In my MVS post I said that the use of Clinton Derangement Syndrome (CDS) and Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS) by the Obama campaign was the reason I was going to hold my nose and vote for McPalin. “Derangement” is the state of being deranged, and “deranged” is a synonym for insane.
After I wrote my original post I was struck by a thought: Are Obama supporters really deranged? I see two possible answers:
1. The people exhibiting CDS/PDS are conciously lying and are intentionally perpetrating fraud in order to help Obama win
or
2. The people exhibiting CDS/PDS really believe what they say and are not guilty by reason of insanity.
Let’s start with the latter possibility. The standard for the insanity defense was first set forth in the M’naghten Rules:
The House Of Lords, having deliberated, delivered the following exposition of the Rules:
“the jurors ought to be told in all cases that every man is presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong”
As my Criminal Law instructor explained it, if the statue in front of the library tells you to commit murder and you do, you may be crazy but you are legally sane because you still knew what you did was wrong. But if it was God that told you to commit the murder then you would be legally insane because you couldn’t tell right from wrong. That is why a true insanity defense (as opposed to “diminished capacity”) is difficult to establish.
In order for the crazed chihuahuas of Obamanation to be considered not responsible for their words and actions during this campaign, they would have to have believed that everything they said about Hillary and Sarah was absolutely true. They would also have to believe that every story, rumor and allegation was material and relevant to the qualifications of the two women candidates.
On the other hand, if they knew what they were saying was false, or doubted it was true, or simply did not care whether it was true or not, then they are not insane, they are merely corrupt liars with no principles or decency. I tend to believe that they are not insane.
Now to be fair, some of them may indeed by completely detached from reality. Andrew Sullivan comes to mind as someone who no longer seems to know right from wrong. But I cannot read minds so I don’t know what he (or any other unhinged hater) really believes. One key indicator is what is known as “conciousness of guilt.” Any attempt to conceal the crime or lie about it indicates that the person is aware that they have done wrong, and if they know they have done wrong they are not insane.
The same thing would be true of rationalization. Let’s say that last March someone was piously intoning that a candidate’s religious beliefs, the doctrine of their church and/or the sermons of their pastor were completely irrelevant. But come September that same person was explaining why those same issues were relevant and material to Sarah Palin’s qualifications and gave specious explanations why the latter was different from the former. Those rationalizations would tend to indicate that the person was full of shit.
The same thing would be true if a self-professed feminist decried the sexist treatment of Hillary but approved of or even engaged in sexist attacks on Sarah Palin. The rationalizations Obama supporters give are intended to justify sacrifcing what they know is right to get what they want right now. Principles are useless if we discard them whenever they conflict with our desires. Where there is no temptation there is no virtue.
What’s the point of having principles if we don’t use them? Why bother fighting for principles if we don’t follow them? To paraphrase a saying about waging war for peace, lying and cheating in the name of moral principles is like fucking for virginity.
That’s insane.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Politics, Presidential Election 2008 |
The Confluence 
Until LadyBoomer is ready to post.
myiq
The last two paragraphs are so very spot on! ..was wondering when you would post it here. It deserves double exposure!
MyIq, I read this at the maison de clown this morning. It is an excellent piece of writing and logic. If you have no objection, I have appropriated your statement, “Where there is no temptation there is no virtue,” into my permanent file of wise sayings.
Prolix:
I don’t know who first said it but it wasn’t me.
nv swing voter, on November 4th, 2008 at 1:23 am Said:
poplicola, I have sent the coal issue to almost 400 people and begged them to forward it to anyone in coal producing states, or any state who relies on coal energy (Nevada is 1/3 coal energy).
Thank you!
myiq2xu — I read this this morning and it is right on, except I still don’t allow an insanity defense for this behavior.
The actions of these people in the populace and the media and are government are deliberate and done with malice aforethought.
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/breaking-fox-news-reports-mccain-camp.html
Monday, November 03, 2008
Breaking: FOX News Reports McCain Camp VERY OPTIMISTIC! (Video)
Breaking: FOX News is reporting that…
The McCain Campaign is VERY OPTIMISTIC with the latest developments.
Carl Cameron who is traveling with the McCain Campaign says John McCain is the most optimistic as he has been in 14 years!
Carl Cameron reported:
“When you look at what’s happened in the polls in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida- They believe that they’ve strengthened. Essentially, the conservative districts in those states are now secured. That they still have a little bit of work to do particularly in the much vaunted GOP ground game; knocking on doors, making phone calls, lots of emails to shore them up entirely. But, most of the Red States they think they’re now safe in… In places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri expect a late night. No quick calls tomorrow.
“As my Criminal Law instructor explained it, if the statue in front of the library tells you to commit murder and you do, you may be crazy but you are legally sane because you still knew what you did was wrong. But if it was God that told you to commit the murder then you would be legally insane because you couldn’t tell right from wrong.”
What happens if the statue on front of the library is an angel or a cupid? What if it’s a statue of Reason and you worship rationality as a god?
Seriously:
You’ll have to ask my CrimLaw instructor. That wasn’t on the test..
It seems a bit hairsplitty.:)
Seriously:
Splitting hairs and straining at gnats are required courses in law school.
Poplicola, I actually wrote my own little blog on it yesterday. NV’s power bills have virtually increased by over 50% in the last few years, 1/3 of our energy is coal, even though we don’t produce it. If coal skyrockets, our electric bills will double, if not more. In a state where the temp hits 120, and my electric last summer was over $500 average over 5 months, running the barest of air conditioning, I would not be able to afford to keep my home at 85, let alone 100. I used to be a huge environmentalist, but I’m also practical.
No matter how this turns out today, we PUMAs and others will have our work cut out for us. I’m hoping we’ll have it easy with an Obama loss. Then maybe the Party will come to its senses and the purge of Dean, Brazile, Pelosi and Reid will be done.
If Obama wins, then I think the Democratic Party we have known and been a part of no longer exists. We will have to decide what new path we wish to travel on in the political world. We will be neither fish nor fowl.
I just watched SNL’s Presidential Bash
Nothing new but it was funny
MyIq,
While it might be biblical in origin, it looks like the contemporary quote probably came from Anne Repplier, here’s the wiki on her. It seems you might be channeling her.
Agnes Repplier (April 1, 1855–November 15, 1950) was an American essayist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her essays are esteemed for their scholarship and wit.
Maybe they will invoke the sanity clause…
Hey–there ain’t no Sanity Claus!
Yeah, and there ain’t no Unity Pony neither…
Fredster, you’re right. They’re still not going to go quietly if Obama loses. We have tough road ahead of us no matter what, but if Obama wins, game over pretty much.
I find the Bush supporters and the Obama supporters extremely similar. Both camps when defending Precious or Bush will make personal attacks against those who bring out the deficiencies of Bush or Obama. It’s not that the Obots are deranged, but when faced with someone who cannot stand on his merit, there is only one choice, attack the messenger.
I also see similarities between Bush and Obama. One is from the right and the other from the left, but both demonstrated a lack of accomplishments in their lives. I don’t want another incompetent in the WH.
Then they will simply have to learn to live with disappointment. God knows the rest of us have learned a hard lesson in bearing it.
Seriously, I really wonder what will happen if Obama wins and that becomes the Democratic Party. I know I won’t be comfortable with it and at that point, I guess, comes the change to Indy. I haven’t changed party affiliation yet because I was (am) really hoping that when he loses, Hillary or others can get the party cleaned up. If he wins, that’s out the window and as you said game over.
You at least have to acknowledge that President Bush was the Governor of Texas. Obama, not even Mayor of a small town.
It’s almost worse than being deranged. They’ve staked all their credibility on this fraud. They don’t have enough character to admit they were wrong and their motives were bad, so they pretty much have to go along defending and rationalizing everything he does, no matter how egregious.
Okay, I guess I should go to bed soon…Let’s cross our fingers and for those of you with no work or school tomorrow…GET OUT THE VOTE. Especially if you live in MO, OH, FL, PA, and VA. We need those states and it is currently a dead heat though I am optimistic that a dead heat means undecideds breaking for McCain and ultimately giving him a win.
Heidi Li has a great post on this (it’s about the DNC and the nomination, but the same principle applies):
James pointed out that this meant that Gandhi’s position was not best characterized as the end does not justify the means, but instead was better understood as the view that the means inflect the nature of the end.
This exchange yielded an “aha” moment for me. I have sometimes couched my objection to the DNC’s and the Democratic Party’s approach to this year’s presidential election as an objection to the view that the ends justify the means. But no, my point is better put in the terms that emerged in my exchange with James Taranto: a Democratic Party that achieves an electoral victory via the methods used to pick its nominee is not likely to be a Democratic Party that can bring the sort of changes to American politics that our country desperately needs.
http://tdg.typepad.com/heidi_lis_potpourri/2008/10/why-being-asked-tough-questions-helps.html
Yes, Obama is Bush. He’s a front man, a salesman, a stand-up comedian with no sense of humor. “Come on! That’s not change! Come on…” “they’ll give ya the old Okee Doke, they’ll bamboozle ya”. Funny stuff…
Like the NeoCons, consistent positions on the issues are unimportant when a compliant media will help peddle your daily version of reality–something Rove was so very good at. When did he pass the torch, I wonder? He was awfull chummy with Brazile, and now disses McCain. “Palin’s gone rogue”, etc. Just a little conspiracy theory…
Someone said to me that smetimes you have to use evil means to defeat evil. The problem is, Obama and his minions have done an awful lot of evil things…but there’s no evidence that they’re even slightly interested in fighting evil. It’s just this assumption that if Republicans are x, Democrats must necessarily be y. And Obama must automatically stand for all good things, like puppies, sunsets, and rainbows, in spite of all available evidence.
deranged? no. devoid of thought and a conscience? bingo!
Ignorance may not be a defense legally, but is a different reason than the possibilities given here. I asked an Obamabot why they supported Obama and the reason given was because he literally voted against AUMF. They didn’t believe that he wasn’t even in the Senate. And this was a so-called “high information voter”, someone with an advanced degree and was in an academic environment.
Almost no “low information” tepid Obama supporter knows that Hillary received more votes than Obama, and they don’t want to believe that’s true because they trust the Dem Party and the media ignored that. We can blame them, but if the people they trust for information are lying to them, its hardly their fault, IMO. Its still in the “fool me once” zone.
Shorter gqm:
“They’re STUPID!”
I was trying to avoid being insulting, but he has a point. There’s a lot of evidence to back him up too.
Why pick on Chihuahua???
Not nice to use any breed and compare them to deranged sub humanoid neanderthals.
Many liberals are completely irrational — and when one goes nuts and starts spouting gibberish about Palin — people around the liberals say — ignore him (or her) his is a liberal.
I used to think that the liberal-progressive were capable of logical, rational thought and able to have a some what coherent conversation.
The first clue that liberals had gone off the sanity bus was when my sister in law wrote this email about the wonderful Obama an his inspiring speech on race. WTF — I read that speech and he threw his grandmother under the bus — there were a lot of words — but he said nothing of note. Then other former sane folk went into a rage about Palin — as if she was the devil in high heels.
Other insane people — the ones who try to convince us that Obama is “the ONE” — so what the bloody hell does THAT mean?
I share with Riverdaughter an evangelical upbringing — if hell fire an brimstone and promise of mansions in heaven does not convince me to stay in my mother’s church — no smooth talking preacher copying con man will convince me that he is “the ONE”.
It is going to be one hell of a next few weeks as we watch the “raptured” ones crash an burn as the kool aid wears off and their feet touch the earth again.
I have NOT changed — I still have my core beliefs in tact. But somehow a whole lot of folks have transformed into babbling idiots. Oh just ignore him — he’s just one of the nutty liberals someone will whisper after I mentioned Sarah Palin — just her name will set this liberal guy into a frothing at the mouth Neanderthal twit.
But please LEAVE Chihuahuas out — they are sweet dear little dogs — and my guy goes poop outside when I tell him to “do an Obama”.. He has a very sane opinion of “the ONE”.
I posted this on youtube earlier today:
Obama – No legislative accomplishment
Just now this response was posted to it:
“As long as he hates you Conservatives I’ll be happy to see Barack Obama seated as President of the United States of America! Together we will celebrate the New World Order. Unfortunately you republicans don’t fit in with the New World Order. Maybe you’ll be retained as toilet scrubbers or something else along those lines, you know service industry jobs. Your not suitable for anything more demanding, like decision making, ruling, clear thinking, stuff like that! “
They have them.., they’re just warped. Totally warped, elitist and out of touch with the country:
Double The Price (at the pump) of Gas: Obama’s Senior Energy and Environment Advisor
Wednesday, April 25, 2007):
“Daniel Kammen, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley who specializes in energy issues, said he expects gas prices to hit $4 per gallon in the not-too-distant future.
He also said he agrees with Harvard’s Mankiw that a significant increase in gas taxes would be a tough political sell. But Kammen disagrees that you need to soften the blow by reducing income taxes.
“I strongly believe that we need higher gas taxes to fund research into energy alternatives,” he said. “We’ll need European-level gas prices before the U.S. engine of innovation gets really serious.”
So how high should gas prices be? “A doubling of where we are today is what we need,” Kammen said. “It would do the country a world of good.”
On Friday: $8 per gallon? “
http://countusout.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/obamas-senior-energy-and-environment-advisor-has-some-advice-we-need-to-pay-attention-to/
Hey, myiq2xu, it says I’m in moderation. Have I been Strethered? I guess I can see how my last comment might be misconstrued…out of context…I guess
IQ,
I didn’t call them stupid. Ignorance is different and I explicitly stated that it is in the “fool me once” category. In other words, the shame belongs on the media and the Democratic leadership. A question I get is: if she got more votes, why is Obama the nominee? We had months of “its over” and “the math” and that had the desired affect. If no one with influence mentions the facts how do we expect people to know them. People thought Iraq had WMD because trusted people told them there were WMD (cough, Colin Powell). I expect most people to not get fooled again, assuming the truth ever comes out.
…a couple of thoughts after reading Heidi Li’s post
http://tdg.typepad.com/heidi_lis_potpourri/2008/10/why-being-asked-tough-questions-helps.html
It may well be the case that by the very employment of means X to employ end Y, Y cannot be obtained. However, does that have any bearing on the question of whether or not X is justified if X fails to obtain Y?
The issue of obtainment is not the same as that of justification (the two may be related of course).
That is, by the very means O/Dem Party is employing, they cannot realize their end. Thus, the impossibility of attainment precludes the possibility of justification.
However, what if in Obama’s case he is employing means that do not preclude the attainment of his ends -undemocratic means for undemocratic ends? Seems possible, yes? Then, is justification possible?
pop,
“Unfortunately you republicans don’t fit in with the New World Order.”
Was the individual addressing you? How amusing it is to be called a rep because you wont fall lock step behind O. Nauseating….
Nice bare and essential post myiq!
I was thinking about this the other day, when I saw that young (in her 20s) italian girl canvasser on RAI3. The one I mentioned the other day, who had been out for 2 months knocking on doors in Pennsylvania, only to find the whole elder Italo-American was shutting the door in her face and refusing to vote at all.
Anyway what she added under her breath on Italian National Television, was that all older Italians were basically racist, and that the only hope lay in the younger generation.
I believe that Obama has deliberately fostered the generation gap. With women having to go out to work, either because of separation, or because of having to contribute to the cost of hyper-inflated mortgages, kids have suffered, and the younger generation is vulnerable.
Angie’s mother came into my mind-you know the elder person who said where does this young unknown come from with so much money? And where does that money come from? These are obvious questions to an older person. Particularly people who have known fascism.
But younger people have been told that they are fighting racism. And with that they feel justified.
gqm-do you live anywhere near Joaniebone? Seattle(?) She’s hiring.
Ah, it returns from the wild blue bloggosphere…
This was in response to Seriously: “Someone said to me that sometimes you have to use evil means to defeat evil.”
Whether or not they thought the last 8 years justifies using any necessary means, they used those same means against Democrats like they were the “evil” Republicans.
Hillary and her low information, red-neck, hillbilly, what’s-the-matter-with-Kansas-voting-against-their-own-better-interest followers: bitter bigot Bubba Republicans all.
That’s why the Democrats are sweating it right now. They left half their own “evil” Party lying on the battlefield.
And now they wonder why it’s so easy (well, not that easy) for us to vote for McCain. Hey, maybe we’re just trying to be post-partisan!…heh
THE PUMA FACTOR
From Paul Marston at http://www.marstonchronicles.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=95&Itemid=119
“What I will bet my 45 year reputation on is that McCain-Palin will win by at least 80 electoral votes. That is because I am quite certain that McCain-Palin will carry the other nine states for a total of 309 electoral votes compared to 229 for Obama-Biden. In my first update today, I only added Minnesota to the group I thought McCain-Palin would carry. Looking at the trend in Colorado as opposed to the RCP average convinces me that it will go for McCain-Palin but only by a narrow margin. The same is true of Nevada. Here the Obama steam roller tactics in the Democratic Caucus produced enough PUMA voters to pull it off.
The media does not speak PUMA. Have you ever heard or seen it used in the media? They know there are some unhappy Hillary supporters out there, but the just assume that almost all of them will come around. The PUMA coalition is an underground movement based on the web. I have lost count of how many websites are devoted to the PUMA phenomenon, but it is way over 100. Like Br’er Rabbit, they are lying low and are about to claw up Obama for what he did to Hillary. Of course, it helps that there is a female on the Republican ticket which gives these folks one more reason to forget about party unity even if they do not agree with her positions.
What will be interesting to see is how the pollsters and the media will react to this unbelievable upset. On the other hand, I think we all know what their reaction will be — America is a racist country. No matter what they say, the real reasons will be (1) The DNC and the Obama folks dumped all over Hillary Clinton and then did not ask her to take the second slot, (2) America is simply not ready for a President who is so far out of the mainstream of political thought, (3) that Obama’s constant playing of the race card cost him a lot of votes from people who did not like being called racists, (4) the media assuring the voters that Obama was a shoo-in because Americans are a stubborn lot and (5) Obama’s attitude that his election was preordained.”
THE PUMA FACTOR
From Paul Marston at http://www.marstonchronicles.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=95&Itemid=119
“What I will bet my 45 year reputation on is that McCain-Palin will win by at least 80 electoral votes. That is because I am quite certain that McCain-Palin will carry the other nine states for a total of 309 electoral votes compared to 229 for Obama-Biden. In my first update today, I only added Minnesota to the group I thought McCain-Palin would carry. Looking at the trend in Colorado as opposed to the RCP average convinces me that it will go for McCain-Palin but only by a narrow margin. The same is true of Nevada. Here the Obama steam roller tactics in the Democratic Caucus produced enough PUMA voters to pull it off.
The media does not speak PUMA. Have you ever heard or seen it used in the media? They know there are some unhappy Hillary supporters out there, but the just assume that almost all of them will come around. The PUMA coalition is an underground movement based on the web. I have lost count of how many websites are devoted to the PUMA phenomenon, but it is way over 100. … they are lying low and are about to claw up Obama for what he did to Hillary. Of course, it helps that there is a female on the Republican ticket which gives these folks one more reason to forget about party unity even if they do not agree with her positions.
What will be interesting to see is how the pollsters and the media will react to this unbelievable upset. On the other hand, I think we all know what their reaction will be — America is a r*cist country. No matter what they say, the real reasons will be (1) The DNC and the Obama folks dumped all over Hillary Clinton and then did not ask her to take the second slot, (2) America is simply not ready for a President who is so far out of the mainstream of political thought, (3) that Obama’s constant playing of the r*ce card cost him a lot of votes from people who did not like being called r*cists, (4) the media assuring the voters that Obama was a shoo-in because Americans are a stubborn lot and (5) Obama’s attitude that his election was preordained.”
gqm:
Are you sure thy’re not just stupid?
miq2Xu
I guess the answer depends on the answer to another question: Is Obama God? If the answer to that is “yes” – by M’naghten rules, they are insane. 😉
This is how cynical I think Obama is – I’ll bet he kept his Grandmother on life support until hours before the election, just to exploit her. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit since this is the nastiest campaign in history and the Teflon Democrat just gets away with everything. Then he can get that poor me factor when he called and told someone to flip the switch. Obviously he doesn’t care about life. Or his family. Look how he treated his own mother! I can’t believe people are that stupid to vote for this guy.
EOF
He might turn waffles into whine but he ain’t even a local diety.
myiq, what an excellent post! We are past the hurt feelings about Hillary, we are past the shock of Palin’s treatment, and now we are at the point where we can look objectively at what has happened. If Obama loses (please God, let it be so), we will be able to sit back and watch as the more rabid of his supporters self-destruct and implode. More and more I find myself believing that the DNC selected Obama a couple of years ago because 1) he was young, 2) he was black and 3) he was the embodiment of what they saw as the New Democratic Party. He would help to revitalize the party because he would be able to draw in all the young, educated and wealthy people. I don’t think they thought about the tiny things like his past associations with ACORN, the Rev. Wright or others, his birth certificate (still MIA) or his political views; the DNC just assumed that we would all fall behind “The Second Coming”.
The DNC didn’t take into account that Hillary Clinton would throw her hat in the ring or take just a huge chunk out of what they saw as Obama’s voting base. When she did both, they had no choice but to disgrace her, ridicule her and debase her, and they encouraged everyone to help in the stoning of the “witch”. The Obots took up the challenge with glee and then tarred and feathered her, to boot.
When all appeared to be well and things were moving along smoothly, McCain had the audacity to name Sara Palin as his running mate. OMG, another woman! The Obots, the MSM and the DNC had tasted blood once, so they were delighted to take part in the slaughter that must be undertaken in the name of “The Second Coming”.
Well, I did my part this morning to take back the tattered remains of the Democratic party – I voted for McCain/Palin and I didn’t waver or break into a cold sweat or get struck down by lightening. If Obama should lose, I will celebrate that loss. If he should win, I will pick up my petard and join the crusade to either clean up the Democratic party or start a new party based on integrity, loyalty and truthfulness.