Friday, November 17, 2006

Hmmm, Freudian Liberalism,.

Okay, the subject/title is a joke of my own creation.  I came up with it because I was doing some googling to find descriptions of Freud's concept of the Id, the ego, and the super-ego.  In the process, I came across the article below.  I hope the copyright information below is sufficient.  I don't want to be in violation of such laws, and I want the author to get full credit...especially since I really like his approach here.
 
Okay, when I went to look for information about Freud's concept of the Id, the Ego, and the super-ego, this isn't what I expected to find, but it is a very fascinating read:
 
Leftists: Servants of The Id
Written by
Gabriel Garnica
Saturday, October 14, 2006
 
          I have always been fascinated by psychology despite its tendency to justify and rationalize liberal behavior and beliefs.  As a psychology major
in college, two particular notions caught my intellectual interest.  The first was Freud’s conception of the Id, Ego, and Super-ego as the triangle of
personality.  The second was Leon Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance which sought to explain how rationalization becomes reality.
 
Simplified Messages
 
          Freud’s personality triangle simply stated that our personality is composed of three parts, the Id, the Ego, and the Super-ego.  The Id represents
our base instincts, impulses, and bare emotions.  It is the core of aggression and houses the pleasure principle.
 
The Ego is the center of rational, logical reality.  It is the mediator between the physical and the spiritual.  The Super-ego, on the other hand, is the
center of conscience, spirituality and moral codes.
 
            As one of my professors put it, the Id is about what I want to do, the Ego is about what I can do and the Super-ego is about what I should do.
 
            Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance holds that people seek balance and order in their physical, emotional, and mental states and will
do whatever it takes to maintain and regain that order.  Thus if I steal and feel guilty about it, I will seek to rationalize or justify that theft in
order to relieve my mental and emotional stress and regain a state of calm in those areas.  Simply put, people will do whatever it takes to make what they
do appear acceptable, even if that means twisting reality to fit perception.
 
Leftists As Servants of The Id
 
          Anyone wishing to see leftist mentality need only look to Columbia University, where less than two weeks ago protesting punks charged the stage
to stop Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist’s speech, unfurled inflammatory banners and then gleefully jumped of the stage once they knew the entire event
had been cancelled shouting “Si se pudo, Si se pudo” which means “yes, we could.”
 
            Leftists are not about intelligent discourse or debate.  They have nothing to do with calm dialogue or reasoned discussion.  Theirs is not the
world of logic, common sense, or intellectual exchange.  Rather, as shown by this mob of animals, leftists are all about emotion, instinct, aggression,
violence, and impulse.  They derive pleasure from inflicting displeasure, satisfaction from creating dissatisfaction and purpose from instilling disorder.
 
            Those seeking a reason for why leftists act this way need only realize that their smoke is merely concealing the fact that their points, issues,
causes and methods have been repeatedly proven asinine, imbecilic and overblown.  Their crusades have been repeatedly shown to be smokescreens for a darker,
more complex inner agenda.
 
At the end of the day, leftists are all about bells and whistles concealing smoke and mirrors.
 
            Given the empty, shallow, and hollow nature of their issues, causes, methods, and beliefs, liberals are forced to make scenes to both gain attention
and distract others from just how thin their rationales are.  Taken in this light, one realizes that leftists are like the guy who starts a fire in the
barn to conceal the fact that barn was not well kept.
 
Having already sold themselves to the Id, liberals quickly become servants to its promises of prompt, undeserved satisfaction.  Once addicted the Id’s short-term
pleasure principle, leftists cannot free themselves to think about the long-term impact of their actions and beliefs.  In the Columbia episode, the protesting
punks were surprised to discover that many people frowned upon their arrogant display of disrespect.  They had ignored the real, long-term implications
and perceptions of their deed while bowing to its short-term message.  The protesting illegal immigrants who stomped on the American flag were the epitome
of impulsive behavior devoid of intellect.
 
This impulsive, arrogant and stubborn emotionality on the part of leftists, this bare reflection of genuine leftist thinking, is too much for the average
American to take, not to mention a horrible election tactic.  Thus we see that liberals spend half their time disrespecting this country and the other
half seeking ways to conceal that disrespect.
 
Slaves of Cognitive Dissonance
 
            If leftists are servants of the Id, they are also prone to become slaves of cognitive dissonance.  Once you project to the world a particular
instinctual, impulsive and emotional state, you better do something to paint that approach and perception as normal, rational and acceptable.  In comes
cognitive dissonance theory telling us that people will distort their perception of reality to carve a reality consistent with their agenda and beliefs.
 
            Thus we see mindless protests defending illegal immigration rationalized into protests defending all immigrants, a public education establishment
trying to justify its obvious liberal bias under the guise of tolerance, respect and social compassion.
 
            Nowhere is this more visible than in the abortion issue.  First, liberals and feminists tell us that the only thing that matters is what women
want and that it is their body involved and nobody should violate that.  Confronted with evidence harmful to their claims, pro-aborts then speak of the
unborn as if they were removable waste and certainly not human.  Realizing the possible public outcry against speaking of the unborn in this way, leftists
have taken to euphemisms and flowery words to conceal the blood on their hands.
 
            The past decades of Democratic dissolution from a party of noble causes to its present state as a rag-tag bunch of interests and agendas perfectly
illustrates how Democrats progressively or, should we say, digressively, boil in the soup of their own moral absurdity waiting for the next pack of fools
ready to buy the empty platitudes and promises they sell.
 
Holders of The Ego and Soldiers of The Super-ego
 
            If liberals have title rights to the Id, then where do conservatives reside?  It turns out that political conservatives call the Ego their home
and the Religious Right hangs its hat in the Super-ego.  Unlike leftists, conservatives enjoy and respect debate, discourse and the intelligent exchange
of ideas.  They get their points across by calm discussion and interaction, not by jumping stages like crazed zombies seeking new victims.
 
            The Super-ego is home to the Religious Right, which favors its conscience and moral codes.  Regardless of religious affiliation, conservatives
enjoy a society where faith, spirituality and tradition are highly valued and respected.
 
Conclusion
 
            The student ambush of speakers at Columbia University should not shock or even surprise anyone versed in where such leftists come from, namely
the Id, with its focus on emotion, impulse and aggressive.  Intelligent debate, dialogue and discussion, the cornerstones of a good education, are not
even in the vocabulary of leftist thugs like those who rushed that stage.
 
            The fact that the protesting aggressors could even dare to justify the nature of their actions combined with their imbecilic perceptions of
what transpired that day in that place is a classic serving of cognitive dissonance.  Faced with the possibility that you acted like an animal, you turn
around and express shock at such claims.  Accused of inciting misbehavior and embarrassing displays of arrogant, ignorant aggression., you turn around
and claim that your invading group was victimized by a much smaller band.
 
            Nowhere is this classic two-way skill of liberals more on display than with regard to the Clintons.  It is an accepted fact that Hillary and
especially Bill Clinton act on impulse and emotion via her mouth and his zipper.  Once they have done so, these two often proceed to twist reality, history
and public discussion to suit their agenda.  This is the reason that Bill and Hill can, with a straight face, proclaim his administration a great one and
its accomplishments, good or bad, as being all positive, watershed moments for mankind.  Despite the reality of a failed Clinton North Korea agreement,
for example, the Clintons pretend that the agreement was great and blame everything on Bush now.
 
            Once we accept that leftists live in the Id and spend their waking hours rationalizing away their foibles and failures, there is very little
that they can come up with which will surprise us.  The greatest irony may well be that precisely these leftist imbeciles who proclaim the loudest about
choice and personal morality are the ones most enslaved by the chains of the Id and the eternal battle to rationalize their mess with their image.
 
            At the end of the day, one might say that leftists are all about being below the belt, with their impulses coming from the front and the justifications
for those impulses coming from the back.
 
About the Writer: Gabriel Garnica, Esq., is an educator, licensed attorney, and resident of Long Island, New York. As a conservative Latino college professor
working in New York City, Mr. Garnica feels that his picture is found in the dictionary under the term "exception." He can be contacted at
gbgmyarticles@yahoo.com.
 
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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Blind leading the blind?

Okay, I'm stepping aside from politics (for once).  I want to talk about a young man who was on Oprah Winfrey's show.  Ben Underwood was on her show to demonstrate a form of orientation and mobility for blind people known as "echo location."
 
The problem I have with this form of navigation is that, if used without a white cane, it has a potential to be dangerous.  Mr. Underwood expressed a dislike of using a white cane that I cannot fathom.
 
I realize that, for some people,  it's a source of wounded pride to admit to being blind.  For most blind people, the white cane is a sort of badge saying "I am a person who happens to be blind."  For others, however, such as Mr. Underwood, carrying the cane might as well be a stigma against him...a not-so-scarlet letter, if you will.  After all, to a lot of people Mr. Underwood's age, carrying a white cane isn't very cool.  It certainly doesn't get you into the "in" crowd.
 
As I may have stated before, or at least in my profile, I belong to the National Federation of the Blind, and subsequently, to the Nebraska affiliate of the NFB student division.  This has exposed me, obviously, to young people (I'm a sort of young 41) who see carrying a cane as both necessary and important.  To them traveling safely, confidently, and independently is more important than finding the "in" crowd.  Not that they don't have a desire to be a part of that crowd, but they won't compromise using their white cane to get there.  To them, their white cane is literally a part of them.  To them, the white cane is an indespensible tool of independence.
 
I am not knocking echo location.  It is a valuable tool for any blind person who wants to move about a city independently.  That said, however, I do not think that echo location ought to be the sole means by which someone gets around.  In conjunction with a white cane and other skills, a person can move fluidly around any city or town they wish...assuming they have proper training in the use of a white cane.  Without a cane, there are things a person may miss such as stairwells, manholes, and other potential hazards that could cause injuries of varying severity. Personally?  I'd rather have a cane in hand and find these things than rely solely on sound cues and miss something that could be, literally, right under my nose.
 
I hope that, some day, Mr. Underwood discovers a desire to use a cane as well as echo location.  Until then, in all bluntness, I fear for his safety.
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Let Freedom Ring!

Today is a very significant day for me on a number of levels.  Any election day is significant because of the impact that I (as an individual voter) can have.  Today, however, was even more significant because for the first time since losing my usable vision, I voted totally free of any major assistance to mark my ballot!  Thanks to the work of the National Federation of the Blind (www.nfb.org) I (and other blind voters) had access to voting independently thanks to an electronic voting machine that allowed us to mark our ballots for ourselves.  It was a feeling of freedom unlike any I can describe.
 
When I say this, I mean no ill will towards anyone who has helped me or another blind person vote.  It's just that, for us as human beings, there is nothing like taking that definitive action of marking the ballots for ourselves, and we may not even realize just how deep that feeling runs until we've done it...until we've used these voting machines and done the actual deed.
 
As the song used for the theme for Sean Hannity's show says, "Today is independence day!"
 
 
 

Alan Wheeler
awheeler@neb.rr.com or alan_wheeler@neb.rr.com
redwheel1 on skype
http://alan-wheeler.blogspot.com/
“Tell the people the truth and the country will be free”
  --Abraham Lincoln