Politics and Psychology

Why do some people become liberals and others conservatives? It's one of those things that can't be explained by income level, region, family upbringing, etc., though many of those do have an impact. But an article a few months ago shed some light on this, I think, if only indirectly.

The Internet article had to do with gifted children and why they have a higher tendency to experience depression, or to be more specific, "existential" depression. Said gifted children, devoting more of their time to abstract thought rather than mundane matters, are considered more likely to be idealistic, perceiving the world as they think it ought to be. But since it is not how they think it ought to be, they frequently become frustrated with reality, withdraw into themselves, and become depressed and experience a deep feeling of meaninglessness that their dream world won't be realized.

Now, this article (here's the link) may not be worth much. It's one writer's musings, based in some scientific studies but not scientific itself, so take it with a grain of salt, of course. But from my own experience, I think there is some truth to it, so let's just say that his argument is broadly true. What application does this have for politics?

Well, for youngsters of such a mindset, it's not hard to see how they would be attracted to leftist ideologies. They see an imperfect world, they're more upset by this than others, they get more upset that these imperfections don't bother everyone, and they begin casting about for a solution, some philosophy or proposal that claims to solve everything. That's....pretty much textbook "ism" formation. Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, all those lovely people started out as frustrated young men searching for a way to make the world perfect, so it makes sense that other people of a similar temperament would be drawn to their collectivist solutions.

And as the article notes, the gifted have an especially weak connection to "irrational" justifications like tradition. Granted, the youth in general tend not to hold the status quo in such high regard as older generations, but this tends to be a bigger problem for the smarter kids, who put much greater stock in logic and consistency, and don't want to hear some policy or institution being defended because that's how it is, or changing it would be too disruptive. It doesn't make sense to them, therefore it is indefensible.

There's more that goes into it, of course. But this explanation seems to me to make a lot of sense. It also explains the common myth that liberals are smarter than conservatives--the Left tends to draw in smarter individuals, but for reasons only indirectly related to their intellect.

It's also worth noting that this process doesn't always play out. Take me, for instance--not to toot my own horn, but I was certainly closer to what you would call "gifted" than anyone else I knew growing up. Very smart, kind of a bookworm, introverted to the point of being socially awkward--you know the drill. However, I never had this existential crisis the writer describes. Why, I can't really say. But I think it's because I had a consistent outward tug--if not to get a wide net of friends, at least to associate with other people somewhat--that kept me from disappearing completely into my own little world. Also, I had (and still have) a great love for my little hometown, as poor and redneck as it may be, and I suppose that appreciation for my surroundings as they were kept me from buying into schemes for a perfect world and whatever. It's not that I didn't notice flaws, but I preferred the warts-and-all reality to any prospect of radical change.

I think that sentiment was a key to my evolution into an active conservative. So if you want to keep your kids from becoming liberals--well, I don't know, nothing's foolproof, but maybe find ways to get them to take joy in their current situation, rather than get mesmerized by some ideal. That might or might not be enough, but I think it would help.

.....

On a different note, this will be my last weekly post for some time. Graduate school, never a cakewalk, is making some impossible demands on my time for the next few months, so I have to give that first priority. Hopefully I can come back and contribute some posts more regularly after that's done, but in any case, I'll still be around somewhat for the commenting. Until then, thanks for reading and commenting on my occasionally-useful articles. :-)

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Camelot, And Its Fanatics

Today is, as you know (probably), the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. I figured it behooved me to write something for the occasion, because, you know. It's sort of important.

Problem is, I started to type this post and....of course, I couldn't think of a single substantive thing to say. Because hey, I didn't experience it; I wasn't born for another quarter-century. I can't relate to it on an intimate level. Besides, Bev already said most of the relevant stuff along those lines. I know it's a big deal for my parents' generation, because they all usually talk about it every year at this time. And I can understand why, to an extent. After all, I did experience 9/11, a similar traumatic experience after which the world was never quite the same again, so the mental break it represents makes sense. A CBS commentator made the interesting point that 11/22/63 was when the Baby Boomers' parents went from being the youthful, optimistic "Greatest Generation" of the post-war era to the middle-aged, stodgy "squares" of the late '60s and '70s. Could be.

And of course, JFK himself has a lot to do with the traumatic nature of the event. He projected youthful vigor, he was a war hero, and though he may have been more of an intellectual lightweight than anyone would admit at the time, he was of course a brainiac compared to two or three of his successors. There's a charisma there that you can't deny. Just look at the many conservatives who have tried to claim ever since that Kennedy was really one of them. (They're wrong about that, I believe--although certain of his positions would be very unsettling to the leftists of today.) But, look: There's no reason to think Kennedy wouldn't have faced the same problems as LBJ, what with Vietnam (which he did a lot to get us into), domestic upheaval over civil rights (which he was ambivalent about for a very long time), and so on. Maybe he would have handled those problems better than Johnson did; but the truth is, JFK had the good fortune--assuming you define getting sniped in the head as "good fortune"--to die before he really had to tangle with them, allowing his memory to be sanctified by American liberals.

So I don't believe there was ever a "What should we learn?" from the assassination. And if there was, presumably it would have been discovered in the past fifty years. There wasn't a bright, shining path that was suddenly taken away from America, however much some people want to believe there was. Which, of course, is why the conspiracy theories flourish around Kennedy: No one wants to believe that so much youth and promise could be snuffed out by one lone gunman who's a bit off his rocker. It had to be a conspiracy.

And, naturally, also the result of a "climate of hate," as they called Dallas afterwards. Because, after all, Dallas is in the South, and the South opposed civil rights, which Kennedy was making a few moves towards; ergo, Kennedy was killed by hateful racists. The NYT headline the next day read "Kennedy a Victim of Violent Streak He Sought to Curb in Nation." The same paper, in a recent retrospective, continued to label Dallas "The City With a Death Wish in Its Eye," which had utterly failed to come to terms with the atrocity that had happened within its bounds. None too surprising for the New York Times, because they're liberals, and that's what liberals do. But it was also bound to happen, because when you deify a leader as much as Kennedy has been, there's almost always an accompanying demonization of someone else. Which is never good, because using the "hatred card" (a term I just made up) to exploit a tragedy is just as bad as hatred itself.

So....yeah. I guess if there is a lesson from the JFK assassination, it's to embrace the occasional randomness of the universe, and not to see every tragic event, such as the death of a world leader, as the result of large-scale malevolence. Sometimes bad things just happen, like a nut with a rifle deciding one day he's going to put a hole in your head, and that fact of life can't be changed. Best to just accept it.

Kind of bleak, I know. So, er....heard any good jokes lately?

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Liberals Are Not Smartier Than Conservatives (redux)

Last week, we offered some genuine proof that liberals are dumber that conservatives. Not only did we point out the kinds of errors they embrace in their thought processes, but we also pointed out how conservatives smoke them in testing. Now some liberal professor claims conservatism is the result of low brain power. Wrong.

The study (LINK) was done by a University of Arkansas psychologist and claims to have found that conservatism is the result of “low-effort thinking.” Essentially, the study claims that when the brain is firing on all cylinders, i.e. when it is engaged in “effortful, deliberate responding,” the mind tends toward liberalism. But when those deep thoughts are disrupted for various reasons (e.g. alcohol or time pressure), people become evil, stupid conservatives. How convenient for liberals who want to kid themselves about their own stupidity.

Let’s debunk this.

First, look at the labels this dipsh*t is using. Labeling conservatism as “low-effort” thinking is strong evidence of political bias. How do we know? Because what this study labels as “low-effort” thinking is actually defined by the study as the brain processes becoming “quick and efficient.” Thus, they have chosen a negative label (one implying limited brain power) to describe something which is actually a positive process (efficient use of brain power). Therefore, a more accurate description of the results of this study would instead be: “efficient thinking processes result in conservatism.” But that won’t comfort liberals.

Secondly, the study defines “conservative” wrongly. The study claims that conservatism “may be identified by several components,” which include: “an emphasis on personal responsibility, acceptance of hierarchy, and a preference for the status quo.” Wrong. Conservatism absolutely believes in individual responsibility. But individualism and acceptance of hierarchy are contradictory beliefs. And it is liberalism, not conservatism, which is marked with subservience to hierarchy. Liberals believe in leader worship, strong government, supremacy of experts and the superiority of certain classes of people. And if you want real world proof of this, look no further than any liberal country (e.g. Europe, Japan, South America) and you will find a heavy emphasis on strong government and social class, i.e. hierarchies, with a strong deference given to superiors telling inferiors how to live their lives. Only in America, the most conservative country on earth, is class minimized.

Moreover, if it were true that conservatives were beholden to hierarchies (and the status quo) then how can one explain that conservatives go against the MSM? America’s media and political class are center-left. If conservatives followed the herd, they too would be center-left. Yet, conservatives fight those groups and actively disbelieve what these authorities tell them -- again, it is liberals who do what they are told. Thus, again, we see that the study has tried to define conservatism as consisting of the worst traits of liberalism.

Third, the study is obviously wrong on its face because it is trying to explain ideology as a matter of brain function. Yet, ideology must be cultural in nature. How do we know this? Because different cultures produce different ideological results. The vast majority of the populations in Europe and Japan are far left by American standards and the vast majority of the populations in America and China are far right by European standards. This cannot be explained by brain function, it can only be culture. In other words, if ideology were the result of brain function, then all countries would exhibit similar ideological characteristics. Yet, they do not. That means brain function is not a predictor of ideology. And this study’s attempt to find such a link is a fool’s errand.

Fourth, the study looked only at political centrists, i.e. moderates. So the obvious problem here is whether moderates can be used as a proxy for conservatives? In fact, the authors admit that they do not know if conservatives get more conservative or if liberals get more conservatives (or more liberal) if tested in the same manner. Basically, the only thing they can say for certain is that when you put moderates under pressure, they give more conservative responses. This could mean they become more conservative under pressure. Or it could mean that moderates are more likely to fake liberal views until they are put under pressure, at which point their “real” beliefs appear. Or it could mean moderates are inherently conservative thinkers who delude themselves until it comes time to make a decision. Or it could be that conservatism is the human default for problem solving. Or it could just be that moderates realize that conservative ideas will give them the best result.

All we know for sure is that the study found this:

When moderates are put under pressure, so that a quick and efficient response is needed, they will resort to “conservative” thinking.

And the reasons for that are unknown. What cannot be concluded from this study, however, is that “low-effort thinking results in conservatism.”

Once again, what we see here is how far liberals will go to convince themselves they aren’t idiots. This study took the worst parts of liberal thinking and re-labeled them as conservative, conducted a useless test on moderates, and drew untenably broad conclusions while simultaneously ignoring overwhelming contradictory real world evidence all in the hopes of telling liberals that conservatives are stupid. Pathetic.

This is all starting to explain a lot, isn’t it? Who are your top five stupid liberals and what are their “shining moments” of stupidity?

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How Not To Win Friends Or Influence People

I’ve made a living out of finding ways to convince judges and juries that my clients are irresistibly right. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially since most people who come to lawyers are usually only about half right. Making this all the harder, the other side has an attorney too, and their job is to prove that my client couldn’t be more wrong. But I’ve had an advantage that has paid off time and time again, because I know something that seems to escape most attorneys and almost all bloggers. And that’s what I want to talk about today.

What is this magical knowledge? Simple: I know that people are suspicious of hyperbole. So when the other guy is whining how granting my client’s claim will cause the earth to crash into the sun, or they are foaming at the mouth about how my client eats children and I’m Satan’s third cousin, I’ve just go about my business and carefully lay out a logical and clearly reasoned case for why my client is right. I can’t think of a time this hasn’t worked.

I first discovered this principle when I was doing a clerkship for a group of judges. As I read through literally hundreds of briefs, I slowly realized that the most convincing briefs were the simplest, the most direct, the ones that laid out their reasoning with limited extraneous garbage. In fact, despite the lack of “big” and angry words, these briefs were quite compelling. They presented an argument. . . it made sense. . . I could think of no counter argument. . . winner. But the other guys, the ones who love hyperbole, offered nothing of value. Indeed, once they began rambling about how something is the greatest threat ever, it became impossible to take anything else they said seriously.

And the judges I worked for felt the same. None of them gave any credence to the hyperbolists. Some even ignored their arguments entirely. Others actively held the hyperbole against them, on the presumption that the hyperbole was evidence of a lack of substance, i.e. if they had a valid argument, they would have used it.

Since that time I’ve observed that this same principle holds true in other facets of life. If you’ve heard the expression, “methinks thou doth protest too much,” then you’ll know what I mean. Take Al Gore: he didn’t just deny what this woman is claiming, he “emphatically denied it.” But people who are innocent don’t “emphatically” deny, they just deny. They don’t say “and I really really mean it.” They just mean it. To say that you “really” mean it, implies that you usually lie, but this time we're supposed to trust you. No sale.

Bloggers are worse. Indeed, I am truly distressed by much of what I see in the blog world -- left and right. Look at this example from my inbox:

“These are desperate times for America, unless we ______ we will fall.”

Talk about a lack of perspective. This guy was actually talking about opposing financial regulation. At least a couple of you read the financial regulation article the other day, did you see anything in that financial reform bill which will cause American to fall? The Civil War, sure. Back when the Nazis wanted to enslave the world, or when the Soviets wanted to blow us off the map in a thousand atomic fireballs, yeah, that was a time we could legitimately say that we were facing desperate times and America might fall. But today?

And he continues:

“The socialists who at one time felt emboldened now feel cornered and threatened. As you read this, the Globalists, with all of their vast resources are organizing to fight Conservative Patriots, tooth and nail. The Army of Darkness will not be defeated easily; they lust for control of our beloved Nation. They know, if we falter on just one issue they can win all!”

Army of Darkness? Dude, I love that film! As for the rest of this pathetic crap, give me a break. This is the same garbage that the fringe was whining about when they knew that Clinton was about to turn us into a socialist utopia, when they knew that Carter was secretly planning to hand the world over to the Soviets, when they knew that Reagan had gone insane and was trying to disarm us in the face of the Soviet Union, when they knew that George Bush I was doing the bidding of some secret society, and so on. This is paranoid bullcrud.

Obama is doing some very bad things that will reduce certain freedoms (notably freedom of speech), injure our economy with increased regulation, probably bankrupt the government (ironically, putting an end to the dreams of big government), and increase racial tensions. But none of these will end our democracy. In fact, in our history, we’ve had much worse regulations, higher taxes, and nastier race relations than anything Obama is proposing. So get some perspective.

And even if this paranoia was close to correct, this guy is discrediting his own argument because what he presents is shrill, panicky and so-obviously-overstated and without substance that no one will believe it. This guy is like the attorney trying to assure the judge that enforcing my client's contract will cause the earth to crash into the moon. . . if not the sun. People tune out right at the get go with this kind of garbage.

Want proof? Think about it this way, the left had several legitimate grievances against Bush (in fact, even rightists were detailing them in op-ed pieces). But you didn’t give the left any credence, did you? In fact, you probably never even listened to them, did you? Yet you probably think of yourself as having an open mind, right? So why didn’t you listen to anything they said? The answer is simple: when they started their argument like this. . .

“The fascists who at one time felt emboldened now feel cornered and threatened. As you read this, the Globalists, with all of their vast resources are organizing to fight Working Americans, tooth and nail. The Army of Darkness will not be defeated easily; they lust for control of our beloved Nation. They know, if we falter on just one issue they can win all!”

. . . you tuned right out because you knew this was nothing but far-left fringe hate. You knew they had nothing of value to offer. So why would you think that our side saying the same things would receive a better response?

Trust me on this, people are willing to be told what to believe, but they want to believe that they reached that conclusion themselves. When you try to hit them over the head with fringemania, all you achieve is making yourself look like a nutjob.

Fellow conservatives, please stop using words like grave danger, outrage, horrific, despicable, and evil. Stop saying we've never faced anything worse. And if you’re going to call someone a ____ist, at least make sure they actually fit the definition, and even then think twice before doing it. Always ask yourself: “does this help my argument, or does this just turn people off?”

No go forth and persuade. . .

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How To Understand The Public

By now most of you probably heard about the "disaster" at the Daily Kos. It turns out their polling company, Research 2000, has been faking their polling data. **snicker snicker** This has, of course, called into question the validity of all the “analysis” they’ve done over the past. . . well, forever. But their loss is our indifference because liberals believing wrong things is as normal a part of life as breathing. But that raises the question, how do we know what the public is really thinking?

The most obvious answer remains polls: polls can be accurate enough to give you a fair impression of the public’s mood. However, we must always remember that polls suffer from serious limitations. For example, polling relies on obtaining a representative sample. That means they need to poll a large enough group to be able to make certain statistical assumptions, and that group must match the broader population.

And that’s really where the first problems appear. How many Democrats should you include in a poll? How many Republicans? Can you be sure that your independents represent actual independents? It is the answers to these questions that cause poll results to vary so much, even if they all used the same questions. But that’s yet another problem: they don’t ask the same questions, and depending on how the questions are phrases, which words are used, and even the available answers, it is possible to manipulate a poll to such a degree that it no longer represents the public.

But there’s another aspect to polling that needs to be considered: the lack of commitment or intensity. And by this, I mean that people will say things but won’t really mean them. The best example of this comes from environmental polls. “Should we try to stop global warming?” A large percentage of people will answer “yes” to this. So we all believe in global warming and we support cap and trade right? Not quite. When they asked “are you willing to spend $100 a year to stop global warming,” the “yes” numbers crashed. By the same token, if you ask “which of the following candidates would you support in 2012?” and then you list ten candidates, it’s possible that all ten candidates will score 90% approval ratings. But does that actually tell us anything? It really doesn’t because there is no ability to distinguish the intensity or the level of commitment.

The same applies in other areas as well: “Are you so angry at Hollywood that you intend to boycott all future movies?” A sizeable percentage of people will answer “yes” to this. But there’s no way to tell if they are serious. In fact, this question is a very easy way to voice displeasure without undertaking the commitment of following through.

So how do we really know what the public is thinking? You follow behavior and you look for patterns in it. For example, the public says they love candidate X, but is anyone giving them time or money? Are they drawing a disproportionately larger share of money or volunteers than other campaigns? Do they draw larger crowds at events?

It’s the same thing with movies. You see a series of trade publications giving all kinds of awards to actor Y. He’s voted the sexiest man alive, and is cast in dozens of films. The headlines scream -- “everybody loves Y.” But do the box office figures concur? Whether or not people will spend money to see him is what counts. A recent example that demonstrates the importance of following the money is the movie Snakes on a Plane. This turdburger was hyped all over the internet and easily won the “most clicks” war for several weeks before the film came out. But clicks are free, admission isn’t. The movie tanked. Once again, there was a difference between what people said (clicks) and what they did (pay for a ticket).

When I write articles about the public accepting one thing or rejecting another, these are the things I look for. Did the movie make money? Can the movie star sell tickets? Does candidate X actually engender monetary support or just “clicks.” Does the public actually support the actual regulations that will affect them, or just the principle of a happier world?

You can even use anecdotal evidence if you are careful about it. What you need to look for are inconsistencies. For example, the fact that your neighbor complains about Obama means nothing. If they’re conservative, then this is to be expected. If they’re liberal, then it could just be blowing off steam. But a non-political neighbor who expresses anger at something they wouldn’t normally know anything about, can be informative. It can tell you, for example, that what Obama has done has drifted down into the public consciousness and not in a good way. That’s how it first became obvious that the BP spill was a problem for Obama -- people who don’t pay attention to politics were suddenly talking about his response.

Moreover, you can look at how the left reacts. For example, the more shrill the denials that a particular event has any meaning, the greater the likelihood that it actually has struck a chord and they are worried. This is what confirmed that the public was upset about the BP spill, because leftists were falling all over themselves to write articles telling us that no one cared.

This is also how I can tell you that financial reform means nothing to the public. First, note the lack of articles about financial reform. That’s because journalists aren’t going to write about something the public doesn’t care about. Secondly, note that when we write about it, the numbers of comments drop dramatically and the comments themselves become very short. This isn’t a lack of brainpower on the part of readers, it’s a lack of interest. Add in the falling ratings of the business news channels and the disappearance of business news from newspapers and nightly news shows, and what you get is the public voting with their feet, i.e. they are changing the channel because they don’t care.

Further, you can often derive fascinating information about the public from the strangest sources. Indeed, one of the most brilliant strategists the Republicans ever had, the late Lee Atwater, once said that he would read the National Enquirer every day. The reason was that this newspaper of made up news told him what the American public was thinking about.

Examples of the kinds of things I’m talking about here could include (1) the lack of success of energy efficient products, which indicates that consumers aren’t willing to substitute environmentalism for quality; (2) the lack of success of recent Megan Fox films, which could signal public anger at her insulting political statements; (3) surges in gun sales and security systems in certain areas, which indicate a loss of confidence in the local police; or (4) consumer spending going down even as consumer confidence polls are going up.

And you can also get to what the public really values in this way. For example, a few months back, there was an interesting tidbit from Netflix. People keep serious movies significantly longer than the mindless stuff. The reason, it turns out, is that people rent the serious stuff because “they should,” but then never want to watch it. In fact, many of these films are kept for several weeks before being returned unwatched. What does this tell us? It tells us that despite protestations that the public likes “deep” and “serious” entertainment, it actually prefers the mindless stuff. How is that useful knowledge? Well, it helps you understand the psyche of the public -- the public has an idea of what they should be like, but they don’t live up to that. So if you are planning a political campaign, this tells you not to make it hard on them. This also tells us to remember that the public may over-idealize itself in response to polls.

There are millions of more examples, but this should give you a sense of the kinds of places you can look to see what the public really believes. Polls are nice, but it’s actions that matter. And within actions, there are patterns and motivations.

To understand the public, consider the old saying turned around: “do as I do, not as I say.”

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Why Obama's Poll Numbers Keep Falling

One of the interesting facets of the Obama administration has been how he’s managed to make his poll numbers not only hit bottom, but how he’s managed to keep them there without a single upward blip. Some people say it’s his leftist politics. Other say it’s his incompetence or his arrogance. But I think the answer lies in something far more interesting. I think the answer lies in a very famous book from 1513 A.D.

Niccolo Machiavelli has gone down as history’s most cynical thinker. Indeed, many people claim that Machiavelli was an evil man whose views are the stuff of dictators and tyrants and deceivers. But that’s the ignorant view. The reality is that Machiavelli was a keen observer of the human condition, and he well understood the relationship between rulers and their subjects. And it is Obama’s failure to understand the principles laid out by Machiavelli that have caused his steady unpopularity.

In his seminal work, The Prince, Machiavelli makes two key points about leadership. First, if a leader is faced with taking negative or unpleasant actions, the leader must do so swiftly, quickly, and all at once. The leader should never drag out such actions. But, secondly, if the leader has the opportunity to take pleasant actions, i.e. to hand out goodies or patronage, the leader should stretch that out over a long period of time. Obama violates both points.

1. Cruel Actions

Machiavelli warns that a leader who must take “cruel action” must be decisive in their actions, must act swiftly and effectively, and that these cruel actions must be short-lived. The reason is simple. Cruel actions anger people and generate fear.

Think about this in terms of your job. If you came to work one day to find that your boss fired half the staff, this might be startling, but it won’t terrify you so long as you know that these are the only firings that will happen. But if your boss starts firing people every day, that will terrify you, whether you are likely to be fired or not. The reason is that human beings crave certainty. Even though we may hate the idea that so many of our colleagues have been fired all at once, the first scenario still gives us the comfort of knowing that we will not be next. Combined with the remarkable human ability to put unpleasantness behind us (and to turn a blind eye to injustice that does not affect us directly), this scenario allows time to heal the wounds and happiness to return.

But in the second scenario, where the boss keeps firing people, there is no certainty. Thus, we instinctively fear that one day it will be us. Moreover, the unpleasantness of seeing our colleagues fired cannot be healed by time because the wound is refreshed every day that more people are fired. Thus, even if it's the same number of people fired, the "moral" effects are much worse in the second scenario.

The same is true in politics. If you keep raising taxes over and over, people will fear that their taxes will be next. If you cut benefits or fire employees or impose regulations, the results are the same. The longer you stretch out the pain, the more upset people will be, the greater the number of people who will be upset, and the longer the pain will last.

Obama, however, fails to grasp this concept.

When Obama came to power, there were a lot of “cruel actions” that had to be taken. We had a recession that was being prolonged with overly-generous government benefits. We had a banking industry that was out of control and sucking the public treasury dry. We had foreign “friends” who were harming our interests. We had a public sector that was over-paid and under-worked. We had a deficit that was too large to be sustained. Thus, Obama needed to cut federal pay and benefits, fire workers, cut off the banks, regulate and break up the “too big to fail” institutions, and slap down our ungrateful friends. He did none of these things. But the need to do them didn’t go away. So rather than taking these actions and getting them over with, Obama now imposes the prospect that he will be taking these steps over the next one, two, and three years. This is exactly what Machiavelli warned never to do. Rather than inflicting the pain once on a defined set of people, Obama has created a situation of uncertainty where no one knows who will be next to suffer, and everyone fears it might be them, and no one knows when the pain will end.

Even the legislation Obama proposes violates this principle. For example, ObamaCare slowly hands out the pain by triggering new provisions slowly, year after year. The same is true with his proposed cap and trade system, which brings on an increasing amount of regulation and restrictions each year, and with each of his other proposals; they drip out the pain like Chinese water torture.

Thus, Obama has undertaken a course of action that leads to a fearful and angry population that is nervously awaiting the next cruel act to beset them. And time can never heal these wounds, because they are constantly refreshed.

2. Patronage

Obama also fails to grasp the other side of the coin. Machiavelli tells us that when a leader hands out benefits, i.e. patronage, they should do so slowly over time. There are several reasons for this. First, this prevents recipients from getting everything they are going to get at once and then becoming ungrateful. Keep in mind that the same human trait that lets us move beyond bad things also makes good feelings fade into memory; hence the adage “what have you done for me lately?” Spreading out benefits keeps those good feelings fresh. Moreover, if people come to expect (or depend upon) favors from their ruler, then they will be loath to replace them. But if they think the benefits have stopped, then they have no reason to remain loyal.

Obama is doing this wrong as well. When he came to power, he handed out all kinds of benefits on day one. He gave GM to the unions. He gave a wad of cash to various interest groups. He handed out massive increases in benefits, pay raises to government employees, money to states and businesses, and he promised free lunches to everyone in the form of a massive stimulus plan to spur job growth. But that was then and this is now, and what has he given lately? Indeed, since the golden handouts of the first few weeks, Obama has given out nothing, and there’s nothing left on the schedule to be handed out.

Think about this. If you were an Obama supporter, either on the left or the near-left, what has Obama given you since that first week and what has he done to make you think you’ll get anything else if you continue to support him? Environmental protection? No. Jobs? No. Any more increases coming in benefits? No. You got everything you’re ever going to get.

Conclusion

This is why Obama’s popularity has steadily collapsed and why it stays down so relentlessly. He has created an environment of anger and fear by slowly dripping out cruel acts, and by delaying others that everyone knows must still be coming. At the same time, whatever benefits he handed out when he first took office have long since faded into memory and there is no prospect of any more coming. These are the exact conditions that Machiavelli warned his Prince to avoid, and this is why Obama's poll numbers stay down without respite.

Who knew an ancient text could teach us so much?


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Tell Me About Yur Mozzer. . .

Dear reader, there has been an outrage in the psychiatric community. I read about it in an obscure regional journal called the New York Times, and since likely none of you have heard of this journal, I thought I should fill you in. Apparently, a Dr. James Heilman from Moose Jaw, Canada has destroyed the Rorschach test. Of course, in his defense, what else are you going to do in Moose Jaw during the summer. . . without hockey.

The Rorschach test was created by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach after he wrote his 1921 book “Pyschodiagnostik” -- a real page turner. Rorschach died a year after writing the book, when he misinterpreted some signs that warned of approaching danger.

For those of you who don’t know, the Rorschach test involves showing a series of ink blots to crazy people and using what they claim to see in the ink blots to determine their inner motivations. If you see your mom, you have mommy issues. If you see your dad, you have daddy issues. If you see your sister, you live in West Virginia. To put this in technical terms, a “real” doctor would tell you: “the underlying assumption is that an individual will class external stimuli based on person-specific perceptual sets, including needs, base motive, and conflicts, and it’s covered by insurance.”

Many skeptics consider the Rorschach test to be pseudoscience and they suggest that it is akin to cold reading.

[Which reminds me, we want to send a shout out to a certain reader who has an "a", an "s", or an "e" somewhere in their name, who works in a thankless but important profession, and works harder than everyone else in their office, but who doesn't get the recognition they deserve. . . you're our favorite reader. . . but let's keep that between us -- we wouldn't want the others to get jealous. ;-)]

So let’s get back to Dr. Heilman. Several months ago, Dr. Heilman, an emergency room physician, infuriated the psychological community when he posted all 10 original Rorschach plates, along with some common responses to each image, onto the Wikipedia (a division of Wikimedia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Intelligence Suppression Group, Inc.).

According to Gottfried Nussjob, of the Psychological Analysis Normalization Integration Center (PANIC), a trade group, posting these images on the Wikipedia is the equivalent to posting an answer sheet to next year’s SAT, something recently suggested by Joe Biden to raise student performance. Nussjob, thinks this is bad.

Dr. James Heilman
-- Worse than Hilter?

Nussjob initially stated, “The more test materials are promulgated widely, the more possibility there is to game it.” But he then backtracked, when he realized this implied that psychologists could not see through obviously fake answers. He thus stated, “forget I said that.” His attorney later wrote, “The process of making sense of one’s experience is gratifying. To take Rorschach’s test is to make sense of ambiguity in the context of someone who is interested in how you do that. It is dangerous to use these materials without proper guidance. . . like using a Ouija Board alone on Halloween.”

Dr. Heilman responded that posting these plates was no worse than posting the Snellen eye chart: “Yeah, eh. You can go to the car people and you could recount the chart from memory, sure, and you could get into an accident. . . what was your point again?”

Well the point is that we at Commentarama are all about helping our readers cheat on tests. So with that in mind, we’ve taken the liberty of reproducing the offending images below and providing you with a few, good safe answers which will help you fool any court-ordered psychologist.

Let us begin. Take a look at each image and then memorize our explanation below. . .


Bad Answer: Bat, Butterfly, Moth

Good Answer: This test throws you a real curve ball right out of the gate. They want you to answer Bat, Butterfly or Moth -- all caught with nets. See the problem? In reality, this image is an electromagnetic depiction of the human soul, after being crushed by a bus. Tell the reviewer, “I see dead souls.”


Bad Answer: Two Humans

Good Answer: Humans? Like, two hairdressers playing patticakes? Not likely. This image in fact represents three distinct personalities, buried deep within one mind, desperately struggling not to surrender to their urge to kill again. Just repeat that to the reviewer.


Bad Answer: Two Humans

Good Answer: Do you see two waiters with both male and female genitalia? Really? Seriously? Wow. . . how’s that whole crossdressing thing working out for ya? Listen, whatever you do, don’t mention genitalia and don't mention the waiters. Do you remember those silver, perpetual motion birds, with the top hats -- the ones you tip over and they would bob up and down, pecking the ground over and over? That’s what this is. . . just two silver peckers.


Bad Answer: Animal Skin, Massive Animal

Good Answer: This image shows the despondence of being unable to reconcile the relationship you had with your mother with the need to develop a fully mature super ego. . . or it’s a troll riding a motorbike, either answer is acceptable.


Bad Answer: Bat, Butterfly, Moth

Good Answer: This one probably is a bat or a butterfly, but if you tell them that, they will write: “patient lacks imagination, possibly bed wetter.” The better answer, according to the Psych Manual, is to tell them you see your mother. . . in a wig. . . holding a beer.


Bad Answer: Animal Hide, Rug

Good Answer: Don’t fall for this one either, there are no animals hiding here. This is a flattened violin. Your best answer, “It’s the day the music died.”


Bad Answer: Human Heads, Faces (or was that ‘feces’? I’m too lazy to check.)

Good Answer: Some will tell you that this is two dancing American Indians who have bumped buttockses. And you can probably see that, can’t you, you sick pervert! What it really is. . . actually, it does kind of look like that. Ok, run with it.


Bad Answer: Pink Animal

Good Answer: Just tell ‘em its pink. . . only pink. . . and that makes you kind of angry.


Bad Answer: Orange Human

Good Answer: Orange Human? Like orange beef? Don’t tell them that. . . that road leads to thorazine city. This is two dragons, riding on hippos, crushing a herd of pigs.


Bad Answer: Blue Crab, Red Lobster, Spider

Good Answer: Blue crabs? Red Lobsters? Yellow stars? Forget the lucky charms. This is two gay British cops in Paris, near the Eiffel Tower, and they have crabs.


There you go. Follow our plan and they are sure to declare you unbelievably sane. Just remember don’t let them make you change your answers. . . it’s what they want you to do.


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