Also too, I can no longer understand who the real heroes and villains are for conservatives anymore. I gave up long ago with foreign policy, I can’t tell who’s Hitler and who’s a brave Churchillian protector of freedom, but I thought I knew a hawk from a handsaw within the confines of Our Republic. I can’t tell anymore. I know that college graduates from “blue states” are lazy, trustafarian slime, but now I know that non-college graduates from “red states” are fat, lazy, chain-smoking slime. Maybe this isn’t so complicated, maybe in Real Murka, a college degree makes you good, in the decadent enclaves on the coasts, it makes you bad.
Their only heroes are themselves. A quick list:
The DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, More) describes Antisocial Personality Disorder as follows:
There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honour financial obligations;
Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;
The individual is at least age 18 years.There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.
Go through that list and tell me you can not see it making a perfect match with EVERY SINGLE Republican running for President with the exception of Huntsman. So to answer DougJ, their “hero” is whoever gets them what they want (or what they convince themselves they want) at that exact moment, and the “villain” is whoever they think might get in their way. It’s really that simple. Modern conservatism as demonstrated by the current GOP (and not the fever dreams of Andrew Sullivan’s Burkean/Oakeshottian babble) isn’t so much a political ideology as it is a mental disorder. The only thing missing from the DSM IV from an otherwise perfect description of the GOP is rampant innumeracy and excessive jingoism.
And yes, I know that Sullivan will probably give me a Moore Award for this post. Not because he disagrees with me, because he doesn’t. He’ll just get the vapors when someone bluntly points out what he has been slowly realizing and writing about for the past couple years. Some snippets from just today:
They were waiting and hoping for a Dolchstoss moment. He deprived them of it. This is their pathetic pale echo of the old party line.
But then, increasingly, Israel-Palestine is no longer a foreign policy question for the GOP. It’s a domestic question, related primarily to how to channel religious devotion, and to demonstrate one’s own theological cred. Like running for office in Tunisia.
In his gut, Sullivan knows these folks are lunatics. Sociopaths. But for whatever reason, like a mother figure at the Thanksgiving family meal, when someone points out that the ex-felon uncle is a drunk and a gambler and an unemployed loser who pawned the family jewels and who preys on children, what will really upset Sully is all the blunt talk upsetting the dinner table atmosphere.
Yevgraf
John, once you realize that the purpose of Sarah Palin was riling up the 27% and giving cover to the lack of cooperation, and that birtherism is about delegitimization, the rest falls into place.
NobodySpecial
Why don’t you just ask Sully’s ghostwriters to post here, so that we don’t need the extra filter?
Reality Check
Fuck Sullivan, all he cares about is his right to practice sodomy. That’s the A-Z of his political philosophy.
cathyx
One of these days Sully will become a democrat. I feel it in my bones.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Reality Check: You check out this shit from the terrorists up in the North Georgia Mountains?
NobodySpecial
@cathyx: Tories don’t do Labor.
Reality Check
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not judging him, but seriously, all Sullivan cares about at the end of the day is butt sex.
DougJ
As much it pains me to say this, I think he overdoes it on the Israel stuff. The big factor here is that most people don’t may much attention to that issue one way or another. Yeah, Palin and Jennifer Rubin are nuts about it, but mostly that matters because most people ignore it.
Cacti
Royalty Check popping in for some evening homophobia.
I’m confused. One time it said it was an atheist. What non-religious reason exists for visceral hatred of homosexuals?
Cat Lady
I admit to having gone back to reading him every day now, because one of these times he’s just going to have to admit that he’s a liberal because conservative is a word that doesn’t mean what he thinks it means any more no matter how many times he tries to ring the Burkean bells and quote Oakeshott, and for some reason I can’t adequately explain, I want to bear witness when it happens.
ETA: Sully linked to Cole when Cole was transitioning out of wingnuttia, and that’s how I came to find my happy place on the intertrons, and for that I will always be a Sully fan and want him to come all the way into the light. Also.
cathyx
That’s because the uncle defended him once when all the cousins were making fun of him. He’ll never forget it.
Villago Delenda Est
A Moore award is a badge of honor.
Sullivan is failed Tory trash. Fuck him. Fuck all Thatcherite assholes. Repeatedly. With a rusty, unlubed chain saw. That has a short in it.
His vile ilk were driven out of towns on this continent on a rail, tarred and feathered, 235 years ago.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Reality Check: Never mind, I forgot who you were.
Linda Featheringill
:-)
fraught
@Reality Check: Oops. Thinking you should practice some sodomy on yourself.
DougJ
@NobodySpecial:
What makes you think we aren’t Sully ghostwriters?
scav
@Reality Check: Given the your political philosophy seems to consist uniquely in being a dick in any and all contexts, that’s a bit rich.
cleek
people read Reality Check?
why?
quickly
I generally lurk, but this has to be seconded. Well done John Cole.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@cleek: Because some of us can’t figure out your pie filter. Of course you have me filtered so this will fall on deaf ears.
NobodySpecial
@DougJ: Well, you’re a little too unhateful on the poor to do a good job of it. Cole’s too ungentlemanly in language.
Of course, you two are also the biggest tonguebathers of Mr. Sullivan’s unique worldview on this blog, and his particular style of enlightened Toryism is also fine with a large chunk of the commentariat, so I’ll just put $50 on black.
Villago Delenda Est
@cleek:
OK, I’m going to have to dock you cool points for asking one of those totally unanswerable existential questions, cleek.
beltane
The main problem with Sully is that he has such an irrational aversion to all things left-wing that he is willing to go to great lengths to overlook the pathological behavior of the right. Perhaps one day he will come to terms with the root causes of his internal dilemma (is it some British class-based thing?) or maybe not, but if he does he will be a more honest writer for his efforts.
MikeBoyScout
John, trust me. It is time to give up on the Sully obsession.
He’s irrelevant. Willfully irrelevant.
You want to turn someone from the Dark Side? Tickle Frum. He’s ripe.
Reality Check
@Cacti:
I don’t hate gay people. I’m just sayin’, that’s Sullivan’s single issue, pretty much.
Baud
Isn’t that a big problem with a lot of Americans as well?
beltane
@Cacti: Self-hatred and loneliness.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Why would Cleek have you of all people filtered?
Reality Check
I mean come on guys, he gets a new man-crush on a random politician every two years. The latest one was Obama, but he was crushing on George W. Bush pretty hard at one time, too. Next I guess it will be Huntsman.
MikeJ
How can you trust the DSM? They don’t even think homos are sick in the head.
NobodySpecial
@SiubhanDuinne: He said something bad about a President this one time….
Bill E Pilgrim
Wow. Kind of interesting trying to imagine what it would be like to go through life caring in the least what Andrew Sullivan thought about me. In a dark, glimpse of hell sort of way.
jl
Query: that age 18 years stuff. Is that calendar years, dog years, cat years, weasel years, skunk years, or emotional human age years?
Also, Cole said “like a mother figure at the Thanksgiving family meal, when someone points out that the ex-felon uncle is a drunk and a gambler and an unemployed loser who pawned the family jewels”
Thanksgiving is coming up around my ancestral stomping grounds and I wonder if Cole has any advice on how to handle that situation. Yes, they are a pair of teabaggers.
freddie
9.5 out of ten don’t know who Sullivan is.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is the dawning of the Age of Anxiety, the Age of Anxiety . . .
Kola Noscopy
Oh please. Sullivan is himself a lunatic and a sociopath, Cole, as were you not long ago, and now claiming complete transformation and redemption.
If you really don’t recognize that, your rehabilitation is far from complete.
BTW, you blogging has been less than quarter-hearted the last few weeks. BJ is losing its focus and identity as a result. I think you already know that though. Maybe if you stopped spending so much time jerking off over at the Daily Douche…
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t remember exactly but I pissed him or her off.
freddie
@SiubhanDuinne: BJ snob.
SiubhanDuinne
@NobodySpecial:
Well, then, he TOTALLY deserves the pie treatment. Pow, right in the kisser.
Kola Noscopy
@Reality Check:
Reality Check strikes me as mostly an ass, but appropriately enough, I agree with him on this topic. And as a proud practitioner of gay butt sex myself, I can say that with great authority.
Baud
@Kola Noscopy:
Ok, I’ll bite, since I’m relatively new here. What was BJ’s focus and identity?
Comrade Javamanphil
Gah. Earlier today David Folkenflik Retweeted somebody praising Ben Smith of Politico’s blog piece from some GOP moron praising Huntsman as the last man standing in the GOP race. The commentariat REALLY want him to win so they don’t have to dance around the unpleasantry of pointing out the rest of the GOP field is nucking futs. I see no reason to encourage our Gang of 500 overlords in this endeavor.
Also, too. Sully is awful. He’ll never make the final logical jump to sanity he always seems so close to making.
trollhattan
@cleek:
Allergic to pie? Delicious, steamy pie?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@SiubhanDuinne: Actually, even though I can’t remember what it was, I think I deserved it.
Comrade Javamanphil
Also, also too. +4 and counting.
beltane
@Baud: It certainly is with the Village media, a worthless group of cowards who employ robust hippie-punching in an attempt to hide their complete emasculation at the hands of the right. Sully is a little different. It doesn’t seem to be the hippies that bother him so much as the fear of Labor, of dirty, uncouth working people.
Reality Check
@Kola Noscopy:
Thank you, Kola (I think). I didn’t say ALL gay guys, or even most, only care only about butt sex, but what I’m saying is, Sullivan only cares about butt sex.
Odie Hugh Manatee
That’s gotta be very uncomfortable, knees in the back and all. ;)
Tis a thing of beauty Cole, it’s going to leave a mark. Lying is a way of life for politicians and like any lying, it causes more problems than if the lie had not occurred. Lying has turned this country into a fucking mess and we’re dragging the world along for the ride. Nobody wants to admit to disaster so they are doing everything they can to divert and deflect from it. More lying.
Reality has nothing to do with decisions any more, not as long as people keep swallowing the lies. One day the diversions and lies of our politicians, banksters, financiers and their media outlets are going to stop working. Shit is going to get so bad that nothing they say will have an effect because people will be too destitute and angry to care. Have they thought about what they are going to do when that happens?
Nope. They can lie and not have to deal with it now so why plan ahead? If shit falls apart then our lying pols can retire and let someone else deal with it.
That’s the way it has always ‘worked’ in this country. So far, anyway.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Baud: It used to be a really good football blog. Now, not so much.
jl
@trollhattan: Watch it, this is family safe blog. At least some commenter said so once, and I believed it.
freddie
See, the Greeks want to go back to the Drachma, just like I want to go back to 1969.The Doors….man.
MikeJ
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
I thought it was pet pictures. Pets playing footie maybe?
The Dangerman
@Baud:
Creating new uses for the word “fuck”.
Kola Noscopy
@Reality Check:
You’re forgetting how he was getting moist in the dark place over Cheney and Rumsfeld in the early Iraq War years, debating which one was more daddy-licious. Recently, also, he’s been slick and slimey down there over Paul Ryan.
As much of a douche as you generally are here in comments, you have this Sully observation right. His politics follow his steroid-enhanced libido.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@MikeJ: That too, it’s faded though.
Kola Noscopy
@jl:
Easy. You don’t go. Or when they pipe up you tell them to fuck themselves.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@jl: Come fishing on the Emerald Coast of Florida!
jl
“BJ is losing its focus and identity as a result”
Focus and identify? BJ? What kind of ‘BJ’ would that be? Not some blog, surely there is some typo there.
What kind of focus and identity does a miserable lefty politics/pets/food/cooking/booze/sports/artsncrafts/gardening/posterwhimbleg/crankyrankfest/mybigwhitecatisfat blog need, anyway?
Edit: ah. I am slow. Now I get it. Need some petpix. Thnxbye
The Republic of Stupidity
At first glance, I thought that said “in Tulsa…”
And after I read it again and realized it was Tunisia, I just shrugged and thought, “What’s the diff?”
Samara Morgan
@DougJ: well….i wunner how Sully’s gunna parse this.
Cain on China
Ace and AllahP have drawn lines in the sand on this one.
Remind you of anyone?
Cain is like a black, male, bald Sarah Palin.
Kola Noscopy
@Baud:
Cole’s peculiar/interesting outlook and way with words, as well as his ever-evolving, then devolving political views, combined with his faux macho arrogance which alternates with faux humility. All colored dramatically by his past as an Uber Wingnut.
Now it’s run of the mill, lazy tribalists, writing stupid shit most of the time. And that’s just ABL…
jl
People get what they pay for. Here is a solution for dissatisfied blog customers:
http://www.blogspot.com
freddie
@Kola Noscopy: Ha!
Mark K
Sullivan, just today, was claiming the OWS was conservative. Yep. See,…um because they are against the radicals in the Republican party who are against regulation, revenue incrases, etc. So they are really conservatives ya see.
He will NEVER renounce his fantasy of Tory-light rule. A perfect example of the ol’ “Conservatism doesn’t fail, people fail conservatism” bullshit.
I swear, its like a co-dependent relationship with the guy at B.J.
Bill E Pilgrim
@beltane: If you’ve ever hung out in the UK with Tories much or at all then Sullivan seems a much more familiar type I think, and possibly less baffling.
The last time I more or less inadvertently listened to him saying anything was on Bill Maher’s thing maybe a year ago debating Naomi Klein. In addition to spewing the most straight-ahead gawdawful trickle-down Reaganomics, he was one of the most self-satisfied little basted roastables I think I’ve ever laid eyes on, talking non-stop and trying to just sort of shout everyone else into submission. Unbearable.
cleek
@Comrade Javamanphil:
well, he does have some hot daughters.
freddie
@Samara Morgan: I was just thinking of M/C. What up, on the cyber front?
Little Boots
DougJ writes was your first mistake, JohnCole
Reality Check
If Sullivan were straight he’d be Rick Santorum. That’s pretty much what Im saying.
ellenelle
john, the connection with anti-social personality disorder is buttressed by research showing conservatives tend to be more reactive to “fearful” stimuli, and their limbic systems (fight or flight) get activated with such stimuli, compared to non-conservatives.
what’s so pernicious about this party, though, is the overt exploitation of these sentiments (think frank luntz; doncha just love colbert’s sly takedown of the guy? it does not appear he realizes at all that he’s being punked!). someone out there somewhere will someday make a film about julius streicher that shows the comparisons to guys like luntz and his fox buddies.
but the obvious tell is staring us all right in the face; it’s understandable that sully misses this, but …what else are we to expect from a party that worships capitalism, the near-religious ideology that pivots on the assumption that all persons operate out of self-interest? instead of the original sin, this is elevated to some perverted universal salvation.
when you let this simple point sink in, then none of it is the least bit surprising.
DougJ
@Reality Check:
You’re saying Rick Santorum is straight?
Little Boots
and Andrew Sullivan does clearly agree with you JohnCole, for what it’s worth.
Chris
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
You’re describing to a tee the clusterfuck that was the Soviet Union and a big part of the reason why it collapsed. Yay us for going down the same road.
DougJ
@Bill E Pilgrim:
He’s English, what’s a brother gonna do? They’re all like that.
Reality Check
@DougJ I never heard of Santorum being a closet case, but you may be right.
Little Boots
@Reality Check:
nah, straights can keep him.
frothy, nasty straights.
Samara Morgan
@ellenelle: also, only conservatives exhibit backfire effect and Right Wing Authority tendency.
Can we talk about red/blue genetics NAOW?
DougJ
@Reality Check:
He spends an awful lot of time thinking about gay sex.
Bill E Pilgrim
@DougJ: Pondist ;)
BTW just in case it wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean that people in the UK or even all Tories are like Sullivan in personality, not all of them anyway. Just that Tories for us can be sort of a funny mix like him in terms of right wing ideas and not.
Little Boots
@DougJ:
as in ALL his time.
Reality Check
@Dough yes, but I think that has to do more with being an insufferable uber Catholic twit than closeted.
Little Boots
@Reality Check:
no, just ask the Pope.
Narcissus
What do you people have against butt sex, anyway
DougJ
@Reality Check:
Fine line.
Little Boots
@Narcissus:
very little.
nothing, in fact.
freddie
@Samara Morgan: C’mon, Wiki-leaks is in shambles, Anonymous is in turmoil, what the F?
Chet
@Cacti:
Some of the worst homophobes I know are not the least bit religious. One thing they are, invariably, is misogynistic, and I think a lot of the contempt for (male) gays comes from the notion that they’re willingly abdicating their glorious manhood in order to “act like women”.
Some of these people are actually okay with lesbians, provided they’re sufficiently butch. Again, it comes down to fear of/contempt for the female, IMO.
Jenny
Oh, Christ, you and your Sully obsession.
He.is.just.not.that.in.to.you.Cole.
Little Boots
@Jenny:
he is a little.
I suspect it.
by the way, more thread upstairs.
don’t tell Doug.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): I thought I was the only one for whom the pie filter was beyond my level of technical skill. I was silent in my shame. Now I recognize that I’m in excellent company.
Svensker
@Samara Morgan:
No.
Jenny
@Reality Check:
his chief-of-staff(no pun, intended) was openly gay.
http://massresistancewatch.blogspot.com/2005/07/santorums-chief-of-staff-is-gay.html
Bill E Pilgrim
This is actually the transcript from that Maher Real Time show, and reading what Sullivan said it’s pretty striking how close it is to what Bloomberg said today, after which Krugman called him “Michael Bloomberg, Ignoramus” in a blog post of the same title.
John Cole
@Kola Noscopy: What would you like me to write about, petunia.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole: Not petunias, azaleas.
RossInDetroit
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I read that post headline and laughed out loud. He really goes after him, too. Do you get the impression that Dr. Shrill’s patience is wearing a trifle thin these days?
Calouste
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Fundamentalist religious parties are not an absolute majority in Tunisia?
jl
@John Cole: Which commenter is Cole calling ‘Petunia’?
freddie
@jl: cleek
Kola Noscopy
@John Cole:
Don’t try to sweet talk me, Cole. But if you must, I prefer “Hyacinth.”
As for your question, just consider my paragraph quoted below and put your digits to the keyboard like in the old days and let em rip. Oh, and eliminate most of your bloated FPer staff. Your posting is too infrequent now to maintain a BJ “personality,” if you will, which is what most commenters here enjoy, even if we all hate each other at the same time.
Bill E Pilgrim
@RossInDetroit: Maybe just a bit.
Honestly I don’t know how he does it, particularly having to sit there and not just reach out and slap that bow tie off what’s his name. While I’m sure also aware that the fact that they include him at all on those things is a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes.
ellenelle
@Samara Morgan:
hm. not sure how much snark to attribute to your response, but the data are the data.
and no, no data show “all conservatives” are anything. no data show all of anything are anything; we know tautologies like “all conservatives are human,” but researchers don’t tend to waste their time on those.
as for the genetics, not aware of anyone pursuing that with the conservative/liberal distinction, as most of those folks are focusing on diseases and such. it might happen, but i’m more inclined to think ideologies are more nurture than nature.
but evidently this type of inquiry does not appeal to you. fascinates me, that’s why i made it my profession. but then, different strokes. i’m sure you’re pursuing something fascinating, as well.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@John Cole:
Boy are you ever bored tonight…lol! Casting lines everywhere and reeling them in.
ellenelle
@Chet:
hey, chet, i think you’re on to a piece of the puzzle here. but at the risk of referencing data again (man, samara got all up in my grill for that earlier, so ya know, peace and all that)….
at least one study out there has shown that men who voice the strongest homophobia also tend to have the strongest arousal responses to photos of male erotica.
it seems it’s just the methinks thou dost protest too much thang. just another version of human, not terribly evolved.
jl
come to think of it, this blog is going downhill. The software has worked OK, the front posters have not wrecked the blog and been forced to ask for help from the readers, we have not had to fear Cole is undergoing some physical or mental breakdown, Cole and the commenters have not engaged in some insane feud, and Cole’s pets have made no attempt on his life, for at least three or four days now.
The old ramshackle charm is gone.
I figure it, after Balloon Juice was ranked tenth out of ten ‘influential blogs’, it was ruined by fame and success.
JCT
@RossInDetroit: I’m surprised he hasn’t gone screaming into the night — he’s an island of sentient thought surrounded by people rapidly descending into complete idiocy on that Op-Ed page. It’s a sight to behold. Not a day goes by that Krugman has to find a way to gingerly call Brooks or Douhat or Friedman a gibbering fool.
The real sight has been the comments section- holy crap, the comments on the Brooks piece are a laugh riot with a clear majority running circles around him.
fleeting expletive
Bill E. Pilgrim—that is just awesome. Best laugh I’ve had today.
Samara Morgan
@ellenelle: sillie. Backfire effect is ONLY observed in conservatives so far.
Dig Jay Rosen.
There is plenty of research going on in red/blue genetics. Have you heard of the Savannah Principle?
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: They haven’t yet discovered that he killed a wild animal on the road and neglected to bring it home for them. At least, I don’t think he brought it home.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samara Morgan:
Um, Herman, bud, you’re like about 47 years late on this breaking news.
scav
@Odie Hugh Manatee: They’re so cute in large numbers (with enough alcohol nearby) and they’re even beginning to interact with one another. I mean usually, it’s all parallel play with this lot.
RossInDetroit
@JCT:
Yeah, I look at that page regularly and he’s like the kindergarten teacher on finger paint day. Not much you can do but keep the mop handy.
I’d be surprised if he doesn’t occasionally regret stepping out of Economics into the social/political field. It’s gotta be exasperating for a guy whose job is to make plain sense of complex things.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samara Morgan:
Um, Herman, bud, you’re like about 47 years late on this breaking news.
handy
John Cole had 2 posts in near succession on pleading for help to get iTunes to work with his external hard drive. I’m not saying this blog is declining. I’m not saying it’s in it’s “Duh winning” phase either.
Samara Morgan
@freddie: i already told people here.
Do you want to join Anonymous? You cant join Anonymous.
Anonymous is a self-organizing system made up of individuals that temporarily share goals…like commuters sharing a train.
There is no fixed ideology, no fixed goals.
goals are emergent and transient.
And Wikileaks is WAI.
The Iraq document drop heavily influenced the attitude of the Iraqi people towards a rewrite of the SOFA….and not in a positive fashion.
America is becoming a police state on its way to NLS collapse like Julian predicted.
Who do you think hacked the drone software to count missions?
LOL
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: do you think it will affect the polls?
I dont.
At hotair the commentariat is already saying that Cain is being palinized.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan:
Some guy named Bob in Abilene. Duh.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: a leaker? a hacker? Julian predicts leakers spawn more leakers. :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: No.
handy
@Omnes Omnibus:
No to pie? Why do you hate freedom?
Omnes Omnibus
@handy: As to the first question, I’m full. As to the second, obviously it is because I am a liberal.
ellenelle
@Samara Morgan:
ah, thanks, samara.
my reading of the actual nyhan and reifler backfire studies do not show “all” conservatives, or even “only” conservatives. the data show a strong statistical effect (p < .05), but that certainly does not mean that all conservatives show this effect, nor that they are the only ones who do. even in the rosen synopsis you offer here, liberals do show the effect, just not to the “backfire” degree conservatives do.
and sure, i’ve heard of the savannah principle, but that is just a theory about human evolution, not a genetic study, and certainly not one that addresses red/blue politics.
when i think of genetics studies, i suppose i tend to think of DNA sequencing and the like (when i saw your reference to “red/blue genetics,” i first thought you were talking about color-blindness), not speculation based on tribal/familial and geographic cohorts, though those are fair enough, i suppose.
but basically, it seems we’re talking past each other perhaps? i mean, i’ve lost sight of what all this has to do with my comment to john about conservatives showing anti-social symptoms.
ellenelle
not sure why my attempt to italicize “all” in my previous comment rendered the rest of the post all italia, but the edit box showed the end/command, so …whatevah.
sorry.
scav
@ellenelle: Someone just mentioned we haven’t had a FYWP breakdown in a while, so you’ve probably just done us a service in getting things back to normal.
ETA: Drat, already gone. Still, in a very minor key, almost like old times. BJ, out there, busting margins and knocking heads together as usual.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
I presume you’ve read the original paper Samara. You’ve linked it a few times. That means you have also read the footnotes?
Samara Morgan
@ellenelle: no, we are not talking past each other, you apparently cant read. in the Nyhan study ONLY conservatives exhibited backfire effect. Both liberals and conservatives exhibited fact blocking, which is quite different.
Here is some red/blue genetics.
A Genome-Wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes
ellenelle
@scav:
yeah, wow, i stepped away for a sec, and then poof, it was fixed.
lost the italicized “all”, but i can live with that.
still, pretty impressive.
Samara Morgan
@THE: again, in the study ONLY conservatives exhibited backfire effect, where the salience of the falsehood is INCREASED by correction.
Do you have another study to cite which counters Nyhan’s results?
THE
@Samara Morgan: Read the conclusion of their paper and read footnote 33 on page 32 of the pdf file.
I would just say that for myself, I think they have pretty well demonstrated the likelihood of the actual existence of Backfire Effect. But the case that it is limited to conservatives, maybe not so much. It needs follow up.
At least this is how I read it.
stibbert
quoting Robert Heinlein here, “The Hawk class is a purely commercial type while the Hanshaw runabout is a sport job.”
“The Rolling Stones”, RAH, 1952.
ellenelle
@Samara Morgan:
no, fact-blocking and the backfire effect are not quite different; they’re the same – by the authors’ description and notation – but differ only in degree of how deeply the respondents felt about the topic, how salient it was for them. conservatives showed this effect significantly more than liberals did (that p < .05 thang), which does not mean they were the only ones who showed any aspect of this trend all the time.
as for the political genome study, wow, this is the first i've heard of this, and no big surprise because evidently it's the only one of its kind, not "plenty" as you asserted. i'm frankly flummoxed how anyone would tease apart the nature/nurture piece here; those authors admit there is not a genome but likely some cluster or pattern. i'm not sure how compelling this will prove to be in the long run.
but honestly samara, i fail to grasp what all this has to do with my comments on john's points about conservatives and antisocial symptoms. nor do i grasp where your snark is coming from. with your more recent claim that i can't read, i can only surmise that it's worse than snark, it's just snotty and rude.
sigh. i love the contributors here, i really do, but i generally despise how quickly comments descend into this crap. which is why i so seldom bother.
between the trolls and the unnecessary snide rudeness, just not worth the trouble.
ellenelle
@THE:
thank you; appreciate the additional info.
(please see my last note to her; i apologize, but i just don’t get why there is so much incivility and so many chips on shoulders. oh well….)
Odie Hugh Manatee
@ellenelle:
Samara (aka Moto4Loco and a zillion other nyms) is an annoyingly hyper 7331 haxxor kiddie with a superiority complex and deep communication/comprehension problems. You can safely ignore it. Lots of yipping and yapping but nothing to pay attention to, much like an angry Chihuahua.
In an aquarium.
William Hurley
A large body of clinical findings regarding the psycho-social make-up of right-wingers & conservatives already exists. It began in earnest with Robert Altemeyer’s research which has identified 2 personality types. The types are:
Right-wing Authoritarians, and
Social Dominance Orientation
Altemeyer’s work has bred a cottage industry of research on the nature of these types and the robustness of the designated characteristics and/or attributes. A fairly recent complement to Altemeyer’s work, though unintentionally I suspect, is the book length meta-analysis of the role and success strategies of “functional” psychopaths. The book is titled, “The Psychopath Test“.
The right-wing’s a fusion of lunatic “leaders” and feckless followers drawn together by the gravitational attraction of mutually complementary mental disease. The in-group bonds that fuse these types together as a sub-culture is, metaphorically speaking, as powerful as the strong nuclear force of particle physics.
Anoniminous
ellenelle:
Remember the limbic system gets first whack at neural processing, the pre-frontal cortex does it’s thing, and only then does the frontal cortex, thus Broadman’s Area 10, get a stab at it. The more an organism is put under stress – such as “challenges” to core beliefs – the greater the influence of the amygdala on the subsequent processing, increasing the level of Emotive Discourse¹. One aspect of this is a reduced ability to properly weigh and judge evidence contradictory to core beliefs.
While I do not dispute the fact there are genetic causes to some cognitive dysfunctions, e.g., schizophrenia, I suggest one should seek the root of Backfire in enculturation, family or peer group. In this regard I note the finding of “family induced” schizophrenia in the Fischer, Harvald, and Hauge study using Danish historic data. (Brit.Jour.Psychiatry, 1969)
¹ A wee dram of Logical Positivism never hurt anyone, eh? :-)
Anoniminous
@William Hurley:
It appears some people are psychopaths, some people achieve psychopathy, and some have psychopathy thrust upon them.
:-)
I’m currently reading Becoming Evil. Prof. Waller’s exposition plus my knowledge of Milgram, the Stanford Prison Experiment, Prof. Altemeyer’s work & etc. and so on, makes me wonder if we shouldn’t just go back to the primeval slime and start again.
Or at least do a “Forest Troop,” kill the ‘alpha males’ (sic) and let the women organize society.
Samara Morgan
@THE: that is the difference between ALL conservatives and ONLY observed in conservatives in the particular study.
@ellenelle:there is no increased salience of falsehoods associated with fact blocking. two entirely different things. you are ducking.
you could graciously admit you are wrong in this particular instance.
:)
hardly. there is an emergent body of work on the biological basis of political affiliation. you are familiar with the four paths of heredity, i assume?
genetic, epigentic, behavioral and symbolic?
as Wm. Hurley points out there is a large body of clinical studies involving SDO and RWA (found in conservative type individuals).
Dr. Lynn’s work on the negative correlation between religiosity and IQ is also relevant, since conservative is a subset of the superset White Christian anymore.
Samara Morgan
@Anoniminous: let the women organize society.
like bobonos.
;)
of course. Nyhans study does not deal with the cause of backfire, it only asserts that backfire effect was only observed in conservatives.
Samara Morgan
@THE: limited to conservatives IN THAT STUDY.
foo’
how many times do i have to say that?
William Hurley
@Anoniminous:
Good stuff you’ve been reading.
Another way to revitalize the project known as civil society might be to encourage practices and disciplines that amplify the super-ego-like inhibitory functions of the PFC. Something along the lines of Vipassana meditation and other Buddhist practices of mental cultivation for example.
Samara Morgan
@Anoniminous:
xactly– a possible biological basis for backfire effect.
from this paper.
do you like red/blue genetics or neuropolitics better as a descriptor?
Samara Morgan
@William Hurley:
or sufi meditation and mevlevi dance, or even praying five times a day.
;)
Samara Morgan
@Odie Hugh Manatee: you dislike me because i say appalling (but true!) things that fuck with your world view.
but like ellenelle just discovered to her sorrow, i am usually right, and i can back my positions with linkage.
;)
THE
@Samara Morgan: I suggest you pay close attention to this statement in their conclusion:
Samara Morgan
@THE: so? all i am saying is that IN THE CONTEXT of the study, backfire effect was only observed in conservatives.
Jay Rosen saw the same thing.
I will defer to him.
we are not the same.
Samara Morgan
@ellenelle: /taps foot impatiently
you could just admit you were WRONG….instead of whining about how rude i am to point your wrongness out.
i do not think you will.
bi la kayfah
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Don’t allow your private bigotry to influence your judgement.
For example: To me you are an ultra-hyper-conservative.
Because you give credence to medieval superstitions.
You are a pre-rational. You have an eleventh century mind.
That is how I see you, no matter how you see yourself.
xian
what is degrading this blog is the nattering of single-issue trolls.
i am glad that kola noscopy and reality check have fallen in love, though. they can have little intolerant centrist babies.
ellenelle
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
sheez; thx odie. seems every time i post a comment here anymore these whackos glom on like slime. really keeps me away, sadly.
appreciate the note.
ellenelle
@Anoniminous:
agree with culture/family influences trumping genetics on ideologies, as i noted somewhere up there. 122 & 131, yeah.
also agree with your overall point that tamping down knee-jerk limbic reactions requires more cortical activity, tho not necessarily with the pathway you describe, and not at all with a pin-pointed localized control station at brodman’s (not broadman’s) 10. imho, neurology has become obsessed with attempting to localize every cognitive activity while losing sight of (a) the broader cortical orchestration for everything we do (hence the initial loss of so many functions with even a mini-stroke, for example), and (b) what those highlighted spots on imaging studies even mean (e.g., relay points get hot but don’t originate activity).
but, that sort of discussion is way far afield of john’s original point and my comment on it, methinks. tho fun.
ellenelle
@Samara Morgan:
(walks away sadly)
no, was not wrong about any of your points (and had help proving that – and the observation of your rudeness – from others here).
but i suppose i should thank you for proving my point that you are rude.
Cuppa Cabana
Ron Paul is another exception. He has other mental disorders documented in DSM IV, however. Perhaps a better fit is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (which applies to many pols from both sides of the aisle, and certainly our Galtian Overlords as well):
xian
@THE: pretty sure I’ve seen the 4loko-chan thing exhibit backfire effect as well, so that clinches it.
Tonybrown74
@Comrade Javamanphil:
There are four “issues” I have with Sullivan (and by issues, I mean I cannot fucking stand him).
1)
And I would rather not waste my time waiting for him to get there.
2) He is a misogynist. Except for Margaret Thatcher, he hates women with a vengeance.
3) I hate to agree with the reality troll, but there are times when he really man-crushes on certain politicians. His drooling over Paul Ryan made me ashamed to be a gay man. It was embarrassing.
And finally, 4) I will never forgive him for giving The Bell Curve a platform.
Tonybrown74
@Reality Check:
Bless your heart! Rick Santorum ain’t straight.
IrishGirl
Shorter John, Sullivan is an enabler…a co-dependent. The metaphor holds up pretty well actually. I like it. However, in my family of Faulknerian ne’er do wells, there’s too many ex-felon uncles so I like to point out the pink elephant sitting in the sweet potatoes. Of course, I am not usually welcomed home very often either……
LauraNo
@Cacti: None.
Samara Morgan
@ellenelle: no, you are wrong.
There is no enhanced salience involved with fact blocking.
Backfire effect was only observed in conservatives in Nyhans study, and backfire effect is defined as the salience of falsehoods increases under correction.
Two entirely different things.
Jay Rosen agrees with my interpretation.
your interpretation.
bulshytt.
Rosens interpretation.
i personally think its quite rude to make a mistake and then try to cover it up.