[Pops]

Can't help but mention that the rev. had to delete Mormonism from his website's list of cult religions before he could endorse Mitt...

This gets back around to the good/evil vs authoritarian/anarchist axis you mentioned first off Tanada.

As someone else said, there is no objective good and evil beyond whatever someone's guru proclaims it is. And of course Gurus are allowed to change their minds at a whim.

A couple of weeks ago Mormonism was evil but now, conveniently, it isn't.

LDS doctrine endorsed polygamy right up to the time it would have prevented Utah from joining the Union. Amazingly one of the elders had an epiphany where god told him that lots of wives was no longer good it was evil. Coincidentally, that meant lots of money for the people who ran Utah.

Now Billy says elect Mitt because he is the keeper of marital sanctity because, well, I honestly don't know except that Billy thinks it is evil.

The contortions would be amusing if they didn't flip flop around and crush so many innocent people.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-575 ... -of-cults/

[PrestonSturges]

Mao wrote a book, Hitler wrote a book, Joseph Smith wrote a book. Jesus? No book, I don't think Christ ever wrote a single word (jump right in if I'm wrong). But once the disciples started their power struggles, they wrote and wrote nnd wrote, trying to outdo each other with more extravagent tales.

A good example is fake historian David Barton, who had his last book yanked from the shelves by his publisher. it's the same song and dance about deciphering the hidden truths.

[Quinny]

If only people were taught to question the information they get thrown at them more vigorously. If people actually voted according to their own enlightened self interest the system would change. Unfortunately enlightenment is very rare even amongst those who propose it.

Most people vote aspirationally or how they are told to.

[PrestonSturges]

"Elightened self interest" seems to be a myth. Authoritariams are driven by a mixture of sadism and masochism, and even those that claim to be saving the country from the threat of sexual anarchy still can't entirely hide their obsession with sexual sadism ("rape....rape...rape....rape....rape")

[Pops]

I don't think authoritarians are necessarily bad, just closed minded.

People are cliquish, we like our own kind so as a rule we tend to make rules favoring our "kind" whatever that happens to mean. I don't want to watch some gay guys prance around on TV but that doesn't mean I think he shouldn't have the partner he choses and the same rights that others have. It doesn't threaten me in the least, I can always change the channel.

[Plantagenet]

I don't think authoritarians are necessarily bad, just closed minded...

Yup. And even if they weren't bad to start with---they will become more so once they seize power. The mere act of wielding unchecked power will turn even the most sensible person into a close-minded authoritarian.

Thats why Plato's idea of putting a Philosopher King in charge of everything doesn't work---you might start out with a thoughtful emperor/philosopher like Marcus Aurelius in control, but centralized political systems will eventually produce Caligulas/Stalins down the road.

[PrestonSturges]

Authoritarian personalities almost always have an upbringing that featured parental abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, addiction, or other mental illness. Because they are driven by anxiety, shame, and guilt, they want to control their anxiety by establishing the illusion of control over their surroundings and the people around them. Through the use of "projection," they put their guilt and shame on others, hence everyone else is "guilty" of something and deserves to be punished. Elements of sadism and masochism are both present, and they will endorse things like torture. And while they are obsessed with stamping out any sort of unorthodox sexual practice, they are likely to get caught in a really embarrassing situation or obsessed with sexually sadistic/masochistic fantasies or pornography. You can see this in witch trials, where everyone was found guilty after being subjected to tortures that were often elaborately sexually sadistic.

[PrestonSturges]

The other thing about authoritarians is that they have a deep sense of personal and sexual inadequacy. True narcissists are less common than just weak neurotic personality types that have an "inferiority complex" which gives rise to a compensatory "superiority complex." It also create envy, which is essentially the same thing as violent hatred. Why did Cain kill Abel? Envy. The first murder in the Bible was over nothing but envy. Anyway that's why bureaucrats inflict paralysis on organizations and can be quite ruthless about hunting down and eliminating productive people.

[careinke]

The other thing about authoritarians is that they have a deep sense of personal and sexual inadequacy. True narcissists are less common than just weak neurotic personality types that have an "inferiority complex" which gives rise to a compensatory "superiority complex." It also create envy, which is essentially the same thing as violent hatred. Why did Cain kill Abel? Envy. The first murder in the Bible was over nothing but envy. Anyway that's why bureaucrats inflict paralysis on organizations and can be quite ruthless about hunting down and eliminating productive people.

You seem to have a lot of experience on this subject. So come on, tell us what your score was on the test.

[PrestonSturges]

The other thing about authoritarians is that they have a deep sense of personal and sexual inadequacy. True narcissists are less common than just weak neurotic personality types that have an "inferiority complex" which gives rise to a compensatory "superiority complex." It also create envy, which is essentially the same thing as violent hatred. Why did Cain kill Abel? Envy. The first murder in the Bible was over nothing but envy. Anyway that's why bureaucrats inflict paralysis on organizations and can be quite ruthless about hunting down and eliminating productive people.

You seem to have a lot of experience on this subject. So come on, tell us what your score was on the test.

Nobody in my family drank, neither parent was mentally ill, and nobody ever beat me or touched me inappropriately, so that gives me a leg up on half the population. I took the big Five Factor Personality Test (whatever that's called), the old version, where one of the categories was "neuroticism" and 100% is completely messed up. I scored 2%.

If you want to see who is dangerous look for several things:
Pseudo friendliness
Pseudo emotions
Pseudo morality

Sociopaths are always (fake) "outraged" on behalf of others (often total strangers), and they are always claiming to be "saving" everyone from some looming crisis or conspiracy that only they can see. And they accuse people of the things that they feel guilty about. "Reverse racism" for instance is the mating call of the hard core racist (actually it was Hitler's main theme).

[Tanada]

Authoritarian personalities almost always have an upbringing that featured parental abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, addiction, or other mental illness. Because they are driven by anxiety, shame, and guilt, they want to control their anxiety by establishing the illusion of control over their surroundings and the people around them. Through the use of "projection," they put their guilt and shame on others, hence everyone else is "guilty" of something and deserves to be punished. Elements of sadism and masochism are both present, and they will endorse things like torture. And while they are obsessed with stamping out any sort of unorthodox sexual practice, they are likely to get caught in a really embarrassing situation or obsessed with sexually sadistic/masochistic fantasies or pornography. You can see this in witch trials, where everyone was found guilty after being subjected to tortures that were often elaborately sexually sadistic.

What about the million or so authoritarian bureaucrats who love to make the average person jump through all the red tape hoops they set up just to get anything done? You don't have to be Stalin or LBJ to demand everything is done just the way you want it done.

[Timo]

Authoritarian personalities almost always have an upbringing that featured parental abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, addiction, or other mental illness. Because they are driven by anxiety, shame, and guilt, they want to control their anxiety by establishing the illusion of control over their surroundings and the people around them. Through the use of "projection," they put their guilt and shame on others, hence everyone else is "guilty" of something and deserves to be punished. Elements of sadism and masochism are both present, and they will endorse things like torture. And while they are obsessed with stamping out any sort of unorthodox sexual practice, they are likely to get caught in a really embarrassing situation or obsessed with sexually sadistic/masochistic fantasies or pornography. You can see this in witch trials, where everyone was found guilty after being subjected to tortures that were often elaborately sexually sadistic.

What about the million or so authoritarian bureaucrats who love to make the average person jump through all the red tape hoops they set up just to get anything done? You don't have to be Stalin or LBJ to demand everything is done just the way you want it done.

Ain't that the truth! And i just so happen to be one of those million bureaucrats who (are forced to) make people jump through hoops in order to get things done. From my inside POV, most (but not all) of those hoops are absolutely pointless, and are established not by the people who implement them, but by the legal departments and the financial departments, all specifically trying to cover their own butts in the unlikely event that something goes wrong and they get sued for not having created all those hoops in the first place. So many rules have nothing to do with the work actually being done, but have everything to do with absolving other people's fear factors.

[PrestonSturges]

Authoritarian personalities almost always have an upbringing that featured parental abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, addiction, or other mental illness.....

What about the million or so authoritarian bureaucrats who love to make the average person jump through all the red tape hoops they set up just to get anything done? You don't have to be Stalin or LBJ to demand everything is done just the way you want it done.

The really thuggish bureaucrats target people who might get stuff done and actively sabotage everyone. I think that falls under both envy and sadism. As part of larger organization, they get power that they would never have as a individual. For a regime, these people are perfect for preserving the status quo even if it involves a slow downward slide of the organization or society. Actually this sort of decay can greatly benefit the strength of the organization.

Hoffer pointed out that when there is a revolution, the same people tend to end up back in their old jobs, and they'll cheerfully toe the line ideologically.

Organized authgoritarians must destroy faith in democratic institutions. "Corruption is out of control!" Every election is a "fraud," the opposition leader is not a "real patriot," every agency has been infiltrated by the nations enemies. If an authoritarian party elects someone who is an obvious lunatic or criminal, it still serves the long term goal of destroying the publics faith in government. If a government agency can be handed over to obviously incompetent appointees, that's all good too.

[PrestonSturges]

-1984

'We are the priests of power,' he said. 'God is power. But at present
power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to
gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize
is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as
he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: "Freedom is
Slavery". Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is
freedom. Alone--free--the human being is always defeated. It must be so,
because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all
failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape
from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the
Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to
realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body--but, above
all, over the mind. Power over matter--external reality, as you would call
it--is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.'

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise
himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his
body painfully.

'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't even control
the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death----'

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because
we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by
degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility,
levitation--anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if
I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must
get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We
make the laws of Nature.'

'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about
Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'

'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not,
what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania
is the world.'

'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny--helpless!
How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was
uninhabited.'

'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older?
Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'

'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals--mammoths and
mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever
heard of.'

'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century
biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he
could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is
nothing.'

'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are
a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'

'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire
a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could
blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the
stars go round it.'

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say
anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

'For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the
ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to
assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions
upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is
beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near
or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians
are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer
crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the
right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there
must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been
exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he
had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as
he looked down at him.

'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong
point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are
mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But
that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a
digression,' he added in a different tone. 'The real power, the power we
have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.'
He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster
questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over
another, Winston?'

Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is
suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his
own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing
human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of
your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are
creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that
the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a
world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not
less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will
be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they
were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world
there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement.
Everything else we shall destroy--everything. Already we are breaking down
the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We
have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and
between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend
any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends.
Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from
a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual
formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm.
Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except
loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of
Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over
a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When
we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be
no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity,
no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be
destroyed. But always--do not forget this, Winston--always there will be
the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing
subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory,
the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a
picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever.'

He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to
shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything.
His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on:

'And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be
stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so
that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you
have undergone since you have been in our hands--all that will continue,
and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the
executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of
terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the
less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the
despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at
every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and
yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you
during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after
generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here
at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible--and in the end
utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own
accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of
victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless
pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning,
I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you
will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become
part of it.'

Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 'You can't!' he said
weakly.

'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?'

'You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a
dream. It is impossible.'

'Why?'

'It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty.
It would never endure.'

'Why not?'

'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit
suicide.'

'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting
than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that
make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we
quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what
difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the
individual is not death? The party is immortal.'

[Pops]

Here is a good TED talk about how crazy our authoritarian streak has become.
It's all good, the point is about 14:00
http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_howard.html

[PrestonSturges]

Karl Popper wrote extensively on this topic, and although he was mainly writing about Communism, modern conservatives really really hate him.

Popper wrote about the myth of the "Great Man," the man who believes in a national exceptionalism, national destiny, and the nation's role in defining history. The Great Man despises public opinion and civil law,

Pre-emptive war is the moral equivalent of defense. War is not only inevitable, it is a logical imperative. War is what defines a nation and reveals its true potential
Success in war is the only standard for success of a nation, "History is sole judge."

The State is exempt from any moral obligation, and it is above the law of man since its fate is an expression of God's will.

The Great Man is motivated by "passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires."
The Great Man has the "philosophy of a gambler" "For it is an attack on the idea of civil life itself; this is denounced as shallow and materialistic, because of the idea of security that it cherishes. Live dangerously! is its imperative." (Can you say "ownership society?")

"Their power lies in the fact that they respect none of the limitations that justice and morality would imposse on them."

Propaganda is always justified, and since (philosophically) belief is the same as realit propaganda IS reality. The only "bad" propaganda is propaganda that is not strong enough.

Truth becomes whatever you believe, or what the Great Leader tell the people to believe.

Traditional Christian and Jewish moral law must be ignored or replaced with an Apocalyptic vision in which "any attempt to improve the human condition is a petty rebellion against God."

[Tanada]

When I think of a real Great Man I think of people like George Washington or Dictator Cincinnatus who were offered unlimited authority by their troops and followers and who turned it down to live a more quiet life. Even men like Nikola Tesla who was wronged but who then went on to out compete the man who wronged him instead of seeking revenge upon him. On the charity side you have men like Jean-Henri Dunant who inspired the formation of the International Red Cross and Clarissa Barton who founded the American Red Cross.

In other words I think Yoda said it best. "Wars do not make one great"

[PrestonSturges]

When I think of a real Great Man I think of people like George Washington or Dictator Cincinnatus who were offered unlimited authority by their troops and followers and who turned it down to live a more quiet life.....

That's exactly what Hoffer said about Washington. He also liked Churchill and Lincoln. Lincoln did not prosecute anyone for treason after the Confederacy lost.

[PrestonSturges]

Most of the psychologists and sociologists who wrote the classic texts back in the 1950s through the 1960s were Jews who fled Hitler. But at that time they were slanting their work towards an analysis of Stalin, who was the big threat. Nobody seriously believed that Fascism would come back because of out growing prosperity, and that society would "never forget."

Fast forward to Mitt Romney having dinner at the home of Dallas billionaire Harlan Crow, who collects Hitler's personal possessions, owns a signed copy of Mein Kampf, and has a sculpture gallery of famous dictators. These wealthy people literally believe they are Nietzschean supermen, in the Nazi mold. And of course many of them also embrace actual Fascist ideas about an industrial economy. Do they have the obscure books of cryptic prophecy based on 19th century German philosophers and their own little priesthood performing rituals? Almost certainly, but they have not yet come to light. They may even have their own archeologists combing Tibet, like Hitler did. Always the emphasis on revealed truth and prophecy....