Back in August '08 I blogged that Barack Obama showed signs of sociopathy. Since I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, there is no specific reason to trust my call, which was based on intuition derived from various business dealings. Since then I've learned that there is no clinical diagnosis of "sociopathy." Rather, the term is used loosely to suggest psychopathy. But there is no reason to trust the judgment of psychiatrists or psychologists, who are notoriously incompetent. A famous book on this subject is Thomas Szaz's Myth of Mental Illness, in which Szaz argues that the term mental illness is vacuous. Szaz's book has become a classic. In other words, is there really any meaning to terms like psychopath or sociopath?
I interviewed Paul Babiak on workplace psychopaths for the AICPA Career Insider newsletter. Babiak coauthored with Robert Hare a great book on workplace psychopaths, Snakes in Suits. If you are a Sopranos fan you may recall the name Robert Hare from the third or fourth to last Sopranos episode, when he is quoted at a dinner that Dr. Melfi gives for her psychiatrist friends that leads to her reading an article that in turn leads to her dropping Tony Soprano as her patient. It must be something of a kick for a researcher to be quoted on the Sopranos.
The psychopathic model that Babiak and Hare develop in their book about workplace psychopaths does not fit Obama. However, I do not doubt for a moment that most politicians have elements of psychopathy that take the form of conscienceless lying; the ability to send people to their deaths for frivolous reasons; the ability to adopt policies that they know to be wrong but that satisfy popular opinion, and the like.
President Obama seems to have a bit more of this psychopathic quality than most politicians, although in different ways. There is an alternative diagnosis. Soon after I wrote my blog Gagdad Bob, a blogger and professional psychiatrist, suggested that Obama suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, which is probably true of the majority of politicians. More recently, Live Leak quotes Roger Simon who claims that Obama is mentally ill and his illness is getting worse. Live Leak writes:
"A recent case in point was Obama's bizarre and meandering 17-minute, 2,500-word answer to the simple question about how he could justify raising taxes for ObamaCare during a recession when citizens are already overtaxed. Obama's wildly inappropriate answer left the audience stunned and led commentator Charles Krauthammer to mockingly say, "I don't know why you are so surprised. It’s only nine times the length of the Gettysburg address, and after all Lincoln was answering an easier question, the higher purpose of the union and the soldiers who fell in battle."
Moreover, points out Live Leak, Obama laughed during a televised discussion of Americans losing their homes. More recently Obama's discussions about the Tea Party demonstrations have been incoherent and confused.
There seems to be a risk of a serious breakdown that could impact Americans in various important ways. Too bad no one checked his birth certificate.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Massachusetts Tea Partiers Should Vote Libertarian in 2012
If Massachusetts conservatives and supporters of small government want to send a message in 2012 and not waste their vote, the best way to do so would be to vote for the Libertarian Party rather than Scott Brown. Having been snookered earlier this year into having spent precious resources to elect a "Progressive," anyone who favors small government ought to see to it that the Brown drama has a denouement. The Libertarian Party is a preferable alternative to Brown, who just snubbed the Tea Party after it had helped him so much. Should the Libertarian Party get 20% of the Massachusetts vote, that would send a message at least as loud to the politicians in Washington as was Brown's Pyrrhic victory.
Lessons from Scott Brown
It has become evident that Scott Brown, who won election with widespread national support, snookered the Tea Party members who backed him last fall. His victory sent a message, but it was a Pyrrhic victory and a vacuous message. The only one who benefited from all the excitement was Brown himself. The Daily Caller notes:
"When asked about his general views on Tea Partiers, Brown — whose election in January has been hailed a sign of the power of the conservative grassroots activists — rejected the premise that the protesters concerned with runaway government spending should be solely credited with putting a Republican in the Massachusetts Senate seat for the first time in decades.
"'Did the Tea Party movement help me? Sure they did. So did 1.1 million other people in my state and so did others across the country,' Brown said.
"He added: 'So to have one particular party take credit — I’m appreciative. But I had a big tent in my election.'
"On Wednesday, Brown was noticeably absent from a Tea Party rally in Boston, leading some to question whether he’s snubbing a group without whose help he’d unlikely have won office. The senator was said to be busy in Washington attending a hearing on the Iranian nuclear program."
What were the effects of the Brown victory? The widespread support for Brown was motivated by the belief that his election would send a message about the health bill. Many Tea Partiers devoted scarce resources to supporting him. Brown's election sent a message, but the health bill was passed into law anyway. Hence, the message sent was empty. The real effect was that one more "Progressive" is now in office.
Who snookered the Tea Party? How were they duped? It seems that they allowed their imaginations to get the better of their sense of reality.
Glenn Beck has done a good job of questioning Brown post election. But many conservatives were excessively supportive of Brown pre-election. For instance, National Review wrote an article several weeks before the special election stressing the importance of Democrats' super majority (which turned out not to be true) and characterizing Brown as "anti-spending" and "anti-Washington," "perfectly suited to the political moment," which was surely an overstatement.
Brown's was the briefest political moment on record. Normally readers learn much from every issue of National Review, but NR blew it on Brown. More realistically, at the time of the election "The Moderate Voice" called Brown an "independent." The Moderate Voice added "he came to the race knowing exactly what he had to do in order to win as a Republican in this part of the country."
As well, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air Blog asked:
"do we really need another former state Senator with next to no experience in national politics on a major-party ticket? Brown has a good sense of fiscal conservatism, but falls closer to Rudy Giuliani than to Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin on social issues, which is one of the reasons Rudy got an invite to Massachusetts and prominent social conservatives did not."
I would question Brown's substantive credentials as a fiscal conservative. I don't see how Brown differs very much from the majority of Democrats. And as Morrissey points out, if Brown aims to get re-elected, he needs to kowtow to the voters of the Socialist Commonwealth of Taxachussets.
Conservatives are not exempt from the American tendency to engage in fads and crazes, or as Charles Mackay called them in 1841, "popular delusions and the madness of crowds." Perhaps the mistaken emphasis on Brown's election was due to the mistaken belief, revealed in NR and Morrissey's blog, that the super-majority made a critical difference. In fact, few of us would have known better, and those who did were probably professional politicians who did not mind squandering the Tea Party's resources.
If anything, the Brown incident should alert Tea Parties around the country that national races are risky; that national leadership cannot be and ought not to be trusted; and that a great deal of learning and experience will need to be gained over time if the Tea Party is to become an effective movement.
It ought to make little difference to Tea Parties if Brown is reelected in two years. But if Tea Parties learned that initial appearances are frequently deceiving in politics; that scarce resources should be expended cautiously; and that a Republican from Massachusetts is probably a RINO, then much has been gained. As was quoted in Conan the Barbarian, "the blow that does not break the back strengthens."
"When asked about his general views on Tea Partiers, Brown — whose election in January has been hailed a sign of the power of the conservative grassroots activists — rejected the premise that the protesters concerned with runaway government spending should be solely credited with putting a Republican in the Massachusetts Senate seat for the first time in decades.
"'Did the Tea Party movement help me? Sure they did. So did 1.1 million other people in my state and so did others across the country,' Brown said.
"He added: 'So to have one particular party take credit — I’m appreciative. But I had a big tent in my election.'
"On Wednesday, Brown was noticeably absent from a Tea Party rally in Boston, leading some to question whether he’s snubbing a group without whose help he’d unlikely have won office. The senator was said to be busy in Washington attending a hearing on the Iranian nuclear program."
What were the effects of the Brown victory? The widespread support for Brown was motivated by the belief that his election would send a message about the health bill. Many Tea Partiers devoted scarce resources to supporting him. Brown's election sent a message, but the health bill was passed into law anyway. Hence, the message sent was empty. The real effect was that one more "Progressive" is now in office.
Who snookered the Tea Party? How were they duped? It seems that they allowed their imaginations to get the better of their sense of reality.
Glenn Beck has done a good job of questioning Brown post election. But many conservatives were excessively supportive of Brown pre-election. For instance, National Review wrote an article several weeks before the special election stressing the importance of Democrats' super majority (which turned out not to be true) and characterizing Brown as "anti-spending" and "anti-Washington," "perfectly suited to the political moment," which was surely an overstatement.
Brown's was the briefest political moment on record. Normally readers learn much from every issue of National Review, but NR blew it on Brown. More realistically, at the time of the election "The Moderate Voice" called Brown an "independent." The Moderate Voice added "he came to the race knowing exactly what he had to do in order to win as a Republican in this part of the country."
As well, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air Blog asked:
"do we really need another former state Senator with next to no experience in national politics on a major-party ticket? Brown has a good sense of fiscal conservatism, but falls closer to Rudy Giuliani than to Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin on social issues, which is one of the reasons Rudy got an invite to Massachusetts and prominent social conservatives did not."
I would question Brown's substantive credentials as a fiscal conservative. I don't see how Brown differs very much from the majority of Democrats. And as Morrissey points out, if Brown aims to get re-elected, he needs to kowtow to the voters of the Socialist Commonwealth of Taxachussets.
Conservatives are not exempt from the American tendency to engage in fads and crazes, or as Charles Mackay called them in 1841, "popular delusions and the madness of crowds." Perhaps the mistaken emphasis on Brown's election was due to the mistaken belief, revealed in NR and Morrissey's blog, that the super-majority made a critical difference. In fact, few of us would have known better, and those who did were probably professional politicians who did not mind squandering the Tea Party's resources.
If anything, the Brown incident should alert Tea Parties around the country that national races are risky; that national leadership cannot be and ought not to be trusted; and that a great deal of learning and experience will need to be gained over time if the Tea Party is to become an effective movement.
It ought to make little difference to Tea Parties if Brown is reelected in two years. But if Tea Parties learned that initial appearances are frequently deceiving in politics; that scarce resources should be expended cautiously; and that a Republican from Massachusetts is probably a RINO, then much has been gained. As was quoted in Conan the Barbarian, "the blow that does not break the back strengthens."
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