrats and their liberal allies in the media are undeterred, totally focused on implementing the liberal socialist/progressive agenda and protecting the legacy of the first black president president. Thus, the anti-war party must support a war of choice in Syria.

Such will be the case if Hillary wins the White House in 2016. Protecting the legacy of the first liberal female president will trump everything, including national security.

Political correctness and identity politics are killin' us, folks.

SOURCE

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Our Non-Serious President

Fresh from terrorizing the Russians and bringing everlasting peace to a war-torn Middle East, Barack Obama undertook Monday to work on the Republicans the same tactics that worked so resoundingly on the trembling Vladimir Putin. He made a speech.

Obama makes a lot of speeches because he has a lot to say on all topics. The one he made in the Rose Garden, touting his impending triumph over the country's economic woes, had all the right props, from impressive background to worshipful audience. The language was robust: "Republicans in Congress don't seem to be focused on how to grow the economy and build the middle class. I say 'at the moment' because I'm still hoping that a light bulb goes off here.

"I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can't get 100 percent of what it wants.

"(A)re some of these folks really so beholden to one extreme wing of their party they're willing to tank the entire economy just because they can't get their way on this issue?

"What they call this in the boxing ring and other such high-class venues is trash-talkin'. You try to make your opponent lose his cool, get mad, throw a premature punch. C'mon, man! You think you're such a big man! Well, where I come from, we got a name for folks like you."

And so on.

He's such a class act, Barack Obama! So much personal dignity! A week ago, getting ready to bomb the Syrians (or so he said), the president was wondering how many Republicans he could round up to compensate for all the left-wing Democrats he couldn't hold in line.

That was of course last week. Bailed out of a serious foreign policy jam by his old friend Vladimir Putin, who handed him the formula for calling off the pro-bombing movement, Obama decided he didn't need the Republicans after all, therefore he could attack them with his patented blend of patronizing language and sarcasm. (As I said, a genuine class act!)

While the Syrians, with Russian help, take care of crushing the Syrian rebellion -- in which 100,000 Syrians have lost their lives, just 1 percent of them due to chemical warfare -- our president can revert to taking bows for dealing with an economy still awaiting recovery despite his past ministrations.

What's really lovable about our president is his gift, no doubt divine in origin, for never putting a foot wrong, never making a mistake -- at least by his own account. Fifty-three percent of Americans, according to a new Pew Research poll, disapprove of Obamacare, yet in two weeks, it's "going to help" even more millions than it has already. And, oh, that sequester -- which he proposed, agreed to and signed into law!

"It's irresponsible to keep it in place." And we "need to grow faster" but can't because "the top one percent of Americans took home 20 percent of the nation's income last year" in this "winner-take-all economy where a few do better and better while everybody else just treads water or loses ground."

Three more years -- it hurts to say this -- is the period for which the United States is stuck with a non-serious president. Serious national leaders try to get things done, stretching out a hand to possible allies, standing firm where necessary, giving ground otherwise. If Barack Obama is a serious national leader, Miley Cyrus is an Amish housewife.

What a shame Obama trusts Putin and Bashar al-Assad twice as much as he trusts the average Republican member of Congress. With Obama, the point, perhaps, is that he has Putin and Assad out of the way momentarily. Not so the Republican House he faces, with its tea party constituency, as time draws near to deal with the budget and the debt ceiling.

The Rose Garden speech, to be sure, contained one high-minded exhortation: "Let's stop the political posturing." That was just before the Republican-bashing commenced anew.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

"He Was More of a Liberal Type": Friend of Navy Yard Killer Speaks to CNN:  "No doubt this nugget of information will be a non-issue for the MSM. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they run with this the same way they would have had he been described as a conservative"

Washington Navy Yard.  A new triumph for gun control:  "I thought Washington, D.C.’s, strict and harsh gun-control laws were supposed to prevent this sort of thing. Isn’t that what gun-controllers always want to do in other parts of the country where there are gun massacres—impose harsh gun-control laws like the ones they have in Washington?  It seems, not surprisingly, that the victims at the Navy Yard were unable to defend themselves by firing back at the shooter. Undoubtedly, that’s because they were complying with Washington’s strict and harsh gun-control laws and, no doubt, with the military’s own gun-control regulations on military bases.  It will be interesting to see if the gun-control crowd starts calling for strict and harsh gun-control laws in the wake of the Washington Navy Yard massacre. Someone should tell them: “Been there, done that."

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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