Althouse: What psychological phenomena cause people to bond with right-wing radio they way they do?

October 20, 2009

What psychological phenomena cause people to bond with right-wing radio they way they do?

CNN investigates the psychological mystery:

I found that over at Hot Air, where there is scoffing at the liberal network's attitude. Yet I wonder what was so wrong there? Is it that CNN wants to psychoanalyze the interest in right-wing radio? Although I think it is absurd to characterize conservatism as a disease that needs treatment, I am strongly drawn to analyzing why people believe what they do and why they find satisfaction in some ideas and not others. I don't think there is anything more compelling than that, and I've come to realize lately how much this orientation of mine underlies my blogging and my real-world relationships.

Remember when I got into that conflict with libertarians? It was because nothing interested me more than the psychological mechanisms that brought people to libertarianism. The libertarians were insulted and insisted on keeping me at the abstract level of judging their ideas in the terms that they used to state them. I wanted to penetrate into their psyches, and I know that's outrageous and annoying. It does fuel this blog though.

In a conference or a workshop or faculty meeting, when people talk, I never listen only to the ideas they are expressing. I think about the psychology revealed by their choice of words, how long and intensely they speak, their facial contortions and tics, and the look in their eyes. (Revealing typo: I originally wrote "the look in their ideas.") I don't really know what their inner life is, and I realize they may have problems or illnesses or all sorts of secret things that are manifested as they speak, but I am always thinking about who they really are. I imagine how I would develop this character if I were writing a novel.

Now you might ask, following my lead: What is it about my psychology that makes me do that? Good! We are on the same wavelength. I want to think about that too. And I'm not ashamed of this psychoanalytic orientation of mine. What is life for if not to try to understand each other on a deep level? It's much more interesting than politics or law. Or rather: Politics and law are interesting because they spring from our humanity.

So the best question about right-wing radio, in my view, really is: What psychological phenomena cause people to bond with it the way they do?

ADDED: "I heard the voice of america calling on my wavelength, telling me to tune in on my radio... You never let me down...."

176 comments:

Hoosier Daddy said...: Is it psychological or simply the only place someone with conservative ideals can have a forum to discuss? They certainly don't have it in the MSM or academia.; 10/20/09, 10:56 AM
Methadras said...: So the psychology of people who bond to right-wing radio for this buffoon isn't the actual content of the words spoken, but rather the body language used in the way the words are conveyed? This is nothing more than a pedestrian exercise for leftists to start officially, as a matter, of policy brand talk radio and people who listen to it as some sort of mental disturbance. These people are the ones that are truly nuts.; 10/20/09, 10:59 AM
From Inwood said...: Not exactly your point, but:

“You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.

How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.”

Auden; 10/20/09, 11:02 AM
KCFleming said...: What Althouse is doing is fairly common, trying to answer why people think the way they do.

CNN is trying to shun, marginalize, delegitimize, even criminalize.
Screw them.

I won't even click over to CNN for any reason, much less watch their bullshit on TV.
CNN is Leni Riefenstahl Lite.; 10/20/09, 11:06 AM
hombre said...: The more appropriate psychological study would ask why people still watch CNN and its ilk. It cannot be because they still think they are news entities.

Political commentators who acknowledge that is what they are can be taken at face value. Political commentators like the talking heads at CNN, who claim to be broadcasting news objectively, offer fodder for dupes.; 10/20/09, 11:15 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Pogo:

You might like Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgrim. I think they try to go right down the middle without too much showboating.; 10/20/09, 11:19 AM
Anonymous said...: What psychological phenomenon?

Why, it's a psychosis, dontcha' know, Ann.

It is a diagnosable and treatable psychosis. The only problem is that insurance companies won't pay for treatment.

So, first, we'll need laws in place that:

a) force people to purchase insurance

b) force insurers to cover mental illnesses

Then, we can properly identify and treat those who exhibit the mental illness that is revealed by your listening to Rush Limbaugh.; 10/20/09, 11:20 AM
J Lee said...: Agree with the above posters. It's not so much that CNN opts to do a story psychoanalyzing conservatives, it's why CNN chose to do a story psychoanalyzing conservatives, and what the plan to extrapolate out of it.

Since the network managed to go through five-plus years of Bush Derangement Syndrome on the left with no thought of psychoanalyzing why they act the way they do, this come across more as an effort to stop the moderate voters who watch the network from casting their lot in 2010 with the right, because these people are mentally unstable. It's the same sort of thinking that went into CNN's attempt to fact check the Saturday Night Live skit making fun of Obama's lack of accomplishments two weeks ago -- the ideological views of the network's producers and on-air talent leads them to come up with story ideas where the conclusions are already known; it's just a matter of trying to find a new angle to get there that will catch the viewers' attention.; 10/20/09, 11:23 AM
TosaGuy said...: so only 9% of talk is liberal? ... on the surface it sounds like an economic opportunity for some radio station that would like to make some money is to put on a GOOD liberal talker. A radio station will put on people reciting the alphabet if it got ratings and drew advertisers.

So why are talk-radio listeners being stereotyped? I thought liberals thought stereotyping was bad?

WV: chrange -- What Anita Dunn thought Mao Tse-Tung would bring to China.; 10/20/09, 11:24 AM
Kensington said...: Ann, there's nothing wrong with a serious exploration of why people think they way they do or what draws them to certain things. That could be fascinating, but that's not what CNN is up to here. This is just a chance for them to run some smears on conservatives under the guise of asking questions. There isn't a fresh idea to be found her -- just another chance for them to call conservatives bullies (in the case of talk radio hosts) or toadies of bullies (in the case of their listeners).

It's liberal masturbation disguised as journalism. Again.

One of my favorite moments is when Randi Rhodes, one of the shrillest voices in the Left's talk radio ranks, is introduced as someone who "many consider a liberal talker" as though it's only a matter of opinion.

I guess it's also possible that she's some kind of centrist or something! Of course, to the ears of someone at CNN, she probably sounds like a right-winger.

Imagine if they introduced Limbaugh or Beck as "someone many consider a conservative talker."; 10/20/09, 11:28 AM
traditionalguy said...: That was a magnificent post, Professor.You want open doors without fear to comment on the thoughts a person feels motivates them and others. Meanwhile the figureheads in the George Soros cabal now in power in DC want you to either (1)love them blindly or (2)fear them. Fox News has refused option 1, that the other News Bureaus chose, so they are getting option 2 in full force. The Rush Limbaugh types are also getting Mental Illness treatment much favored by Communist governments which traditionally govern by Re-Educating the minds of their slaves. Last night the Jim Leherer report had a panel discussion of the Obama attacks on Fox News and the two moderate liberals kept repeating that this was really nothing new because Bush always did the same to the NYT. But you could see in their eyes and facial expressions the pain it was causing them to lie about it.; 10/20/09, 11:29 AM
ricpic said...: When you swim in a sea of insanity all your life - otherwise known as ABCCBSCNNNBCNYTIMESWAPOHARVARD PRINCETONYALEHOLLYWOOD - and you spy the life-raft of sane talk radio, naturally you swim to it and cling to it with all your might.; 10/20/09, 11:29 AM
Bart DePalma said...: One is reminded of the Soviet policy to commit dissidents to mental hospitals and the Chinese and Vietnamese imprisonment of dissidents in reeducation camps. It isn't enough that you are punished for your dissent as would occur under a right wing dictatorship. Rather, the left insists that you must love Big Brother.

While we are engaging in pop political psychology without a license, I wonder if the left is simply insecure and needs the validation. This would be consistent with Clinton and Obama's overweening narcissism.

Can I get a gig on CNN now?; 10/20/09, 11:29 AM
David Walser said...: @Althouse - Examining why people believe certain things can be both interesting and productive. I find such questions fascinating (as do all intelligent, talented, sane, right thinking, good looking people). What rankles about what CNN is doing is not the asking of why some people are attracted to conservative talk radio, it's the fact they never ask similar questions about what motivates liberals to listen or watch certain programs. If this were merely an intellectual effort to better understand our world, that would be wonderful. Instead, this seems to be either an effort to marginalize conservatives (you don't need to listen to what they say, they only believe what they do because of x) or the questioners are so self-unaware they believe why liberals believe what they do is so self-evident it doesn't warrant study. In either case, listening to such a discussion is unlikely to be as enlightening as it is frustrating.; 10/20/09, 11:30 AM
Unknown said...: Hoosier Daddy said...

Is it psychological or simply the only place someone with conservative ideals can have a forum to discuss? They certainly don't have it in the MSM or academia.

Right on the money.

I think it's twofold. First, the idea that I'm not crazy, there is something screwy/outrageous (media bias, etc.) going on. Second, there are people all across my listening area (or country, in the case of Rush) who think the way I do.

Rush opened a flood gate when he went national. Listeners suddenly realized how they had been isolated by the leftist media and that many people thought the way they did.; 10/20/09, 11:33 AM
From Inwood said...: Methadras & Pogo

After showing off my vast knowledge, let me say that I agree with you completely here.

It's interesting at some level, to know the psych makeup of the people who believe what they believe, & it’s interesting too at any psych level to see people trying to figure out the psych of “people who don’t think like we do, my dears” &, surprise, always coming up with the conclusion that these people are delusional, obsessive, yea, crazy. OK, but what happened, happened & what did not happen did not happen & one doesn't have to dig very deep to figure out the motives of those in the MSM who, unlike Talk Radio, don't want to tell us about Ms Dunn & Mr. Van Jones & want to repeat lies about Rush Limbaugh or Global Warming, OOPS, Climate Change.

And, I’m interested in the psych makeup of people who listen/watch/read the MSM only. It's like comfort food for them, something they look down upon in others.

And I’m tired of having to defend my listening/watching/reading to Rush/Fox/NR/Blogs as if I were outré. (I use zee French here to impress people & say “see, I’m really, really smart even tho I listen/watch/read things on The Index Librorum Et Cetera Prohibitorum as determined by the PC Police”.)

Pogo

"Lite" ?; 10/20/09, 11:33 AM
Kensington said...: Bart DePalma:
"One is reminded of the Soviet policy to commit dissidents to mental hospitals and the Chinese and Vietnamese imprisonment of dissidents in reeducation camps."

I wonder if these services will be covered under ObamaCare.; 10/20/09, 11:35 AM
Anonymous said...: You're not the first person to take misplaced pride in this psychologizing approach. Just know that the message which comes through is: "I don't propose to waste any of my time even considering the possibility that you believe this because it's true."; 10/20/09, 11:38 AM
LouisAntoine said...: "What psychological phenomena cause people to bond with right-wing radio they way they do?"

STUPIDITY.

This has been another round of simple answers to simple questions.

(c'mon, it was just sitting there!); 10/20/09, 11:39 AM
From Inwood said...: david W

"or the questioners are so self-unaware they believe why liberals believe what they do is so self-evident it doesn't warrant study."

That too.; 10/20/09, 11:39 AM
Alex said...: I'm waiting for the CNN special about why people bond with left-wing talk radio....; 10/20/09, 11:41 AM
Joe said...: Montagne, you listen to right wing radio?; 10/20/09, 11:43 AM
Shanna said...: Some of it is as simple as people who have a job that keeps them in the car a lot. Truckers and salesman and such.

I can’t watch the link right now, but I suspect they are coming at the story as many do related to talk radio, in that they tend to think people are unnaturally devoted to it. Why do they "bond" to it. I don’t think that’s true. I think people listen to talk radio for the same reasons they watch tv, play on the internet, or read a book…because they enjoy it. It’s entertainment. Does anyone ask why people "bond" with CNN? Or MSNBC? Or political books, the Nation, National Review, Slate? The media is weirdly obsessed with talk radio, far more than most conservatives.

Now, I do wonder if conservatives are more drawn to talk radio because they are more likely to be in professions that keep them in the car, or is it because, as mentioned before, for many years there was no other outlet for conservatives?; 10/20/09, 11:44 AM
From Inwood said...: Mont

Shhhh, you're giving the game away. These studies will somehow always justify the conclusion which the people doing them, like you, are sure is true.; 10/20/09, 11:44 AM
rhhardin said...: It's insight about perverse side effects.

Empathy gets pretty mad when up against insight.

People age into the right wing eventually.; 10/20/09, 11:47 AM
pm317 said...: Intriguing post, Ann. I like the way you tell things. I don't think the Hot Air guys are complaining about the act of psychoanalysis per se but the motivation behind it. Why do this? May be because, in CNN's view, there is a presumption that all those people who listen to Rush Limbaugh for example are genetically defective, inferior, or some such thing.; 10/20/09, 11:49 AM
lucid said...: Right on, Ann.

Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia poses the following situation and question:

"Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love, but they decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other. What do you think about that? Was it OK for them to make love?"

On what basis are we answering that question? Our brains are much larger than the parts that we experience consiciously. Most of our emotional brain is not directly conscious, nor are the parts that process our body states, which feed into our emotinal states and our thoughts.

This probably leads us to over-value our ideas as the causes of our behavior and as independent entities in their own right simply because we are conscious of our ideas but not of the other brain processes that influence us.

I sometimes think our ideas are what we confabulate to explain and justify why we are doing and feeling something that we are doing and feling for very unknown reasons.; 10/20/09, 11:50 AM
KCFleming said...: "What psychological phenomena cause people to bond with right-wing radio they way they do?"

Answering that might yet forestall the demise of the NYTimes, and the fall in ratings at CNN/MSNBC/NBC/CBS, etc etc.

It's a simple answer:
Fewer people want what they are selling.; 10/20/09, 11:55 AM
Anonymous said...: People age into the right wing eventually.

Even those that don't, do, since conservatism is tradition, and tradition is the democracy of the dead.; 10/20/09, 11:57 AM
traditionalguy said...: Random thoughts: The trial lawyer always wins or loses by the success he has at Framing the Question in front of the court. We use voir dire and opening statements to capture that high ground first and win in the end when the jury goes out to answer the question we framed first. The question is always how much we get...never do we win or lose. The AGL plotters frame every question on how do we limit CO2 pollution, and what methods are required. Never do they discuss the question on whether Co2 is a pollutant or not. Likewise CNN framing the question as whether right wing talk Radio listening is a Mental Illness or just angry cadres of violent people being stupid question is a deliberate propaganda piece. Never do they discuss whether Obama and Pelossi have lied and decieved to cause a legitimate angry response from these sane and peaceful people. CNN is a part of the Propaganda Masters at work. Only Fox News and the some Blogs are any restraint on their monopoly of a Propaganda Press in our country.; 10/20/09, 11:58 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Listeners suddenly realized how they had been isolated by the leftist media and that many people thought the way they did.

This is also my take on the Tea Party phenomenon.

People across the country in small towns and isolated in large cities all of a sudden realized that they were not alone. Other people are thinking the same way and are upset about the same things.

Instead of feeling that you are in the minority as the media wants you to believe, you find out that there are hundreds of thousands and probably millions of others all accros the country who are like minded.....pissed off....and don't want to take the bullshit, that the government is trying to force feed us, anymore.

The Internet has also been a boon to conservatives and this is why Obama and his socialist thugs are going to do anything they can to shut it down.

Shut down the Internet, silence talk radio, marginalize and demonize dissenting voices.

Be afraid people.; 10/20/09, 12:01 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: True story *points* stop me if you heard this already:

Liberal by nature all, we decide to bond over drinks by playing a board game called Trivial Pursuit. As you know, the core of the game is the questions on the cards, the board just, well honestly, I don't know what the board is supposed to do.

Three of the players are lawyers, two are doctors, the player who really rakes it in, though, in is an exceedingly intelligent interior designer working for Allmilmö. All of that is irrelevant except for the fact that the loveliest of the lot works for the Water Dept., an angel of a fellow, if you were to ever meet him, it'd be love on sight.

The rules to the game are printed on the back of the box cover. They're simple and clear. Did I mention we're drinking? I would much prefer to skip the board and just read the cards. The board slows down the card reading intolerably. I suggest this. Blurt Out. Everybody is for that idea except the Water Dept. guy. So board game it is, because we love him, and slowly we proceed.

The person reading the cards reads the possible solutions sarcastically which indicated to the player the obvious answer. We all laugh because it was stupid. The Water Dept. guy insisted on a new rule, one not printed on the back of the box lid, that each question must be read straight as if each answer is legitimate so not to give advantage. Everyone agreed. Internally, I object to a new rule but went along, we were bonding, after all.

A player failed to answer directly and conversation shifted off topic. Other players engage the new conversation before the question was answered by the player. The cheerful lovely Water Dept. guy insisted on a new rule for a time limitation on answering questions. Everyone agreed. I object to the new rule, but I didn't say anything because we were playing a game and having fun. It didn't matter, but I wish we could have just read the questions and blurted out the answers. New rule it is. Players must answer immediately.

The guy reading the cards asked a question that is clearly perfectly suited for the husband of the woman to whom the question was given. Everybody knew that. The couple looked at each other amused by it and communicated silently in the fashion known to married couples. Everybody laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Except for the Water Dept. guy who demanded a new rule regarding silent communication and stoic visages between married couples. Everyone agreed that was unfair. I objected to a new rule that's not printed on the back of the box lid, but I kept quiet because this is my favorite person surprising me with his penchant for rules that, frankly, slow down the already slowed-down game and sap it of spontaneous fun.

Instead of reading the question "How long is the Camptown race track?" The guy reading the card sang the question like this: ♩♩♬ "Camptown racetrack ____ miles long, doo dah, doo dah … " which indicated the path to the answer that was already obvious to everybody. The Water Dept. guy let from his chair and yelled "GODDAMNIT! YOU CAN'T SING THE QUESTION LIKE THAT!" Did I mention we were drinking? We all laughed our asses off except for the Water Dept. guy who resolved never to play games with us again because clearly we cannot behave ourselves.

OK, so there's a moral to that in there somewhere having to do with the psychology of political affiliation that I do not fully understand. If you figure it out, please a'splain it to me because I still do not get why someone so fantastic as the Water Dept. guy needs so much extra structure to achieve fairness at the cost of fun.; 10/20/09, 12:09 PM
Bissage said...: What psychological phenomena cause people to bond with right-wing radio they way they do?

Heck, don’t ask me.

I’m still trying to figure out what caused me to bond with Van Morrison.; 10/20/09, 12:12 PM
ricpic said...: Empathy's "vibrant,"
Insight's a bore --
Hard slog student
Compared to a whore.; 10/20/09, 12:12 PM
DADvocate said...: CNN and the others supporting their view of conservative talk radio are engaging in inferred justification, i.e. choosing the conclusion they want to reach and then finding evidence to support that conclusion.

That said, Rhandi Rhodes is wrong. They tried Air America which had a wide reach and nobody listened. I tried listening to Rhodes herself but she was boring, monotonous and insipid but certainly was aggressive which is supposedly the lure of conservative radio.

CNN needs to do some serious intropsection. But, their motve to fact check SNL skits and attack conservative talk radio is clear. They have a liberal agenda to push and objective reporting of the news is secondary at best.; 10/20/09, 12:14 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: Let me know when CNN does a similar story designed to portray listeners to liberal talk radio as pathological.

I'll just wait right here.

Meanwhile, if anyone would like to actually do something - do some actual work - set up "watch" blogs or even just single pages that collect all the lies and smears from a single CNN reporter. Focus on the reporter themselves, not CNN. Here are some of my posts about CNN (each link leads to an individual post at my site discussing or involving CNN in some way). However, I don't have the time to monitor, record, and report on all the biases exhibited by even just one CNN reporter. I suggest starting with Rick Sanchez; what would be nice - and would get a lot of links - is one single page showing why he can't be trusted and designed in a way that can be easily digested:

1. On [date ] he lied, saying [very brief summary] [link to more information].

2. On [date ] he lied, saying [very brief summary] [link to more information].

And so on.; 10/20/09, 12:25 PM
traditionalguy said...: Chip...I have observed that there are personality types that feel protected by the rules and try to uphold those rules over all creative evasion. They are also determined to win and usually do. Then there are people who produce a creative evasion allowing more life to go on. The two types need each other.In scriptures we see Law coming thru Moses and Grace coming thru Jesus. They need each other. In the end we have to observe the rules we make for ourselves from analysing the experiences we endured in order to stay safe. Perhaps that is why we say 18 or 21 is the age of sui juris life outside of legal protection from our own acts.; 10/20/09, 12:28 PM
Roger J. said...: brilliant analysis, monty--well argued and supported-you are a credit to liberals everywhere

what a douchebag; 10/20/09, 12:30 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Ricpic said:

"When you swim in a sea of insanity all your life - otherwise known as ABCCBSCNNNBCNYTIMESWAPOHARVARD PRINCETONYALEHOLLYWOOD - and you spy the life-raft of sane talk radio, naturally you swim to it and cling to it with all your might."

Ric, I see a lucrtative T-shirt opportunity here!; 10/20/09, 12:39 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: If you figure it out, please a'splain it to me because I still do not get why someone so fantastic as the Water Dept. guy needs so much extra structure to achieve fairness at the cost of fun.

Key word is fairness which trumps everything, including liberty.; 10/20/09, 12:41 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Chip:

I thnk the Water Guy is just super competitive. Without clear rules, there is no competition.; 10/20/09, 12:47 PM
Shanna said...: Ok, I have a simple answer for why Left-wing talk radio has failed (which is really a better question than why people bond with right-wing radio). It takes itself far too seriously. How can one bond with a humorless scold?; 10/20/09, 12:47 PM
Joseph said...: What is life for if not to try to understand each other on a deep level? It's much more interesting than politics or law. Or rather: Politics and law are interesting because they spring from our humanity.

Well put and agreed.; 10/20/09, 12:49 PM
Anonymous said...: How can one bond with a humorless scold?

I dunno - Jessica Valenti's supposedly engaged - perhaps we should ask her fiance?; 10/20/09, 12:55 PM
lucid said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/20/09, 12:56 PM
lucid said...: Why is there no audience for left wing talk radio?

Because libs love to talk but are unable to listen.; 10/20/09, 12:57 PM
Der Hahn said...: I'm with Paul Z.

If you're losing the argument, just pull out the ole "You're fuckin' crazy!" card.

vw - presses. What you use to print newespapers.; 10/20/09, 1:00 PM
Beth said...: I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just not interested in people talking politics, directly or indirectly, all day. I listen to talk radio on local issues when they're important to me, when something is in the works, some issue or election is coming up. If Rush were a liberal, I would still be listening to music instead. I find the whole talk radio thing boring. I prefer the internet for it unfolds in my time, not real time. I can follow links and digressions and take in a whole bunch of information and opinions and interests from a whole bunch of sources in the same time I would spend listening to someone's wanking on the air. I wouldn't listen to my best friend, or my partner, talk for three hours, five days a week.; 10/20/09, 1:02 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I am a neo-conservative libertarian. Which means that while basically libertarian, I also believe that an assertive foreign policy (including, at times, the use of force) is the best way to keep this country safe.

And, yet, I have any number of friends and family who range from centrist to fairly far to the left. I wonder how four boys, raised under the same roof by the same two country club type Republican parents ended up with two fairly hard core libertarians (I am the more neo-conservative of the two), and two hard core leftists, who, of course, consider themselves moderate, and the rest of us, along with a majority of the country, radically to the right.

The frustrating part of trying to figure this out though, is that we have so little common ground. Starting the discussion with something like "Bush died, people died", or that the Bush Administration was illegally tapping all our phones, just doesn't build common ground with me. This isn't even CNN type partisanship, but more like the stuff that you find in the fevered swamps of Kos, or, maybe now, with all the money GE is making from our government now, MSNBC.

People with doctorate degrees trying to argue politics with me, by claiming that the Iraqi intervention was an illegal war (ok, what law or international treaty was broken?)

Yet, I can't just write it off as a product of the North East/NYC/DC echo chamber, since they didn't grow up there, or get their doctorates there, but rather, in the center of the country.

Or, almost as frustrating are some of my Jewish friends. They agree with me about the economy, government power, foreign relations, use of force, and, yet, still consider Bush the equivalent of the anti-Christ, and Republicans evil by definition. Despite Obama essentially selling out Israel (which they strongly defend).

So, I too try to figure out why people are the way they are, and why they believe what they believe.; 10/20/09, 1:03 PM
Beth said...: Because libs love to talk but are unable to listen.

That's a funny regressive logic there. Who are the conservative listeners listening to? A liberal? A conservative who, contrary to your definition, loves to talk?; 10/20/09, 1:04 PM
former law student said...: Is it that CNN wants to psychoanalyze the interest in right-wing radio? Although I think it is absurd to characterize conservatism as a disease that needs treatment

And of course that's not what CNN is doing here -- at least not in this video excerpt, which I have listened to twice. They begin and end with "Why is right-wing talk radio so dang popular?" The most "psychoanalyzing" was the person who indicated that conservatives are insecure, and need to feel allied with a stronger personality. While resistance to change may look like insecurity to some, I don't agree.

What I think is interesting is the shift from the gentlemanly conservativism of Paul Harvey, to the mean and nasty (or "ugly and incendiary," per Michael Steele) conservatism of Rush Limbaugh, followed by his acolytes Savage and now Levin. It is just sneer sneer sneer. A tone, by the way, with no counterpart on the liberal broadcast side.

I had to laugh when Randi Rhodes explained why liberal talk radio was not popular essentially because it was not popular. Liberal talk had its chance with Air America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yceC3g3G6nc; 10/20/09, 1:04 PM
Chris Arabia said...: Best comment, Methadras.

Worst comment, Lucid.

And generally, let's go easy on the REALLY long stories or examples.

I'll never understand the "poverty is bad, so if we take joe's money at gunpoint and give it to fred that will eliminate fred's suffering, so anyone who opposes that is evil" simplicity of "progressive" thought.

Do they lack the creativity to look at problems from different angles or the sense to integrate results into their analyses? Or is it an emotional blockage preventing reasoned analysis?

I wish they'd keep THEIR mental illnesses off my wallet.; 10/20/09, 1:05 PM
Alex said...: FLS:

It is just sneer sneer sneer. A tone, by the way, with no counterpart on the liberal broadcast side.

I had to laugh when Randi Rhodes explained why liberal talk radio was not popular essentially because it was not popular. Liberal talk had its chance with Air America.

Randi Rhodes isn't sneer, sneer, sneer every minute? Along with Ed Schultz another professional sneer-artist? Or Thom Hartman who gets his rocks off everyday calling Republicans names?; 10/20/09, 1:08 PM
Beth said...: Chip, I have a friend like that. We don't play games anymore. Once, playing Life, it took her about 20 minutes to notice we'd all moved to another table and she was throwing dice and moving the little cars around all on her own.; 10/20/09, 1:08 PM
Alex said...: Beth said:

Chip, I have a friend like that. We don't play games anymore. Once, playing Life, it took her about 20 minutes to notice we'd all moved to another table and she was throwing dice and moving the little cars around all on her own.

I hope this was when you were kids. Because if you are playing Life as adults, that's very sad!; 10/20/09, 1:10 PM
Daniel Fielding said...: Werent liberal-left leaning members of the APA trying to get conservative thinking defined and labeled as a mental illness of some sort,and include in the DSM? I think Dr Sanity and Dr Helen had blogged about it about a year or so ago.; 10/20/09, 1:15 PM
former law student said...: Bush the equivalent of the anti-Christ, and Republicans evil by definition. Despite Obama essentially selling out Israel (which they strongly defend).

Criticizing Israel when it's warranted is not "selling it out." W.'s benign neglect of Israel coincided with increasing numbers of suicide attacks, the rise of Hamas -- replacing the PLO politically -- and a bloody war with Lebanon. The Middle East needs adult supervision if peace is to be secured.; 10/20/09, 1:16 PM
jimspice said...: How about the concept of selective perception as it applies to hostile media effect.; 10/20/09, 1:16 PM
Paul said...: Why are so many leftists so damn homely?

Seriously where I live it's like a laboratory for studying the enemy (SF Bay Area) and overwhelmingly the real lefties are extremely unattractive. I mean Anita Dunn would be one of the better looking ones.

Which leads me to believe that the core motivation toward the cultivation of leftist sentiment is envy.

Liberalism, not conservatism, is a mental disorder.; 10/20/09, 1:17 PM
Alex said...: FLS:

Clinton's hands-on approach led to the deadliest wave of suicide bombing in Israel's history, 1994-1996. How does that fit your theory?; 10/20/09, 1:17 PM
Anonymous said...: A conservative who, contrary to your definition, loves to talk?

Sloppy, Beth. In the statement "libs love to talk but hate to listen," conservatives aren't defined.; 10/20/09, 1:23 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: FLS, Savage is absolutely nothing like Limbaugh. (I don't know about Levin because I've never heard his show.) Limbaugh is not "sneer, sneer, sneer." And Savage does not enjoy anything like a Limbaugh-sized audience.; 10/20/09, 1:24 PM
former law student said...: Randi Rhodes isn't sneer, sneer, sneer every minute? Along with Ed Schultz another professional sneer-artist? Or Thom Hartman

Wow, where do you live, that you can listen to Thom Hartman?; 10/20/09, 1:24 PM
KCFleming said...: Thomas Sowell answered the "Why do they think that way?" question long ago.

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

"The conflict of visions which is the subject of Sowell's inquiry turns on two “basic conceptions of the nature of man” which have contended with each other since the 18th century. He calls them the constrained and the unconstrained visions, and he defines them in the following manner:

The constrained vision takes human nature as given, and sees social outcomes as a function of (1) the incentives presented to individuals and (2) the conditions under which they interact in response to those incentives. . . .

In the unconstrained vision, human nature itself is a variable, and in fact the central variable to be changed.

By and large, the constrained vision is held by conservatives and the unconstrained vision by liberals and socialists. In short, we are back to the argument between Archbishop Beaumont and Jean-Jacques Rousseau."

at googlebooks.; 10/20/09, 1:24 PM
Beth said...: rocketeer, I'm sorry. Did you say something? I wasn't listening.; 10/20/09, 1:26 PM
Anonymous said...: "In short, we are back to the argument between Archbishop Beaumont and Jean-Jacques Rousseau."

Or, to go back farther, Pelagius v. Augustine.; 10/20/09, 1:26 PM
garage mahal said...: Liberalism, not conservatism, is a mental disorder.

Hmmm, both Paul and Mike Savage live in the Bay Area. Paul's nasty screeds sound identical to Savage. Coincidence? I think not!; 10/20/09, 1:26 PM
Anonymous said...: rocketeer, I'm sorry. Did you say something? I wasn't listening.

Hah! But, sloppy again. I didn't make the assertion in question.; 10/20/09, 1:28 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: CNN investigating something. Something to do with psychology? I thought they were an entertainment station. Really. Maybe Saturday Night Live will fact check CNN to determine the accuracy of the comedic investigation.; 10/20/09, 1:30 PM
Paul said...: I can't stand Michael Savage.

However he's right about liberalism.; 10/20/09, 1:31 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Ha ha to Chip and Beth. Funny board game stories. I know a group of extremely competitive brothers. Woe to he who suggests any laxity to the rules while all of them are playing.

"It's just a game."
"GAMES HAVE RULES!!!"; 10/20/09, 1:33 PM
Rick Lockridge said...: Why are we overthinking this? People are joiners by nature. It's a strong impulse, or else there would be no Oakland Raiders fans left. Doesn't it ultimately come down to our fear of being alone and vulnerable to predators? Something that primal?

(Usually when we want to give ourselves credit for being more evolved than the Cro-Magnons, it's undeserved).

But people who don't want to join are not necessarily libertarians--I can't be a libertarian because I actually want to win an election.

Still, I can't join any party that wants to ban abortion AND prevent horny teens from easy access to birth contol. Or prevent affluent gay couples from raising spectacularly fabulous adopted children while there are so many awful biological parents in the world. So that rules out the hypocrite Republicans for me.

And I can't join any party that thinks the Iraqi children in mass graves weren't cause enough to kill Saddam and send all our troops to war. I always thought liberals would be the first people to help defenseless others, but they're largely cowards, whiners and intellectually dishonest. (Liberals: read Thomas Friedman's take on the Real Reason, the Stated Reason and the Right Reason we went to war in Iraq. He's one of yours, after all).

There are many, many other reasons I could never join one of our major or minor parties in this country. And you know what?

THAT's evolution for ya.

Join me, fellow non-joiners, in refusing to jump on the Bandwagons of Stupidity.

We will not be having any meetings. But we can go drinking.; 10/20/09, 1:36 PM
bagoh20 said...: Right wing radio is more "authentic".; 10/20/09, 1:37 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I have to agree with all who have suggested that armchair psychoanalysis of messengers in the place of rational evaluation of their messages seems like a means to excuse ignoring and discrediting them without hearing them out.

Sure, the armchair psychoanalysis of an individual might be fun, but I don't think it's newsworthy, and I do think it's an act that stands wholly apart from analyzing an argument. It is not something of primary importance and is likely to be grossly inaccurate besides.; 10/20/09, 1:38 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: For example, I don't like Obama's plans because I don't like his actual plans.

I may or may not have a low opinion of his personality, but that shouldn't bear on an evaluation of his ideas.; 10/20/09, 1:39 PM
Cabbage said...: This post needs a "grokking" tag.; 10/20/09, 1:39 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: And I can't join any party that thinks the Iraqi children in mass graves weren't cause enough to kill Saddam and send all our troops to war. I always thought liberals would be the first people to help defenseless others, ...

Thank you! Nice to see someone say it again.

That was the issue that yanked me out of the hardcore left. Still galls me.; 10/20/09, 1:41 PM
Alex said...: This armchair psychoanalysis is just step 1 to incarceration of anyone who disagrees with liberals to insane asylums, just like in the USSR.; 10/20/09, 1:41 PM
former law student said...: Clinton's hands-on approach led to the deadliest wave of suicide bombing in Israel's history, 1994-1996.

The wave was kicked off by the the massacre of Muslim worshippers by the American-trained Dr. Baruch Goldstein. I don't see what Clinton had to do with that. Although Clinton's facilitation of the Oslo Accords did probably lead to the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by Yigal Amir.; 10/20/09, 1:41 PM
Paul said...: "I may or may not have a low opinion of his personality, but that shouldn't bear on an evaluation of his ideas."

I disagree. His psychology and his character are intimately involved in the motivations that drive the process by which arrives at his conclusions.

Narcissists make terrible leaders.; 10/20/09, 1:45 PM
Alex said...: FLS:

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_israel_hebron_shooting_1994.php

Baruch Goldstein's slaughter cannot be excused or explained away. In order to try to fathom what led to his act, these contributing factors are available:

* The long history of Arab persecution of Jews in Hebron

* Hebron Muslims were aggressive in threatening Jewish residents, nearby settlers, and worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. At Purim services the evening before the massacre, as Jewish worshippers, including Goldstein, were reading the Scroll of Esther, local Muslims loudly disrupted the ceremony with chants of "It-bakh al Yahud" (slaughter the Jews), a cry frequently heard in Hebron.

* Goldstein, an IDF medical officer, may have received reports circulating at that time of an impeding pogrom on the scale of 1929 that was to occur within days against the Jews of Hebron.

* Goldstein lost friends to terrorist attacks and treated victims as their doctor. He may have been motivated by revenge.

You libs always give excuses for Palis suicide attacks and rocket atatcks, so here's a reason a Jew went off the deep end. Will you be as kind and caring?; 10/20/09, 1:46 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I disagree. His psychology and his character are intimately involved in the motivations that drive the process by which arrives at his conclusions.

Fine. But say he happened to come up with a great plan through a stupid process? What difference would his thought process make to the soundness of the plan?; 10/20/09, 1:49 PM
Syl said...: If one is immersed in the bubble of 'liberal' thought which includes social, religious, national defense, and economic attitudes and deeply believes that what one thinks is the mainstream, proper, and good. One also believes that conservatives and Republicans are such outliers that they are merely pests one has to tolerate. That's where I was not so many years ago.

I couldn't believe that anyone could even admit they were a Republican. As far as I knew I had never even met one and had no desire to do so.

That's God's truth.

Then came Iraq which I supported but found most of my friends, family, and acquaintances did not. So I held my nose and turned to the Internet to find some arguments I could use.

Among other things I tried an experiment in which I pretended (to myself) that I was conservative and started viewing cable news and the rest of the MSM through a conservative's eyes.

I was SHOCKED when I realized that the bubble I had lived in was, er, actually a bubble. And now I saw the attitude towards conservatives as demeaning insulting and dismissive.

I found excitement in discovering what conservatives and libertarians think and eventually felt liberated and empowered by my new, emerging, and blooming belief system. Yet I realized that somewhere inside me these principles and ideas resonated very deeply--especially economic liberty and individual freedom.

So it's only natural if the MSM cannot feed your soul the way a Rush can, you would turn to Rush and stick out your tongue at Rick Sanchez and Anderson Cooper.; 10/20/09, 1:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Hmmm, both Paul and Mike Savage live in the Bay Area. Paul's nasty screeds sound identical to Savage. Coincidence? I think not!

In noting this, garage leads me to another possibility: perhaps insanity is determined by geography.; 10/20/09, 1:50 PM
Shanna said...: I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just not interested in people talking politics, directly or indirectly, all day.

Beth, I usually only want to listen to people talking on the radio in small doses, maybe 10 minutes tops. I can’t take a 3 hour stretch, even on a long drive (even if I could take the talking for 3 hours, the commercials every 10 minutes is too add for me). This also applies to morning djs. I’ve tried to listen to books on tape on long drives and I have to switch over to music for a while between disks.

As for the politics thing, I also don’t want to read all those books on politics. No, I will not be reading Sarah Palins book or Obama’s or any of the endless liberals suck/conservatives suck books out there. Gah! I read limbaughs a hundred years ago and I read Larry Elder’s book because a friend gave it to me and I felt it would be rude not to, but I would always rather read a book on any other topic!; 10/20/09, 1:51 PM
Paul said...: "Fine. But say he happened to come up with a great plan through a stupid process? What difference would his thought process make to the soundness of the plan?"

A good plan is a good plan.

The likelihood of a narcissist promoting a plan that was good for anything other than feeding his endless appetite for attention and adulation is very remote however, because he is obsessed with his image and all his energy is consumed by that obsession.; 10/20/09, 1:55 PM
bagoh20 said...: Regardless of what the truth my be, is there any chance in hell that CNN would answer that question in a way that is complementary to conservatives? Any chance at all? Even .001% chance?

It's unfortunate that there is nowhere to go where you know you will get a fair analysis. Isn't there an enormous market for that?; 10/20/09, 1:56 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Criticizing Israel when it's warranted is not "selling it out." W.'s benign neglect of Israel coincided with increasing numbers of suicide attacks, the rise of Hamas -- replacing the PLO politically -- and a bloody war with Lebanon.

Well I suppose if we took those in order, if memory serves, the intifada started under Clinton's watch. But I don't blame him but rather the Nobel Prize winning terrorist Arafat who told the Israelis to fuck off after getting major concessions of territory. Hamas took over when Arafat assumed room temperature and then proceeded to kill off thier opposition. Yeah, I want to negotiate with those maniacs.

Then the whole Lebanon thing kicked off when Islamofascists attacked an outpost and kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Hey, speaking of which, has he been checked on by the Red Cross?

The Middle East needs adult supervision if peace is to be secured.

Might be a good idea if the Palestinians had any.; 10/20/09, 2:04 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Do they lack the creativity to look at problems from different angles or the sense to integrate results into their analyses? Or is it an emotional blockage preventing reasoned analysis?

I think it’s more of an emotional aspect with liberals and they really don’t want results. It seems to me they need to have someone dependent upon them as their source of fulfillment and purpose in life. In other words, they’re a needy group. While conservatives want to create an environment that allows people to become self sufficient, liberals seem to want one in which you can’t do anything without a government employee there to hold your hand.

Here is an example. Take two sets of parents. Parents A raise their kids strict, teach them self reliance, make them work for allowance etc. Kids grow up, move out, get a job, marry have kids of their own and continue the great cycle of life. Parents A move to a condo and spend the rest of their days spoiling their grandchildren.
Parents B are your helicopter parents. The main difference is they never sever the umbilical cord. Johnny may be 30 years old but no one bothered to tell his mom and dad that because as far as they are concerned, he still needs them and by God, they’re going to be there whether he wants them or not.

So yes, I think a lot of it is emotional. You might call it co-dependency.; 10/20/09, 2:05 PM
cold pizza said...: The "pyschological phenomena" CNN is concerned about is mere cognition. They use Humpty-Dumpty reasoning with words like "bond" and "right-wing." I "listen" occasionally to talk radio, NPR, local news and traffic, classic rock.

I bond with super-glue, duck tape and when posting bail. I James-Bond with sexy Pinay femme-fatales. I bond with my stocks. We few, we happy few. We bond of brothers. -cp

WV: petio: where I keep the dog at night.; 10/20/09, 2:09 PM
bagoh20 said...: I find conservative talk radio very compelling when they confront ideas. Although I respect his talent, I don't listen to Rush much, because he does not do back and forth battle on the show. Others like Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, or Dennis Miller openly debate issues with opposing guests and callers. That is fascinating. Liberal talk radio virtually never even tries this, let alone in an open and fair way.

A lot of conservative radio does not do it either and that I find boring.; 10/20/09, 2:11 PM
Henry said...: I have a few relatives who listen to Limbaugh because they get a kick out of his shtick.

But the only people I know who seem psychologically in thrall with right-wing radio are several of my liberal friends who just can't get offended enough.; 10/20/09, 2:13 PM
Cedarford said...: Generally, the history of using psychoanalysis in politics is to use it on your foes, not your friends.
The Jewish Bolsheviks pioneered the use of Freud and tools of analysis as tools of the Revolution. It was important to always Go To The Motive of the Enemy. If it wasn't greed as the reason to liquidate the Kulaks, if it wasn't class suppression as reason to liquidate the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, well....for a certain class it was just pure disease of mental development or psyche in opposing correct Marxism.

Even after the Jewish Bolsheviks were purged and given proportionately less power after the late 20s, many of the Red Terror tools they innovated were kept in place. In the Soviet Union, even well into the 1980s when the mass executions had long stopped, use of psychoanalysis to target opponents and justify institutionalizing them w/o trial persisted.

In the US, our political tradition omitted the Gulags and firing squads...but the Left in particular took to psychoanalysis as a way of discrediting and marginalizing their foes..AND used it to wrap a patina of respectability around their personal attacks.
Remember, whole books of psychoanalysis were written about LBJ, Nixon, WF Buckley, Reagan, Dubya....as attack vehicles. It was very rare to see any Lefty with the temerity to use the weapon of psychoanalysis on Leftist icons such as the Kennedys, MLK, the anti-Vietnam War Movement, members of the ACLU.

No, it is used as an "intellectual tool of analysis" to scientifically show What is Wrong with Kansas, the Teabaggers, The Real Reason Why People Oppose The Gift of Obama to the World. Articles are written about the psychological maladies and pathologies and low intellegence breeding mental pathologies of the "god, guns, fried food" crowd. Not inner city blacks.

That would be as unacceptable as "analyzing" Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer!

Now the "psychological phenemona of "right wing radio listeners"??

Tell me of a university hot on the trail of what mental maladies afflict followers of Al Gore's planet-saving Mission from Above???

All Saul Alinsky did was take Jewish Bolshevik methodology. Also using the same tools of psychoanalysis in his writings of "How it is Done".

You can (1)identify & fixate your target as "different from correct thinkers" - by their different background and beliefs.

Then you can (2) isolate your target by coming from a position of authority as an educated "mental health expert" to tell the audience you seek to persuade -that their target is believed to be mentally diseased or abnormal and naturally, organically WRONG because of that. And that is frequently manifested not as being the revanchist counter-revolutionary of the Bolshevik era...but as the racist, the stone age sexist, the disturbed and fearful "homophobe" of today.

Then you (3) can destroy your target. Remove them from power. Or block their tenure at university. Or try to shut down their access to communicate with others (talk radio and the Left's effort to "hush Rush".; 10/20/09, 2:20 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I listened to NPR in the car this morning because the station was playing classical music.

Then the music stopped, and the fundraising started. (The fundraising could not have been more annoying, so why not just have ads? But I digress...)

I was told, among other, similar things that I was a "unique" individual who had rare (better!) taste in programming, programming that I would never have access to in the mainstream. There was also a long spiel about how I could turn giving NPR money into a time honored family tradition. And then some embarrassing business about how I might like classical music because it reminded me of my Dad or my wedding, (Read: Classical music is something for old people and weddings.) or because it was good background music for work.

Yow!; 10/20/09, 2:21 PM
Paul said...: I played a gig up in Sebastopol this weekend which is an hour or so north of SF for a hall full of hippies. They were VERY nice people. Childlike, but hard not to like. I get along fine with them. But they are nothing like the pinch faced, nasty Prius driving liberals that are ubiquitous in Oakland and Berkeley. They are miserable inside their skulls and it's written all over their faces. To me they embody the psychological epicenter of the American left.

On the other hand a little to the east of the Bay where I live it's very much composed of more "normal" types. My town even has an old fashioned Fourth of July parade festooned with patriotic paraphernalia.; 10/20/09, 2:26 PM
Titus said...: If you could be a dove and do more tit posts and less political posts that would be brill.

Thanks doll.; 10/20/09, 2:27 PM
Shanna said...: Ha ha to Chip and Beth. Funny board game stories. I know a group of extremely competitive brothers. Woe to he who suggests any laxity to the rules while all of them are playing.

We play rook in my family and we can definitely get this way about rook. (A Card that’s laid is a card that’s played!!!) We also have long debates about the strategies of strength vs. length and sandbagging. But when my mom (and cousin’s religious husband) twisted our arms into playing something called the “un-game” last year we made stuff up and made jokes the whole time. So, maybe part of it depends on how serious you are about a specific game.

We will not be having any meetings. But we can go drinking.

We of all political stripes can be brought together though alcohol, or so I was told at a college dem’s party at gtown once upon a time (by the head of the college republicans, no less).; 10/20/09, 2:28 PM
miller said...: I've listened to Rush in the past (don't listen to him much now) because he was delightfully upfront and funny. The songs & parodies were just hysterical. And of course he had the wide, wide target of the Clintons.

His mind is active and lively, and he does some brilliant things that drive the left crazy (his idea, for example, to distribute the so-called stimulus package by a 54:46 ration, with 54% distributed by the Dems and 46% by the Repubs, was a great QxB moment).

I don't know if I'd listen to him if I were a lib, because he is just so darned funny and likeable, and I wouldn't want my pristine lib soul to be tempted by his cajolery. But he is fun.

WF: STFUL-- what the White House message to conservatives is full of.; 10/20/09, 2:28 PM
Kensington said...: former law student:
"It is just sneer sneer sneer. A tone, by the way, with no counterpart on the liberal broadcast side."

What an extraordinary statement! "Sneer sneer sneer" is all I ever heard on liberal talk radio, from Garafalo to Rhodes to Malloy. The only one who didn't seem to sneer from start to finish was Franken, who seemed to bored to work up a sneer.

Actually, I take it back about Malloy. He'd need years of charm school to reduce his bile to mere sneering.; 10/20/09, 2:29 PM
Paul said...: Garage Mahal, if he could afford a Prius, would fit right in I'm sure.; 10/20/09, 2:31 PM
Titus said...: While in the car I enjoy Myles Davis-especially music from the soundtrack Siesta.

So soothing and delish.

Also Siesta soundtrack is great music to make love to.

Jody Foster and Ellen Barkin were in the movie Siesta...need I say more my little crumpets.; 10/20/09, 2:32 PM
Titus said...: I also feel kind of like Jody Foster in the movie The Brave One.

She the older women to an Indian lover with a British accent.

Jody Foster, who is a dyke, can still play straight, because she is that good of an actress. But she likes the cooch I am afraid.; 10/20/09, 2:35 PM
Titus said...: I would of done all of the hoods that killed Jody Foster's man in The Brave One.

They were hot.; 10/20/09, 2:36 PM
From Inwood said...: Interesting thought

One of the reasons my Jewish friends sneer at Talk Radio is that they, who never listen to Talk Radio, think that all the people on it say the things C4 does.

In fact many of my non-Jewish friends who also never listen to Talk Radio think the same way!

What psychological phenomena cause C4 to relate everything to the Joos?

I mean, C4, it's not true that the execrable Ms Dunn also said that Molly Goldberg was one of her favorite philosophers.; 10/20/09, 2:45 PM
Skyler said...: Hmm. CNN wants us to think that we listen to Limbaugh because he's a "bully." We're not smart enough to have our own brains and appreciate ideas.

I think this is the problem with the so-called "liberals" today. They discount the idea that people they disagree with can think. Any idea counter to the cadre's discipline must be illegitimate, and its appeal can only be a product of something other than intelligents.

Everyone knows that only the left has intelligence, after all, or so CNN would have us believe.

Remember, this is the "news" station that accepted bribes from Castro and Saddam Hussein, built by Ted Turner, whose girlfriend for many years was the communist Jane Fonda.; 10/20/09, 2:49 PM
MamaM said...: "And generally, let's go easy on the REALLY long stories or examples."

Whatever for??? Whomever for??? From whose box are the rules being read?

I like stories, especially ones which are pertinent, honest or interestingly told.

As Trad Guy said, I see Truth/Law as complemented and completed by Grace. They serve best when balanced or used in conjunction with each other.

Structured games provide a focused opportunity for group engagement and interaction.

In a similar way a blog with suggested topics provides an semi-structured arena for the sharing of thoughts and insights which in turn serve to confirm, stimulate or provoke additional response.

The open threads/cafes here usually reveal a different tone or content than those lead by a topic.

Crusty comments like ricpic's "student/whore/vibrant/bore", and fusty comments regarding suggested story length each prompt a different response in me, but they both prompt.

Either/or, rule- orientated, win/lose thinking serves a purpose. So does the more open both/and approach. Exclusive use of one over the other prevents growth by creating closed or limited systems.; 10/20/09, 2:50 PM
$9,000,000,000 Write Off said...: What's the use of your chosen form of analysis? You could have normal discussion about the Libertarian (or other group's) creed what belongs in it.

Instead, you decide to psychoanalyze the guy in front of you. 1000 libertarians might have 1000 psychological reasons for being libertarians and you have no verifiable means of matching the guy to the psychological reason. (Even if you did, does it add anything worthwhile to the libertarian discussion?) When you combine the unfathomable complexity of people with your limited exposure to the specific individual you’ve chosen to psychoanalyze, I'd say you're almost always wrong in your conclusions about them, and further, you’ve wasted your time on that wrongness instead of engaging in some productive conversation.

What we have then is an inutile dalliance into other-navel gazing. Why would you persist in that?; 10/20/09, 2:53 PM
Henry said...: Shanna wrote: But when my mom (and cousin’s religious husband) twisted our arms into playing something called the “un-game” last year we made stuff up and made jokes the whole time.

Play it for money and you've got Tegwar.; 10/20/09, 2:55 PM
Paul said...: Whenever one of my friends or associates says they were just listening to whatever on NPR I always tell them I'm glad to see they are still awake. They always respond with a knowing and slightly guilty laugh.

What's the psychology behind their neutered, droning style? It sounds like it's tailored for mental wards or maybe reeducation camps.; 10/20/09, 3:00 PM
KCFleming said...: Paul: Ha! Exactly.

Whenever NPR is on, if there's someone with me I turn and say Mmm, Juicy fruit.

No one ever gets my reference, or else mebbe it ain't funny.; 10/20/09, 3:05 PM
Skyler said...: Bravo, $9B Write Off, you've hit the nail on the head!; 10/20/09, 3:09 PM
Robert W. said...: Ann, I live up in the Great White North aka Canuckistan. All of my life I've been indoctrinated with Left and Extreme Left programming on Canadian and American TV newscasts. I never bought into it but until the advent of talk radio and the Internet I could do nothing more than throw a shoe at the TV.

I gave up Cable TV in 1990 and then TV altogether in 2002. Haven't looked back ... at all!

So in its place I listen to talk radio. The 3 shows I listen to daily [M-F] are:
- Dennis Miller
- Dennis Prager
- Charles Adler (a Canadian show)

Anyone who claims that these are "extreme right-wing thoughtless" radio shows either has never heard them and/or is deeply entrenched in their own Left paradigm. For more truth & common sense emanates from them than all TV news shows combined!

I don't agree with all of the views of these gentlemen, though their views & mine coincide much of the time. That is something I'm both proud and comforted by - think Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, realizing that *he* is *not* the crazy one!; 10/20/09, 3:11 PM
Paul said...: Pogo, it's funny to me! I think it probably goes right over their heads.

My wife interned for NPR years ago. She is as vivacious and charismatic as the others there were dull and pretentious. I think that was where she first thought to coin the phrase "vagina man".; 10/20/09, 3:16 PM
Cedarford said...: From Inwood said...
Interesting thought

One of the reasons my Jewish friends sneer at Talk Radio is that they, who never listen to Talk Radio, think that all the people on it say the things C4 does.

In fact many of my non-Jewish friends who also never listen to Talk Radio think the same way!

The only thing wrong with your thesis is that talk radio avoids all talk of patterns of the Left they inherited from the Jewish Bolsheviks. They tout free market theories and discredited supply side Reganomics cooked up by their favorite pet Jewish economists like Allan Greenspan, Hayek, Milton Friedman. Right Wing talk radio also displays bootlicking fealty to Israel. You will never find a right-wing talk show host describing how the cabals of NYC financiers and DC Insiders who run America instead of voters are organized, who the various cabals sponsor as Front Groups, and how these cabals demographically break down.

And many of the right wing talk radio hosts are right wing Jews.

Right Wing radio exists to fan inchoate anger in the masses, give them a few targets to vent their anger on (always individuals, most of little personal power or clout). They never seek to educate the masses on how big parts of America are breaking down, and what groups are behind it. Groups. Not individuals.; 10/20/09, 3:22 PM
Anonymous said...: Titus, 'migo - it's Miles Davis. You are fabulous enough to know that.; 10/20/09, 3:23 PM
Alex said...: with C4 is always about the Jooos, Joos, Joos... What a fucking clown!; 10/20/09, 3:23 PM
Phil 314 said...: what I find interesting in so many of these comments is I can't tell which of those who commented listen to conservative talk radio and which don't.

I'm right of center (but not that right). I can't listen to conservative talk radio but I do listen to some NPR talk (i.e. "Talk of the Nation"). Likewise I can't listen to much conservative TV shows (i.e. can't stand O'Reilly or Hannity). Now it should be said I can't watch left-wing shows either (i.e. Olbermann).

Now what I find interesting is I'd much rather visit and read right of center blogs (yes, even RedState) than left of center. Maybe it the reading as opposed to listening.; 10/20/09, 3:28 PM
Paul said...: "with C4 is always about the Jooos, Joos, Joos... What a fucking clown!"

It's like Tourette's Syndrome. He can't help himself.; 10/20/09, 3:31 PM
Paul said...: "what I find interesting in so many of these comments is I can't tell which of those who commented listen to conservative talk radio and which don't."

Rule of thumb....those who describe Rush as hate filled and divisive, don't.; 10/20/09, 3:35 PM
Paul Kirchner said...: Freeman Hunt wrote of NPR:
>>I was told, among other, similar things that I was a "unique" individual who had rare (better!) taste in programming, programming that I would never have access to in the mainstream. <<

When NPR was running "listener testimonials," every one boiled down to "I listen to NPR because I consider myself a SMART person so I like to know what SMART people think and when I meet people who also listen to NPR I know they're SMART people too who will have all the SMART opinions."

Tremendous status insecurity. I find the psychology of the NPR listener interesting, even if CNN doesn't. One psychological study I would like to have conducted is this: do NPR listeners actually LIKE pledge week? Is it like sitting in church and listening to a hell-fire sermon? NPR fund-raising appeals are more irritating than any Billy Mays infomercial I've ever heard.

I think of NPR as "Limbaugh for liberals." They can listen to it confident that they'll never have one of their sacred preconceptions challenged. If NPR does a segment on illegal immigration, you know it will always be a sob story about some wonderful immigrant mother whose child is an honor student but whose husband can't get back into the US. As far as I know, NPR has never done a program on the actual problems mass immigration causes the US.

I don't actually listen to Limbaugh because his personality is irritating and I can't stand his nervous habits, like snapping and rustling papers. Also, he never tells me anything I don't already know; it's Conservatism 101. Hannity and Savage are much worse, of course.

Also [other] Paul wrote about NPR: "I think that was where she first thought to coin the phrase "vagina man".

Yes! I don't think the testosterone content of every male broadcaster on NPR put together would fill a teaspoon. The men are very tentative and wimpy, while the women broadcasters are assertive and edgy. It's a phenomenon I've observed in workplaces where females dominate, such as publishing houses.; 10/20/09, 3:44 PM
Synova said...: My opinion of psychologists is confirmed. Egad.

But lets run with that...

The one radio talk guy says... conservative radio listeners are A types, liberals are B types.

The psychologist (shall I put that in scare quotes?) says that conservative talk radio is loud and sure of itself and acts like a bully on the play ground and people feel safer on the side of the bully.

Well okay then!

Anyone watching the new Stargate show? I'm going to reference the 3rd episode (available on hulu.com. Disclaimer: I want very badly for hulu.com not to go away and to show even more shows so I am blatantly promoting it for my own enrichment.)

The military commander orders the top scientist to take an assistant and tells an astro-physicist to go tell the guy that he is the assistant. The top scientist rudely expels the astro-physicist who returns to the commander in sheepish disgrace. The dressing down goes something like this...

"Kicked you out did he. That was quick. Did you even try to stay? Are you an adult? A grown-up? Do you need me to go with you and hold your hand? Okay then, I'll hold your hand. Come along now."

For some reason I am reminded of that scene.; 10/20/09, 3:47 PM
Cedarford said...: And Inwood - abviously cabals on Wall Street and in backrooms in DC do not 100% break down demographically PURE this or PURE that.

The widely used disclaimer: "Not ALL members of X group are Hardcore Leftists, ethnic Cubans, Jews, Texas Oilmen, lawyers, or SAudis....Therefore it is WRONG and Prejudiced to characterize a cabal as ...say "the Saudi Lobby" or the "anti-Castro Cuban exile movement" ?
It is intellectually dishonest.

Not ALL members of the ACLU are Leftist Jews. But they make up 85% of the Executive Board, have had control of the Executive Direcor spot for 44 of the last 46 years and effectively, call the shots.

Not ALL members of the medical malpractice/drug company lawsuit lobby are trial lawyers. The coalition is not PURE trial lawyers. It includes many victim advocacy groups. But no one doubts that the malpractice lawyers call the shots.

Or logic like "Only half of the people under scrutiny for Wall Street financial misconduct are Jews, therefor it is wrong to mention a lot of Jews involved??"

That is like saying most terrorism is Islamic...but there is Timothy McVeigh, the Tamil Tigers, and a half dozen abortion clinic bombers and some Hindu militants...therefore it is WRONG to mention the heavy involvement of Muslims!; 10/20/09, 3:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann, you are right. Our politics aren't so much a result of rational thinking as an expression of our fears. If anyone thinks he can change people's political opinions by rational argument, one night in any bar ought to disabuse him of that notion.

You mentioned Libertarians, and being naturally inclined in that direction myself, I've given a lot of thought to the issue. In my opnion, Libertarians are people who, being good with their hands, feel that they can take care of themselves in a crisis. Naturally they resent people who try to seize the products of their labor for the "common good."

Liberals, on the other hand, are people who, having no manual skills, know in their heart of hearts that they can't take care of themselves. Hence their continual, and in my opinion slightly hysterical, emphasis on "our mutual responsibilities to each other."; 10/20/09, 3:51 PM
miller said...: Here is a simply awesome graphic of this:

Left-Right World; 10/20/09, 3:59 PM
Synova said...: "Maybe it the reading as opposed to listening."

It is for me.

I find Rush extremely irritating to listen to but I can read transcripts of his show and it's not irritating at all.

I just now wondered... maybe it's because in person I feel like I'm being prompted to have an emotional response. Maybe? Because that *would* annoy me a whole lot.

Never could stand O'Reilly. He's always feigning offense at things I think are stupid to get offended about. I can't imagine Hannity being annoying, but I'm not exposed to him enough to know. Surprisingly the clips and very rare shows I watch of Beck aren't annoying. Perhaps it's because he's so over the top I don't feel pressure to have that emotional response.; 10/20/09, 4:02 PM
Skyler said...: Duscany,

Your dichotomy is not a very good one. There are plenty of liberals who are "good with their hands." And plenty of conservatives who aren't.

wv: dingal: a politician who is liberal and not good with his hands; 10/20/09, 4:04 PM
Robert Cook said...: "CNN is Leni Riefenstahl Lite."

So, does that make Fox News Network Leni Riefenstahl Regular?; 10/20/09, 4:11 PM
Robert Cook said...: "CNN is Leni Riefenstahl Lite."

So, does that make Fox News Network Leni Riefenstahl Regular?; 10/20/09, 4:11 PM
Shanna said...: Your dichotomy is not a very good one. There are plenty of liberals who are "good with their hands." And plenty of conservatives who aren't.

I agree, I don’t think it has anything to do with being good with your hands. It has to do with what kind of value you put on personal liberty, perhaps versus security (although that’s imperfect, because you could be afraid that a police state would not be secure at all).; 10/20/09, 4:13 PM
hombre said...: What's happened here? Has Kos withdrawn the trolls?; 10/20/09, 4:14 PM
Paul said...: Conservatives are happier and more well adjusted than liberals. After all someone who is happy and well adjusted is not hankering for radical change.

Liberals want radical change because they are miserable and want the world reconfigured to the specifications of their fantasy where justice is restored along with their proper role as deciders and rulers.

This does not apply to those on either side who are largely disinterested in politics and choose their affiliation because of peer pressure or a desire to associate with a group for other reasons such as culture, geography, etc.; 10/20/09, 4:18 PM
kjbe said...: $9B, I kind of agree. if you don’t know the baggage, the rest is just really all a fiction.
Which I suppose is what she saying?

And Duscany, I agree that the result of rational thinking is an expression of our fears (the part about being good with your hands or having no manual skills, not even close). Every action we take is in reaction to fear. It’s all about survival. What we perceive as fear is actually fear (to us).; 10/20/09, 4:20 PM
hombre said...: Spoke too soon. Cook's here.

WV "outorrin" = Put on yer 'ats, lads and let's go ....

Or, "Whaddya mean he's gay? He's from Utah."; 10/20/09, 4:22 PM
Robert Cook said...: "...the network managed to go through five-plus years of Bush Derangement Syndrome on the left with no thought of psychoanalyzing why they act the way they do...."

There was no need to do that; they could easily determine that those who deplored Bush were folks who don't like criminals.; 10/20/09, 4:25 PM
Titus said...: Jody Foster shows her tits in The Brave One.

She has a nice set. They have held up while through the years.

They are small but perky and pouting.

There is a nice nipple to tit ratio. The nipple does not over whelm the rest of the tit which I can find distratcting.

My sense is she hasn't had any work done on them.

The color differentiation between her nipple and tit is slight. The nipple is a very pale shade of pink.

Sorry about Miles Davis misspelling. Please forgive me fellow republicans.

It is 65 today and absolutely lovely.

Do you know the government in India has like 15 different parties. It is a mess. I heard that from my British/Indian husband.; 10/20/09, 4:28 PM
Titus said...: Kashmir is also beautiful. Cool climate. Obviously there has been and still is conflict but I prefer to focus on it's landscape.

It is common in India for adult children to live with there parents until married, kind of like some of the italians I know around here.

Also, when an adult parent gets old the adult child may move in to take care of him/her.

Mumbai here I come.

Many Indians live in the UK, as well as South Africa.; 10/20/09, 4:36 PM
Titus said...: Indians also prefer the East Coast and West Coast of the U.S. but live throughout the entire country.

It is common for Indians to be vegetarians as well as do Yoga-sounds stereotypical but is true. White Rice is an important staple in their diet. And no they didn't care for Slumdog Millionaire.

Slumdog Millionaire did do a good job of showing "Old Mumbai" and "New Mumbai".; 10/20/09, 4:40 PM
1775OGG said...: The current situation is terrible! We need to go back to the pre-Limbaugh days when Leftie talk shows hosts, the vast majority back then, would hang up on anyone who didn't kiss the host's big fat rearend. The real question back then was why would anyone in his right mind call in to one of those talk shows.

Of course, today some of that audience can call Randi Rhodes, or her ilk. and be excoriated, called all kinds of lovely names because of having a different opinion. Ad hominem comments provided by her at no extra cost!; 10/20/09, 4:45 PM
Robert Cook said...: "(Liberals: read Thomas Friedman's take on the Real Reason, the Stated Reason and the Right Reason we went to war in Iraq. He's one of yours, after all)."

To use the vernacular: Not hardly.

Translation: As if.

Alternative: Like Hell.; 10/20/09, 4:52 PM
Eric said...: I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just not interested in people talking politics, directly or indirectly, all day.

That, in a nutshell, is the mistake Air America made. The most popular conservative talkers (and especially Limbaugh) are entertainers first and conservatives second. Or maybe entertainers with a conservative slant.

AA's backers believed the attraction was mostly political and saw a market for the opposing view. So they put people on the radio who were mostly interested in talking politics. Only the most die-hard political junkies can take it day after day.; 10/20/09, 5:01 PM
Sara (Pal2Pal) said...: I prefer to listen to any network, talk radio, or pundit who assumes I have enough intellect to understand the subject, the ramifications, and the message. I DO NOT like people telling me what I have to do or who I should do it with or how I should do it. Ask me and if it is within my power financially or physically, I'll go out of my way, but tell me (order me), forget it, I'll balk everytime.

Unlike democrats and the left who think there has to be a party affiliation attached so I'll know to vote for the dem. because I'm too stupid to vote for the best choice for me and my interests, I prefer to make up my own mind based on facts. I see very little fact-based reporting or discussion coming out of the left.; 10/20/09, 5:03 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: Conservatives think liberals are misguided.

Liberals think conservatives are evil; 10/20/09, 5:17 PM
knox said...: Remember when I got into that conflict with libertarians? It was because nothing interested me more than the psychological mechanisms that brought people to libertarianism.

My memory is that the "conflict" was because you called them racist... sorry, can't help myself!; 10/20/09, 5:24 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: I think Ann's original question is a little bit of a "do you still beat your wife" question. I don't feel I've ever "bonded" with right-wing talkers, although I'm a right wingnut and I listen to talk radio as much as I can. Conservatives, at least as I apply the term to myself, are not joiners. You could never run a publicly-funded radio network like PBS based on conservative listeners. The collectivist instinct only exists in people whoa are not sure of themselves in their heart of hearts.; 10/20/09, 5:45 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Paul,

"Nervous habits"? I always just assumed it was part of his schtick.; 10/20/09, 5:53 PM
Jamie said...: My dad can't stand Rush because he (Rush, not my dad) is "arrogant." My dad bases this statement on Rush's frequent bits like, "I know liberals like every inch of my glorious naked body," and "With talent on loan from GAW-duh, this is Rush Limbaugh, your Maha-rushie, etc., etc...." all delivered in that downward-trending radio baritone. My dad is not a stupid man, just a very earnest one... he has so far failed to see the silliness.

I think Rush is a *great* radio entertainer - best of his generation, certainly. And I often, but not always, agree with him politically.; 10/20/09, 6:05 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: I think Cedarford hit upon the salient take-home point:

Austrian Jews invented psychoanalysis (as part of a conspiracy with their Russian bolshevik counterparts years later) in order to prove that right-wing nutcases in 2009 were too unhinged to take seriously.

Who needs psychology when you've got the calm reasoning and clear-eyed take on the world provided by anti-semitic conspiracy theories?

I think you're on to something, See da Ford.

The rest of you guys are pretty special for taking in this stray pet the way you have. How kind!; 10/20/09, 6:06 PM
Jamie said...: Oh, and I wonder if part of Rush's appeal - over, say, the gonad-less wonders at NPR - is in fact that baritone voice. Is there a baritone at NPR? Or are they all Ira Glass, just at different times of day? (I know MY voice is a little lower in the mornings.); 10/20/09, 6:07 PM
knox said...: The rest of you guys are pretty special for taking in this stray pet the way you have. How kind!

MUL, if you think he's been "taken in" you either aren't paying attention or you haven't been a commenter here long enough. For the most part, he resides in the "commenters who are skipped over" realm. There are others...; 10/20/09, 6:27 PM
Skipper50 said...: What would psychologists, psychiatrists, and similar "professionals" do if they had to get a useful job?; 10/20/09, 6:36 PM
miller said...: I have been happily C4-free for some weeks now.

It makes reading Althouse a dream.

I feel sorry for those who feel they must plough through his dreck.; 10/20/09, 6:38 PM
traditionalguy said...: Psychologists and Counselors do a job in buffering people going thru the painful transitions in life...like a mid-wife guiding the birth process. Some do wonderful work. Some screw up people worse. There are functional mentally ill persons who benefit from regular counseling when the occaisional crisis hits. Lawyers work with them in cases where the weakened man/woman also needs legal protection from family members that hate them but covet their property.; 10/20/09, 6:45 PM
traditionalguy said...: MUL...The Jew Hating comments of C-4 do reach the fed-up point, and then not reading him is a defense. No one is always right, but the chances that C-4's facts are ever right is slim and none when he is so willing to let his Jew Hating Disease take control of him.; 10/20/09, 6:55 PM
William said...: When I was young and liberal and easy underneath the apple tree, I only listened to music. When the newsbreak came on, I punched the buttons. Bring me more music and make it louder. Now that I am old and conservative and not so easy, even with apples and prunes, I listen to Rush Limbaugh. Bring me more opinions and make them wittier......I think liberals look on neurosis the way Christians look on sin.....Anti-semite, Marxist, analysand, libertanian, Christian: we all look for some comforting theory that will explain the waves that wash over us and give us a reason to keep swimming.; 10/20/09, 7:07 PM
Bob Ellison said...: No liberal who thinks him/herself a philosopher can be happy until he or she has made a grand attempt to explain conservatism. It has been ever thus. "Opiate of the masses", What's the Matter with Kansas, etc.; 10/20/09, 8:18 PM
From Inwood said...: C4

It's not a "thesis".

It's an observation & a question.

It's the Molly Goldberg reference that confused you, I guess.

Molly could make her conspiracy theories more believable than you.

Hey, how come you never tried writing something like The Da Vinci Code, say The Da Vis Conspiracy, a potboiler about an entertainer who converts to Judaism even though he's a schwartze so that he can find all the secrets about Hollywood & The Jews?; 10/20/09, 8:20 PM
Cedarford said...: montana urban legend said...
I think Cedarford hit upon the salient take-home point:

Austrian Jews invented psychoanalysis (as part of a conspiracy with their Russian bolshevik counterparts years later) in order to prove that right-wing nutcases in 2009 were too unhinged to take seriously.

Ah, brilliant analogy MUL.
Sort of like saying John Browning invented the blowback machinegun - therefore he is responsible for left-winged nutcases to take US troops being machine-gunned by Islamoids in 2009 seriously since it was an American that gave the primary tool of war to Afghans..

===============
traditionalguy said...
MUL...The Jew Hating comments of C-4 do reach the fed-up point, and then not reading him is a defense. No one is always right, but the chances that C-4's facts are ever right is slim and none when he is so willing to let his Jew Hating Disease take control of him.

Shorter Traditional Guy.

"Slurp, slurp, lap!"

Translated: "Of course I would be upset if Mormons who are 2% of the population were over half the members of the ACLU, did over half the Wall Street banker scams, and were half the leaders of the US Communist Party, Code Pink. and other Leftist Fronts."

"You BET I would be upset if ethnic Cubans were America's 3rd largest espionage ring giving Cuba info to sell to Russia and China!!"

"Whoops! I didn't know you meant Jews. Biggest victims, Ever! Even more immune than black thugs to criticism.!" Traditional guy then asks for be pointed to the nearest non-Christian scrotum he can adore. Particularly Jewish, instead of perhaps a Muslim sack...

"Slurp! Slurp! lap-lap.."

Not sure what the epitome of stupid is. Darwin Award winners have some claim on it. John Edwards cheating in public is a candidate. Then you have the Christian Zionist morons with 1st loyalty to Israel.; 10/20/09, 8:28 PM
Cedarford said...: From Inwood said...
C4
It's not a "thesis".

It's an observation & a question.

No Inwood, you stated a thesis posed as a question.

Just as - "The moon is dry and under vacuum and baked to 270 DEG F and chilled to 470 DEG below zero.....You don't really thing it has lifeforms do you???"

Is saying you believe that, given certain facts, your interrogative question - effectively states your thesis.; 10/20/09, 8:34 PM
Synova said...: Tyrone: "I don't feel I've ever "bonded" with right-wing talkers, although I'm a right wingnut and I listen to talk radio as much as I can. Conservatives, at least as I apply the term to myself, are not joiners."

And not likely to respond well to being told there is a "consensus" so shut up. ;-)

But while we are all psychoanalyzing ourselves and others... I don't feel at all "bonded" to any of these guys and don't even listen to them except by accident but I *do* feel, for some reason, that certain criticisms of them are criticisms of me. For example, when someone disparages Rush I don't feel that it really has anything to do with *Rush*. Probably because the disparagement is inevitably expressed in general terms. So if it's not about Rush, what is it about?

A friend of mine one day reached a point where he was comfortable enough to bring up politics (I never do, in person, because in person people feel trapped) and told me... "Oh, it's fine if you're conservative but don't listen to those guys. Don't listen to Beck or Rush or Hannity. They're awful, just awful. Don't listen to them."

I might never listen to any of them... but I feel compelled not to disown or refuse them. It might be similar to the temptation to invent minority or Jewish relatives in response to bigotry.

I did that all the time in High School. (As an adult I get to chose who I spend my time with.); 10/20/09, 8:39 PM
mccullough said...: Titus,

The circular area surrounding the nipple is called the areola.

So areola-to-nipple ratio, or nipple-to-areola ratio to impress your female friends; 10/20/09, 8:41 PM
Skyler said...: I think a prime difference between the two main factions is that today's liberals think that people are motivated by feelings or subconscious, secret impulses. Today's conservatives think that people are motivated more by reason.

People listen to Rush because of the power of his logic and his wit, whether they agree or not. Liberals don't listen to him because they are repulsed by the use of logic, and want to cling to emotional impulses, such as ignoring the most basic of economics and thereby using the government to "stimulate" the economy by spending us into a century of debt. Logical people know that such debt is usually "paid" by going to war to erase it, whereas emotional people have a hope that such an almost inevitable end can be avoided this time.

Of course this explanation doesn't work for pure party hacks and demagogues such as Hannity, Medved, Ingraham and the like, or even the entirely unintelligent and not even funny anymore Dennis Miller, nor the completely unhinged Savage, but that's how hungry conservatives are for something to repel the overdose of emotional-based politics.; 10/20/09, 9:24 PM
Allan said...: For myself
I would like to know
what psychological phenomena could induce an intelligent, sensible woman
to vote for Obama.; 10/20/09, 9:30 PM
Methadras said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/20/09, 9:30 PM
Methadras said...: Titus, I just realized that you are a gay Maxine Weiss.; 10/20/09, 9:32 PM
Kirk Parker said...: "The rest of you guys are pretty special for taking in this stray pet the way you have."

MUL,

I defy you to find one single taking-him-in moment from me. To the contrary, the times that I'm closest to agreeing with C4 are the time I most loudly restate my theory (he's a leftist plant trying to discredit the right). He definitely belongs in Pat Buchanan and David Duke territory (i.e. read out of polite company.)

Knox,

Yeah, we should turn the phrase around and say it's MUL that's been "taken in" by C4. Unless, of course, MUL is in on the scam.; 10/20/09, 10:03 PM
Paul Kirchner said...: >>Kirk Parker said...
Paul,
"Nervous habits"? I always just assumed it was part of his schtick.<<

You're right, it's schtick. I guess I'm the one who's nervous, listening to all that unnecessary paper rustling and snapping while he's talking. To each his own; obviously a lot of people enjoy it.; 10/20/09, 10:08 PM
From Inwood said...: C4

If I called my simple observation & comment, separately or together, a “thesis”, while perhaps technically correct, I’d be a pompous ass.

So go for thesis & then spend about 150 words discussing, Molly Goldberg like, something about how “talk radio avoids all talk of patterns of the Left they inherited from the Jewish Bolsheviks” & thereby avoid answering the Q & ignore the comment. This conduct unbecoming is commonly called “ducking the issue”, “not facing up to” or, if we must inflate our comments here, “sidebarring” or Ignoratio Elenchi.

But then maybe you are just a wiseguy seeking to pull our chain & here I am wasting my time answering you now that the Yankees have just won Bigtime. Hey, maybe they pulled a fast one (can't think of the rhetorical phrase for that right now) & used the "patterns of the Left they inherited from the Jewish Bolsheviks" who stole the idea of baseball or something, gurgle, gurgle....; 10/20/09, 11:07 PM
former law student said...: Liberals don't listen to him because they are repulsed by the use of logic, and want to cling to emotional impulses

Limbaugh's reasoned reaction to the CNN story:

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200910190029

Characterizing CNN's Carol Costello as his "stalker," Limbaugh gives her a piece of advice free from emotional impulse: "Carol, you need to go sit on a fire hydrant and improve your day"; 10/21/09, 12:46 AM
TMink said...: "Although I think it is absurd to characterize conservatism as a disease that needs treatment,"

Of course it is absurd. Everyone knows that progressivism is the mental disorder.

Trey; 10/21/09, 8:54 AM
Largo said...: @Shanna,

But don't they know: "A card not covered can be recovered!"

@Chip,

I wonder how your Water Dept guy would handle the game Nomic?

"""Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules...
"""; 10/21/09, 9:29 AM
Largo said...: @From Inwood:

Perhaps hypo-thesis (hypothesis) would be less pompous?

-- But that is simply speaking of the thesis which lies beneath.; 10/21/09, 9:35 AM
Anonymous said...: Honestly, I haven't read through all 10 million comments, so someone might have already noted what I'm about to.

I'm betting that CNN is focusing on right-wing demagoguery, rather than left-wing demagoguery, precisely because there is no massive left-wing demagogue movement to be studied. It's apparent by surfing blog aggregators, Fox pundit shows, talk radio content, etc, that the right has a near-monopoly on this particular brand of commentary.; 10/21/09, 11:43 AM
Duncan said...: Ann, you have had a lot of run ins with libertarians (remember government roads). What deep psychological reasons cause this conflict.

CRA '64 isn't really about federalism it's about lack of constitutional authority and it's about natural liberties (among them the right to discriminate) pre-existing the constitution. Don't support those major human rights violations.

As for political talk radio it's only a small part of talk radio which is only a small part of news/talk radio which is only a small part of radio which is only a small part of media.

Commies have all the rest. We grabbed a first-mover advantage in political talk (commies got NPR in 1962). Let us keep a small corner of media. It's self supporting.; 10/21/09, 12:34 PM
From Inwood said...: Largo

We're further sidebarring here from my observation about people who never have listened to but "know" that Talk Radio guys talk like C4 (to some extent he hastens to correct me). But, OK, let's play.

"Hypothesis" would literally describe C4's, rants, but that would be giving undue importance to his overvalued ideas.

Then again, referring to them as "ideas" somehow seems strange.

Then again, they may simply represent rejections by The Onion.; 10/21/09, 11:07 PM
From Inwood said...: Largo

Re C4

What imbecilic hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful bigotry?; 10/21/09, 11:16 PM
amba said...: When I have thoughts about things like that, they tend to be obnoxious and piss everybody off.

Like comparing the psychology of Right to Life and Animal Rights.

Or saying that I think hyperpartisans on both kinds go to their favorite propagandist to have an emotional orgasm. It's like politico-emotional porn, a repetition compulsion. You know what's going to get you off.

People hate being psychoanalyzed. We all want to believe that we believe what we believe because it is beautiful and good and true.; 10/22/09, 12:57 AM